All Things 2022 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

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GopherWeatherGuy said:
The more I've thought about it, the more I'm ok with it. What are we waiting for with our top pitching prospects? Duran has been a top 5 prospect for years, he's 24. Winder has worked his way into the top 10 over the last two years, he's 25. You also have Balazovic who's close at 23. These guys are Berrios level prospects and he first came up when he was 22.

Barely anyone knew who Ober was before last season and now most are content with him being in the rotation. These guys are all more talented than him, it's time to see what they can do in the majors.
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I think the issue - or perceived issue - is lack of innings.

No minor league season in 2020 because of covid, and last year, a number of the Twins' pitching prospects missed time because of injury, so a lot of these guys have thrown very few innings over the last two years. Last year in the Minors, Balazovic had 97 innings; Winder 72, Canterino 23, Duran 16 and Enlow 14 among others.

given the way the Twins are cautious about over-working pitchers, there's no way they're going to want these guys to suddenly come up to the Majors and log 150+ innings. There has been buzz about using Duran in the bullpen to control the workload.

That's why a lot of people expected the Twins to come up with at least one more starter who can log some innings this year while all of the prospects have time to make sure they're healthy and get some more work in at AA or AAA.

but yeah, I would rather see Balazovic as opposed to more starts from guys like Thorpe or Smeltzer.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
I think the issue - or perceived issue - is lack of innings.

No minor league season in 2020 because of covid, and last year, a number of the Twins' pitching prospects missed time because of injury, so a lot of these guys have thrown very few innings over the last two years. Last year in the Minors, Balazovic had 97 innings; Winder 72, Canterino 23, Duran 16 and Enlow 14 among others.

given the way the Twins are cautious about over-working pitchers, there's no way they're going to want these guys to suddenly come up to the Majors and log 150+ innings. There has been buzz about using Duran in the bullpen to control the workload.

That's why a lot of people expected the Twins to come up with at least one more starter who can log some innings this year while all of the prospects have time to make sure they're healthy and get some more work in at AA or AAA.

but yeah, I would rather see Balazovic as opposed to more starts from guys like Thorpe or Smeltzer.
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Totally agree. I really don't understand how they didn't re-sign Pineda or don't bring Cueto. Even if they flop, it's worth a $5 million gamble. We need 8/9 starters to get through the season.
 








GopherWeatherGuy said:
Gross

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Was Falvey just that cocky that they thought they could get one of the A's starters? At this point, they just need warm bodies that can eat innings. There is zero reason not to have brought Big Mike back. They will severely limit the innings of Ober and to a greater extent Ryan. Get ready for a bunch of 4 inning starts to try and preserve something of them into the second half the season. This lineup with this rotation makes zero sense.

It's entirely possible that guys like Ober and Ryan do well at the beginning of the season, and this team is looking good. But they are almost assured to nosedive in the second half the season based on their rotation and how many innings they can pitch.

edit: to top it off, Gray has only pitched more than 135 innings once in the past 6 years. Yikes.
 
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forever a gopher said:
Was Falvey just that cocky that they thought they could get one of the A's starters? At this point, they just need warm bodies that can eat innings. There is zero reason not to have brought Big Mike back. They will severely limit the innings of Ober and to a greater extent Ryan. Get ready for a bunch of 4 inning starts to try and preserve something of them into the second half the season. This lineup with this rotation makes zero sense.

It's entirely possible that guys like Ober and Ryan do well at the beginning of the season, and this team is looking good. But they are almost assured to nosedive in the second half the season based on their rotation and how many innings they can pitch.
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should have signed both Pineda and Archer
 

Personally, I believe Archer was overworked two years in a row about 3-4 years ago. The question is now, is his arm damage? He'll need much stretching, and a watchful eye of making sure he isn't overused.
 

forever a gopher said:
Was Falvey just that cocky that they thought they could get one of the A's starters? At this point, they just need warm bodies that can eat innings. There is zero reason not to have brought Big Mike back. They will severely limit the innings of Ober and to a greater extent Ryan. Get ready for a bunch of 4 inning starts to try and preserve something of them into the second half the season. This lineup with this rotation makes zero sense.

It's entirely possible that guys like Ober and Ryan do well at the beginning of the season, and this team is looking good. But they are almost assured to nosedive in the second half the season based on their rotation and how many innings they can pitch.

edit: to top it off, Gray has only pitched more than 135 innings once in the past 6 years. Yikes.
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Their mistake was sitting on their thumbs the entire pre-lockout period as starter after starter went off the board.
 




supposedly the Twins had medical reports on Archer, and had video of him throwing some bullpen sessions, and based on that they decided it was worth the risk.

have also seen reports that......wait for it.....Wes Johnson likes Archer's slider and wants him to feature that pitch. (because if Wes had his way, Twins pitchers would only throw sliders.....)

My take is that Archer is an insurance policy. if he holds up, great. If he doesn't hold up, at least it buys time for Winder & company to get some starts in the minors and build up their arms.

supposedly the reports out of Oakland indicate that they are holding off on dealing Montas or Manaea for now, but might revisit the situation later in the season. in other words, wait for teams to get desperate and up the ante.
 

Archer's name has been outpacing his results for a few years now. Doesn't do much for me, but low risk I suppose.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
supposedly the reports out of Oakland indicate that they are holding off on dealing Montas or Manaea for now, but might revisit the situation later in the season. in other words, wait for teams to get desperate and up the ante.
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This or perhaps they might need them if they have injury issues. Seems like you never have enough good pitching.
 

Just saw an interesting note from baseball writer Jon Morosi:

Michael Pineda is not expected to be available for the Detroit Tigers at the start of the regular season due to visa issues. Other starters will be needed for at least the first two trips through the rotation.

This may be why the Twins didn't go after Pineda.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Just saw an interesting note from baseball writer Jon Morosi:

Michael Pineda is not expected to be available for the Detroit Tigers at the start of the regular season due to visa issues. Other starters will be needed for at least the first two trips through the rotation.

This may be why the Twins didn't go after Pineda.
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Visa issues? He's been in the majors for a decade. Don't these guys have the process down by now? I assume(d) they didn't go after him because they were concerned about his drop in velocity late in the year and think he's TJS waiting to happen.
 

forever a gopher said:
Was Falvey just that cocky that they thought they could get one of the A's starters? At this point, they just need warm bodies that can eat innings. There is zero reason not to have brought Big Mike back. They will severely limit the innings of Ober and to a greater extent Ryan. Get ready for a bunch of 4 inning starts to try and preserve something of them into the second half the season. This lineup with this rotation makes zero sense.

It's entirely possible that guys like Ober and Ryan do well at the beginning of the season, and this team is looking good. But they are almost assured to nosedive in the second half the season based on their rotation and how many innings they can pitch.

edit: to top it off, Gray has only pitched more than 135 innings once in the past 6 years. Yikes.
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If they legitimately were trying to win in 2022, they absolutely needed to sign a top-end starter before the lock-out. Failing to do that has come back to bite them in the rear. Acquiring 2 top-end starters via trade after the lock-out was always going to be a huge stretch.
 

howeda7 said:
Their mistake was sitting on their thumbs the entire pre-lockout period as starter after starter went off the board.
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I
howeda7 said:
Visa issues? He's been in the majors for a decade. Don't these guys have the process down by now? I assume(d) they didn't go after him because they were concerned about his drop in velocity late in the year and think he's TJS waiting to happen.
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goh could substitute PED and ask the same questions
 



howeda7 said:
Totally agree. I really don't understand how they didn't re-sign Pineda or don't bring Cueto. Even if they flop, it's worth a $5 million gamble. We need 8/9 starters to get through the season.
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Randy Dobnek or bust baby!
 



GopherWeatherGuy said:
Gross

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Pineda signed with Detroit a while ago so it is apples and oranges. Had both he and Archer been available a week ago they would have offered Pineda I'm sure.

At the time Pineda signed with Detroit the Twins were looking to trade for starters and they took the risk to let him walk thinking they would be able to get more teams to trade with them. I'm sure they thought they'd get 1 or both of the A's pitchers.
 

tmvander said:
Pineda signed with Detroit a while ago so it is apples and oranges. Had both he and Archer been available a week ago they would have offered Pineda I'm sure.

At the time Pineda signed with Detroit the Twins were looking to trade for starters and they took the risk to let him walk thinking they would be able to get more teams to trade with them. I'm sure they thought they'd get 1 or both of the A's pitchers.
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Even with 1 of the A’s starters, they still should have signed Pineda. Between Gray, Archer (although in this scenario you’re probably not signing him), Ober, and Ryan, you’re at most averaging 125 innings per in a best case scenario. So even if they get one of the A’s starters and assuming he stays healthy, they still need innings at SP. Again, based on my entire lifetimes worth of Twins history, them actually balling up and acquiring 1 or 2 of those guys wasn’t likely. So if that was their plan, their plan sucked.

Playing for ‘23 and getting some of the young arms ready was the way to play this. Acquiring enough pitching in a short period of time to make this season potentially successful was highly unlikely. Trading away their only 1st round pitcher of the Falvey era was short-sighted, considering they now have zero chance this year with this rotation.
 

tmvander said:
Pineda signed with Detroit a while ago so it is apples and oranges. Had both he and Archer been available a week ago they would have offered Pineda I'm sure.

At the time Pineda signed with Detroit the Twins were looking to trade for starters and they took the risk to let him walk thinking they would be able to get more teams to trade with them. I'm sure they thought they'd get 1 or both of the A's pitchers.
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Pineda signed on 3/18...
 


Twins beat Pirates today (Wednesday) 9-4.

Winder started for Twins - 3IP, 3H, 1R, 1ER, 4K, 0BB, 1HR
among other pitchers, Rogers and Thielbar also gave up HR's.
Jhon Romero struck out the side in 1 inning of work. Romero was claimed on waivers from Washington. had Tommy John surgery in 2019. Could make the opening day roster in the bullpen.

at the plate, Twins got HR's from Buxton (Grand Slam) and Sano. 2 Hits each from Kepler and Sanchez.
 

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