Though being one game over .500 isn't exactly blowing up the league, the Twins had extremely low expectations with a Vegas over/under of 70.5 wins, so being on pace to win something like 84 games represents a substantially better season than expected. One can't help but wonder how they got here, and if we can expect it to last and maybe see some semi-meaningful baseball in September again for the first time in what feels like forever.
The offense has been about what was expected: Team overall OPS is .675, last year it was .713. They're walking a little less and hitting with a little less power so far, but overall nothing out of the ordinary and they've averaged 4.56 runs per game this year compared to 4.41 last year so the offense is fine. It'd be nice for Kurt Suzuki and Kennys Vargas to start hitting, but the offense is fine. The defense has been atrocious as expected, so the improvement must have come from the pitching.
Sure enough, team ERA in 2015 is 4.07, down a half a run from 4.58 last year. Even better, starters' ERA is 4.38, which is 10th worst in the majors but a major upgrade from last year's 5.06 and 2013's 5.26, both dead last in the majors. Twins' relievers sport an ERA of 3.58, in line with 2014's 3.73 and 2013's 3.50, so any improvement has come from the starting pitching. Might as well look at all these guys and see who might actually be, like, good.
PHIL HUGHES: Hughes had a nearly impossible task trying to replicate both a career year and a historic walk/strikeout ratio, but he hasn't come close so far putting up numbers more in line with his Yankee days than last season. He's still controlling walks well and his strikeouts, though down a bit, are at a nice number, but he's getting killed by home runs, allowing 1.91 HRs per 9 innings after allowing just 0.69 last year. The good news is that he's allowing a home run on 15.1% of all his fly balls, which is likely an outlier since it would have been the second worst in the majors among starters with at least 150 innings pitched last season, and I'm pretty sure a Phil Hughes making about his half his starts at Target Field isn't going to end up at that number. He got really lucky about home runs last year (6.2% HR/FB), but his true ability probably lies somewhere in the middle. He probably won't be as good as last year, but he'll be better than he's been thus far.
KYLE GIBSON: Gibson's ERA is down almost a full run from last season, but there are some serious red flags here. His BABIP this year is just .267, below his career average and the league average, and his runners LOB% is 75.8%, which would be a top 30 mark most seasons - both significant indicators of luck. Alarmingly his K/9 has dropped to 2.79 (from 5.37 last year) which is dead last in the majors, and his walks have jumped by 1 per nine innings at the same time to 3.86, 14th worst in the league. He's also allowing a career worst 24% line drive rate and 83.6% contact rate. Seeing as he's shown nothing at all to support his ERA improvement from last season you're looking at a serious regression candidate unless he starts missing some bats.
MIKE PELFREY: The guy who nobody wanted in the rotation except for him and his family, and Pelfrey's put up a 2.63 ERA in five starts, but don't let that fool you - he's still terrible. BABIP is .259, LOB % is 83.3%, and HR/9 is just 0.66 - there's no way this keeps up. Those numbers last season would have ranked 18th, 1st, and 18th - does Pelfrey seem like a Top 20 pitcher to you? I will say this - his 56% ground ball rate is a very good thing and his hard hit ball percentage is just 18.1%, second in the league and probably fluky but not as definitely fluky as his other peripherals I'm not buying yet, but he's throwing a ton more split fingers and sliders and isn't relying as much on the fastball, and somehow he's managed to put more than 2 mph on his fast ball compared to last year. I don't believe in Pelfrey, but I expected this paragraph to be much worse. He may actually end up a decent number 4-5 starter.
TREVOR MAY: Probably the most important of these guys given his youth and potential, May's 4.15 ERA is decent but the good news is he's probably even better than that. His BABIP is high and his LOB % is low. He's putting up a respectable 6.9 K/9 and has reigned in his massive control problems from last year to average just 1.73 walks per nine. His HR numbers are a bit fluky and he should regress there a bit, but as long as he can control his walks he should be solid. We may have something here. Get it? Control his walks? May have something? That's high comedy right there.
TOMMY MILONE: You generally don't expect much from fifth pitchers, but Milone has been more like a seventh or eighth guy so far. Among Twins' pitchers with at least 20 innings pitched he ranks last in walk rate, homer rate, FIP, and xFIP, and his ERA is second worst at 4.76. Perhaps the worst part is that Milone's BABIP is a minuscule .243 and his LOB is over 80%, so he's actually been putting up these horrid stats while getting lucky. Yuck. His control is completely out of hand with 4.37 BB/9, nearly double his career average and he's just giving up a monstrous amount of home runs. Assuming he hasn't lost it he should be better than this but he's never going to be special. A guy with a 87 mph fastball has to be pretty sharp with control and pitch mix, so it certainly is possible he's lost it. Might even work better for the Twins if he has, so they can finally get Alex Meyer up here.
So, kind of a mixed bag. Some guys should be better than they've been, some worse. Probably the kind of thing you'd expect on a team that's right around .500. And hey, maybe they'll stay there. That'd be cool.
Showing posts with label Tommy Milone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tommy Milone. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Twins Preview - Throwers
I really don't want to do this. The Twins' pitching has been horrible for years, and even though it might be a little bit better it's still bad and it's also boring. I guess just dive right in? Yeah ok.
Opening day starter Phil Hughes should be the ace. The Twins signed him prior to last season on the cheap, hoping he'd be a better pitcher getting out of Yankee Stadium and boy did that pay off. He slashed his walks to an insane 0.69 per 9 innings which was the third lowest mark since 1920. 1920! And he somehow managed to do that while increasing his strikeouts and giving up half as many homers per fly ball. The homers number is maybe a little fluky, but moving from Yankee Stadium to Target Field can explain a lot of that too and it's balanced by a slightly higher than it should have been BABIP.
I mean Hughes was a really, really good pitcher last year. Imagine if the Twins weren't one of the two worst fielding teams in the league last year (I can't remember the other one). Hughes' FIP, which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and attempts to measure a pitcher based solely on things he can control, was 2.65, almost a full run lower than his ERA (that means the Twins' fielding and Hughes' luck were both really, really bad). That number was fifth among qualified starters in all of baseball. He was fifth among starters in WAR. He won 16 games on a terrible team. He finished 7th in Cy Young voting. I mean geez. I didn't even realize just how good he was.
Honestly, and it scares me to say this a little, there's really no reason not to expect him to be the same pitcher this season. None of the improvements he made are unsustainable, even if a little regression should probably be expected because that's only natural after you set an all-time freaking record for K/Walk ratio, and there's actually some room for his luck to improve. Most of the projection systems like his walk rate to about double (to a still really good number in the low 1s) and his ERA/WHIP/FIP to go up accordingly, but what if he can come closer to replicating that 0.69? Man wow. I know his extension is a bit of a risk since it's pretty much based on one season, but if he can come close to that pitcher again it'll be an absolute bargain.
After Hughes come a couple vets in new Ervin Santana and last year's new Ricky Nolasco. The latter was an unmitigated disaster, as Nolasco cashed in $12 million to put up career worsts in nearly every category to the tune of a 5.38 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, all while failing to reach 200 innings pitched. Looking into the advanced stats there's not much of a reason for optimism, though he probably won't be worse. Even so, I took him with my first pick in a horrible players fantasy league, where you're rewarded for sucking. Santana is a good signing for a contending team who needs someone in the middle of their rotation, but he doesn't make much sense for a a team like the Twins, especially if it helped push Alex Meyer and Trevor May back down to AAA. I mean, he's been a pretty good pitcher in five of the last six seasons and he'll almost certainly help the team win more games this season, but he's pretty pointless unless he's still good when this team is contending. Which will be soon, right? Whatever. The team probably thought they were signing Johan Santana anyway.
Starter four is Kyle Gibson who has pretty much lost his top prospect shine but had a pretty successful second season. He improved from his (admittedly disastrous) rookie call-up two years ago by getting better in pretty much every metric you can find. His WAR was 2.1 last season, which puts him in line with guys like Chris Tillman and Henderson Alvarez in the pretty darn good pitcher area. I'd really like to see him up his K rate to somewhere closer to what he was putting up in the minors, but you can't really argue to much with a 2:1 ground ball to fly ball ratio. He's a solid #4 or a so-so #3 with potential for more if he can whiff more dudes. Keep an eye on that.
Winning the fifth starter competition over Meyer, May, and Mike Pelfrey (who is in the bullpen in a move I'm sure will work out) is your guy Tommy Milone, who came over in the Sam Fuld trade in what was a steal because Fuld is terrible. Not that Milone is anything particularly special, but he's made himself into a serviceable major league pitcher despite a fastball that doesn't break 87 miles per hour unless there's a stiff breeze behind him. But he mixes his pitches well and generally keeps the walks down, so he's not the worst option you could have as a fifth starter - though I promise you he'll have games where he's missing his spots where you'll believe he's pretty much the worst.
That's it for the starters, so now we're on to the bullpen which is going to be awful. Glen Perkins will close of course and he's pretty awesome. I have a tendency since he's a Minnesotan on a Minnesota team (and also I'm kind of a shithead sometimes) to assume he's being locally overrated but Perkins really is an elite closer. Since he took over the closer role permanently in 2013 he ranks 9th in saves (on a terrible team), 13th in K/9, 58th in ERA, and 22nd in FIP, and 25th in WHIP among all pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched - that's pretty damn good! And he has four more extremely affordable years on his contract (including this season). I kind of love the guy, but they should probably be listening at every trade deadline. Some team in win-now mode who is desperate for a closer might do something foolish, and he's a very valuable trade chip. For now, I'm just going to love watching him, and he's young enough he could be the closer when the team is in contention again (they will!), but you know, think about it.
I'm not saying shop him, not at all. I'm just saying if say, the Dodgers and their bottomless pit of money find themselves in a dogfight for the division they could come sniffing around. What if Kenley Jansen's injury festers and he's out all year, and terrible Brandon League and unproven Chris Hatcher aren't getting the job done? Between Perkins's skills, proven closer status, and super nice contract he'd be an attractive option. Maybe you can pry Kyle Seager or Julio Urias away. That would be pretty stupid on the Dodgers' end, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. They have a super deep farm system and they clearly want to win and they want to win now.
Casey Fien will be the main setup guy after another pretty good year even if he did slip a bit. It's a smidge disconcerting, however, that his K/9 dropped from 10.6 in 2013 to 7.3 in 2014. His velocity was actually up so there's a decent chance this was just a weird blip, but there was also a huge jump in contact rate. Keep an eye on this guy.
Brian Duensing was brought back for some reason and he'll be the sole non-Perkins lefty even though he's really quite terrible at pitching. He has been decent at getting lefties out in his career, but his inability to strike anyone out drives me crazy and he should never, ever pitch to right-handed batters. I really don't know why they tendered him other than continuity and familiarity which, as you know, the Twins value to an absurd degree. I'd rather just roll the dice on Caleb Thielbar. Granted in his two seasons he's shown reverse splits and if the Twins looked at that then bravo, but I guess I don't buy the front office is that sophisticated. There aren't really any other in house options for a lefty bullpen guy which is sad in and of itself, but there's always plenty of crappy lefty arms out there you could probably snag for a minor league deal. In the long run I suppose it doesn't matter, but giving $2.7 million to a terrible Duensing is kind of gross.
The rest of the bullpen is pretty much a mess. Tim Stauffer is a failed starter who's dealt with a couple of really significant injuries and he's probably the best of the group. Mike Pelfrey is absolutely terrible and should be released but instead the Twins are putting him in the pen which also pissed him off, so this is just a great situation all around. J.R. Graham pretty much made the team because he was a Rule 5 pick and has to be on the big league roster or be sent back to his original team, and I literally have no idea who Blaine Boyer is. This is not an impressive collection of arms, and to make it even worse the only guy in the entire bullpen who is under 30 is Graham. It's a group of old, failed pitchers. I prefer my bullpen made up of hard throwing young guys with at least one who isn't sure where the ball might be going all the time. That's fun. This is a garbage fire.
It's not like the team's going anywhere anyway. You could roll with 25-year old Michael Tonkin, 25-year old Stephen Pryor, 26-year old Lester Oliveros, 22-year old Nick Burdi, and 22-year old Jake Reed and be just as well off, if not better, and it would be a lot more fun. Or hell, throw Meyer and/or May into the pen to start like the way the Orioles have handled Kevin Gausman. I don't know. I'm not entirely certain this team has a coherent plan beyond "waiting for 2016 and hoping all the prospects are good" but whatever.
All in all, the starters could be decent this year, and will most likely be the best the Twins have had in a few years. The bullpen, however, is going to blow a lot of games.
Opening day starter Phil Hughes should be the ace. The Twins signed him prior to last season on the cheap, hoping he'd be a better pitcher getting out of Yankee Stadium and boy did that pay off. He slashed his walks to an insane 0.69 per 9 innings which was the third lowest mark since 1920. 1920! And he somehow managed to do that while increasing his strikeouts and giving up half as many homers per fly ball. The homers number is maybe a little fluky, but moving from Yankee Stadium to Target Field can explain a lot of that too and it's balanced by a slightly higher than it should have been BABIP.
I mean Hughes was a really, really good pitcher last year. Imagine if the Twins weren't one of the two worst fielding teams in the league last year (I can't remember the other one). Hughes' FIP, which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching and attempts to measure a pitcher based solely on things he can control, was 2.65, almost a full run lower than his ERA (that means the Twins' fielding and Hughes' luck were both really, really bad). That number was fifth among qualified starters in all of baseball. He was fifth among starters in WAR. He won 16 games on a terrible team. He finished 7th in Cy Young voting. I mean geez. I didn't even realize just how good he was.
Honestly, and it scares me to say this a little, there's really no reason not to expect him to be the same pitcher this season. None of the improvements he made are unsustainable, even if a little regression should probably be expected because that's only natural after you set an all-time freaking record for K/Walk ratio, and there's actually some room for his luck to improve. Most of the projection systems like his walk rate to about double (to a still really good number in the low 1s) and his ERA/WHIP/FIP to go up accordingly, but what if he can come closer to replicating that 0.69? Man wow. I know his extension is a bit of a risk since it's pretty much based on one season, but if he can come close to that pitcher again it'll be an absolute bargain.
After Hughes come a couple vets in new Ervin Santana and last year's new Ricky Nolasco. The latter was an unmitigated disaster, as Nolasco cashed in $12 million to put up career worsts in nearly every category to the tune of a 5.38 ERA and 1.52 WHIP, all while failing to reach 200 innings pitched. Looking into the advanced stats there's not much of a reason for optimism, though he probably won't be worse. Even so, I took him with my first pick in a horrible players fantasy league, where you're rewarded for sucking. Santana is a good signing for a contending team who needs someone in the middle of their rotation, but he doesn't make much sense for a a team like the Twins, especially if it helped push Alex Meyer and Trevor May back down to AAA. I mean, he's been a pretty good pitcher in five of the last six seasons and he'll almost certainly help the team win more games this season, but he's pretty pointless unless he's still good when this team is contending. Which will be soon, right? Whatever. The team probably thought they were signing Johan Santana anyway.
Starter four is Kyle Gibson who has pretty much lost his top prospect shine but had a pretty successful second season. He improved from his (admittedly disastrous) rookie call-up two years ago by getting better in pretty much every metric you can find. His WAR was 2.1 last season, which puts him in line with guys like Chris Tillman and Henderson Alvarez in the pretty darn good pitcher area. I'd really like to see him up his K rate to somewhere closer to what he was putting up in the minors, but you can't really argue to much with a 2:1 ground ball to fly ball ratio. He's a solid #4 or a so-so #3 with potential for more if he can whiff more dudes. Keep an eye on that.
Winning the fifth starter competition over Meyer, May, and Mike Pelfrey (who is in the bullpen in a move I'm sure will work out) is your guy Tommy Milone, who came over in the Sam Fuld trade in what was a steal because Fuld is terrible. Not that Milone is anything particularly special, but he's made himself into a serviceable major league pitcher despite a fastball that doesn't break 87 miles per hour unless there's a stiff breeze behind him. But he mixes his pitches well and generally keeps the walks down, so he's not the worst option you could have as a fifth starter - though I promise you he'll have games where he's missing his spots where you'll believe he's pretty much the worst.
That's it for the starters, so now we're on to the bullpen which is going to be awful. Glen Perkins will close of course and he's pretty awesome. I have a tendency since he's a Minnesotan on a Minnesota team (and also I'm kind of a shithead sometimes) to assume he's being locally overrated but Perkins really is an elite closer. Since he took over the closer role permanently in 2013 he ranks 9th in saves (on a terrible team), 13th in K/9, 58th in ERA, and 22nd in FIP, and 25th in WHIP among all pitchers with at least 120 innings pitched - that's pretty damn good! And he has four more extremely affordable years on his contract (including this season). I kind of love the guy, but they should probably be listening at every trade deadline. Some team in win-now mode who is desperate for a closer might do something foolish, and he's a very valuable trade chip. For now, I'm just going to love watching him, and he's young enough he could be the closer when the team is in contention again (they will!), but you know, think about it.
I'm not saying shop him, not at all. I'm just saying if say, the Dodgers and their bottomless pit of money find themselves in a dogfight for the division they could come sniffing around. What if Kenley Jansen's injury festers and he's out all year, and terrible Brandon League and unproven Chris Hatcher aren't getting the job done? Between Perkins's skills, proven closer status, and super nice contract he'd be an attractive option. Maybe you can pry Kyle Seager or Julio Urias away. That would be pretty stupid on the Dodgers' end, but that doesn't mean it can't happen. They have a super deep farm system and they clearly want to win and they want to win now.
Casey Fien will be the main setup guy after another pretty good year even if he did slip a bit. It's a smidge disconcerting, however, that his K/9 dropped from 10.6 in 2013 to 7.3 in 2014. His velocity was actually up so there's a decent chance this was just a weird blip, but there was also a huge jump in contact rate. Keep an eye on this guy.
Brian Duensing was brought back for some reason and he'll be the sole non-Perkins lefty even though he's really quite terrible at pitching. He has been decent at getting lefties out in his career, but his inability to strike anyone out drives me crazy and he should never, ever pitch to right-handed batters. I really don't know why they tendered him other than continuity and familiarity which, as you know, the Twins value to an absurd degree. I'd rather just roll the dice on Caleb Thielbar. Granted in his two seasons he's shown reverse splits and if the Twins looked at that then bravo, but I guess I don't buy the front office is that sophisticated. There aren't really any other in house options for a lefty bullpen guy which is sad in and of itself, but there's always plenty of crappy lefty arms out there you could probably snag for a minor league deal. In the long run I suppose it doesn't matter, but giving $2.7 million to a terrible Duensing is kind of gross.
The rest of the bullpen is pretty much a mess. Tim Stauffer is a failed starter who's dealt with a couple of really significant injuries and he's probably the best of the group. Mike Pelfrey is absolutely terrible and should be released but instead the Twins are putting him in the pen which also pissed him off, so this is just a great situation all around. J.R. Graham pretty much made the team because he was a Rule 5 pick and has to be on the big league roster or be sent back to his original team, and I literally have no idea who Blaine Boyer is. This is not an impressive collection of arms, and to make it even worse the only guy in the entire bullpen who is under 30 is Graham. It's a group of old, failed pitchers. I prefer my bullpen made up of hard throwing young guys with at least one who isn't sure where the ball might be going all the time. That's fun. This is a garbage fire.
It's not like the team's going anywhere anyway. You could roll with 25-year old Michael Tonkin, 25-year old Stephen Pryor, 26-year old Lester Oliveros, 22-year old Nick Burdi, and 22-year old Jake Reed and be just as well off, if not better, and it would be a lot more fun. Or hell, throw Meyer and/or May into the pen to start like the way the Orioles have handled Kevin Gausman. I don't know. I'm not entirely certain this team has a coherent plan beyond "waiting for 2016 and hoping all the prospects are good" but whatever.
All in all, the starters could be decent this year, and will most likely be the best the Twins have had in a few years. The bullpen, however, is going to blow a lot of games.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Welcome Aboard, Tommy Milone!
You know what's awesome? Getting a serviceable, if back of the rotation, starting pitcher in exchange for a completely expendable outfielder you signed off waivers for nothing. In a complete coincidence to what I just posted, the Twins picked up Tommy Milone today in exchange for Sam Fuld in a trade with the A's, the team who waived Fuld earlier this year. But Oakland needed another outfielder after trading Yeonis Cespedes, and had more starters than one team needs after acquiring Jon Lester, Jeff Samardzjia, and Jason Hammel in trades, so off Milone went and the Twins were the lucky recipient.
Don't get me wrong, Milone is probably not going to win a Cy Young any time soon, but he's made 78 career starts, been in Oakland's rotation for the past 3 years, and has put up an ERA of 3.84, a WHIP of 1.26, and a FIP of 4.13 - solid #4 starter numbers on a contending team. The big knock on him is he doesn't throw very hard (average velocity 86.5mph on his fastball) and as a result doesn't strike anyone out (5.7 K/9 this season), and he's an extreme fly ball pitcher. Those K numbers, however, fit in right with the rest of the starters, and Phil Hughes is also an extreme fly ball pitcher and playing in a pitcher's park like Target Field has worked out for him for the most part. He's a solid pitcher, and he's under team control through 2017. Really, a quality acquisition by the Twins, especially since they had to give up just Fuld.
Not that Fuld is worthless - he's not or Billy Beane wouldn't want him - he's just not going to be a part of the Twins future as contenders, whenever that may be (hopefully 2016) and as such was expendable. He's a serviceable hitter with a keen batting eye who can run well and is an excellent fielder. He should serve the A's well as a fourth outfielder/pinch runner/defensive replacement type, but the Twins really had no need for him. Plus maybe this means Aaron Hicks gets another chance. You guys know he's going to be a superstar, right?
Don't get me wrong, Milone is probably not going to win a Cy Young any time soon, but he's made 78 career starts, been in Oakland's rotation for the past 3 years, and has put up an ERA of 3.84, a WHIP of 1.26, and a FIP of 4.13 - solid #4 starter numbers on a contending team. The big knock on him is he doesn't throw very hard (average velocity 86.5mph on his fastball) and as a result doesn't strike anyone out (5.7 K/9 this season), and he's an extreme fly ball pitcher. Those K numbers, however, fit in right with the rest of the starters, and Phil Hughes is also an extreme fly ball pitcher and playing in a pitcher's park like Target Field has worked out for him for the most part. He's a solid pitcher, and he's under team control through 2017. Really, a quality acquisition by the Twins, especially since they had to give up just Fuld.
Not that Fuld is worthless - he's not or Billy Beane wouldn't want him - he's just not going to be a part of the Twins future as contenders, whenever that may be (hopefully 2016) and as such was expendable. He's a serviceable hitter with a keen batting eye who can run well and is an excellent fielder. He should serve the A's well as a fourth outfielder/pinch runner/defensive replacement type, but the Twins really had no need for him. Plus maybe this means Aaron Hicks gets another chance. You guys know he's going to be a superstar, right?
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