Alright Twins fans, it’s time we sit down and have a talk. Lately, the pulse of Twins territory has been in a state of panic and despair. The offseason signings of Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey dubbed as foolish moves that only indicate a sinking ship in Minnesota.
"We’re terrible, awful, and no good!"; "This will be the worst Twins team since 1961!" (Did you even WATCH the Twins teams of the early 80’s? This team would beat them 9 out of 10 times) the fans are crying foul – "Terry Ryan is a fool", "The Pohlads are cheap!"
Slow down just for a minute. Let’s step back and really analyze these moves.
- The Twins sign Kevin Correia – alright, I’ll give you this one. Outside of Nick Blackburn, Kevin Correia has been one of the worst starters in the majors for the past few seasons. Factor in the move to the AL and the unbelievably foolish 2 year contract and this signing looks to be a baffling move. There’s reason for hope here, I’ll get to that in a minute.
- The Twins sign Mike Pelfrey – another underwhelming signing on the surface, but I actually like this move. Pelfrey is coming off of Tommy John surgery, but will reportedly be ready for Spring Training and will be good to go on opening day. Pelfrey is essentially a .500 W/L career pitcher with a 4.36 career ERA, not a staff ace, but not a bad signing. Again, I’ll expand on that in a minute.
- The Twins trade Denard Span to Washington for top prospect Alex Meyer and Ben Revere to Philadelphia for Vance Worley and Trevor May. The Twins moved from a position of strength – OF – to fill a position of need – pitching. They got a strong return for Revere in a capable #3 pitcher (Vance Worley) and a potential #2 starter, Trevor May. Span, admittedly, may have gotten less of a return than deserved, but Alex Meyer projects to be an ace, if these projections hold true, 2014 will look very good with a true #1 starter on top of the list.
From the outside, things look bad. The Twins have traded away two great outfielders for one 2013 pitching chip and two future chips. They’ve only managed to sign lower tier free agents, while Brandon McCarthy, Anibal Sanchez and Joe Blanton sign elsewhere. Who is playing CF? How will this staff be BETTER than last year if we’re signing a bunch of #5 starters? WHY ISN’T THIS TEAM TRYING TO COMPETE!?? All valid questions from (rightly) angry Twins fans – but I feel like fans aren’t taking a step back to answer their own questions. If they were to do that, they’d see quite a bit different picture.
Why The 2013 Twins Will Be Better Than The 2012 Twins
- The pitching staff, evenly as presently constructed, is leaps and bounds better than the 2012 rotation.
Let’s look at the 2012 opening day rotation:
Carl Pavano
Anthony Swarzak
Francisco Liriano
Nick Blackburn
Liam Hendriks
Jason Marquis
Hendriks started the season with food poisoning, Pavano was pitching with an injury, as was Blackburn. Liriano was completely awful and Scott Baker was already on the DL and on his way to TJ surgery. Let’s dive into the numbers a little more.
Carl Pavano (First 5 games)
Vs / Result
|
Innings Pitched
Hits
Runs
Strikeouts
Baltimore / L
7.0
5
4
1
LA Angels / W
6.2
7
5
3
NY Yankees / W
7.0
7
3
6
Tampa Bay / L
6.0
7
3
7
Kansas City / L
6.1
6
4
0
Pavano actually started 2012 right where the Twins wanted him. During outings against LA, NY and TB, Pavano looked every bit the workhorse ‘ace’ the staff needed. He went deep into games, limited the number of runs allowed and struck batters out. After that, however, things took a bad turn for Pavano.
Carl Pavano (Next 5 games)
VS / Result
|
Innings Pitched
Hits
Runs
Strikeouts
Seattle / W
6.0
8
2
2
LA Angels / L
4.0
10
4
1
Cleveland / L
6.0
6
4
3
Milwaukee / W
6.0
5
2
6
Detroit / L
4.1
10
6
2
You can see where Pavano’s bruised humorous bone developed – right around the Kansas City & Seattle series. After that, he simply didn’t have command and was getting knocked all over the field. He was lasting deep into games, was wearing out the bullpen and simply wasn’t getting it done. Remember, Pavano was the ACE of the staff at the start of the 2012 season. It only gets worse from here.
Nick Blackburn (First 5 starts)
VS / Result
|
Innings Pitched
Hits
Runs
Strikeouts
LA Angels / L
6.0
5
5
3
Texas / L
5.1
7
2
3
Boston / L
3.0
8
5
2
LA Angels / L
6.0
7
3
2
Seattle / L
6.0
7
5
4
Blackburn’s struggles were immediate and apparent. He couldn’t find the strike zone, and when he did, he left the ball up. The result was an immediate and frequent shelling. He never lasted beyond the 6th inning, meaning more work for the bullpen, and he averaged 1 ER per inning, putting the team in a hole each time he started. I don’t need to go into the next 5 for Blackburn. Each and every start (except 1 in July against the White Sox) looks exactly the same. No more than 6 innings, an average of 1 ER per inning and no strikeouts.
Jason Marquis (First 5 games)
VS / Result
|
Innings Pitched
Hits
Runs
Strikeouts
NY Yankees / W
5.0
7
4
3
Boston / L
6.1
11
5
3
Kansas City / W
6.0
6
3
1
Seattle / L
6.0
4
2
1
Toronto / L
4.0
7
5
2
All things considered, Marquis’ first 5 games were not all that bad. He wasn’t great, but 6 innings, an average of 4 runs – he was filling the "back-end" starter role decently. With early season starts, you always expect the numbers to be little poor – then improve as the year goes on. Then…well…this happened
Jason Marquis (Next 5 games)
VS / Result
|
Innings Pitched
Hits
Runs
Strikeouts
Cleveland / L
5.0
9
5
2
Milwaukee / L
1.2
8
8
2
Seattle / W
6.1
6
0
4
Texas / L
7.0
5
2
10
Seattle / L
7.0
6
5
6
Hey, after that Milwaukee start, he started to get back on track! One problem, those starts after Milwaukee were with the Padres. The Twins cut him loose after his horrendous outing on the road.
There are other examples – Liam Hendriks struggled in 2012, Cole DeVries, PJ Walters, Samuel Deduno were far from great as well. But, let’s just say the Twins 3 acquisitions this offseason are replacing those 3 pitchers listed above.
Kevin Correia, despite being almost as bad as Blackburn (numbers wise) throughout his career, is still a .500 W/L pitcher with bad teams (Pittsburgh) and has managed to keep his ERA around 4.00. As hard as it is to fathom, that is actually an improvement from any of the above pitchers in 2012.
Mike Pelfrey, again, is a career .500 W/L pitcher posting an ERA around 4.30. He pitched through an injury with a bad Mets team last season and still managed a 7-13 record. In 2011, Pelfrey was a solid 15-9 with an ERA of 3.66.
Finally, Vance Worley, who is coming off a poor 2012 (6-9, 4.22 ERA) had surgery to clean up some bone chips in his elbow (likely the cause of his poor year) will likely return to the 11-3 pitcher who posted an ERA of 3.01 in 2011. It’s not farfetched for the Twins to expect Scott Diamond like numbers from Worley this season.
By plucking out Blackburn, Pavano and Marquis and replacing them with Correia, Pelfrey and Worley, the Twins HAVE improved. Even if Correia posts an 8-11 record with an ERA of 4.45, he’s still better than Blackburn, Marquis or Liriano where at any point in time last season.
Pelfrey could reaslitically be a 10-7 pitcher with an ERA of 4.00, again, better than Blackaburn, Pavano, Liriano, Marquis, Hendriks and any of the minor league starters the team rolled out in ’12.
Worley, despite not having the same caliber offense behind him as he did during an 11 win 2011 – will still be solid enough to host a 12-6 W/L with an ERA around 3.50.
Collectively, these pitchers improve the staff form 2012 by – let’s say 3 wins each – and that’s being conservative. That’s 9 more wins.
Liam Hendriks is primed to make a turnaround in 2013. By the end of 2012, Hendriks was looking a lot more confident on the mound and was not getting blown up like he had been early in the season. Lest we forget – Scott Diamond, 2012’s "A Student" was knocked around like he was pitching a beach ball in 2011. Hendriks has the talent to be a #3 or #4 starter, I’d be stunned if his 2013 didn’t look a lot like Scott Diamond’s 2012. I could see Hendriks going 12-7 with an ERA at or around 3.50.
Kyle Gibson will likely start 2013 in the bullpen, but I wouldn’t be stunned to see him in the rotation by June. He’s still relatively young, so the likelihood that he posts a few bad starts is high, but he’s got raw talent. I’d project Gibson to go 5-7 with an ERA of 4 in his first season.
Finally, Scott Diamond will be back as the "ace" of the staff. Diamond’s 2012 numbers were a result of him showing great command and keeping the ball down in the zone. Nothing we’ve seen from Diamond so far would indicate that this was a fluke. Diamond, given a full season of starting, could easily put up a 14-9 W/L with an era around 3.20.
This speculative rotation would look like this by year’s end:
Scott Diamond: 14-9, 3.20 ERA
Vance Worley: 12-6, 3.50 ERA
Liam Hendriks: 12-7, 3.50 ERA
Mike Pelfrey: 10-7, 4.00 ERA
Kevin Correia: 8-11, 4.50 ERA
Kyle Gibson: 5-8, 4.00 ERA
Is that a playoff staff? Certainly not. But, it is a staff that could anchor a 75-80 win ball club. Fans are quick to forget just how horrendous this staff was in 2012. Even though the Twins are not adding Sanchez, McCarthy, Jackson or even Blanton caliber players, they are getting better. Even better, the team now has future aces in their minor league system, meaning that 2014 and 2015 is starting to look like bright spots for the Twins.
We’ve Seen This Before:
This rebuilding strategy should be familiar. We just saw it last season with the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs traded away their valuable pitching chips in the offseason to restock their farm system. They signed veteran players to smaller, reasonable deals to fill out their roster and they cut back payroll significantly. By the deadline, they’d flipped any veterans of value for more prospects, cut loose the veterans who were not cutting it and brought up all of their young players for experience. Yes, they lost 100+ games in 2012, but now look at 2013:
The Cubs have young talent that is now Major League ready. They’re active in the free agent market, spending money that they had saved from the year before on free agents who will make an impact. The team is young, relatively cheap to field and looks to be moving into a prime competitive state for the next few years.
Like it or not, the Twins are in stage one of that rebuilding plan. They’re flipping veterans of value for pieces of need. By the deadline, they’ll likely move Morneau and Willingham, acquiring more pieces for the future. Oswaldo Arcia, Joe Benson, Aaron Hicks, BJ Hermsen and maybe even Eddie Rosario are all likely candidates to get a shot at the big leagues during the later half of next season.
2014 and 2015 – the Twins would have young talent primed to move into key positions (Arcia, Hicks, Benson in the outfield - Rosario, Sano, Parmelee in the infield – May, Meyer, Gibson, Wimmers, Hendriks on the mound) and they would have payroll room to add one or two high impact free agents to improve the club.
In short, the 2013 Twins are not going to be the worst baseball team to ever take the field. They’re not a playoff team either, however. They’re essentially a .500 ball club on the cusp of a youth movement. So, let’s all calm down, these moves make sense given the team’s long term plans. Are they the best for the immediate future? That’s debatable. BUT they are building for a stronger, sustainable future, which is something that all Twins fans should appreciate.
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