Email a copy of 'Evaluating The Twins' Struggling Bullpen' to a friend
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By Mark Polishuk | at
Email a copy of 'Evaluating The Twins' Struggling Bullpen' to a friend
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j6takish
The Twins have shown a distinct lack of grit and hustle this season. They aren’t pitching to contact and playing the game the right way!
Donskoy
Its hard to pitch to contact when almost all of the pitchers can’t even hit anywhere near the plate.
Scott Hayton
Yeah… forget talent, what they need is grit!
Alex Ess
Only four clubs underwent major bullpen overhauls? I’m not sure about the rest of the league, but the Mets started the year with only two relievers (Krod, Parnell) on their roster that were on the team last year. Otherwise, they signed free agents Byrdak, Isringhausen Carrasco, Buchholz, and Boyer, as well as added Rule 5 Pick Beato. (Izzy was only called up when Parnell got hurt a few weeks into the season). The poor performance of Boyer saw the return of Igarashi, but even newly signed starter Capuano has seen some action in the ‘pen. Beato’s injury even resulted in the promotion of Mike O’Connor, who spent all of last season with the Mets’ AAA.
However, the biggest change for the Mets bullpen, bigger then anything any other team went through, was the end of Pedro Feliciano’s time with the Mets. Feliciano appeared in more games then any pitcher in the majors three years in a row and spent eight years with the Mets. His departure from the team was a major blow to the team and its fans (I bought a Pedro Feliciano jersey last spring).
Other pitchers that have since moved on from last year include H. Takahasi, Elmer Dessens, Green, Nieve, Valdez, and top prospect Jennry Mejia returned to the AAA starting rotation… then injured himself.
KempIsKing27
This team is a complete mess right now. The bullpen is just horrible and that Maurr contract might turn out to be the biggest mistake they’ve made as a organization but they had no other option. They had to sign him.
Arron
Couldn’t agree with you more. As an avid Twins fan, I think Mauer’s contract will end up being the biggest mistake in the history of the Twins organization. Bigger than basically giving away Santana. But they didn’t have a choice with Mauer. Twins got their new stadium, and they had to put butts in seats. To do that, they had to keep the home town hero on the roster.
TheDunneDeal
There’s no way that the Mauer signing was as big a mistake as how the Santana trade was handled. If they’d gotten anything near value for Johan, Mauer’s absence wouldn’t be killing them right now. Instead they got:
-Carlos Gomez (3.0 WAR before being traded for JJ Hardy, who produced 1.3 WAR before being nontendered so that Alexi Casilla could start at SS).
-Philip Humber (-.2 WAR before leaving as an FA.)
-Kevin Mulvey(-.2 WAR, traded for Jon Rauch who gave 1.9 WAR before leaving as a free agent).
-Deolis Guerra(Never appeared in majors, currently has a career ERA of something around 6.50 in AA and AAA).
So, in exchange for arguably the best pitcher in their post-Blyleven history being traded at 28 years old, the Twins got a return of 5.8 WAR, and, four years later, have zero players on their roster to show for it. Not even guys they got for guys they traded for. For comparison’s sake, Santana, in three seasons since the trade, has a total WAR of 14.4. I consider that worse than overpaying their best and most popular player.
Russell Stephens
That is not entirely true, Jim Hoey is on the major league roster, and he is from the JJ Hardy trade.