5 that are 26 or younger

by Eric in Madison on Aug 19, 2008 3:02 PM EDT Comment 7 comments

I was looking at the basic pitching stats the other day and realized that the Twins have a chance to have 4 starters finish the season with:

a) 150+ innings

b) ERA+ above league average

c) and are all 26 or younger

and I was wondering how often that had happened. Then I realized that there is another American League team likely to do that this year: the Rays. Anyway, that got me to thinking more about the Twins rotation, and in particular the non-Liriano members of it--what can we make of the seasons they've had?

The first thing I noticed is that the defense, which overall has been below average at turning batted balls into outs, has been average or above average for all 4 of these guys. (The pitchers who have been hurt by the team's DER are Bonser, Hernandez, and Bass, mostly).

Blackburn is the one that has an average GB rate, the others are all significant flyballers. This is why they give up so many homers, of course; Slowey is exactly league average in % of flyballs that go out, Baker slightly above average, and Perkins too, but all very close to average. Blackburn gives up less fly balls, and actually is below league average in FB/HR %.

Slowey and Baker have the above average K rates, along with the low walk rates, Blackburn and Perkins lack the K's, though they both also have the good control. Perkins seems like the odd man out, here--mostly flyballs and limited strikeouts is not a great combination. Indeed, he has the lowest K rate and the highest BB rate among the 4.

And in fact, he also has the worst FIP--the other 3 are clustered very close to 4, Perkins is at 4.77. (Bonser, by far the unluckiest pitcher on the staff, has a FiP of 4.20). I owe an apology to Nick Blackburn, frankly, who I've always thought was the weakest pitcher of the 4. In fact, his FIP is essentially indistinguishable from Baker's and Slowey's, well better than Perkins.

Another note is that Blackburn and Perkins have had the hardest schedules among the 4, especially Blackburn. 14 of Backburn's 25 starts have been against the top 6 R/G offenses in the AL, (other than the Twins), plus he had to start in Colorado. Perkins has had 12 of 19 starts against those 6 teams, though he got both Washington and SD in interleague. Baker has had 10 of 20 against the top offenses, and SLowey has had by far the easiest-- 8 of 19 starts against the good AL offenses, plus he got both Washington and SD.

Ultimately, Blackburn has been better than I thought, Perkins a little worse. I still have the most confidence in Baker and Slowey going forward, because they have the best K:BB rates and are above league average in K/9, which is predictive. They will both give up an above average number of homers, but a lot of successful pitchers give up lots of homers. But I'm now wondering if Blackburn might have enough ancillary skills to maintain a career. Ultimately, I think he'll have to develop into a true ground baller to survive, since his HR/FB rate is lower than it will be long term, so he'll have to limit the flyballs even more. Still, he's performed admirably this year. Perkins has been OK, but he's going to have to find a way to strike more guys out. He has the lowest K rate among the 4, and survive I think he's going to have to increase it, which seems possible but what do I know?

At any rate, it's nice to see the Twins go with the young guys, and it certainly is an inexpensive and potentially effective rotation--one stud (Liriano) and 4 guys clustered around league average is a good rotation. We'll see if it's kept intact, how they perform, and whether Bonser ever gets another chance...

what say you?

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You can't predict development

They’ve all done well, better than expectations would have them performing, at least to my mind, with the possible exception of Baker, especially recently.

But, going forward, as with the rest of the team, what will dictate their future success is if they grow and develop and get better.

That’s something that is not easy to predict or quantify. Some players learn better than others, or, perhaps, are better “gamers” and want to compete and thus are driven to micro-analysis of what happens pro and con during a game, and then are able to make adjustments.

If you look at Mauer and Morneau, they have each added to their repertoire and continued to develop as players. The other teams and pitchers are certainly going to try to improve and get better as well.

So, the key with young players is the extent to which they learn from what is happening around them, and physically keep themselves up to a level at which they can incorporate new understanding and strategies into how they play.

by Old Twins Cap on Aug 19, 2008 3:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Perkins

I’ve never been a huge fan of Perkins. And although you can’t argue that his final results have remained quality this year, a 4.5 K/9, a 3 BB/9, and an extreme fly ball tendency is not the recipe for sustained success.

"You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all."
~ Earl Weaver
"In God we trust. All others must provide evidence."
~ Billy Beane

by AdamOnFirst on Aug 19, 2008 3:49 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Grumpy uncle

I hate to sound like Grumpy Uncle Bert Blyleven here, but all of them seem to noticeably hit the wall hard in about the 6th inning. It has probably contributed to exposing the bullpen. I’m not advocating abusing the pitchers, but they need to go deeper into games. It would help if the defense was a little more efficient so pitch counts would stay down.

by wcooley on Aug 19, 2008 4:27 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm of two minds about this

I think Gardenhire is really to “blame” for what you observe. (They are all averaging almost spot on 6 innings per start). He’s been very careful with them—Baker has one start of 112 pitches—that’s the only start among the 4 of them that’s 110 or above.

On the one hand, I agree that it would be good if they could go deeper, and I think pushing them occasionally would be OK. But Gardy has been unwilling.

On the other hand, these guys are still fairly young and most are seeing increases in innings, at least increases in high leverage major league innings, so I can understand the caution.

by Eric in Madison on Aug 19, 2008 5:11 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I disagree

Just from what I’ve seen, there seems to be serious tiring in the middle innings. See, for instance, Perkins in his last start. I think Gardy WANTS to stretch them, but they haven’t let him.

But this is just conjecture.

by wcooley on Aug 19, 2008 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

No conjecture

Pitchers, particularly young ones, usually make the manager’s decision easy in this regard, and this bunch could have been the case study for that.

Blackburn is OK later in the game relative to earlier, his OPS-against in fact plummets nearly 200 points from the 6th to the 7th, but as I have stated before, it’s usually BP time against Perkins around the 6th.

Baker and Slowey also can be counted on to hit the wall right around the sixth inning. This staff in general just can’t get into the 7th often enough. Gardy’s trigger finger gets itchy for a very good reason.

Usually, the sixth is about the time batters are getting their third look at these guys. From the 5th to the 6th against Slowey, for instance, BA jumps 83 points to .333, OBP jumps more than 100 points from .262, and OPS jumps 150 points to .946.

This is hardly unusual in the game today, but you are right about Gardenhire wanting them to go longer while the performance of this staff makes it easy for him to go to the ’pen.

’05 staff, by the way, had five starters pitch more the 150 innings, with 4 of them under league ERA. Three of them were 26. The team had a sixth starter under league average, and under age 26. It was by far a deeper staff, and arguably as promising.

by Johnny Safron on Aug 19, 2008 8:28 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Hitting the wall

It’s Gardy’s itchy trigger finger that may be partly to blame. Bert has a point, but he takes it too far. Sometimes, you just have to let the kids get themselves out of trouble in the 6th and 7th when they’re tiring (unless they’re WAY up there in pitches). You get the feeling they look to the bullpen when they get into trouble late.

by Adam Peterson on Aug 20, 2008 7:13 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs