Is Philip Humber gone?

by roger13 on Apr 17, 2009 4:25 PM EDT

LaVelle E Neal III is reporting that the Twins have claimed hard throwing Juan Morillo off waivers from the Colorado Rockies. Morrillo is a 25 year old right handed pitcher who throws hard and has a history of control problems.

To make room for Morillo on the roster, the Twins have designated Philip Humber for assignment. Will he make it through waivers and accept an assignment to Rochester? The next few days should be interesting for one of the four young men the Twins received for Santana.

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AH, yes......

Humber? WHy not accept and get a chance to start. There’s no guarantee that the Big Five will stay healthy all season and the candidates at Rochester are Deunsing. Swarzak may not be ready. Mulvey is in the wings. So if he can shine at Rochester, he might come back as a spot starter. Hopefully Humber stays and excels and at least becomes fine tradebait.

But Morillo. Just what we need. Another wild pitch guy! I guess he’s considered a better choice than the AAA names of Henn, Keppell, Santos, Gosling and Jones, already taking up space in the Twins system.

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by rosterman on Apr 17, 2009 5:03 PM EDT reply actions

Wow

I didn’t think the Twins would give up on him that quickly. I’m going to guess that he gets claimed on waivers, since he was highly-regarded enough to have been one of the Mets top prospects when the Santana trade was made – it’s not too hard for a team that’s not in contention to hide a guy in the bullpen.

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

by BeefMaster on Apr 17, 2009 6:05 PM EDT reply actions

He looks pretty awful to me.

Bloggin' the bloggers since 1938.

by Johnny Safron on Apr 17, 2009 7:18 PM EDT reply actions

-1

He has good stuff just hasn’t solidified it all after his TOmmy John surgery

His Fastball is flat but he moves it in and out up and down and it can hit 93 MPH or so…

is curveball looked great to me, but he didn’t use it much and is change is rusty and needs work, but still he still needs to refine his art again, becuase for him its obviously been almost like starting over since TMY John.

by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Apr 17, 2009 7:24 PM EDT up reply actions

Don't see it

“change needs work” can be applied to more than 80 percent of big-league pitchers. No deception to his fastball. As for his curve, I honestly would like to stand in there against it. Or at least get a stopwatch on its hang time.

He went backwards this spring. That’s a big problem for a man in a business that moves on fast forward.

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by Johnny Safron on Apr 18, 2009 1:47 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah Humber will be gone

For Sure

by SteveHoffmanSlowey on Apr 17, 2009 7:22 PM EDT reply actions

No way he makes it through waivers

Heck, Baltimore will claim him in a second and give him a chance to start. I’d rather have Humber than a couple of their current starters.

I’m not sure what to think about Morillo. Great upside with about a strikeout per inning. But wow, 56 walks and 55 strikeouts in 59.2 innings at AAA last year? That walk rate was more than double any other stop, but those are epic control problems. My guess is that we were looking at him during the Street / Atkins talks and jumped once he hit waivers.

Does Morillo have to stick with the big club, or can he be sent to AAA? I’m guessing he has to stay in the majors, otherwise why would Colorado drop him?

by Adam Peterson on Apr 17, 2009 7:34 PM EDT reply actions

Sticking

Does Morillo have to stick with the big club, or can he be sent to AAA? I’m guessing he has to stay in the majors, otherwise why would Colorado drop him?

Generally, players only have to go through waivers if they’re out of options – there’s no reason Colorado would’ve designated him for assignment if he could just be sent to the minors.

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

by BeefMaster on Apr 17, 2009 10:24 PM EDT up reply actions

He's gone...

One of the 29 teams out there will take a chance on him.

by Twins Territory on Apr 17, 2009 7:53 PM EDT reply actions

I agree.

He doesn’t look like a star, but he’s the kind of guy that if he can get a sustained opportunity will probably be good enough to stick around.

But that’s based off of very little—just what I’ve seen. It’s hard to say too much without speculating.

by Jesse on Apr 17, 2009 8:00 PM EDT up reply actions

Then again

Just because we’ll lose him doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad decision. We have a bunch of guys with similar or better starter upside in the minors, it’s really a matter of how important he is to the bullpen. We’ll see if Morillo is an improvement. He’s 25 with a 98+ MPH fastball. I could see Morillo – Dickey being a pretty brutal bullpen combination…

by Adam Peterson on Apr 17, 2009 8:05 PM EDT up reply actions

Brutal for the Twins, you mean.

by DK on Apr 18, 2009 1:42 AM EDT up reply actions

Brutal in many ways

I was thinking the change in speeds, but yes, could be quite brutal for the Twins…

by Adam Peterson on Apr 18, 2009 9:17 AM EDT up reply actions

Including to catchers I would imagine...

…but I do like to see major leaguers strike out on a knuckleball. There is something so cool about that.

"I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. See, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughing at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it . . ."

by Skippy tastes better than Jiff on Apr 20, 2009 4:42 AM EDT up reply actions

Humber could probbaly succeed as a number 5 starter, I'd take him if I had room

Good luck to Mr Humber, too bad we got zilch for him. Another wasted opportunity from Bill Smith? Is this other guy that much better to be worth it?

"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
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by AdamOnFirst on Apr 17, 2009 9:24 PM EDT reply actions

What were we getting for Humber?

I find it hard to believe Smith didn’t make every effort to move Humber this offseason, but what kind of market do you think there was for an injury question mark who’s out of options? Humber is exactly the kind of guy teams like Baltimore, Washington, etc wait for on the waiver wire for the bottom end of their rotation, IMO.

We’ll see if Morillo is an improvement. At least he’s got better upside and he’s a natural reliever. Sticking Humber in the bullpen was like a square peg / round hole. As Gardy said, Humber is a starter. He needs to start somewhere. No space in Minnesota.

by Adam Peterson on Apr 18, 2009 9:24 AM EDT up reply actions

I'm sure he tried

It was no secret that the coaching staff didn’t want him, especially Gardy. Perhaps his trade value was akin to Livan’s midseason last year. The difference is, in Livan’s case, we were happy to unload him for nothing if Colorado paid the remainder of his contract. Humber is not a contract liability.

My only hope is that other teams take a pass and we can reassign him to Rochester. That’s what we did with Mike Trombley and he ended up being a useful reliever for us (and the Orioles).

"You're thinking too much. Just have fun." -- Bennie "The Jet" Rodriguez in Sandlot

by cmathewson on Apr 18, 2009 10:52 AM EDT up reply actions

Well, that's what teams tend to say...

>>As Gardy said, Humber is a starter.

“He’s got to be a starter.”

“He just needs to get regular at-bats.”

“He’s really not a utility guy.”

“We had him playing out of position.”

“He’s OK against lefties, but we had to put him in there against righties, too.”

You don’t bad mouth guys, so you tell the media something and they roll their eyes and get it if they’ve covered baseball for a while, then they print it and let the people who can read between the lines figure it out.

He’s got two pitches. Neither one of them was very good this spring. I don’t see how that makes Humber a starter.

But at the rate the Angels are going, they’d certainly take a shot at Humber. They called up Dustin Moseley, so they’d jump on Humber.

Maybe that does make him a starter.

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by Johnny Safron on Apr 20, 2009 10:10 PM EDT up reply actions

Minors

Morillo could be sent to the minors, but he needs to be offered to other teams below the Twins.

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by rosterman on Apr 18, 2009 12:16 AM EDT reply actions

Yeah, I think he'd have to be waived again

and considering he already cleared the entire NL (gets priority over AL for a waived NL player) and any teams below Minnesota, it could be a possibility. I wouldn’t count on it though.

by Adam Peterson on Apr 18, 2009 9:26 AM EDT up reply actions