A little over five years ago, Derek Falvey — in tandem with Thad Levine — took over the roster-building for the Twins. Falvey, in particular, arrived with a reputation earned in Cleveland for helping to develop young pitchers.
Twins can hit and field. Pitching? That's still the mystery it was before
As the season nears and no other major moves have been made to bolster the starting rotation, the default might be leaning on youth.
March 29, 2022 at 11:26AM
There has been very little evidence of that prowess at the Major League level, as the Twins have largely filled rotation slots with holdovers and veterans acquired either via trade or free agency.
Heading into 2022, the model seemed to be this: remake the rotation with a combination of more veterans acquired in trades or free agency, while also leaning on some promising young pitchers.
The problem, with opening day looming next week, is this: The Twins at the moment are planning to ask too much of those inexperienced starters.
Other teams know the Twins are desperate for pitching, and it sounds like the price to get another pitcher to pair with Sonny Gray at the top of the rotation has been pretty steep.
Patrick Reusse and I talked about the predicament on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.
Bailey Ober had an encouraging 20 starts in 2021, but he finished six innings just twice and logged just 92 1⁄3 innings in those starts — about 13 or 14 outs per game.
Joe Ryan, likewise, showed flashes during his September audition. But putting too much stock in small sample sizes, particularly in September, is dangerous.
Beyond those two, it's likely Gray and Dylan Bundy making up the first four spots in the rotation. After that, it's a mystery. And if anyone gets hurt, it's an even bigger mystery.
Maybe another move is coming still as Falvey and Levine try to be patient with the market. Maybe they'll try to piece things together will bullpen games and off days in order to hide weaknesses.
But if we went into the offseason figuring that pitching was the team's most obvious and glaring potential weakness, we are still in that same spot with the opener looming next Thursday.
The Twins have plenty of players who we know can hit the ball and catch the ball. But we don't know enough about those who are going to throw the ball.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
