With the Minnesota Twins idle on Monday — meanwhile, Cleveland is taking on Baltimore if the weather allows — what better time than now to look to the Twittersphere to answer the burning questions that are on everyone’s minds?
Here we go:
These questions are often complicated and require the kind of foresight we haven’t seen since Miss Cleo’s (RIP) heyday. The most difficult part is that there is an entire offseason between then and now, and we have no idea who the Twins might covet in free agency — hell, they might not even know yet — and we don’t know yet if they’ll move anyone under contract.
We can probably safely assume that Hector Santiago will not be here, as he’s a free agent at season’s end. But outside of Jose Berrios, literally everyone else in the current rotation has a question mark of some form or fashion. Will Ervin Santana be traded? Will Kyle Gibson figure things out? What is the future with Nik Turley? Will Phil Hughes be healthy enough again to count on?
The bullpen is no less questionable. Brandon Kintzler is a free agent at the end of the season, and as recently as two months ago, you’d have gotten even money that Ryan Pressly would be the closer in waiting. If not him, it’d be J.T. Chargois. The former of those is in Triple-A working through some things, and the latter is on the shelf with serious elbow issues. So, those are the breaks when trying to figure out even a medium-term bullpen. But that’s also why it doesn’t make a ton of sense to tie up massive amounts of resources — salary, trade capital, what have you — in acquiring those types.
With that said, I’m a good sport, so here’s my best guess rotation and bullpen for Opening Day next year, with the expectation that I’ll probably change my mind before I’m finished.
Capisce?
Rotation
- Jose Berrios
- External No. 2 starter (Lance Lynn?)/Ervin Santana
- Adalberto Mejia
- Stephen Gonsalves/Fernando Romero
- Kyle Gibson/Trevor May/Phil Hughes
Bullpen
- Tyler Duffey
- Ryan Pressly
- Nik Turley
- Taylor Rogers
- Mason Melotakis
- John Curtiss/Trevor Hildenberger/Alan Busenitz/Buddy Boshers/Randy Rosario
- Ryan O’Rourke/J.T. Chargois/Trevor May
It might make sense to bring Romero up as a reliever this year and have him bypass Triple-A altogether because he’s apparently on a bit of an innings count — he threw just 90.1 last year — that’ll likely limit him to 115-120 frames this year. He’s already at 71.2, and has been brilliant in June (2.29 ERA, 9.6 K/9 and 1.17 WHIP). They’ll probably have to filter through a few more Busenitz types or give up on Matt Belisle/Craig Breslow first, though.
Gordon probably has the ability to skip levels, and he’s hitting an incredible .315/.376/.504 with 21 doubles this season while playing 48 games at shortstop and 14 at second base. The trouble is, there’s no immediate need for him on the big-league roster. Jorge Polanco has been good defensively and should start hitting again soon, while Ehire Adrianza and Eduardo Escobar probably deserve longer looks if Polanco starts to lose time there.
Gonsalves probably won’t jump to the bigs after missing time to start the season, but a Triple-A jump can’t be too far away. The Rochester rotation isn’t all that sturdy — at last check, it was David Hurlbut, Aaron Slegers, Yohan Pino, Chris Heston and a few others cycling in like Tim Melville and the recently demoted Matt Tracy — and Gonsalves has been brilliant through six starts with the Lookouts: 3.18 ERA, 11.1 K/9 and a WHIP of 0.91. I’d bank on him moving to Rochester sometime in the next few weeks.
I wouldn’t really rush Jorge, whose numbers are fine but not great: 3.35 ERA, 6.2 K/9, 1.28 WHIP. However, after seeing a dip in strikeouts in May, Jorge’s fanning 8.2 batters per nine with a 1.06 WHIP in June. Opposing batters have hit just .230/.274/.390 against him this month. He’ll probably be in Rochester in the next month or so?
As far as Granite is concerned, he’s been really, really hitting well at Rochester — 17-game hitting streak just recently snapped, .341/.397/.470 slash line in 40 games with Red Wings — but he also doesn’t provide the team a lot of what they don’t already have. Sure, he would help the team as a pinch runner and can play all three spots in the outfield, but the current iteration of the outfield is long on talent and short on, well, age. Ideally, Granite would be a fourth outfielder who’ll steal starts from whoever is slumping at the time. Earlier, that was Eddie Rosario, who is now up to a passable .270/.310/.460 line on the season and has already walked as many times this season (12) as last season in nearly 30 fewer games. It’s a hard sell with Robbie Grossman on the roster, and even harder when considering how good he’s been. He’s the next guy they’ll go get when a need arises, though.
Granite will probably walk more and make a bit less contact, but it’s not a bad comparison. I honestly don’t know how bad Granite’s arm is, but I doubt it’s Ben Revere-level bad. Granite should be a useful player, who could maybe work his way into more than a part-time role if things break right for him. The comp I’ve repeatedly heard was Billy Burns, who in 2015 was a really, really nice little player for the A’s but has fallen off the radar since.
Tough to say. I took some heat over the weekend from Twins fans prior to the Indians series when I said that Cleveland was a sleeping giant, but we’ll see if they simply feasted on bad Twins pitching or if they’re getting going with the heating up of Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Ramirez and Bradley Zimmer. If I was a betting man, I’d say the Twins lead the AL Central for fewer than 10 days the rest of the way, though. The Indians are super good, and they’ve done this with virtually no starting pitching.
The Twins don’t have the assets. Even if they could theoretically trade Romero, Gonsalves and Gordon for him — that won’t get it done — they’ve then shortened the back end of their winning window because those players will be needed to replace the likes of Santana and Brian Dozier when they’re traded or move on via free agency. The winning window is barely open on this team; it’s not worth using a crowbar to pry it open too soon and risk being caught with your pants down on the back end.
Jeez, ruff crowd.
Probably five games under. I’m sticking to my prediction of 80 wins from back in January (!). I’m feeling pretty good about being out in front of the crowd on that one.
Listen to Brandon on Midwest Swing
