Minnesota Twins 2008: Starting "Five", Part II

Back on November 15th, I wrote about my predictions of the Twins starting rotation. At the time, I said it would be Johan Santana, Boof Bonser/Glen Perkins (one in the bullpen), Scott Baker, Matt Garza, Francisco Liriano. And if Santana was traded, it would be Perkins, Liriano, Baker, Bonser, Garza. Well, Santana and Garza will not be in the Twins rotation, so this needs to be re-worked.

The new names:

Livian Hernandez, 33. In the National League, he’s pitched 200+ innings for the last 300 years or so. Okay, a bit exaggerated, but since 2003, no pitcher has pitched more innings than this guy. On the other hand, his ERA has been approaching 5.00 in the NL, so how this transitions to the American League is suspect. He’ll start the year in the rotation. He’s not brought in as an ace, but rather as a veteran who can eat innings. Call him Carlos Silva Lite, but Heavier. MLB Career ERA: 4.25/1.43 WHIP, 351 games/2.371.0 innings, 350 starts

Philip Humber, 25. Humber is coming off of Tommy John surgery two years ago. His major league ERA of 6.00 sounds frightening until you realize he only has 9.0 innings at the major league level. Someone told me he’s out of options, but as far as I can tell, he still has one left. We’re going to go with that. MLB Career ERA: 6.00/1.33 WHIP, 5 games/9.0 innings, 1 start

I’m going to go on a limb here and say the rotation will include Hernandez, Baker, Bonser, and Slowey will all be in the rotation. The fifth spot, well, we’ll look at that.

The problem we’re dealing with is that there are a lot of innings to pitch. There are 1458 innings, assuming full nine innings in 162 games (last year, the Twins pitchers pitched 1437 innings). Last year the bullpen pitched 469 innings, and the starters pitched 967 innings. Let’s use round numbers, and say that we need the starters to go approximately 1000 innings. If you have five starters, each should pitch 200 innings.

Hernandez’s number of innings has been slowly decreasing the last few years, and he was pitching in the more pitching-friendly NL (not that the NL has weaker players. It’s simply a result of the pitcher coming to the plate). But let’s say he pitches 200 innings.

Now, the educated theory in baseball is that no pitchers innings pitched should be limited, so that every year their innings-pitched should increase no more than 30 innings. That is, if Pitcher A pitched 150 innings last year, he should not pitch more than 180 innings this year. This needs slight adjustment in the case of injury, but workload should not increase dramatically. Because the Twins staff, other than Hernandez, features only one pitcher who spent a full year in the majors (Bonser, 2007), major leagues, minor leagues, and college stats (where applicable) will be included. How many innings can we expect from the staff?

What were their innings like last year?
Baker: 186 innings
Bonser: 173 innings
Blackburn: 160 innings (out for two weeks)
Humber: 146 innings
Perkins: 48 innings (injury)
Liriano: (2006) 121 innings (injury)
Slowey: 200 innings
I rounded numbers. If you really care about the 1/3 or 2/3 of an innings...sorry.

It would not be unreasonable for Baker, Bonser, and Slowey to pitch 200 innings based on previous years. This means that the Twins really don’t need to protect these guys (except for pitch count--not all innings are equal). I don’t believe all three lads will actually reach this goal, but I’ll go on a limb and say that two of them will either reach 200, or come close (around 190). I’ll say the third pitches around 175 innings. So between Hernandez and Baker/Bonser/Slowey, we’ll get about 775 innings. That leaves us with needing around 200 more innings for starting pitching. Liriano’s innings should be limited to 150, so we’re close.

In short, I think that Hernandez, Baker, Bonser, and Slowey will all make the starting rotation, and I’m not sure who will fill in the fifth spot. Baker and Bonser are out of options, and Slowey seemingly has nothing left to prove in the minors (ERA: 1.93, 60 games, 52 starts). Because Perkins and Liriano need their pitching time limited and Humber should be limited, too, it’s likely all three of them will play a role in the starting rotation, although it’s possible for any of them to work out of the bullpen, as well.

Other names to consider for the starting roles include: Nick Blackburn, Kevin Mulvey, Brian Duensing, Zach Day and Randy Keisler. With no analysis, I’d give Blackburn and Mulvey the best shot. Next week, we’ll actually look at those five.

The Timberwolves are back under .200 for their win percentage, at 10-41. However, they’re still ahead of the Miami Heat, who are 9-41! In lacrosse, the Swarm are still undefeated at 6-0; there are two other undefeated teams, the Colorado Mammoth are 5-0 and the Philadelphia Wings are 3-0. In hockey, Wild Center Mikko Koivu still has the best name in the NHL by a 12% margin.