Once again, the Twins seemed more than willing to allow fans to lose interest early and spend time with friends and family on a Sunday afternoon. The Twins had already won the other two games of the series and homestand against a good Rays team, so this again could be considered a case of losing efficiently.
This was the first time in about a month that we didn't see Good Kyle Gibson. However, he only gave up three runs in five innings. It was the middle relievers that got hit hard and turned the game into a blowout. This was not the Bad Kyle Gibson we had seen last year. If this is this year's version of Bad Kyle Gibson, he and the Twins could have a very good season.
One thing I noted recently is that manager Paul Molitor is showing his preference about veterans vs. non in his lineup construction. The five most veteran hitters for the Twins have been occupying the first five spots in the order. This has led to Kurt Suzuki and his career .375 slugging and 88 OPS+ batting fifth regularly and occasionally second and fourth. Suzuki had Sunday off, so at least Molitor dropped light-hitting Chris Herrmann down in the order, unlike previous manager Ron Gardenhire, who often seemed to have lineups with preprinted positions on them and would fill in the names of backups in the same spot in the order.
Molitor chose to bat Eduardo Escobar fifth. He's not exactly a veteran, but he's certainly more established than the four batters that followed in the order.
It's certainly difficult to complain about the moves Molitor has made thus far given the results exceeding expectations, but this is certainly something to keep an eye on.
Then after the game came word that Kennys Vargas had been demoted to AAA Rochester. Vargas' overall numbers aren't very good, especially for the primary DH, but the timing of the demotion is very curious. First of all, Vargas has been much better of late. Vargas had a .466 OPS in April and a .980 OPS in May. His OPS climbed steadily in May and he had three straight multi-hit games before going 1-for-7 with 3 Ks in consecutive games, getting benched for two games and then demoted to AAA. The reports are that he was told to cut down on his strikeouts, however, his K rate is exactly the same as it was last year, which didn't seem to bother the Twins when he made the Opening Day roster and was batting in the middle of the lineup every day to start the season. He's also improved his walk rate, his line-drive rate and his popup rate.
The reason Vargas' rate stats are down from last year is his BABIP has dropped (although not dramatically), his ground-ball rate has increased (possibly because trying too much to "beat the shift") and his HRs per fly ball have dropped.
Vargas is essentially the same promising but flawed slugger he was at the beginning of the season and has been improving over the last several weeks after a poor start and the Twins are playing well and hitting well as a team. This move really makes little sense, at least right now.
The only thing that makes sense is the Twins are heading to Pittsburgh and won't have the use of the DH for two games. But is it really necessary to demote a guy because of two games? The Twins won't play at an NL park for another month.
If this was the real reason, I would have thought the public announcement would be they just want him to get regular playing time while they activate Eduardo Nunez, who is more versatile. But instead, the word is that this is a true demotion with no promise of an imminent return.
I'm guessing there is more behind the scenes stuff going on here, such as an attitude or work ethic issue. There has been mention of him trying too much to put on power displays in batting practice. Maybe he had reverted back to this after he started to heat up at the plate.
Whatever the reason, this turn of events is a little concerning since one of Molitor's primary jobs as Twins manager in the near future is to develop young talent at the major league level. But hey, at least we have Doug Bernier still holding down the bench.
I caught some of TR's weekly interview, and he was discussing minor leaugers and whether they needed seasoning in AAA. He acknowledged that not all of them do, but ended up bringing the discussion sort of obliquely around to Vargas, where he basically said "we brought him up too quick to make our big league club happy last year (boy, we could use a big bat behind some of these guys...) and he could benefit from some of that seasoning." Whether it's true or not, that sounds like the thinking.
According to LEN3, it's not just strikeouts but the fact that he's not hitting for power. Who would have thought a Twins player would be demoted for not hitting home runs?
Socal, this is a well-written recap. None of the reasons you give make sense, but that's not your fault. You're trying to find logical reasons for an illogical decision. I applaud the effort. The "not hitting for power" makes no more sense than the other explanations--he's got a slugging percentage of .575 in May. It also makes nonsense of the earlier statement that he's trying to hard to hit for power in batting practice, which is nonsense to start with. If he's producing in games, who gives a rip what he's doing in batting practice? Again, that's not a criticism of you, that's a criticism of the Twins.
The only thing I can think of that might make a little bit of sense, but which I don't believe, is that Molitor decided he can't afford to have Hunter in the outfield regularly and is clearing the DH spot for him. I don't believe it because a) I don't see Molitor doing that to Hunter b) I don't see Hunter accepting it if he did and c) I don't see an outfielder on the roster who's substantially better. Even if I accepted that Escobar is better, he isn't so much better that it would make this move worth it. An outfield of Rosario, Hicks, and Robinson might be an improvement, but we don't have Robinson right now.
I can't tell you how disappointed I am in this move. I thought things might be different, but now it looks like, despite the better record, nothing about the organization has changed. We're still being hyper-critical of young players and looking for reasons why they'll fail, instead of encouraging them and helping them succeed. It makes me much less excited about players like Buxton and Sano, because I see no reason to think the Twins will develop them properly when they get to the big leagues. I get the impression this organization would've sent Mike Trout back to AAA "for more seasoning" because he struck out too much.
I should note we're also back to scrubini fixation, with three reserve middle infielders and no backup first baseman. People who can find room on the roster for Doug Bernier, who is probably a nice guy but is an absolute zero as a major league ballplayer, but not for a promising young player like Vargas have no business running a major league ballclub.
Maybe Vargas will be back in a couple of weeks, will be bashing the ball all over the place, and the Twins can crow about how his time in Rochester helped him. I hope so. Right now, though, I have zero confidence in the future of this team.
Robinson is back. Schafer was put on the DL.
Vargas' demotion doesn't bother me until I see what the length of the demotion is. Perhaps it's more effective incentive to demote him with no implication of imminent return than it is to tell him, "Hey, it's only for a couple games, so don't sweat it."
More disconcerting to me is the first sentence of the last paragraph. Transitive verbs require objects, as do participles derived therefrom. Concern is transitive. Better would be to use a word like "troublesome" or my example above, "disconcerting", or even "causes me a little concern". This wouldn't bother me so much, but Aaron Gleeman also uses "concerning" this way (back when I read him more regularly) all...the...time, and it finally has been worn thin for me.
That's what we said when Josmil Pinto went down, too. Now we're in the middle of May and he's still in Rochester.
And now we have a legitimate reason to be concerned about it.
True, but two things. 1) A short stay in Rochester (I think it has to be at least ten days, barring injury) still wouldn't make this a good move. It would just make it less bad. 2) I'm done giving these guys the benefit of the doubt. This may not have been the worst decision they've made, but for me it's the straw that broke the camel's back. They're going to have to prove to me they know what they're doing, because I can't see it right now.
I... just can't see the problem here.
The fact as I see them:
Vargas has played 97 games in the minors above A ball.
He was almost 2 years younger than the average AA player when he was there.
His major league numbers are down a fair amount from last year's.
Those things all support the idea that spending some time in AAA might be good for him. It might not be the best thing for this year's ballclub (for example, Vargas > Bernier), but it might easily be the best thing for next year's club. And for Vargas.
That would've been an argument for sending him down at the end of April. Since then his numbers have been on the way up, by a lot. In May he's hit.366/.395/.561. In the last two weeks he's hit .310/.355/.483. How is it good for him to go to AAA now?
If it's the best thing for his development then that's the case regardless of how the last two weeks look.
It also makes some sense from an overall roster construction approach. There's a bit of a crunch, with some players coming off of the DL and such. Now, there are players who they could probably just cut bait on, but that seems to be a bit of a nonstarter. (In the first half of a season they're not planning to compete in, I'm willing to give them a little bit of leeway on some of that... let those players develop, see if you can trade 'em for anything a little later, etc.). So there are limited spots available for younger players. If sending down Vargas for a stint allows them keep Hicks up longer, I'll take that move.
What's the evidence that it's the best thing for his development, beyond the fact that the Twins say so? Nothing you cited is convincing to me. Who cares what his age is or how many games above A ball he's played if he's hitting well? And again, his overall numbers may be down from last year, but they're headed up. And it's not a case of Vargas or Hicks. Doug Bernier contributes absolutely nothing to the team.
I'm not going to assume the Twins must know best any more. I need to see it for myself. And I don't.
The evidence is that his line is significantly off from last year. A two week small sample size of improvement doesn't convince me that he's solved it all and will remain at the top of his game. We don't know that this move will or will not work out for his development. We'll never have a control-Vargas to compare against anyway, so that question isn't really one worth pursuing.
I think what's really sticking out to me is that we've got a fairly typical case: young player promoted quickly to MLB, hits a period of some struggle, and gets sent back down to minors. But despite it being fairly typical, it seems to be drawing a lot more scorn than would be warranted. It isn't just that you're not assuming the Twins know best. It's that you're assuming they don't. Even in fairly typical cases.
If the Twins' organization has broken the Padre, what is left to break?
I know, right? I almost left this whole thing alone and just said "Wow, they broke Jeff A. I don't trust them anymore either." But then I convinced myself...
The month of April convinces you, but the first half of May doesn't? Okay, but I disagree. So I guess we'll have to just leave it at that. But I guess we should send Hunter to AAA. too, because he was really struggling in April, and a two week small sample size of improvement isn't convincing.
Hey, you'll get no argument from me on Hunter.
But it goes to my point of why I'm so upset about this. It carries on the tradition of recent years. The Twins look for ways to criticize young players and hold them down, while looking for ways to make excuses for veteran players and prop them up. I'm tired of it.
I assume Hunter's out of options.
I assume Hunter's out of options.
That doesn't change my opinion that they should send him down....
If no one claims him, he can decline the DFA and will still be paid the rest of his contract. Then he's free to sign elsewhere for extra $$.
(Or maybe my memory of the rules is bad.)
To my knowledge, this is correct for anyone with more than 5 years of major league service time.
I remember it happening to Lohse late with the Twins. He must have been right under the threshold then.
Blackburn, too?
I think vargas went down because they have off days and a few road interleague game these next few weeks and they just wanted to get him some consistent at bats and have more flexibility during this stretch.
I'll get more concerned if he stays down there longer than three weeks.
One thing that appears to be going away in the AL is teams employing someone whose only job is to DH. David Ortiz is still around, but most teams seem to use the slot as a way to shift around their outfielders and first basemen, or in the Twins case, shift around their middle infielders.
I don't think the Twins have been comfortable having a roster spot dedicated to a non-fielder since...Paul Molitor?
Delmon Young 🙂
Thome, of course.
*forehead smack*
Matt LeCroy before him.
he would catch on occasion
I took Elder Daughter to this game, got a great deal on Home Plate Box seats. Gibson looked pretty good the first couple of innings, pounding the strike zone with a lot of fastballs. He seemed to lose command of the fastball as he started mixing in his secondary pitches more. Still, he managed to work around his control issues for the most part, but made a couple of bad pitches to DeJesus and Longoria that hurt him.