Livan
Looks like the Twins picked up livan hernandez. He can earn close to 7 million with incentives. Not sure how I feel about this move. Sure, he can eat innings, and he isn’t that old. However, he has a ton of miles on him so who knows. This could be another Ponson move, but I think everyone can agree the Livan is much better than Ponson or Ortiz, Ramon. Although he has never pitched in the AL, this move is basically like having Silva for less money. He give up more homers than Silva, but he provides some stability to the young rotation.
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I’d been a little afraid of this move, or one like it. I don’t get why we need an “innings eater” when the main thing our young guys need is experience. (On the other hand, we don’t want to destroy them by giving them too many innings while they’re too young. It’s a tradeoff.)
I do think this is better than last season, and consequently it costs a lot more. (Again, I’m glad that WB is willing to pay more to get someone who at least has a chance of competence, rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel to find someone who has no chance.)
Oh, and giving up “more homers than Silva” … in the NL … that is not promising.
We’ll see what happens here, I guess.
If he is even half decent we can dump him at the trade deadline for some carefully scouted, low-level prospects. Contenders always seem to overpay for average pitching at the deadline.
I don’t mind having one veteran starter. It is better than last year when we had Johan and filled up three more spots with Silva, Ortiz and Ponson. That left one spot open for a young pitcher. This year, it seems like Livan and I guess Bonser will be the only veterans (I’m not counting Baker and Slowey as veterans) which shouldn’t be too bad. Plus, I’m hoping that the Twins have learned from last year, and if it is obvious the guy can’t pitch, they will yank him out of the rotation quickly.
Why is Boof more of a veteran than Baker? They have the same number of starts (48), and Baker’s shown more ability during that time.
Trading Livan at the deadline might be a good plan. We spend $3M or so, get half a year of innings, plus a prospect which will probably be better than what we got for ROrtiz. If that’s the plan, I like it.
It has to be one of the endgames WB forsaw when he made this move. Unless he is pitching well and we are in it, obviously.
Does this move mean we are going to let one of Span/Gomez/Pridie win the CF job?
Not necessarily. I think it’s still possible that we sign a CF — Livan won’t make a difference there.
But of those three, I think Pridie is the most likely to get the job.
I’m not sure who is out there I’d be comfortable with. Corey Patterson? strikes out too much for a leadoff hitter. If we are planning on signing Patterson, don’t you think we would just be better of with Gomez. They are very similar players. Maybe if they can get patterson to a minor league deal, which i doubt, and let him compete. I don’t want to have to pay him a bunch of money and have him suck during spring training then sit on the bench. Who else is available to play CF aside from the guys already mentioned?
Twins management is just signing Hernandez to keep twins prospects in the minors so that they can put off arbitration for an extra year. Livan Hernandez isn’t any good, and won’t make the twins a contender. Winning teams don’t need “inning eaters”.
Kenny Lofton is still available. And I like him more than Patterson. And we can trade Lofton at the deadline for a prospect, just like EVERYONE does. (Heh.)
But I think Gomez needs at least half a year at AAA, regardless of who plays CF in the interim. The Mets rushed him, and we need to do what we can to fix that.
Which prospect do you think they’re trying to keep down with Livan? They don’t need to do it to Slowey any more, and Perkins has nothing to prove at AAA, so it’s probably either Blackburn or Duensing. Or to protect us against having to dig deeper into the system to get guys who we don’t think are ready yet once injuries or ineffectiveness set in. (Remember that the average team uses 10 starts over the course of a season. We don’t have 10 guys we want to start using the the majors yet. The smallest number of starters used over the course of the season recently was the Mariners, when they won their 116 games. They only used 7 starters, which is one of the reasons they won so many games. We should expect to need more than the 5-6 guys we’ve got that are ready.)
Hey guys, just catching up, keep up the good work.
I think you’re right and the Hernandez signing is a way to limit Blackburn and Duensing’s major league appearances. What do you think the rotation shakes out as and who is the opening day starter?
My thoughts: Hernandez, Baker, Bonser (Top 3 in no particular order) after that who knows!
Also I am a fan of acquiring Kenny Lofton
I don’t think the opening day starter has been decided yet, but my guess is that it’ll be either Baker or Bonser, depending on which looks better in spring training. (No way they have Livan Hernandez start on opening day. The Twins believe in keeping their own guys happy by not making someone “the ace” without thinking about it. Radke was still opening day starter in 2004, when it was clear that Santana was by far the best pitcher on the team.)
Baker, Boof, Livan, Slowey, Perkins. That’d by my guess. I don’t expect Liriano to be in the rotation until May, at which point he replaces whoever’s having the toughest time out there. (Hopefully it’s not Boof, he’d probably kill himself.)
And thanks for reading, Texas.
No problem. I agree that Liriano will be in the pen until May. Also, I wasn’t implying Hernandez starts OD, only that he is def. Top Three on March 31st. I think Baker has the inside track to be OD starter. What about Humber, or is he projected as a RP?
I don’t think Humber is projected to be on the big league club at the start of the season.
Nick&Nick recently wrote about the possible advantages to moving Humber to the bullpen, possibly the closer’s role, noting the similarities between him and Nathan. But I think that’s all speculation.
Guys, help me out here, I’m dealing with morons on the other “blog” posts…
Everyone is insisting this is signing is great as it keeps our young arms from pitching too many innings this year, or keeps someone in AAA as to avoid MLB service time… Whatever the reason, if it’s only for these things, why pay someone $5M a year to do this? Can’t we find a cheaper veteran or bring Ponson back is all we want is someone to throw the ball 200 innings this year, nevermind that he loses 20 games or gives up 45 HRs in the process, because that’s not the point of the signing!! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills…
MarkW, I think this is better than the Ponson signing. At least Livan has demonstrated himself to be decent and consistent. Service time may have had something to do with it, but I don’t look at that as a “good” reason to sign someone.
As mentioned above, it may also be a forward-looking ploy to buy a prospect off some semi-contender at the trade deadline, much as we did last year with ROrtiz.
And it’s also not that likely that we’d get a similar pitcher for less money. The top two remaining FA starting pitchers were Livan and Lohse. And Lohse is looking for a long term deal at $10M/year. Beyond that, it’s scraps.
They’re probably not planning on Livan losing 20 games. It seems to me that they’re buying veteran consistency, and the flexibility to keep someone in AAA if they’re not 100% ready to go. And that flexibility is pretty important.
I agree. The front office knows more about the players than we do. So maybe perkins isn’t 100% healthy yet, or maybe one of the young guys is mentally fragile and would be devestated if he gets shelled. Having a veteran who can go out, pitch several innings and be able to come back after a shelling will be something that is good for the team.
Also, the possibility of being able to spin him off on a desperate, pitching starved team in july is a bonus. He has the name recognition the people tend to overpay for.
I just dont get the constant 2M, 3M, 4M, 6M, per year signings we do each year and then let Santana walk for $3M more a year for 6 yrs as opposed to 5 yrs… we couldn’t use the $5M and the 3.82M from Monroe to keep Santana around by extending our offer?
It doesn’t seem we ever do anything other than this year after year… $16M on Punto, Monroe, Lamb, Everett, and now Hernandez - isn’t there something else we could have done?
The number of years were more of an issue with Johan than the dollars. And from what I understand he wanted out. Even if we kept him around without adding that extra offense, how would our team be any better than last year? The twins always have, and show no signs of stopping giving out mostly short term deals. Morneau being the exception.
We can afford to make these signings right now because the payroll has plummeted after losing Santana, Hunter, and Silva. So Wild Bill has money to blow on guys like Monroe, Lamb, Everett, and now Hernandez.
So why didn’t we sign our own guys? Because they all were demanding large raises on long term deals, which would carry them well out of their primes. We can’t afford to do that.
And look at it this way: If we’d signed these guys, we wouldn’t have been able to afford the Morneau/Cuddyer contracts, nor would we be able to afford to improve the team. So we pay a premium to keep our (third place) team together, crippling ourselves for the future while we lose in the present.
It just wasn’t a good idea, due to the very real financial restraints the Twins have.