re: Next years starting pitching?

Yeah he’s at Air Force right now. Pitches and plays other positions IIRC

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No it's not. It's about thinking you know more than you do. You've seen Floyd fail. Little has worse K/9, BB/9, and HR/9 over the same amount of time in college and with a similar number of innings pitched. But since you didn't personally see it, it didn't happen.

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Sheeeesh.

Mic Drop.

Just coming to say Hurd and Taylor are my likely weekend starters and the other spot is up for grabs. Just my opinion. I really hope we get Skenes.

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Who on the roster?

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Floyd and Taylor. Little is just too inconsistent to be penciled in as a starter right now. He has shown that at Vandy for 2 years and he is doing the same in the Cape. The potential is through the roof though so I think working with Wes may do wonders for him and he can be a weekend starter for sure. I just have my doubts as of now. Hope he proves me wrong.

To start, Grant Taylor and Floyd for sure. The third weekend spot is going to have one hell of a competition.

I'm with Lester on this. Last year Jay Johnson mentioned Taylor and G Fontenot as future closers.

Hurd is the top option, if they think he can go 6 innings.

I think it is time for Floyd to shine.

Sunday is way up in the air. You could add Moffet, Akenhausen, Lansville, Money, Dutton, Noot and Bucknam to the conversation.

I don't think Taylor would be starting in the cape and going 5-6 innings if being a closer will be the future plan. He may end up being the closer, but it will probably be because of other guys stepping up in the starting roles. Like I said also, we will have to see Wes philosophy on how he likes to use certain guys and the roles he sees them in also.

Hurd is still a toss up also with the injury. It is freak injury to the core which is all pitching related. Healthy he is the Friday guy but I am still worried about health.

People assume Little will automatically start because he’s a transfer. Don’t you know all transfers are all Americans. Little’s fastball plays slower than it is. And to answer one of your questions, I’m told that JJ had his hands all over the pitching decisions

I’ve seen a few people mention Wes in this thread, and I think most people—me included—had maybe heard his name before the hire, but only really knew he was considered a well respected pitching coach nationally. Since he was a MLB pitching coach made us think he must have been a great college one, and the fact that he left the 1st place Twins mid-season to take a college job, just felt like a huge coup for LSU. And even though Kelly got a P5 HC job after just 1 year as LSU’s pitching coach, it felt like Wes was/is going to be a huge upgrade. (And he will).

But most of us, besides probably Project and a few others, didn’t really know why, what specifically makes him so good. After a few days of hype, we had turned him into a savior, a rock-star of a pitching coach that we convinced ourselves was going to add 2-3 mphs to all our guys’ fastballs, help them develop their 2nd and 3rd (maybe even 4th)pitches, and becomes masters of their command. But how?

Obviously I’m being a bit hyperbolic, but I don’t remember this much excitement over a baseball assistant hire, probably ever. Again, I knew his name and that he was very well thought of somehow by osmosis, but didn’t know anything specific about him. Until I heard the interview of the Twins’ beat writer or radio or tv guy—someone who is with the team every day—on Moscona’s show. He said that Wes is HUGE into data, has the brain to process all of it, but a unique ability to weed out what’s irrelevant for each pitcher, spot what is, tailor a specific plan to them, and communicate that plan, explaining why it will work, and have them totally buy in. Not that he neglected their weaknesses, but maybe focused more on their strengths and how they could make them better, and also was able to interpret the data and see potential strengths that may have been weaknesses or not part of their games at all, and turning them into strengths.

The interview was really interesting and made Wes seem super impressive. The guy said being a small market team, the Twins were really embracing the use of data in a different way—Moneyball is 20 years old, every team is hip to those analytics—to take guys who had tools (he specifically mentioned Chris Archer) whose careers had maybe fallen off a bit, get them for cheap, and have a guy who could hopefully help resurrect them. Apparently Wes was perfect for that. But he’s not just an impersonal data nerd, he’s also a great communicator and teacher, and everybody loves him. Even position players were upset when they found out he was leaving.

Anyway, I know this was probably tl;dr, but I’d been wanting to post about that interview for a while now because it kind of blew me away the way that guy talked about him. Obviously he won’t have access to the same data and film on our guys as he did veteran big leaguers, nor the time to work with each ones individually. But I don’t think it’s a stretch to think we could have a handful of guys REALLY make big jumps next year. Only thing is this guy thinks he wants to be a college HC soon, so he could be another 1 and done-r. Which could be looked at optimistically, because even though we know Jay’s trying to build a 10-15 year monster, it appears he’s pushing all his chips in to not just get to Omaha next year, but come home with the trophy. Not that he won’t every year, but I think he really doesn’t want to waste Dylan Crews.

We are a championship team with Skenes. How do I donate?