Thursday, September 28, 2006

Playoff Roster Possibilities


We'll find out tonight if Brad Radke has any chance to contribute to the Twins in the post-season.
The Twins are saying that if all goes well, he's in the post-season rotation, but my guess is that things don't even have to go 'well'.
I'm guessing that as long as his arm doesn't fall off he'll be pitching against the Yankees (I say Yankees because the Tigers all but clinched the Central with the Twins loss to KC last night).
Carlos Silva was in a nice little groove, but got roughed up in his last two starts. Last night KC was hitting him very hard. I don't know if Silva will even be on the playoff roster, let alone in the rotation.
To Silva's credit, he admitted after the game that he doesn't deserve a post-season start, saying he's let the team down all year.
If Radke pitches great tonight, my guess is that the post-season rotation will be Santana, Boof and Radke.
If Radke pitches decent, it'll probably be Santana, Boof, Garza and then maybe Radke.
As for the rest of the roster, there are some questions.
How many pitchers to bring? Typically 10 is the max for playoffs, but with the Twins lack of depth and experience in the rotation, they could bring as many as 11.
Santana, Boof, Garza, Nathan, Rincon, Reyes, Neshek and Crain are all locks.
After that you've got Guerrier, Eyre, Glen Perkins, Silva, Scott Baker and Radke. They might want to bring Perkins to give them an extra lefty. So a lot is still up in the air.
Assuming they take 11 pitchers, that leaves 14 position players.
Mauer, Redmond, Morneau, Castillo, Bartlett, Punto, Hunter, Cuddyer, White, Tyner and Nevin are locks.
That would leave three spots, with Kubel, Ford, Luis Rodriguez, Alexi Casilla, Josh Rabe, Terry Tiffee and Chris Heintz the candidates. Kubel has hardly played in the last month, as he's clearly not healthy. Tiffee is a switch hitter, which makes him a possibility, but my guess is they go with Rodriguez, Ford and Casilla. Casilla would fill a speed/pinch runner role much like Jarvis Brown did in the 1991 series. That was a significant move back then, as the Twins chose Brown, a useless hitter, over Pedro Munoz, a RH bat who killed lefties.
*As I said before, the Twins probably won't catch Detroit. They finish with three games against KC, and since they own the tiebreaker, the Twins have to finish ahead of them, meaning they're essentially two back with four to play.
So knowing they're likely to face the Yankees, consider this: Mark Redman has made two starts against the Twins in the last month. In those two starts he allowed two earned runs in 17 innings. In a start against the Yankees last week he allowed 9 runs in 2/3 of an inning.
As improved as the Twins offense is this year, they still have a scary and annoying tendency to randomly make journeyman look like Cy Young. The Yankees on the other hand, tend to expose such pitchers. The Twins will need Johan Santana and the bullpen to be at their absolute best if they are going to win that series.

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