The Liriano Conundrum

The "Ron Gardenhire couldn't outscore Vince Young on a Wonderlick" crowd is starting to get some more ammunition.

Quoth the Gardenhire:

"If that looks like our best choice to get people out from the left side," Gardenhire said, "and it looks like we'll be able to use [Liriano] quite a bit, then I wouldn't be afraid to do it."

The comment was preceeded by this little nugget, that's a little more scary.

Before the game, Gardenhire gave his strongest endorsement yet for keeping Liriano on the team, even if it means using him in relief the way the Twins did with Johan Santana early in his career.

Out of all the things I could say about this article, somehow this sums it up best.

Shall we discuss why?

First off, comparing using Liriano in what amounts to a LOOGY role to the way Johan Santana started is flawed. Santana was never used "to get people out from the left side" as Gardenhire put it. In 2001 and 2002, the Twins had Eddie Guardado and/or Travis Miller to handle that role. In 2002 and 2003, J.C. Romero got the lefties out. Santana in the bullpen was a long man, and when he worked he usually worked two or three innings. And there's a big problem when it comes to having Liriano inhabit that role in 2006.

The Twins already have a principle long man in Matt Guerrier, so it's not like Liriano would be inhabiting that role. More likely, what the Twins would be asking Liriano to do would be to pitch an inning, sometimes two. Kind of like the Twins did with "long-man" Terry Mulholland last year once Guerrier established himself. And you don't want to do that with one of the most promising arms to come through the systems in recent years. Because it's the surest way to ruin it.

Young pitchers are more injury prone than older ones for a simple reason. Their arms aren't used to throwing the 200+ innings that's asked of a good major league starter. Santana did his time in the pen, sure, but he also worked 150+ innings in both 2002 and 2003. When you ask someone to jump from 60 innings to 200-- like the Twins asked Rick Aguilera to do in 1997, for example-- the odds of a pitcher breaking down go through the roof.

There shouldn't be any doubt that Liriano is a better pitcher than Darrell May or Dennys Reyes. And there shouldn't be any doubt that Liriano can do a better job getting lefties out of the pen and help the Twins win in 2006 better than either of those two. Problematically, getting Liriano 160 innings at Rochester if he doesn't win the 5th starter spot is going to help the 2007-2015 Twins win more.

If Gardenhire gets his way and gets option one, it's might be a good idea to look into the requirements of being a Brewers fan.