Mr. Ed
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Taylor Rogers just laughed when asked if he thought Tyler Duffey was aware of his mounting innings total, which reached 195 on Monday with a four-inning start in the Arizona Fall League.
“Oh, he’s aware, yeah,” said Rogers, a left-handed pitching prospect for the Twins. “That will be fun, to mess with him.”
You’ll recall that Duffey, Rogers and another Rochester lefty, Pat Dean, made a three-way wager back around midseason. It was winner-take-all, with top prize going to the pitcher who logged the most innings on the year.
Dean finished his Triple-A season with 179 innings, most in the minors. Rogers finished the regular season with 174, second only to Dean in the minors.
Duffey, meanwhile, tacked another 58 big-league innings onto a workload that started at Double-A Chattanooga this year. He finished his year with 196 innings and no doubt figured he was safely the winner of this good-natured bet.
Not so fast, Rogers said.
“When we made the bet, there were no asterisks,” Rogers said. “That was part of it. Pat Dean had a start where he got rained out in the second inning, so he was kind of behind, but we all agreed there were no asterisks.”
Rogers, who has a 2.57 earned run average in five starts with the Scottsdale Scorpions, should get at least one more start here in the desert and maybe two. He is lined up to start in the AFL championship game after working in relief last year as his Salt River club took the crown.
How does Rogers, who turns 25 in December, feel after increasing his innings by 29 percent over the career-high 150 2/3 he threw in 2014, including an injury-marred stint in Arizona?
“Not too bad, actually,” Rogers said. “A lot better than I thought. It is kind of nice to get up in this territory and learn what it’s like and learn more stuff about yourself. Hopefully I can do this every year.”
Rogers took a liner off the wrist from Addison Russell in his first AFL outing last fall but has avoided freak setbacks this time around. He was admittedly surprised the Twins sent him west after such a hearty innings total this year, but he was pleased to get a second chance to face many of the game’s top prospects.
He struggled with fastball command on Monday, throwing 30 balls among his first 57 pitches over the first three innings. He did get six swing-and-miss strikes in that span even while running up six three-ball counts (including three walks).
Rogers, who finished up with a solid fourth, has made a concerted effort to throw more changeups out here.
“I’ve been throwing that a lot more here, even when it doesn’t make sense,” Rogers said. “That’s what this place is for. Hopefully it’s better in spring training.”
Throwing as many as 15 changeups in an outing at the fall league, Rogers said he has even tried “tripling up with them and seeing what happens.” He doesn’t need the change against lefties, who had a .212 on-base percentage (.411 OPS) in 190 trips against him this year, but he could use another weapon against righties after they hit .330 with an .843 OPS that included 41 extra-base hits.
He has tried experimenting with his changeup grip, but there has been no magical click to this point.
“It’s not like you can go buy a changeup at the store,” he said. “It takes time. It’s frustrating at times but I just have to keep working at it. I’m just seeing what works and trying to find something that’s repeatable.”
His changeup produced a couple of swing-and-miss strikes on Monday. If he can hone that pitch, to go along with a fastball that was 88-90 mph on Monday and a mid-70s curveball, he should push for a big-league spot sometime during the first half of 2016.
Whether that’s at the back of the Twins rotation or in their bullpen remains to be seen. His career mastery of lefties, who managed just four walks against 54 strikeouts against him during the regular season, could make his path quicker as a situational reliever.
In the meantime, Rogers has a bet to win. What exactly is on the line, anyway?
“Just straight bragging rights,” he said. “That’s plenty.”
For good measure, there’s a “metaphorical title belt,” Rogers said, one that he believes is currently in Dean’s possession. If the no-asterisk policy is heeded, Rogers should receive his title belt in an official ceremony down in Fort Myers next February.
“We’ll do something, I’m sure,” he said. “It was fun. Good competition makes everybody else better. That was the best part: We were all pulling for each other.”
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