This is the kind of thing that every team says, but Molitor is a new-ish regime so I'm more inclined to believe it until I've been burned a few times. It's a good idea. I'd mostly conceded that 4/5 spot to Duffey/Milone, which made me happy/meh. Milone is a fine pitcher, but until the Twins are at that point of trying to move the needle from, say, 90 wins to 92 wins, I'm more interested in them trying to find something bigger and sexier than Milone.

Alex Meyer remains the biggest sexy, but after last year's cratering I think that we're best off hoping for bullpen success that leads to soon-enough bullpen dominance. But May is a nice option there as well.

Regrettably, he'll be fighting against the narrative that the move to the bullpen is what allowed him to focus on repeating his delivery and hammering the strikezone without drifting into hittability. While it's true (and intuitive, given the freedom to air out his fastball) that his strikeout rate rose in the relief role, he still struck out 73 guys in 83 innings as a starter last season, against only 18 walks. That's what the rotation needs. The nail in the starting coffin for him was hitters teeing off to a .445 SLG when he was a starter. That's not very good - but it weirdly didn't come that much from the longball. 8 homers in 83 innings is a perfectly acceptable rate for a guy who tries to miss bats by elevating his fastball once and awhile. Sometimes, you lose. As long as the bases aren't constantly occupied due to walks and general hittability, we'll take that.

A more advanced look shows an FIP of more than a run lower than his ERA as a starter, more or less confirming that a lot of his struggles as a starter came from bad luck that reversed itself when he became a reliever. Orrrrrr, possibly a genuine (fixable?) issues working out of the stretch - as the 69% left-on-base rate as a starter was... rough. Orrrrrr, one other possibility - that the team's commitment to running a non-shitty defense out there daily is the reason for the shift.

But for a spot start in August, May was out of the rotation by the beginning of July. After his June stint, Buxton was a regular by early August, Rosario by mid-May. Is it possible that May's luck started to turn around when these two started to see regular outfield time together?

http://www.startribune.com/twins-day-at-camp-trevor-may-sets-lofty-goals/370872701/