Thread: Article: Terry Ryan: Twins Will Chase "Pretty Darn Good" Pitcher

I think that it is thin in quality not quantity. And the Twins in order to be competitive need at least 3 pitchers better than Diamond. How many of them are available as Free Agents. Heck, how many of the free agents available are better than a fixed Baker? So, yeah... pretty thin in quality. The trade marker on the other hand is a different story.

Originally Posted by bobonewsome

Sorry John, but when it comes down to who are you going to believe, I'll take Ryan.

Ryan has been caught in a straight up lie more than once...

Originally Posted by Shane Wahl

For people who doubt based on Josh Willingham's contract blah, blah, blah . . . the Twins have money to spend and need to spend it, especially, for the millionth time, that after 2013, the payroll REALLY drops significantly and hopefully in 2014, 2015, and 2016, the vast majority of the non-Mauer roster is composed on sub $1 million players like Sano, Rosario, Arcia, Hicks, Benson, Gibson, Hendriks, Salcedo, Berrios, Harrison, Boyd, etc.

Didn't the Twins have money to spend on pitching this offseason? They dropped payroll by 18M...

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by bobonewsome

Sorry John, but when it comes down to who are you going to believe, I'll take Ryan.

Ryan has been caught in a straight up lie more than once...

I'd like to see evidence of this. I'm sure he's guilty of misrepresentations, half-truths, distortions, but "straight up" lies?

Give me a Brandon McCarthy, not a sexy signing by any means but I think A.) He'll come cheap due to injury and playing in Oakland and B.) He seems like a Twins type pitcher.

If the Twins had the money to swing it Haren's pretty attractive as well. Pretty close to ace quality typically. If they want to go complete bargain bin give me Bedard.

Originally Posted by iastfan112

Give me a Brandon McCarthy, not a sexy signing by any means but I think A.) He'll come cheap due to injury and playing in Oakland and B.) He seems like a Twins type pitcher.

If the Twins had the money to swing it Haren's pretty attractive as well. Pretty close to ace quality typically. If they want to go complete bargain bin give me Bedard.

I agree with all of these things. If this is the direction they ended up going, I would be content.

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by bobonewsome

Sorry John, but when it comes down to who are you going to believe, I'll take Ryan.

Ryan has been caught in a straight up lie more than once...

I'd like to see evidence of this. I'm sure he's guilty of misrepresentations, half-truths, distortions, but "straight up" lies?

When he trade Castillo, he said he only traded him cause "I didn't anticipate re-signing him at the end [of the season], so we ended up getting a couple players in return before October,". Then a day or two later he said he would have traded him even if he wasn't a pending free agent.

So one of those statements is a lie.

'Give me a Brandon McCarthy, not a sexy signing by any means but I think A.) He'll come cheap due to injury and playing in Oakland and B.) He seems like a Twins type pitcher.'


Yes, he is a pitch to contact, low strike out pitcher

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by bobonewsome

Sorry John, but when it comes down to who are you going to believe, I'll take Ryan.

Ryan has been caught in a straight up lie more than once...

I'd like to see evidence of this. I'm sure he's guilty of misrepresentations, half-truths, distortions, but "straight up" lies?

When he trade Castillo, he said he only traded him cause "I didn't anticipate re-signing him at the end [of the season], so we ended up getting a couple players in return before October,". Then a day or two later he said he would have traded him even if he wasn't a pending free agent.

So one of those statements is a lie.

That's pretty thin, especially without a quote to support the second assertion. Even if he made the two assertions, I'm not sure it makes TR a straight up liar. The first quote can be found here for those curious.

A risk of a long contract (4+ years) on a pitcher makes sense. The Twins will need someone to serve as an anchor in the rotation to demonstrate that there is stability and that the team is actually rebuilding as opposed to just "plugging holes". Consider what DET did after their debacle of a 43 win season. They way overpaid for Ordonez, but that showed that management was building a foundation to win consistently. True, they did get extremely lucky to land Verlander, but many teams have made a great leap forward by adding one player--maybe the Twins will (someday)? But, they need to start building a foundation for the rotation--Now!

Great, Joe Saunders or Jeremy Guthrie it is. Color me unimpressed.

Mark Buerhle has three expensive years left, but if the Fish were offered real players or prospects he might come with a scholarship. I'd make that call to find out

Guthrie is a definite upgrade. Pitched well when he got out of Coors. Pitched solid in AL East which is more than any of our pitchers could do. No ace but we aren't getting three aces.

I don't understand any desire to have McCarthy. Another guy who doesn't strike anybody out. The Twins should honestly restrict their search to pitchers with 7+ k/9. I will leave it to someone else to narrow that list down . . .

But it is CLEAR to me that these 5 or 6 k/9 pitchers should not be ADDED to the rotation. Doesn't anyone remember Santana and Liriano? Even Boof!? To rely on the Diamonds and Radkes is not going to be good. Those are guys who serve well as the 3rd pitcher. Jackson at 3/33 and Marcum at 2/16 could get the job done. Just saying.

Jeremy Guthrie is not very good. FYI. Same with Saunders. Seriously, there is NO point signing these guys as opposed to turning to Deduno, DeVries, Walters, Hendriks, or even Bromberg (who *should* be considered, given that he was actually quite good through 2010). The result is going to be about the EXACT same for millions less if they go in-house. The Twins should stick to second-tier pitchers, not third or fourth tier. They have plenty of third and fourth-tier pitchers right now.

The market has been weird. Consider the difference last offseason between the Mark Buerhle signing and the Edwin Jackson signing. To me a comparable situation might occur this year with Dan Haren and Shaun Marcum. And the difference in performance between those two groups of pitchers is NOT $30-40 million over 3-4 years.

Doesn't it seem like there is the following:

Tier One:
Grienke
A. Sanchez
Dempster
Haren
Peavy (I guess)

Tier two:
Jackson
Kuroda
Lohse
Marcum

Tier three:
Blanton
Saunders
McCarthy
Bedard
Maholm
Millwood
Santana
Correia

I submit that Santana might be worth giving a shot out of tier three, but I just don't like bothering with any of those other guys when millions of dollars would be wasted for replacement level pitching.

Originally Posted by thrylos98

I think that it is thin in quality not quantity. And the Twins in order to be competitive need at least 3 pitchers better than Diamond. How many of them are available as Free Agents. Heck, how many of the free agents available are better than a fixed Baker? So, yeah... pretty thin in quality. The trade marker on the other hand is a different story.

WAR seems to be a big deal on this thread. By Fangraphs WAR, the Twins would have a difficult time signing three pitchers better than Diamond

Originally Posted by old nurse

Originally Posted by thrylos98

I think that it is thin in quality not quantity. And the Twins in order to be competitive need at least 3 pitchers better than Diamond. How many of them are available as Free Agents. Heck, how many of the free agents available are better than a fixed Baker? So, yeah... pretty thin in quality. The trade marker on the other hand is a different story.

WAR seems to be a big deal on this thread. By Fangraphs WAR, the Twins would have a difficult time signing three pitchers better than Diamond

Yeah. First, the available pitchers above Diamond are: Greinke, Peavy, Kuroda, Sanchez, Lohse, Dempster, and Jackson. Second, no more than one of those pitchers are even possibly coming to the Twins. Dumping Gardy and Andy to get Lohse might have been worth it. Jackson would be. But alas.

I don't expect Diamond to repeat, but I also don't think his performance is going to fall very much.

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by PseudoSABR

Originally Posted by ThePuck

Originally Posted by bobonewsome

Sorry John, but when it comes down to who are you going to believe, I'll take Ryan.

Ryan has been caught in a straight up lie more than once...

I'd like to see evidence of this. I'm sure he's guilty of misrepresentations, half-truths, distortions, but "straight up" lies?

When he trade Castillo, he said he only traded him cause "I didn't anticipate re-signing him at the end [of the season], so we ended up getting a couple players in return before October,". Then a day or two later he said he would have traded him even if he wasn't a pending free agent.

So one of those statements is a lie.

That's pretty thin, especially without a quote to support the second assertion. Even if he made the two assertions, I'm not sure it makes TR a straight up liar. The first quote can be found here for those curious.

It happen how long ago, now? Took me forever to find the first quote...but this isn't the first time this has come up in conversations about him so it wasn't hard to remember. I remember him saying it live and reading it afterwards and saying, um, wait a minute. Just a couple days ago he said the reason he traded him was cause he didn't envision him re-signing him and now he says THIS?

But it really doesn't matter, believe it, don't believe it, that's on you. I know what he said and didn't....and I don't trust him at all

Originally Posted by ThePuck

But it really doesn't matter, believe it, don't believe it, that's on you. I know what he said and didn't....and I don't trust him at all

Fair enough. I just tend to give people a bit of slack when they are also playing the PR game after a publicly denounced transaction. I just don't think there's really any reason to mistrust TR more than any other GM or Manager; I think some of the job involves PR-speak; in fact, TR has struck me as one of the more straight forward guys in the industry.