Article: Correia Signing is a Sad Thing

Signing correira isn't the end of the world for the twins, at 5 million a year isn't going to make or break anything, reality is we need to get a rotation in place, I m going to b the only person who doesn't mind this pick up. My guess is the hope he pitches well enough to make another trade for another prospect anyway. If u look at our rotation we now are 3/5 of the way there, and we can still have competition for the blackies, dedunos, devries, and hendriks guys. I have no issues with this move!! There is still time to get Villanueva, Marcum, if we don't move on them, it will really b a long year

"They'd have been better off adding that $10 million on top of an offer to a pitcher who could actually make a difference."

Or banking it until a better pitcher came along either next year during the trade deadline or in free agency. Tying up this money impairs flexibility needed at a later date. What if for some reason a couple of young Twins blossom and the team is in contention next year except you need to add another starter because Correia and Worley can't cut it. I can hear Ryan now: "We do not have the payroll flexibility to add a premier starting pitcher."

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Originally Posted by Big City

I'm not going to totally rip this deal because in my estimation the Twins needed 1 back of the rotation SP to fill the gap until Gibson was ready. I may have preferred Brett Myers because we could have moved him back to the bullpen but then we'd be paying a reliever around $7mil/year for 2-3 years. If you look at the short-term, low money SP options you have names like Liriano, Jurrjens, Bedard, Braden, Garcia, Harden, Pavano, Pinero, etc. The other option would have been just using Deduno or DeVries as the #5. So, considering those options I'd actally trust in TR's scouting in finding the best of available option which in this case is Correia.

Now, let's see where we go from here, we still need a top (near top) of the rotation SP and a middle infielder and the two I'd prefer are Marcum and Drew. If TR can't lure in any of these caliber players then we may as well trade Willingham and Morneau. I'm interested to see what happens with Seattle. They've been attached to every free agent hitter but so far have struck out. If Seattle misses out on Hamilton and Swisher how much do you think they'd offer for Willingham, Carroll, and Morneau?

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Exactly! Several teams will have pencilled-in the same top FA in their line-up--all but one of them will go into scramble mode to get the "best Plan B". In another forum it was posted the Twins aren't planning to trade Morneau until July. Baloney! If they are talking about trading him in July, they are thinking seriously about trading him now. The Twins are just waiting for the shoe(s) to drop and then wait for the phone to ring concerning Morneau. I do think he will get traded before the season starts, maybe as late as March, but nonetheless traded. The earlier the better return. A solid middle-of-the-rotation guy in MLB is a #1 here--and there will be more than just one guy coming!

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Originally Posted by ThePuck

In Terry we trust?

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Corriea was probably like you do know im a crappy pitcher right Terry, so lets go 1 year 3 million, and Terry goes hey i have an even better idea....2 years 10 million! Im Terry Ryan?

Maybe this is a trade deadline signing? Correia has an okay year, the Twins are out of contention by the end of April, I mean, June, another team in contention needs someone to fill a hole in the rotation and the Twins move Correia. (Yeah, I know, I'm reaching)

On another note, if you're a decent pitcher, would you really want to pitch for a team with a suspect defense? As of right now, the infield defense is marginal and the only known quantity in the outfield is Willingham and Willingham is not exactly web gem material.

A quick review of his career stats have me convinced not to offer him $10 million of my dollars.
Yeah, this one is disappointing.

''We want the kind of pitchers we haven't had enough of," Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony said. "Pitchers who can miss bats."

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Originally Posted by Big City

I'm not going to totally rip this deal because in my estimation the Twins needed 1 back of the rotation SP to fill the gap until Gibson was ready. I may have preferred Brett Myers because we could have moved him back to the bullpen but then we'd be paying a reliever around $7mil/year for 2-3 years. If you look at the short-term, low money SP options you have names like Liriano, Jurrjens, Bedard, Braden, Garcia, Harden, Pavano, Pinero, etc. The other option would have been just using Deduno or DeVries as the #5. So, considering those options I'd actally trust in TR's scouting in finding the best of available option which in this case is Correia.

Now, let's see where we go from here, we still need a top (near top) of the rotation SP and a middle infielder and the two I'd prefer are Marcum and Drew. If TR can't lure in any of these caliber players then we may as well trade Willingham and Morneau. I'm interested to see what happens with Seattle. They've been attached to every free agent hitter but so far have struck out. If Seattle misses out on Hamilton and Swisher how much do you think they'd offer for Willingham, Carroll, and Morneau?

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Your argument doesn't fly.

First you should sign from the top down. Get the best pitcher you can first and then use what money you have left for the back end of the rotation.

Next Players like Correia could be signed in late January or February, there is no rush to sign him.

3rd, he is not significantly better than the likes of Deduno, DeVries and Walter who we already have for 1/10 of the price.

Before this signing we had 2 #3's penciled into the rotation with Worley and Diamond.

Gibson is a potential #2 but he is a rookie, returning from TJ surgery and will be on a innings limit in 2013.

We have a plethora of back end arms with Deduno, DeVries, Walters, Hendricks and Blackurn.

What we need is a veteran top of the rotation guy. While I wouldn't sign a pitcher to more than 4 years, there are several pitchers that are could be had for 3 or 4 years that fit our needs.

Turns out it's a pretty good year to only be "sorta bad" at playing baseball.

Really good writeup and I agree on virtually every assessment of Correia's pedestrian numbers and back-of-the-rotation stuff. But I just can't go all the way towards saying this is an "outrageous" contract. It isn't. For anyone to say that they're surprised the Twins would overpay for decidedly mediocre pitchers given what happened in 2012 is like missing the forest because of all the trees in the way. The Twins would have KILLED for a proven 4th or 5th starter midway through last season. Heck, that's exactly what Scott Diamond is, but fans here are so beaten down that they think he can be a legitimate "ace".

Just because we had more money than we though did not suddenly mean TR was going to completely reverse the same philosophy he's had and been up-front about for over a decade - this team will NOT pay money for free agent pitching. Not even "Josh Willingham" money. And frankly, unless it's an opportunity to lock up a top starter, I'm not sure I blame them on this one. If Guthrie is a $25 million pitcher, Shaun Marcum is looking at closer to Anibal Sanchez money.

Also, the argument that the Twins have "reverted" back to pitch-to-contact because they sign one filler SP is wrong. Just because you want power arms doesn't mean you go out and "buy high" on established ones in an open market. The fact that the Twins would even acquire guys like Meyer and May (with their potential control problems) to me signals a sea change by this organization. This is a two-year deal for really not all that much money. Yes, I'm having nightmares about fly balls dropping all over our terrible defensive outfield, but I wasn't under the illusion the Twins were in a position to be major players in the FA starting pitching market.

I cannot think of a high profile free agent pitcher that has ever signed with a team that has lost as much as the Twins have the last few years. Ryan signed a warm body more than likely because he had few options. It is not like Ryan can sell someone that the Twin's offense is great. Their best chance would be overspending on someone's last contract. That leaves Dempster.

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

Funny to hear the tune change here. Pretty much everything I said in the wake of the Baker deal has proven to be spot on. This article should taste like an awful lot of crow for many around here. The myths of this offseason turning this team into a contender are coming to fruition in exactly the wayreasonable minds would expect. Good trades though - that's our JR!

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I think most of us were hoping for – rather than expecting – good moves to be made that would set this club on the right course short-term. Is that so unreasonable? Ryan's made some good trades and made some good FA signings last year, but for whatever reason he simply cannot make it happen with decent free agent pitchers. Even with money to burn.

But yes, your pessimistic outlook has proven fitting at this point. Looks like they'll be pretty bad next year. You must be very happy.

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Originally Posted by SpiritofVodkaDave

I'm not going to get to worked up about it. 5 million dollars a year is something you can swallow even if he does suck. I'd much rather see them do this then overpay out the ass for Ryan Dumpster.

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Why? If you're going to sign a free agent, why not make it count? Dempster probably won't be a great value over the life of the contract but at least he is good. The Twins can afford to sign someone like that. And of course, there were plenty of guys out there other than Dempster. Maybe there are more moves left to come but that still wouldn't excuse this one.

Oh its a bad signing, but it's not anything they can't overcome. 2/10 is a pretty harmless contract at the end of the day, Ryan certainly needs to make some "better" signings though before the season.

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Originally Posted by ThePuck

''We want the kind of pitchers we haven't had enough of," Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony said. "Pitchers who can miss bats."

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What this whole reminds me of is the mid-2000's when everyone was getting fed up with "piranha" baseball, and would just automatically rip every guy we were interested in that didn't have 30 HR power. Just because you have a general organizational problem (lack of power hitters, no power arms, etc.) doesn't mean that EVERY move you make needs to directly address that issue.

What we found out last year was that in addition to not having elite #1 or #2 starting pitchers, we also had an alarming lack of even those guys that could fill out a rotation without getting absolutely slaughtered. There's this idea floating out there that the Twins just spent all their "Shaun Marcum money" on another scrub pitcher. That's absurd. We spent a modest amount of money on a guy who isn't all that good, but frankly, could have been a #2 starter on this team last year. Given the alternative between sitting on an extra $5 million next year, or adding "another guy" to take the place of DeVries, Walters, Blackburn, or Deduno...it's a net positive for me as a fan to add Correia. Just not much of a positive.

As if having Correia on your team isn't bad enough, we had to give the guy a 2 year deal? For $10M? When we already have a handful of league minimum guys who can put up the same type of numbers? Christ. Someone punch me in the face, because that sounds like a lot more fun than watching Correia get starts for 2 years. And just think, if Blackburn puts up some almost, not quite, halfway terrible numbers in AAA, we just might get the pleasure of seeing Correia and Blackburn together in our rotation in 2013! While it may not strike fear into opponents, it certainly will generate plenty of terror for the fans.

This is what I didn't want them to do. If they weren't going to get one of the top few guys, which was obvious that wouldn't happen, then just do nothing and let our own junk in our system fill in the extra spots.

2013 means nothing. Unless we are actually getting something of value I want to keep as much money possible off the books (i.e. this 5 mil.) for next off season when hopefully the FA pool isn't so weak. Even getting something like a Marcum at this years inflated rates isn't all that enticing to me.

As Nick pointed out, hopefully this isn't a case of mgmt. thinking they got something of value. I don't think that's really the case, but I'm at a bit of a loss at the reasoning behind this one. Might just be a move to show the fan base that they did "something" other than bring back the leagues worst rotation for another run.

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Originally Posted by Blake

Maybe this is a trade deadline signing? Correia has an okay year, the Twins are out of contention by the end of April, I mean, June, another team in contention needs someone to fill a hole in the rotation and the Twins move Correia. (Yeah, I know, I'm reaching)

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Who the hell would trade for Correia? JR can't trade to himself.

agreed, does terry ryan not know the difference between an asset and a retread?
with lim ited funds he just threw away 20-25% of our resourceson nothing,last month i said i believed once terry was done signing pitchers we would wish jason marquis was back with us...prove me wrong terry please prove me wrong

Money simply isn't enough to lure prime talent to a team that's lost 95+. Personally, I'm not that bent outta shape about it. In this new drug free era of baseball, you cant invest big money in 30 something starters and expect an even modest return. You have to get young pitching, harness it while their healthy, and let someone else make the mistake of overpaying for past accomplishments. How much of Greinke's contract, will he actually earn? What did we really lose when we traded Johan Santana? About 1 and a half seasons of decent, not elite pitching, which the Mets are still paying for. In the mean while, we need somebody, anybody, to at least hold down a spot, until the prospects are ready.