Is 2 for 4 a bad thing?

Scott Boras in the past has suggested to other teams that losing would improve there teams in the long run.
I still like the idea of signing quality players and using them to build a sucsesful minor leaque system and mlb team.
Free agency is not the only way to do this , but is 1 of 4 ways to accomplish it
There are F.A. , draftspicks, DFAs, and rule 5s,but if you ignore 2 of these avenues you are missing out on many oppertunitys

If you look back at last years draft(which many claim was a total sucsess) you see we chose 1 starting pitcher in the first 10 rounds,and he is an 18 year old who if ever, makes the show will be at least 5 years from now.

In the free agent market Terry managed to sign not 1 quality player. Zero...zilch...nada. He did manage to waste 15 million dollars on 3 non factor pitchers, in Correia he signed an untradible pitcher for 2 years and in harden and pelfrey he sign 2 rebound players who once they prove they can still pitch will sign else where , and we will have nothing to show for that money or time spent.If we had signed 1 or 2 quality pitchers , we then could have used them as trade pieces to fill holes in our minor leaque system or kept them to improve our team.

In the rule 5 draft Mr. Ryan chose Pressly (1 of 4 players i had an eye on)and while i liked this pick, I disagree with Terry on passing on a 2nd pick.Lara a left handed starter who is being used in the winter leaque with sucsess as a reliver can bring it up to the plate at 98mph ,and would have been a very cheap compitition to Robertson in spring training

Now we turn to DFA players , with the twins finishing last we had the right to claim players before any other teams,but Terry only claimed outfielders...OUTFIELDERS, not middle infielders, not 3b, not catchers, not relievers , not starters, but outfielders, you know the strength of our farm system...

If you look at his much heralded trades a little closer you will see once again Ryan ended up holding the short end of the stick.First he traded a quality leadoff stellar defensive centerfielder for 1 single A player...should have been another player in the deal, next he traded lil Ben for 2 players while this looks to be a very good trade at first glance ,if you look deeper you see we recieved a 2nd year starter who ended up on the D.L. twice in his 1st full season and ended up needing surgery, and in Mays case , many are already projecting him to be in the bull pen .

How so many people can continue to defend or carry praise for Terry Ryan bewilders me, he has failed to safe guard our assets or to improve the team, the only thing he has managed to do is eliminate payroll .

> for ! single A player.

I stopped reading here and wished I had stopped sooner. Suppose the Twins had traded away Joe Mauer in 2002. Should the fans of the receiving team complain that they got a single-A player and nothing more? I don't know (or believe) that Meyer is at Joe's level, but the designation is useless.

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Originally Posted by ashburyjohn

> for ! single A player.

I stopped reading here and wished I had stopped sooner. Suppose the Twins had traded away Joe Mauer in 2002. Should the fans of the receiving team complain that they got a single-A player and nothing more? I don't know (or believe) that Meyer is at Joe's level, but the designation is useless.

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Whoa there! You chose to tread on dangerous comparative ground in your analysis. While the Twins acquired a definite potential talent, Alex Meyer is most certainly, at this point anyway, not the "Joe Mauer of pitching", Stephen Strasburg, he's not even Jordan Zimmerman. All 3 were drafted out of college at 21, both Zimmerman and Strasburg were dominating AA and/or AAA in their first full season schedule of minor league ball, with Strasburg bypassing A level completely.

Add to that, the Twins infatuation with extraordinarily tall pitchers combined with their inability to fix or refine the difficulties in mechanics that tall throwers endure, this is far from a sure thing like Joe Mauer obviously was in 2002.

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Originally Posted by ashburyjohn

> for ! single A player.

I stopped reading here and wished I had stopped sooner. Suppose the Twins had traded away Joe Mauer in 2002. Should the fans of the receiving team complain that they got a single-A player and nothing more? I don't know (or believe) that Meyer is at Joe's level, but the designation is useless.

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didnt we just sign Clemente to a minor leaque contract with an invite to spring training? wasnt he a #1 draft pick?
My point was not every single A player makes the majors. Look at Mays single A numbers compared to his AA stats

So many wrong things, I don't even know where to begin...

Rule 5 picks rarely work out to the good, especially pitchers. I don't have the numbers, but can anybody name one pitcher picked in all of baseball that has been productive since Yohan (Diamond had 1/2 a decent year, outcome TBD)? Don't count on this as a route for improvement.

DFA players are typically DFA'd for a reason. Occasionally you may find a backup position or low end reliever, but that is about it. As this is an area we are pretty set at, I would also not look at this as a route for improvement.

The draft is essential, but is also a huge crapshoot. If you get 2-3 MLB players out of each draft, you would be doing awesome. To complain about how TR has been doing in the draft is worthless, as we will not know about how last year's draft pans out until 2018.

The FA market? TR doesn't control every aspect of this. Offers may go unanswered. Players get overpaid. Perceptions are different from team to team. I'm not saying it can't be the answer, but it totally doesn't fall on TR.

Complaining about the Span/Revere trades while lamenting the pitching woes doesn't really make sense. Rarely are trades equal. In this case the Twins traded established outfielders (as you said, an area of strength) for potential quality pitching. Many of the pundits said the Twins came ahead in these deals (again, for pitchers), so I am not sure what you are complaining about.

There are things that TR does, at least publicly, that I don't always agree with, but considering the hand he was dealt upon his return, it is hard to fault his job as a whole so far

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Originally Posted by ashburyjohn

> for ! single A player.

I stopped reading here and wished I had stopped sooner. Suppose the Twins had traded away Joe Mauer in 2002. Should the fans of the receiving team complain that they got a single-A player and nothing more? I don't know (or believe) that Meyer is at Joe's level, but the designation is useless.

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Despite johnny d's skewed and oft-mangled prose, he did present some valid points.

If Ryan was willing to gamble on question-mark pitchers this year, Lara should have been a no-brainer in the 2nd round, especially with the injection of new (Latin) blood in the bullpen coaching staff. Robertson did nothing to show he automatically deserves the lefty spot. Ironic, the supposedly discredited Miami Marlins organization, chose not only 100MPH lefty Lara in the 2nd round of the Rule 5 draft (TR, the risk here was $50,000), they also drafted another high velocity KO-heavy lefty in the AAA phase of the draft ($12,000 of risk, TR and Pohlad write off lunches with a bigger tab than that). The Marlins 1st round pick? Dominican slugging OFer, Alfredo Silverio, who could have been hidden on the DL as he's coming back from TJ surgery. I like his potential over the next Komatsu/Thomas acquisition.

But johnny's right, the Nats improved by losing and loading up in all phases of rebuilding a franchise. Does Ryan need more help in analyzing all of these phases?, including the International phase?, where the previous director of scouting admitted that he'd never seen Berrios pitch., but "had heard good things about him".

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Originally Posted by Fire Dan Gladden

To complain about how TR has been doing in the draft is worthless, as we will not know about how last year's draft pans out until 2018.

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One might argue that that itself is worthy of complaint (the need vs. talent/ceiling debate).

Buxton especially. He is so young and so raw, and Appel is so close to a sure thing and fills such a pressing need. For the Twins to pass on an asset like that, who could have been had for Feldman-money, might have been the start of the punting of 2013, now that I look back at it.

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Originally Posted by Fire Dan Gladden

So many wrong things, I don't even know where to begin...

Rule 5 picks rarely work out to the good, especially pitchers. I don't have the numbers, but can anybody name one pitcher picked in all of baseball that has been productive since Yohan? Don't count on this as a route for improvement.

DFA players are typically DFA'd for a reason. Occasionally you may find a backup position or low end reliever, but that is about it. As this is an area we are pretty set at, I would also not look at this as a route for improvement.

The draft is essential, but is also a huge crapshoot. If you get 2-3 MLB players out of each draft, you would be doing awesome. To complain about how TR has been doing in the draft is worthless, as we will not know about how last year's draft pans out until 2018.

The FA market? TR doesn't control every aspect of this. Offers may go unanswered. Players get overpaid. Perceptions are different from team to team. I'm not saying it can't be the answer, but it totally doesn't fall on TR.

Complaining about the Span/Revere trades while lamenting the pitching woes doesn't really make sense. Rarely are trades equal. In this case the Twins traded established outfielders (as you said, an area of strength) for potential quality pitching. Many of the pundits said the Twins came ahead in these deals (again, for pitchers), so I am not sure what you are complaining about.

There are things that TR does, at least publicly, that I don't always agree with, but considering the hand he was dealt upon his return, it is hard to fault his job as a whole so far

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This defense of management explains your moniker- firing the messenger, indeed.

Rule 5 pitchers? Of course it's a crapshoot. Scott Diamond comes to mind. Watch out for Josh Fields in Houston. Ivan Nova would be the Twins ace right now. RA Dickey ring a bell? Those 4 would be a pretty decent rotation, throw in a Kyle Lobstein and Randy Wells as competitors for the number 5 man. Not bad for a crapshoot.

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Originally Posted by Willihammer

One might argue that that itself is worthy of complaint (the need vs. talent/ceiling debate).

Buxton especially. He is so young and so raw, and Appel is so close to a sure thing and fills such a pressing need. For the Twins to pass on an asset like that, who could have been had for Feldman-money, might have been the start of the punting of 2013, now that I look back at it.

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Spot on. There's still a good chance they can pick Appel in 2013, maybe that was part of TR's "master plan".

This thread goes a whole bunch of different directions. Let's see if we can get down to it...

1) There's two directions you can go with the losing bit... Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays. Or Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals. Point being, some teams lose and lose and go no where. If you just had the Washington Nationals draft picks without all the FA and trade pickups, they're not having the success they enjoyed last year.

2) Some club decision has to have been made NOT to spend money this year. That's not just Ryan. That's Billy Smith and others making those decisions too.

3) Denard Span was NEVER a stellar outfielder. He's a decent, slightly above average centerfielder with a mediocre arm, that couldn't go BACK on a ball to save his life.

4) Alex Meyer is 22 and already made one bump to A+. The next two years will be the most important to see how he'll shape up. The biggest concern and acknowledgement will be SO/9, to see if he keeps that UP.

5) Trevor May. MAYYYYY. Not Mays. Never will be Mays. It's MAY. Not April. May. As in Trevor MAY turn out to be good. He was 22 at AA. He should get his second chance at AA this year. We'll see if he settles in.

6) The trades won't reveal themselves until 2-3 years from now, on how well TR did.

7) Most of the time, Gardy only carries one or two lefties in a bullpen. Perkins and Duensing and Robertson. Twins have a lot invested into Robertson already. They're handing this kid his chance. Just like they gave Plouffe his chance last year (and into this year) and Valencia his chance the year before (plus some). After this, we'll know whether he sticks or not.

Too many variables. I could keep going.

Lets look at #2 and #7
#2 Whos decision? Jim Pohlads....plain and simple....its his team , his money
#7 With the twins carring 12 or 13 pitchers, thats 7 or 8 in the pen,
and only 2 lefties? when 1 is our closer, it makes much more sense to have 3 lefties in the pen...

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Originally Posted by jokin

Whoa there! You chose to tread on dangerous comparative ground in your analysis.

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I didn't offer any analysis, and I'm not sure you read the beginning to my last sentence in which I said he's not the Joe Mauer of pitching in different words. Rating prospects by what league there in was my point. First round draft picks are very tough to pry away.

Edit: there -> they're

Google subject verb agreement

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Originally Posted by johnnydakota

didnt we just sign Clemente to a minor leaque contract with an invite to spring training? wasnt he a #1 draft pick?
My point was not every single A player makes the majors. Look at Mays single A numbers compared to his AA stats

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Sure, single-A first-rounders can still fail - and established center fielders can get a second concussion and lose their trade value in an instant. In a few years we'll know in hindsight who won this trade. I still disagree with rating a trade at the time it's made by what level the prospect is at. Once a blue-chipper reaches AA and has success you can rarely get him for the price of an average major league CFer which Span is.

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Originally Posted by Haddyz

1) There's two directions you can go with the losing bit... Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays. Or Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals. Point being, some teams lose and lose and go no where. If you just had the Washington Nationals draft picks without all the FA and trade pickups, they're not having the success they enjoyed last year.





7) Most of the time, Gardy only carries one or two lefties in a bullpen. Perkins and Duensing and Robertson. Twins have a lot invested into Robertson already. They're handing this kid his chance. Just like they gave Plouffe his chance last year (and into this year) and Valencia his chance the year before (plus some). After this, we'll know whether he sticks or not.

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Good food for thought.

1) Ironic that the 2 teams both considered for contraction have gone in such different directions. The Nats were finally forced to change gears and philosophies, established new ownership and then hired aggressive, successful baseball men for their front office in Kasten, Bowden and now Rizzo. They formulated a plan to work in conjunction with the building of a new ballpark in 2008, they mostly stuck to the plan even with attendance dropping to the bottom of MLB. There have been controversies and bumps in the road, but the quick-fix FA signings in the past were over and management was always on the look-out for improvement through all phases available to them to steadily stockpile a depth of young talent. They apparently have the ownership financial backing willing to take a financial loss or two in down years, accompanied by a front office more vital and vigorous than the Twins in scouting, properly identifying and ultimately acquiring talent through draft, trades and signings...which finally worked out in making themselves legitimate contenders. There's no doubt finishing at the bottom in the late 00s gave them access to drafting top talent, but other teams were in a similar position, too. Interestingly, their management team has had vast experience working in smaller markets with low-end payrolls. Since 2005, Washington's payroll has varied between $37M at the low end and $68M at the top end until finally climbing to $92.5 in 2012.


7) There's a very strong chance that Duensing ends up in the starting rotation at some point during the season. There goes one lefty option. Perk is the closer. Most importantly, Robertson still has 3 options left, was a desperation call-up in 2012 and did very little to make a case why he is a lock at the 3rd lefty spot in 2013. And the case he HAS made thus far would only qualify him for LOOGY status, longer term.

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Originally Posted by Haddyz

3) Denard Span was NEVER a stellar outfielder. He's a decent, slightly above average centerfielder with a mediocre arm, that couldn't go BACK on a ball to save his life.

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Fangraphs had him as the 3rd best CF in MLB last year. The people who voted for the Fielding Bible awards also had him 3rd in MLB. He isn't flashy, he isn't diving, but then again, he reads the ball so well, he usually doesn't have to. And he goes back on a ball just fine

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Originally Posted by johnnydakota

Scott Boras in the past has suggested to other teams that losing would improve there teams in the long run.
I still like the idea of signing quality players and using them to build a sucsesful minor leaque system and mlb team.
Free agency is not the only way to do this , but is 1 of 4 ways to accomplish it
There are F.A. , draftspicks, DFAs, and rule 5s,but if you ignore 2 of these avenues you are missing out on many oppertunitys

If you look back at last years draft(which many claim was a total sucsess) you see we chose 1 starting pitcher in the first 10 rounds,and he is an 18 year old who if ever, makes the show will be at least 5 years from now.

In the free agent market Terry managed to sign not 1 quality player. Zero...zilch...nada. He did manage to waste 15 million dollars on 3 non factor pitchers, in Correia he signed an untradible pitcher for 2 years and in harden and pelfrey he sign 2 rebound players who once they prove they can still pitch will sign else where , and we will have nothing to show for that money or time spent.If we had signed 1 or 2 quality pitchers , we then could have used them as trade pieces to fill holes in our minor leaque system or kept them to improve our team.

In the rule 5 draft Mr. Ryan chose Pressly (1 of 4 players i had an eye on)and while i liked this pick, I disagree with Terry on passing on a 2nd pick.Lara a left handed starter who is being used in the winter leaque with sucsess as a reliver can bring it up to the plate at 98mph ,and would have been a very cheap compitition to Robertson in spring training

Now we turn to DFA players , with the twins finishing last we had the right to claim players before any other teams,but Terry only claimed outfielders...OUTFIELDERS, not middle infielders, not 3b, not catchers, not relievers , not starters, but outfielders, you know the strength of our farm system...

If you look at his much heralded trades a little closer you will see once again Ryan ended up holding the short end of the stick.First he traded a quality leadoff stellar defensive centerfielder for 1 single A player...should have been another player in the deal, next he traded lil Ben for 2 players while this looks to be a very good trade at first glance ,if you look deeper you see we recieved a 2nd year starter who ended up on the D.L. twice in his 1st full season and ended up needing surgery, and in Mays case , many are already projecting him to be in the bull pen .

How so many people can continue to defend or carry praise for Terry Ryan bewilders me, he has failed to safe guard our assets or to improve the team, the only thing he has managed to do is eliminate payroll .

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Draft - first, while they drafted several relief pitchers, they are giving a few of them the chance to start. I believe they want Martinez and Bard to be starters. But secondly, I have no problems with the Twins drafting strong bullpen arms that they think can get to the majors quickly in what was generally regarded as a weak draft class. The Twins under Ryan tended to draft well, so it's way premature to complain about this one. If Buxton and Berrios both develop into solid players and one relief pitcher makes the show, it would be considered a strong draft.

FA - I'm not going to overly defend Ryan on this one. First, the offseason isn't over so more could be done. But even if he's done, he has improved the rotation, considerably. I wish the Twins would sign 15m pitchers but they won't. It is what it is. If they can get replacement level out of them, it's a considerable improvement. Ryan also signed a handful of intriguing arms like Augenstein and Vasquez who could help in the pen.

Rule V - Hard to know why a bunch of teams passed on Lara, he was the last pick of the draft. I would've been happy to see us give him a shot but we don't have access to the same information the Twins do. But they have been pretty good in rule V drafts over the years so I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

DFAs - Twins claimed Josh Roenicke off waivers. Again, I'm not sure there was anyone claimed on waivers that was better than Masttoianni. And isn't that the real issue - the Twins were successful there. They got a fairly valuable player off of waivers. Sure, it would be great if they got a pitcher but that's not what happened.

Trades - far too early to grade the trades but most people - Klaw, Callis, Sickels - thought the Twins did pretty good in both trades.

On Ryan - I think Ryan is a fine GM. Keep in mind what he had when he took over a year ago. A team with a horrible, 2010 Marineers like offense and a bullpen that was among the worst in baseball. The rotation was seen as reasonable. Ryan fixed both the pen and the lineup. He signed a bunch of pitchers and Fein and Burton were nice gets. He signed a couple low cost free agents in Willingham and Doumit, who fit in perfectly. Now he has to fix the rotation. I mentioned this in another post but I'll repeat it here. Last year the team gave 88 starts to a bunch of really bad pitchers that amassed a negative 9.5 WAR! Let's say that Correia gives us a 2010 Blackburn like season - 26 starts (14 quality starts), -0.5 WAR, 160 ip. Pelfrey repeats his 2011 season - 33 starts (15 quality starts), 0.0 WAR, 190 ip and Worley gives us 27 starts (15 quality starts), 1.0 WAR, 160 ip. That more than covers the 88 horrendous starts I just mentioned and is a net gain of 10 WAR.

Imo the only critical thing coming out of this offseason is that they made a mediocre attempt at improving in 2013 and have concentrated their efforts on 2014/2015. It's frustrating for sure but it's the reality of being a terrible team that had very few young players in its core.

Complaining about DFA pickups and rule 5 is silly.

How did Ryan 'fix' the lineup last offseason? Span, Morny and Mauer got healthy...that is what happened.

We got Willingham and Doumit, but we lost Kubel and Cuddy.

How did HIS actions 'fix' the lineup? And, this offseason, how has he done anything more than hurt it?

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Originally Posted by ThePuck

How did Ryan 'fix' the lineup last offseason? Span, Morny and Mauer got healthy...that is what happened.

We got Willingham and Doumit, but we lost Kubel and Cuddy.

How did HIS actions 'fix' the lineup? And, this offseason, how has he done anything more than hurt it?

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Doumit and Willingham were better than Cuddy and Kubel for less money. The fact the starting pitching disintigrated was not to be expected by anyone. We are in trasition between groups of players and this year (while hopfully better) is a year of finding out what we have. That's why Hicks needs to start in Minnesota if he has a decent spring training, and we needed to move outfielders to create spots. Parmalee has to get enough AB's to see if he can contribute and settle what the Twins need to do with Morneau. It's nice to spend other people's money, but rarely do any of us get the chance. Kansas City and Pittsburg have been 20 -25 year rebuilding plans, so hopefully TR will be able to fix the issues.