Mackey: Twins Likely Done Making Significant Moves this Year

It's ok to be comfortable with being mislead, but it's also ok to be pissed at being mislead. If I see a sign that says "Giant Flat Screen TV's - $500 with payment plan. No money down" and I walk in and the deal is actually "Giant Flat Screen TVs - $500 payment plan? No! Money down!" I get to be pissed. (Couldn't resist a Simpson homage there)

The recent cheerleading squad is pretty quiet in this thread not surprisingly. But with false advertising about what next season promised and confirmation of that now, it's perfectly fair for people to feel lied to. Hell, for many it was their money that was being fleeced with those lies.

Personally, 2015 was the place to build for anyway. But if Ryan believes the point is to play meaningful games in September of 2013 I'm not sure he accomplished that. Arguably this team is structurally LESS reliable to be playing meaningful games than last year. (lots of regression candidates, awful defense, two key cogs in the offense gone, menial FA acquisitions to replace)

The only thing meaningful about next September will be the call-ups in our everyday lineup.

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Originally Posted by East Coast Twin

An interesting quote by Terry Ryan.

"'We've got to start being realistic . . . [a]nd realistic is, in September, (playing) meaningful games. You talk about winning the division -- well, we all want to do that. Postseason, we all want to do that.

'But coming off the amount of losses that we've had. . . Playing major league baseball in September when the games don't mean a thing, that's no good for anybody. We need to get to that point before we can start worrying about much of anything else.'"

Notebook: Twins Likely Done Making Significant Moves this Ooffseason

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I guess I must have been asleep all winter and missed all the significant that the Twins made this off season. Maybe someone could fill everyone in. Some decent moves but pretty much nothing that will be seen until 2014 at the earliest.

Since the team seems determined on on building 100% from within, in order for this team to be truly competitive by 2015, we pretty much have to have everything go right, IMO.

May and Meyer both have to be as good as we hope they are, Sano, Rosario, Hicks and Arcia all have to be what we hope they are. Parmelee has to be the real deal. Worley has to be decent, Gibson has to be at least a #3 starter. IMO, all of that has to happen...practically everything needs to work out. AND they have to be very good right away...all of them.

Some act as if it's a foregone conclusion...just wait a year or two, we'll be truly competitive then. What are the odds all of these players ends up being as good at the MLB level as they've been hyped to be?

I'm truly optimistic a majority of them will eventually, but I sure won't say we should put all of our eggs in one basket, that basket being our farm system...and 2015 isn't realistic. We're building for 2015 to have a chunk of our prospects come up, but not to be competitive. That's a pipe dream really, especially if it's almost all coming from players currently in the minors. They'll still need time in the majors to take their lumps, get their feet wet and gel as a team. The '87 team took about 5 years and even then, they made some key acquisitions from the outside to help.

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Originally Posted by nicksaviking

I just don't understand why rebuilding requires this drastic of a payroll cut. If your concerned about signing vets that would take away playing time from young guys, they why bother signing guys like Correia? If the team admits signing Correia is a stop-gap move to keep the seat warm for the youngsters, then why not sign a better pitcher to a two year deal?

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Could someone explain how Oakland always seems to be very competitive with their very limited payroll? And to top it off they have a farm system that continues to turn out great talent. Also, how Billy Beane can deal away all these pitchers every few years and brings in a few veterans to mix with his rookie pitchers and they still just WIN?

Wow, TR's taking a ton of flack in here. Did anyone realistically think the Twins could sign Greinke, Sanchez, Jackson, and Drew and make a run in 2013??? Face the facts, the Twins are a small market team, we're not the Dodgers making $200 million/year in TV money. To address all of our roster needs in one offseason we would have had top all other contract offers for the best FA's available which isn’t reasonable and to think otherwise is INSANE. So, instead of pretending to be competitors for the Greinke's, Sanchez's, etc. TR instead moved OF surplus for young high-ceiling starting pitchers that align perfectly with the rest of our top prospects.

But this still doesn’t satisfy the “rebuild” crowd because the Twins still have obvious trade candidates Willingham and Morneau on the roster. This is where things get a little hazy because nobody but TR knows the offers for either of these two players but yet he’s getting slammed for not trading them. Realistically, Morneau’s value is about as low as it can be right now. He’s coming off 3 straight years of injuries and performed below his par last season. With a healthy offseason, April, May, and June Morneau could be the hottest commodity on the trade market. Willingham on the other hand is coming off of a career year and has the highest value of his career.

Here again, we don’t know what offers are out there for Willingham. Are the Braves offering up Teheran? Are the Mariners offering Hultzen or Paxton? Are the Phillies offering Biddle? Are the Pirates offering Cole or Taillon? Probably not on all accounts but that could be due to the fact that the season hasn’t yet started and most teams are willing to give their in-house players first crack at earning the job outright. Come trade deadline, after most of those in-house platoons have failed, Willingham could be the best bat on the market, and will also come with another full year of cost-friendly team control.

So, what is TR doing if he’s not making any more offseason moves? He’s positioning the Twins to have a shot at competing in 2013, rebuilding for 2014 and beyond, and developing young Twins’ players Plouffe, Mastrionni, Parmalee, Florimon, and Hendricks for this season and the future. And he’s doing all of this without completely sacrificing any of the other. There are those who are going to say that we could have signed a different free agent then Correia and still not completely sacrificed the present or the future but again, only TR knows which free agents he could have signed or which free agents are injured and the extent to those injuries. Free agency isn’t a silent auction and not all injury reports are published to the public. Finally, people need to quit jumping to TR lying about his offseason plans because he shouldn’t publicize his actual plan to anybody. It’s been known for over 2,000 years when Sun Tzu wrote “The Art of War” that deception is a strategy that should be used by all great leaders in order to win.

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Originally Posted by USAFChief

Twins Likely Done Making Significant Moves this Year


I think that's just about exactly what I posted when they signed Correia.

What a sad situation. Not much hope, not much of a plan, and a primary goal of chopping payroll.

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What is the difference between Correia and his teammate last season Jeff Karstens? The Twins wasted $10M for Correia when they could probably sign Karstens to a 1YR deal for $2-3M and get either the same or better results.

This is just like last year jumping to sign Jason Marquis in December.

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Originally Posted by darin617

Could someone explain how Oakland always seems to be very competitive with their very limited payroll? And to top it off they have a farm system that continues to turn out great talent. Also, how Billy Beane can deal away all these pitchers every few years and brings in a few veterans to mix with his rookie pitchers and they still just WIN?

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Beane isn't nearly as gunshy about trading away assets. If he was running the Twins, not only would Morneau and Willingham be traded, but Doumit and Perkins and any other Twin with trade value (can't think of any others at the moment) would be gone as well. Mauer probably would have walked a couple years ago.

The A's have a terrible stadium and therefore don't need to placate the fans into showing up so that they can afford their operating costs.

How are the Twins are a small market team? The aren't a LARGE market team, but they aren't a small one either.

I know I'm talking out both sides of my mouth here, but I get it on both sides.

If you are slashing payroll and not being honest about your plan for rebuilding, it's self-fulfilling. Fans don't come because the team you told us was going to be competitive clearly isn't. Revenues decrease. Payroll then decreases to account for the lost revenue. The team worsens. Fans don't come. That's the spiral we have been in for two years.

When you pare payroll in a new stadium down to $80 million, are they actually asking us to believe that this money is being saved to compensate future teams? We're in a youth movement. The guys that we're bringing along are going to be $500K/yr guys under our control for a few years. Someone posted a month ago about a potential 2014/2015 lineup where the entire payroll would be around $40 million, including Mauer's $23. Are they going to go $50 million over budget in a future year with the pocketed savings? No possible way.

I agree that with last year's pitching staff, a poor defensive team just made worse by our off-season moves, and lack of quality arms in the upper minor leagues that they are doing what they have to do. We need pitchers who have some upside and aren't willing to pay $20 million/year to get them (unless, a completely unlikely scenario given the remaining talent on the team and the overall payroll, it is the LAST $20 million to put us over the top).

I do believe this team is moving in the right direction. It does stink. I understand the frustration of people. I just love baseball and wish we would be better now.

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

The recent cheerleading squad is pretty quiet in this thread not surprisingly. But with false advertising about what next season promised and confirmation of that now, it's perfectly fair for people to feel lied to. Hell, for many it was their money that was being fleeced with those lies.


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I don't view myself as a cheerleader but more of a realist. What is the use posting differing viewpoints. The naysayers will see it how they do. Post away on a rant. It doesn't make the rant right that there is nothing there against what you post. It may just mean that there is fatigue in going over the same ground once again.

Well, where back to the out of Town TV deals. The Twin's haven't even used half of their available resources this year.
How does the Dodger Baseball network have anything to do with that??

Not one person on this thread suggested they sign 4 big time free agents. Not one.

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Originally Posted by darin617

Could someone explain how Oakland always seems to be very competitive with their very limited payroll? And to top it off they have a farm system that continues to turn out great talent. Also, how Billy Beane can deal away all these pitchers every few years and brings in a few veterans to mix with his rookie pitchers and they still just WIN?

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turn the "how" into "because" (i.e. dealing players like Hunter, Cuddyer, Morneau, Willingham at their highest value before they become too expensive to keep or too bad to get anything in return - eg. Liriano) and you got 50% of your answer. The rest would be not about a quarter not signing oldies but not goodies because you need proven "inning eaters" (Correia, Blackburn, Pavano), "closers" (Crapps), "infielders" (Punto, Carroll) or keep horrible players around (Butera) and about a quarter having an analytics department that is able to crunch numbers and identify targets based on performance and not on whether they can "spin the ball", "kill worms" or "battle their tails off"....

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Could someone explain how Oakland always seems to be very competitive with their very limited payroll? And to top it off they have a farm system that continues to turn out great talent. Also, how Billy Beane can deal away all these pitchers every few years and brings in a few veterans to mix with his rookie pitchers and they still just WIN?

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Oakland always seems competitive to those that don't actually have time to pay attention to the rest of the MLB. It wasn't long ago that some were suggesting that Beane had lost his touch. Their farm system actually doesn't produce that much talent (hardly any tbh). Beane has done a great job by taking the castoffs from other teams while making great trades acquiring near MLB ready prospects.

2011 - 74 wins
2010 - 81 wins
2009 - 75 wins
2008 - 75 wins
2007 - 76 wins

This has actually been a pretty good offseason. I'll give it a B w/o doing a thorough analysis (could be B+ or B-). My biggest disappointments are that the Twins didn't go out and get the best pitcher that 3/30-3/35 could buy and they didn't try real hard on any of the RP'ers/MI'ers available on 1-2 yr deals. It's always nice to have potential trade chips while making the team a little better.

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Originally Posted by old nurse

I don't view myself as a cheerleader but more of a realist. What is the use posting differing viewpoints. The naysayers will see it how they do. Post away on a rant. It doesn't make the rant right that there is nothing there against what you post. It may just mean that there is fatigue in going over the same ground once again.

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I'm sorry, but you haven't been a realist on any subject in at least a week. You've been pulling some, at times, pretty silly gymnastics to defend the team. I'm not a Ryan hater and I'm actually a mild fan of the offseason thus far......but there is no question that fans have reason to be frustrated. If you don't like hearing it, don't open the threads. The GM didn't back up his rhetoric....what the hell do you expect people to do? Shrug sheepishly? People care and sometimes caring comes with frustration.

My real worry is that Ryan believes he DID back up his rhetoric. If that's true, all this talk of the potential of Ryan with a larger budget is going to be a massive disappointment.

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

It's ok to be comfortable with being mislead, but it's also ok to be pissed at being mislead. If I see a sign that says "Giant Flat Screen TV's - $500 with payment plan. No money down" and I walk in and the deal is actually "Giant Flat Screen TVs - $500 payment plan? No! Money down!" I get to be pissed. (Couldn't resist a Simpson homage there)

The recent cheerleading squad is pretty quiet in this thread not surprisingly. But with false advertising about what next season promised and confirmation of that now, it's perfectly fair for people to feel lied to. Hell, for many it was their money that was being fleeced with those lies.

Personally, 2015 was the place to build for anyway. But if Ryan believes the point is to play meaningful games in September of 2013 I'm not sure he accomplished that. Arguably this team is structurally LESS reliable to be playing meaningful games than last year. (lots of regression candidates, awful defense, two key cogs in the offense gone, menial FA acquisitions to replace)

The only thing meaningful about next September will be the call-ups in our everyday lineup.

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I don't recall saying it wasn't, you always seem to spin an opposite viewpoint as meaning you don't have a right to have yours, it's curious.

The TV is a bit of a stretch, a strawman really, one is pretty simple (selling discounted TV's), the other is open to interpretation depending on who the listener is. In your case, you're an educated baseball fan and know Ryan is selling a bill of goods by stating the rotation is fortified, the casual fan actually might believe it.

I never was really all in on buying it from the beginning but I understood the spin, after the Span and Revere trades it was pretty evident the way things were headed. I get being upset but to think Ryan should have or was ever going to come out to the general public and say "we're going to suck next year but just wait", was never going to happen and not very realistic.

Read between the lines and Ryan is indicating this year will be a stretch to be competitive but they want to get there and they've started to do that for down the road. He may be done this year but he never indicated he's done period.

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Originally Posted by twinsnorth49

I get being upset but to think Ryan should have or was ever going to come out to the general public and say "we're going to suck next year but just wait", was never going to happen and not very realistic.

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You realize there are ways to sell hope other than how Ryan attempted to right? Ryan is a smart man and a good GM, he didn't have to be as direct about they would do unless he had every intention of making that happen, regardless of cost. Rather than be direct, for instance, about upgrading the rotation or the bullpen being his second biggest priority - he could have sold us vague nuggets about augmenting the roster in more general terms. But to be that direct about what he'd do and then miserably fail to do so while 20+ million sits unspent from last year? Yeah, that's on him.

His specificity is why he is accountable and people have good reason to be mad. You missed the analogy completely, in fact, you're playing it out yourself. He said something and you are re-interpreting it to soften criticism on Ryan, but most would agree - the marquee is what it is. His words stand for themselves, stretching to "read between the lines" is little more than a disingenuous spin-job.

The sad thing about this is whatever you think of Mauer (and Mourneu) is that we wont be making any serious runs in their prime years.

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

I'm sorry, but you haven't been a realist on any subject in at least a week. You've been pulling some, at times, pretty silly gymnastics to defend the team. I'm not a Ryan hater and I'm actually a mild fan of the offseason thus far......but there is no question that fans have reason to be frustrated. If you don't like hearing it, don't open the threads. The GM didn't back up his rhetoric....what the hell do you expect people to do? Shrug sheepishly? People care and sometimes caring comes with frustration.

My real worry is that Ryan believes he DID back up his rhetoric. If that's true, all this talk of the potential of Ryan with a larger budget is going to be a massive disappointment.

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It is not realistic to think it is a bad idea ti sign free agents in hopes to trade them? It is not realistic to point out the flaws in someone's argument that you could have a fantastic rotation from rule 5 pickups.
You still, along with everyone else, have no clue what contacts Ryan had with other free agents and the discussions or offers made. I am sure that you realize by now not everything goes as you would like. You can't make people like you, you can't make people work for you.