Mason: Correia expects to eat up innings for the Twins

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Originally Posted by Brock Beauchamp

Someday, fans might talk about him more than as a pariah. Probably not, but it's possible.

But whether you agree with it or not, Correia is the representation of an offseason where the Twins had $20m+ to spend, one of the worst pitching staffs in baseball, and came out of this offseason with more pitching question marks than they had 12 months ago when Baker, Pavano, and Liriano looked to anchor the rotation.

Oh, and they're also going into the season with Pedro Florimon at short so it's not as if they sacrificed pitching money to shore up their joke of a middle infield. You may not like it but fans have a right to be angry about this offseason and Kevin Correia embodies that outrage.

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First off they weren't going to sign anyone other than somebody else's rejected 5/6th starter, or a bullpen guy part time starter looking to be a fulltime starter to get one last paycheck. Pohlad would never aprove the money for a starter that was going to cost them a lot of money. Ryan has said diferent times in interviews that Pohlad has to approve before he can sign a free agent.
You might have had optimism if any of those other types of pitchers had been signed. You might have seen an upside in one and was hopeful. This way you can get your mourning over with rather than have all of your hopes crushed on a beautiful May evenng when it becomes appearant why the other pitcher was available.

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Originally Posted by ThePuck

If we expand it out to that, which is a good idea BTW, then you also have to factor in what we lost to get Worley.

So, which is better...two choices:

A: We got a pre-arbitration Worley with injury issues and who has never pitched 140 innings in his two seasons, while we lost Revere's defense and improving offense in the two hole.

B: Signing Correia to a 2 yr/10M contract.

P.S., yes May was acquired as well, but he's got to be pretty far down the RH prospect list if Gibson isn't even in the top 10 for RH pitching and yet still manages to sit at 49 overall.

Thoughts?

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I choose A. My thoughts are that Hicks will replace what Revere brought and then some, but maybe not fully until 2014. I can live with it. I loved having Revere on the team, but I doubt his ceiling is much higher than where he was. I think Ryan traded him at the perfect time. Hicks has a significantly higher upside. He potentially is a better OF, gets on base as much and will hit for more power.

I am mostly happy with what Ryan has done, but I totally get that people aren't happy about the 2013 team. I wish he had been a little more patient and signed one of the many other pitchers that signed one year deals instead of signing Correia, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Is it possible that DeVries or Deduno could have put up the same numbers as KC? Sure it is, but $5M per year isn't a huge cost. I'm not going to cry for Pohlad if next year's $5M is a waste. It won't financially prevent us from signing other players.

Hey look at this, we might actually be talking about baseball. :)

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

First off they weren't going to sign anyone other than somebody else's rejected 5/6th starter, or a bullpen guy part time starter looking to be a fulltime starter to get one last paycheck. Pohlad would never aprove the money for a starter that was going to cost them a lot of money. Ryan has said diferent times in interviews that Pohlad has to approve before he can sign a free agent.
You might have had optimism if any of those other types of pitchers had been signed. You might have seen an upside in one and was hopeful. This way you can get your mourning over with rather than have all of your hopes crushed on a beautiful May evenng when it becomes appearant why the other pitcher was available.

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And Jim Pohlad has said he's pretty hands off when it comes to how his GM spends the money. Ryan said money wouldn't be an issue. You want to put the blame on the owners.

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

First off they weren't going to sign anyone other than somebody else's rejected 5/6th starter, or a bullpen guy part time starter looking to be a fulltime starter to get one last paycheck. Pohlad would never aprove the money for a starter that was going to cost them a lot of money.

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Except the Pohlads and St. Peter are on the record as saying Ryan has full flexibility. Plus Ryan is on the record saying he doesn't like handing out big deals to pitchers. Trying to take the spotlight off of Ryan on this is ignorant of a lot of factors that are readily available via a google search.

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

First off they weren't going to sign anyone other than somebody else's rejected 5/6th starter, or a bullpen guy part time starter looking to be a fulltime starter to get one last paycheck. Pohlad would never aprove the money for a starter that was going to cost them a lot of money. Ryan has said diferent times in interviews that Pohlad has to approve before he can sign a free agent.
You might have had optimism if any of those other types of pitchers had been signed. You might have seen an upside in one and was hopeful. This way you can get your mourning over with rather than have all of your hopes crushed on a beautiful May evenng when it becomes appearant why the other pitcher was available.

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Just two years ago, Pohlad agreed to a $110m payroll. There were plenty of reasons to think the payroll would be higher than $80m going into this season.

Yeah, I'm sure those other teams will regret signing decent pitchers instead of throwing $10m in the toilet. Just like the Twins were so excited about throwing $3m in the toilet last year with Jason Marquis.

But hey, at least the Marquis deal wasn't multi-year, right?

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Originally Posted by Physics Guy

I choose A. My thoughts are that Hicks will replace what Revere brought and then some, but maybe not fully until 2014. I can live with it. I loved having Revere on the team, but I doubt his ceiling is much higher than where he was. I think Ryan traded him at the perfect time. Hicks has a significantly higher upside. He potentially is a better OF, gets on base as much and will hit for more power.

I am mostly happy with what Ryan has done, but I totally get that people aren't happy about the 2013 team. I wish he had been a little more patient and signed one of the many other pitchers that signed one year deals instead of signing Correia, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Is it possible that DeVries or Deduno could have put up the same numbers as KC? Sure it is, but $5M per year isn't a huge cost. I'm not going to cry for Pohlad if next year's $5M is a waste. It won't financially prevent us from signing other players.

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Solid reasoning

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Originally Posted by Physics Guy

Just a comparison of start of 2012 vs start of 2013 (using B.R. WAR from previous season):

2012
Baker 4.2 WAR (12 IP in Aug & Sept)
Pavano 1.8 WAR (35 years old, 262 H against, 4.1 K/9)
Liriano 0.6
Blackburn 0.5
Marquis 0.5
Total 6.6

2013
Diamond 2.2
Pelfrey 0.9 (TJ surgery during season)
Worley 0.7 (3.2 previous, arm trouble last)
Correia -0.1
Hendriks -1.2
Total 2.5

Not sure where I want to go with this, but I thought it was interesting. 2012 was heavily weighted by Baker's best year to date, but being hurt the last two months.

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Nice manipulating of stats.
Is Hendricks really the 5th starter?
You use injury season data on the 2013 starters. Hello, why were they pitching so poorly? They were not healthy. When you look back at the TJ people, even the year before they get injured they perform at a level lower than they did the previous season. We do not know how good or poor of season any of thee guys are going to have. WAR is not a predictive tool. Take a look at Edwin Jackson. His WAR is all over the place. One season does not predict the next.

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

When you look back at the TJ people, even the year before they get injured they perform at a level lower than they did the previous season.

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Uhhhhhhh.

Scott Baker.

Also, Edwin Jackson's last four seasons according to FG WAR:

3.9, 3.9, 3.6, 2.7. All over the place. Utter anarchy. Cats and dogs, living together.

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

Source? When did he acknowledge that?

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Mackey: Low-risk or not, Twins are taking philosophical gambles | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins

"Well, I always go back to the scouting evaluation, people that have seen him, and we saw him a lot with the Pirates, and certainly before that when he was with the Padres and the Giants," Ryan said recently. "We like his makeup, he has stuff, we had evaluators tell us and me in particular that this guy is better than the numbers."




Still, Ryan -- who runs every transaction by the Twins' internal statistical analysis department -- has elected to put more faith into the scouting evaluations of Correia than what we see on paper.



"Certainly he fell off there when they took him out of the rotation (in August) when they brought in Wandy Rodriguez, and that had a little bit to do with some of his (sub-par) numbers and lack of innings (last) year," Ryan said. "But I have a lot of faith and trust in people that have seen him, and they were adamant that this guy can help us. He's a little bit better than a fifth starter. ...


"I don't think we overpaid drastically in this situation. People that know him say that he's a good teammate and all that type of stuff, so you take all of that into consideration. We needed pitching badly, so we went and got him. ...

Yeah, that's walking back a bit, but not as much as I thought from your post. He's certainly in full spin mode.

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Originally Posted by jokin

Mackey: Low-risk or not, Twins are taking philosophical gambles | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities ? Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) | Sportswire: Minnesota Twins

"Well, I always go back to the scouting evaluation, people that have seen him, and we saw him a lot with the Pirates, and certainly before that when he was with the Padres and the Giants," Ryan said recently. "We like his makeup, he has stuff, we had evaluators tell us and me in particular that this guy is better than the numbers."




Still, Ryan -- who runs every transaction by the Twins' internal statistical analysis department -- has elected to put more faith into the scouting evaluations of Correia than what we see on paper.



"Certainly he fell off there when they took him out of the rotation (in August) when they brought in Wandy Rodriguez, and that had a little bit to do with some of his (sub-par) numbers and lack of innings (last) year," Ryan said. "But I have a lot of faith and trust in people that have seen him, and they were adamant that this guy can help us. He's a little bit better than a fifth starter. ...


"I don't think we overpaid drastically in this situation. People that know him say that he's a good teammate and all that type of stuff, so you take all of that into consideration. We needed pitching badly, so we went and got him. ...

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But besides all that...whatcha got? :-)

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Originally Posted by TheLeviathan

Yeah, that's walking back a bit, but not as much as I thought from your post. He's certainly in full spin mode.

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Huh?

I've seen more heart-felt "votes of confidence" from owners and GMs given to managers just about to get fired.

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

Pohlad would never aprove the money for a starter that was going to cost them a lot of money. Ryan has said diferent times in interviews that Pohlad has to approve before he can sign a free agent.

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Other than in recent interviews where Dave St. Peter pretty clearly stated that Ryan has plenty more freedom to spend money than he has this offseason.

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Originally Posted by Alex

Other than in recent interviews where Dave St. Peter pretty clearly stated that Ryan has plenty more freedom to spend money than he has this offseason.

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Right hand not having any idea about the "plenty-more freedom" the Left hand has granted him?

Seems the club might be wise to hire one of the TD apologists for "Message Management".

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Originally Posted by LoganJones

I expect that eventually there will be some people who are wiling to discuss other aspects of this guy than just his de facto status as pariah.

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Me thinks you are the most responsible for keeping this thread alive

I think as we sit the off season is not going well, but if we were to add a young shortstop , a player for the future ,then this off season suddenly becomes one of if not the best for Terry Ryans career.Yes even better then when he traded A.J.

Go Diaz

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Originally Posted by The Wise One

Nice manipulating of stats.
Is Hendricks really the 5th starter?
You use injury season data on the 2013 starters. Hello, why were they pitching so poorly? They were not healthy. When you look back at the TJ people, even the year before they get injured they perform at a level lower than they did the previous season. We do not know how good or poor of season any of thee guys are going to have. WAR is not a predictive tool. Take a look at Edwin Jackson. His WAR is all over the place. One season does not predict the next.

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I'm not sure I follow your point. In what way am I manipulating stats? Do I even express an opinion on them leading you to think I am using them to make a point?

Yes, I think Hendriks is the 5th starter. The only other possible option that is acceptable in my mind is Gibson and I am skeptical they will start him in the rotation. DeVries and Deduno are injury fill-ins at best with little upside. Unless Hendriks is horrible in ST he absolutely should be given the season to prove himself.

I did not complete my post because I wanted to think about it, but was curious what others might have to say about the data. At first glance, the staff going into 2012 appears to be much stronger. The problem is that it is heavily weighted by a pitcher who the Twins realistically should have been worried about after pitching 12 innings the previous Aug and Sept (I know, hindsight). Pavano was 35 in 2011 and starting to show his age. I would say the 2013 staff has a good chance of producing a 5 or better in WAR this year. My guess (and that is all it is):
Diamond 1.8
Worley 1.8
Correia 0
Pelfrey 0.8
Hendriks 0.8

Yes, I realize this is optimistic, but not out of the realm of possibility. This is clearly better than the 1.2 that the best combination of 5 starters put up last year (minus Blackburn's -2.3!!!). It's not a division winner, but at least it might be watchable.

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Originally Posted by Physics Guy

Diamond 1.8
Worley 1.8
Correia 0
Pelfrey 0.8
Hendriks 0.8

Yes, I realize this is optimistic, but not out of the realm of possibility. This is clearly better than the 1.2 that the best combination of 5 starters put up last year (minus Blackburn's -2.3!!!). It's not a division winner, but at least it might be watchable.

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Yes, that is absolutely possible. But it's no different than expecting the 2012 rotation to post similar or better numbers going into last season.

If you have a front and middle of the rotation with a bunch of question marks followed by a back of the rotation with even more question marks, you're probably not going to win a lot of baseball games over the course of a season unless you run into a healthy dose of dumb luck. In all likelihood, this is what will happen:

Diamond: due for regression but still a league average pitcher. Maybe a 1.5 WAR pitcher.
Worley: I actually think he'll be pretty good and will end up the best pitcher on the squad. Maybe a 2 WAR player.
Correia: I expect him to post a 5 ERA and be a negative WAR player. There's just no reason to think that he'll gracefully make the transition to the AL. He's the most likely to be replaced by Gibson, IMO.
Pelfrey: A complete wildcard. He could be good, he could be awful. I won't even make a prediction. He's too fresh off TJ surgery.
Hendriks: I think he'll make some strides this season. He probably won't be any better than a league average #4 but hell, I'll take that. He showed some solid improvement late last season and I expect that to continue. In his last 8 starts, he gave up more than 4 ER once, a real clunker against the Yankees. He needs to go deeper into games but the guy is still only 24.

Overall, that leaves the Twins with three decent #3-5 starters under team control for quite some time.

And, again, that leaves the Twins with one absolutely awful free agent pick-up and another mediocre risk (a good risk, but still unspectacular).

At the end of the season, I think Correia will be the weak link and the area where the Twins could have made the most improvement. Some people around here don't like to hear it but I don't really care. There's just no reason to think the guy will be good in the AL. He has everything working against him. He puts too many balls into play in front of a mediocre at best, probably bad, defense. He's transitioning to a much more difficult league and couldn't post decent numbers even in the NL. He's not even an innings-eater, having never reached 200 IP in his career. No matter how you look at him as a player, there's no reason to think he'll be a good pitcher for the Twins.

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Originally Posted by Physics Guy

I'm not sure I follow your point. In what way am I manipulating stats? Do I even express an opinion on them leading you to think I am using them to make a point?

Yes, I think Hendriks is the 5th starter. The only other possible option that is acceptable in my mind is Gibson and I am skeptical they will start him in the rotation. DeVries and Deduno are injury fill-ins at best with little upside. Unless Hendriks is horrible in ST he absolutely should be given the season to prove himself.

I did not complete my post because I wanted to think about it, but was curious what others might have to say about the data. At first glance, the staff going into 2012 appears to be much stronger. The problem is that it is heavily weighted by a pitcher who the Twins realistically should have been worried about after pitching 12 innings the previous Aug and Sept (I know, hindsight). Pavano was 35 in 2011 and starting to show his age. I would say the 2013 staff has a good chance of producing a 5 or better in WAR this year. My guess (and that is all it is):
Diamond 1.8
Worley 1.8
Correia 0
Pelfrey 0.8
Hendriks 0.8

Yes, I realize this is optimistic, but not out of the realm of possibility. This is clearly better than the 1.2 that the best combination of 5 starters put up last year (minus Blackburn's -2.3!!!). It's not a division winner, but at least it might be watchable.

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I think that it's very likely that the Twins starters put up a 5-6 WAR this year if everyone is healthy. Big problem is that we have no idea how Pelfrey is going to do, Hendriks gives us no reason to think he's capable of giving a positive WAR. Correia could possibly be worse than a 0. However, I think Worely very well could be in the 2+ WAR range this year. So depending on what Diamond does I think they get most of the way to 5 with just Worley and Diamond so if they get anything out of the other 3 they could easily make 5-6.

Still that's probably about half the WAR of the average rotation in the majors.