Twins re-build

[mnfireman]

Step 1 - New blood on the bench

While neither condoning nor condemning the firing of Gardy, it was way past time for a change. His style just wasn't doing it anymore. The team was fundamentally unsound. The talent is there, but it seems like they don't know how to play the game. Throwing to the wrong base, missing cut-offs, getting picked off, bunting when its not needed, etc... This team needs a field staff that can get these kids to play baseball, not whatever the past 4 seasons have been.

 

Step 2 - Veteran leadership

This team needs a Torii Hunter type - a veteran who is both willing to help teach the kids how to play and ready to smack 'em upside the head when needed. Gardy never started throwing players under the bus until Torii left, and even then it was the younger players. If the team dives into the free agent pool it needs to get a veteran with some fire.

 

Step 3 - Commit 100%

Fuld, Mastro, Escobar, Schafer and a few others are nice players, on a contending team. As reserves. They are not everyday players, especially on a rebuilding team. Either sign veteran starters to be gap stops or get the kids up here. Granted injuries didn't help, but the future needs to be with the big club. This goes for the rotation as well. This team should be going into year 4 of a re-build, but its only going into year 2. The Band-Aid method didn't work, do it right. And we fans need to realize this also.

 

Step 4 - Don't be afraid to be a copycat

Take a look at St. Louis, Pittsburgh, KC, Oakland, Tampa and a few others. They play younger players until they become expensive, and then have younger players ready when they lose those expensive players. Or invest wisely. San Francisco has a terrible offense, but oh that pitching staff and defense. Minnesota used to be the team to emulate in the reload method, maybe they will remember how to do it.

 

I'm sure there are things that could be added to this re-build plan, but I feel it would be a start and after another year or two this team will be viable again.

[ashbury]

    mnfireman, on 29 Sept 2014 - 8:05 PM, said:

 

    San Francisco has a terrible offense, but oh that pitching staff and defense.

 

Minor aside, but in 2014 SF was better than league average in both runs scored and runs against.  Considering their home park suppresses run scoring, it might even be that their offense has carried them this season.

[huhguy]

if you include Escobar in your temp players, Im afradi you have lost all credibility

[twinsajsf]

"The talent is there" -- actually, you lost all credibility with that sentence.  Whether or not Gardy was the right guy to lead the rebuild going forward, I think we can all agree that up to this point, the talent has not been there to compete at a high level.  Could they have managed o not lose 90 games, maybe only 87 or 88, with a different manager?  Who knows?  The point, though, is that they were not going to be "good" no matter who was managing the team the last few years.

 

That said, maybe a new voice, COMBINED with the continued emergence of some younger players AND the addition of another impact guy or two, will get them over the hump to "good". I'm pretty ambivalent to Gardy, so I didn't really care one way or the other about his status for next year, but to say that "the talent was there" and they just need a better manager is nonsense.

[stringer bell]

if you include Escobar in your temp players, Im afradi you have lost all credibility

I wouldn't go that far, but at his age he certainly could grow some more.  2014 was an outstanding year for Esco, he was second among AL SSs in OPS, had positive fielding numbers, and still managed to fill in at two other positions.   

 

I am in the camp that writes his name in as the regular SS to start 2015.

[ashbury]

It will be a happy day for Twins Land, IMO, when Escobar is viewed as a great utility guy to have and is no longer in the discussion as a starter.  I will be shocked if he's a starter on a playoff-bound team, whether that's the Twins or some other team via trade.

[drjim]

I certainly agree with 1 and 2.

 

3 is kind of confusing to me. I'm not sure acquiring veteran stopgaps that are better than the players you list is as simple as you make it seem to be. Veteran stopgaps that will be clear improvements but will only sign for a year or two really don't exist in the free agent market, and trading prospects to acquire them probably doesn't make much sense for a rebuilding team. They could play kids, but in a very real sense they already are.

 

4 is fine but probably a difficult thing to execute. Can't exactly copy another team, need to best utilize resources within the organization. I would be curious to see that expanded into what it might look like to copy those franchises. To merely pick the teams that are currently successful and say "be like them" doesn't mean a whole lot.

[mnfireman]

When I said that the talent is there, I meant that players like Arcia, Santana, and Dozier are good young players, but for whatever reasons are mistake prone. Mauer had a down year, but Suzuki and Escobar played above expectations. Plouffe played to what everybody hoped he would, and actually improved a little on defense. Vargas hit well, but that was it. No range in the field and no speed on the bases. And the LF by committee, other than the statue that was Willingham, didn't do too bad.

 

Fundamentally they left a lot to be desired. Balls dropping between fielders, bad routes in the OF, missed cut-off men, throwing to the wrong base, can't throw out runners trying to steal, and the list goes on. I can think of at least a dozen occasions where innings were extended because of the teams defense.

 

And on offense, even with the improvements by these players there were far too many players picked off, too much station to station base running, runners not being advanced, strike outs when a ground ball or fly ball was needed, etc...

 

Lots of room for improvement, and I didn't even start on the rotation!