The Twins capabilities / results for acquiring talent through trades

[old nurse]

 

In your list, isn't 2 really the end and the rest the means towards that end?   And wouldn't making to and winning world series be the biggest driver for number 2?  Lots of data on that.  On field performance translates to financial performance in professional sports.

The spike in attendance was nearly as great for being division winners as the 91 champions. That number grew even though there were a couple of down years in the dome.

[USAFChief]

 

You say this with such conviction.  The Minnesota Twins organization is a business.  I could come up with a half dozen things would without question be more important to judging a GM than World Series Appearances.

1. Leadership
2. Financial Performance
3. Managing / Elevating the Twins Brand
4. Risk Mitigation
5. Asset Management – Primarily related to minor league development given the Twins revenue relative to the top markets.
6. Developing methodologies that provide competitive advantage (Saber Metrics / Scouting, etc)T

 

The exact six measures are debatable but this is a business and the people who run them measure success differently than fans. 

I would concur the Twins, as an organization, are not primarily focused on winning the WS.

 

But I view that as a weakness, not a strength.  And not a weakness shared by all 30 MLB teams.

[Dantes929]

 

I try every day not to raise the fact the Twins gave up on Gomez and Hardy, but we can go there if people want....

Always seems like people think we could have kept both Gomez and Hardy when we got Hardy for Gomez.   I don't really lament getting Hardy for Gomez and don't conclude that the Twins gave up on Gomez.  .  It made a lot of sense at the time but giving up on Hardy a year later made no sense.  Unproven Valencia and Casilla with even less proven Nishioka just left too much margin for error without a stabilizing guy like Hardy and  I am not lamenting the offensive explosion that came after but the very good defense with competent offense that I thought we were losing at the time.  . 

 

[Dantes929]

Twins don't trade a lot and I am ok with that.  They don't make big splashes on the free agent market and I actually wish they made less splash.    If you think about it trades and free agent transactions are just a big game of musical chairs.   One team loses a pitcher so they go and get some one that a different team lost.   Team A will lose a batter that they think is asking for more than he is worth but somehow see sense in paying a different guy from team B that was asking for more than team B thought he was worth.   We have what appears to be good talent right now that should develop into a good team.   I am fine with holding pat as long as we keep them for a good amount of time.  Not opposed to getting a catcher or reliever if the price is right but I like a mostly home grown product. 

[Mike Sixel]

Always seems like people think we could have kept both Gomez and Hardy when we got Hardy for Gomez.   I don't really lament getting Hardy for Gomez and don't conclude that the Twins gave up on Gomez.  .  It made a lot of sense at the time but giving up on Hardy a year later made no sense.  Unproven Valencia and Casilla with even less proven Nishioka just left too much margin for error without a stabilizing guy like Hardy and  I am not lamenting the offensive explosion that came after but the very good defense with competent offense that I thought we were losing at the time.  .

I don't forget that, they traded both away. Both were mistakes, though the first is somewhat excusable, imo. The second, not at all.

[Mike Sixel]

Twins don't trade a lot and I am ok with that.  They don't make big splashes on the free agent market and I actually wish they made less splash.    If you think about it trades and free agent transactions are just a big game of musical chairs.   One team loses a pitcher so they go and get some one that a different team lost.   Team A will lose a batter that they think is asking for more than he is worth but somehow see sense in paying a different guy from team B that was asking for more than team B thought he was worth.   We have what appears to be good talent right now that should develop into a good team.   I am fine with holding pat as long as we keep them for a good amount of time.  Not opposed to getting a catcher or reliever if the price is right but I like a mostly home grown product.

Here is a list of people on the 25 man they did not draft, you want them all gone*?

Santana

Hughes

Pelfrey

Nolasco

Milone

Cotts

Fien

May

Suzuki

Nunez

Escobar

Robinson

 

Hunter came back as FA

 

every team uses FA and trades, in addition to the draft, to build their roster. It is a great myth that teams are only, or even primarily, built on guys that they drafted.

 

*that's off the top of my head, I probably missed a name or several

[Major League Ready]

 

In your list, isn't 2 really the end and the rest the means towards that end?   And wouldn't making to and winning world series be the biggest driver for number 2?  Lots of data on that.  On field performance translates to financial performance in professional sports.

 

 

In your list, isn't 2 really the end and the rest the means towards that end?   And wouldn't making to and winning world series be the biggest driver for number 2?  Lots of data on that.  On field performance translates to financial performance in professional sports.

In a word, no.  If the payroll variable was removed there would be a closer correlation but there are still a lot of other factors, including injury and luck.  It is just not nearly this simple to judge a job of this nature or most leadership positions for that matter.  In your defense, you did say that if there was a single measure which is a lot different than saying the single measure should be world-series appearances.

The Dodgers might very well being the world series this year or perhaps win.  They are paying in the neighbor of $80M for players that don’t play for them.  That is not good asset management.

[Thrylos]

 

 

The Dodgers might very well being the world series this year or perhaps win.  They are paying in the neighbor of $80M for players that don’t play for them.  That is not good asset management.

 

They were eliminated last night

[Kwak]

 

I disagree with the article. When Terry Ryan makes a trade, They usually turn out in our favor. Getting Escobar for 2 months of Liriano was a heist. May for Revere is turning into a good one. Most of the acquisition the article laments were actually good lower cost moves that worked out. From using the Stat lines from the article is that we don't trade for core players and so what if we don't do that.

A set-up guy for a regular CF is not a good trade.  

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Twins don't trade a lot and I am ok with that.  They don't make big splashes on the free agent market and I actually wish they made less splash.  

 

Mostly concur on the second point. On the first point, the Twins, for the first time in the Terry Ryan II era, now have a surplus of major league talent. They don't have room to play everyone. Ryan needs to be making trades or otherwise get creative somehow.

[sane]

A set-up guy for a regular CF is not a good trade.

Revere is not a CF because of his weak arm; and May will not be a setup guy much longer, when the logjam of veteran starters clears up.

[Kwak]

 

Revere is not a CF because of his weak arm; and May will not be a setup guy much longer, when the logjam of veteran starters clears up.

Ryan has already "laid the groundwork" for informing May of Ryan's "plan" for him--it will happen before Spring training, and it will be "bullpen".

[sane]

"Ryan's "plan" for him wil..be "bullpen".

And you know this because Terry Ryan was in the next stall?

[BrianTrottier]

I admittedly didn't read the whole article, but he seems to base his argument on comparing the number of WAR accumulated by specific players as evidence the twins haven't been so hot at acquiring talent. I guess my first gripe with that is that it's not fair to use a cumulative statistic as a comparison when guys are playing different amounts of time (for example, saying Pelfrey was better than Santana this year based on WAR, even though he had less than half a win above in twice the length of time). I'm also not sure about the author's comparisons of WAR between pitchers and position players, but maybe that's just because of my misunderstanding of the statistic. 

 

 

I also wish he would actually show fWar leaders from other teams in the same timespan as he did for the twins. Without that he's not really comparing them to anything, other than a few cherry-picked anecdotes. I suspect the differences in WAR accumulated by Twins acquisitions wouldn't actually be as large as the author seems to suggest. So I agree with the others who think of this article as just a fluff piece.

 

 

[Hrbowski]

I think this largely has to do with the fact that the Twins don't acquire talent outside the organization very often, and it really isn't that alarming because the best organization in baseball (Giants) don't either. One of the main problems is that Minnesota doesn't seem to be very attractive to big time free agents. 

[Eris]

From my perspective, the situation is worse than the list implies because it does not consider players who were released.  RA Dickey (signed by the Mets and after a Cy Young year traded for Syndergard and Travis d'Arnaud).  You will find threads on TD trying to address acquiring front line starters and what to do about the catching position.  Pat Neshek pitched well for the Astros this year.  Chris Colabella would have been great at DH (before Sano).  I realize the situation with Colabella is slightly complicated because of his injury last April and his high BABIP, however keeping Doug Bernier on the 40 man roster and releasing Colabella made little sense for a last place team.

 

Also, Sean Gilmartin pitched very well for the Mets after being selected in Rule 5 draft.  The Mets, who have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball were picking from an organization with one of the worst MLB pitching staffs.  

 

The implication here is the Twins are doing a poor job of evaluating talent.  Do the Twins have any commitment to sabermetric analysis?  I think we have alot to learn from the Cardinals and Houston in that category.

 

David

 

 

[Winston Smith]

Revere is not a CF because of his weak arm; and May will not be a setup guy much longer, when the logjam of veteran starters clears up.

Span for Meyer?

[jimmer]

 

Span for Meyer?

we have to wait and see if Meyer will ever stick on the 25 man roster to determine that :-)

[Kwak]

 

I admittedly didn't read the whole article, but he seems to base his argument on comparing the number of WAR accumulated by specific players as evidence the twins haven't been so hot at acquiring talent. I guess my first gripe with that is that it's not fair to use a cumulative statistic as a comparison when guys are playing different amounts of time (for example, saying Pelfrey was better than Santana this year based on WAR, even though he had less than half a win above in twice the length of time). I'm also not sure about the author's comparisons of WAR between pitchers and position players, but maybe that's just because of my misunderstanding of the statistic. 

 

 

I also wish he would actually show fWar leaders from other teams in the same timespan as he did for the twins. Without that he's not really comparing them to anything, other than a few cherry-picked anecdotes. I suspect the differences in WAR accumulated by Twins acquisitions wouldn't actually be as large as the author seems to suggest. So I agree with the others who think of this article as just a fluff piece.

So, why not research some fWARs from other teams to refute the article?

[jokin]

 

From my perspective, the situation is worse than the list implies because it does not consider players who were released.  RA Dickey (signed by the Mets and after a Cy Young year traded for Syndergard and Travis d'Arnaud).  You will find threads on TD trying to address acquiring front line starters and what to do about the catching position.  Pat Neshek pitched well for the Astros this year.  Chris Colabella would have been great at DH (before Sano).  I realize the situation with Colabella is slightly complicated because of his injury last April and his high BABIP, however keeping Doug Bernier on the 40 man roster and releasing Colabella made little sense for a last place team.

 

Also, Sean Gilmartin pitched very well for the Mets after being selected in Rule 5 draft.  The Mets, who have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball were picking from an organization with one of the worst MLB pitching staffs.  

 

The implication here is the Twins are doing a poor job of evaluating talent.  Do the Twins have any commitment to sabermetric analysis?  I think we have alot to learn from the Cardinals and Houston in that category.

 

David

 

Good summary.  But at this point, I'd have to say it's pretty evident that it's more than just an implication- this isn't exactly the first season that this has happened. And it goes the other way too, in terms of misperceptions in talent evaluation, ie, signing/retaining/re-signing/extending sub-optimal/mirage--year-like guys- when they usually should be making the exact opposite move.

[BrianTrottier]

 

So, why not research some fWARs from other teams to refute the article?

 

Because I'm too lazy.

[nicksaviking]

The article was interesting and made a ton of good points, but still seemed pretty subjective. The list of acquired pitchers was pretty fantastic, even if it had just been Santana, Liriano and Nathan. That's a really impressive group.

 

What's not impressive is those moves happened long, long ago. The article would have been more effective if the samples were shortened in years and the article instead discussed the suggested (though inflammatorily unexplored and thus unsupported) angle of the Twins not getting any SABR friendly players in the last decade or so since these kind of measurements have been easily accessible.

 

It basically boiled down to saying "The Twins are bad at trades and free agency, except sometimes when they weren't last decade." Great try to explain why and propose a solution.

[Eris]

Here is some limited data from the Rays.

 

The Garza trade netted the Rays 16.2 WAR and the Twins -1.4 (Note in doing this I have only determined the time with the organization so in this way the analysis is not complete because the data has not been collected to infinity).

 

The Rays trade Garza to the Cubs.  Rays net 16.5 WAR and the Cubs 6.3 WAR

 

Rays trade Shields and Davis to the Royals for Myers and others.  Rays net 7.5 WAR and Royals 13.7 WAR (although this is more complicated as Myers was traded to the Padres after two years in Tampa)

 

 

[Platoon]

You say this with such conviction.  The Minnesota Twins organization is a business.  I could come up with a half dozen things would without question be more important to judging a GM than World Series Appearances.

1. Leadership

2. Financial Performance

3. Managing / Elevating the Twins Brand

4. Risk Mitigation

5. Asset Management – Primarily related to minor league development given the Twins revenue relative to the top markets.

6. Developing methodologies that provide competitive advantage (Saber Metrics / Scouting, etc)T

 

The exact six measures are debatable but this is a business and the people who run them measure success differently than fans.

 

You (they) forgot #7. Winning baseball games. The Twins are a business, and are run like one. But if you don't include #7, then everyone who goes to the games, buys merchandise, and follows the team must be basically rubes! Or worse! i know it sounds/seems cynical but looking at the last 20 years seems make one wonder.

[ashbury]

You (they) forgot #7. Winning baseball games.

At least three of the bullet items he listed are negatively impacted if you have a losing team. The other three are part of building a winning team. Nobody is forgetting about winning games. There is disagreement on the marginal cost of improving the odds of winning a World Series, given that 29 other teams to varying degrees are also trying and no amount of investment can insure a ring.

[USAFChief]

At least three of the bullet items he listed are negatively impacted if you have a losing team. The other three are part of building a winning team. Nobody is forgetting about winning games. There is disagreement on the marginal cost of improving the odds of winning a World Series, given that 29 other teams to varying degrees are also trying and no amount of investment can insure a ring.

Except the original quote specifically says everything on his list is more important than winning a WS.

 

I do not believe all 30 MLB teams agree. I think some owners value winning over profit, some don't.

[Rosterman]

My frustration with the Twins is not being able to identify potential free agents to trade. Or doing it badly. Sure, Johann wanted out, but do you dangle him like you did at the winter meetings,or just go ahead and start the season and trade him to a needy contender. Also, identifying guys who will not be re-signing and trading them, and then still have the option of a resign as no qualifying offer needed: Hunter, Cuddyer, Nathan are perfect examples. We can also complain that Ryan waits too long, Delmon Young and Josh Willingham, for example, should've been dealt after their stellar season. It is tough being a general manager. You juggle future payroll demands, player ups and downs, the desire to give new guys  a chance, and the possibility of a grizzled old veteran (Boyer) giving you some good juice. 

 

[bird]

 

Did you even read the article, where it compares to how OTHER teams did? Because it clearly states they aren't good at acquiring outside talent relative to other teams.

 

 

Did YOU even read the article, where it "compared" to how OTHER teams "did" in 2015 ONLY by looking at ONE criteria (2.0fWAR)?

[TheLeviathan]

I think this largely has to do with the fact that the Twins don't acquire talent outside the organization very often, and it really isn't that alarming because the best organization in baseball (Giants) don't either. One of the main problems is that Minnesota doesn't seem to be very attractive to big time free agents.

 

The a Twins have even admitted money is king in FA. Face it, it ain't the weather, it's the frugality.

[ashbury]

Except the original quote specifically says everything on his list is more important than winning a WS.

For those who believe the process is more important than the outcome, the rebuttal still stands.