The rotation that Ryan built.

[DaveW]

 

 

I know that the Twins aren't big on sabermetrics and all, but numbers in terms of age don't lie.  I've said it on other threads, said it when they signed Nolasco and Santana, you can't sign 30+ year old pitchers and expect positive results.  Father Time is undefeated.  The numbers for pitchers that get over the magic 3-0 are not good...unless you are Roger Clemens.  I don't understand why we keep trying to defy the odds.

Especially 30+ year old pitchers who never had "great" stuff or results to begin with. If you are going to go after a 30+ year old guy, go after a guy with a lot of success like a Cole Hamels, at least the regression in that case won't be as bad. (going from an ace to very good number 2 is better than a guy going from a #3 to out of the league...as Hughes and Nolasco basically have done)

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

You act like the only way to get pitchers are to sign them to long term contracts, there were plenty of people wanting the Twins to give a guy like Kazmir a 1 or 2 year deal, every year there are plenty of guys you can snag for 1 or 2 years on the FA market. If you need "a guy to go out every 5th day" like you suggest, you have plenty of other options: (Trades, 1-2 year contracts) then just "well you have to sign guys long term, it is what it is"

 

Also as many people mentioned, if you are going to sign someone long term, make sure its an ace or someone with high upside. Signing a bunch of mid to back of the rotation guys (Santana, Hughes, Nolasco) for a bunch of money is sort of a waste IMO. With the money spent on those three they could have very easily gotten an ace like Cueto and still had enough left for a mid rotation type guy.

Most of those 1-2 year deals aren't going to get you your better results.  I'd note I'm not in disagreement on Kazmir (would have taken him over KC, that's for sure), but for every Kazmir, there's quite a few more Pelfrey's.  I'm not necessarily in disagreement on going big for the ace, but I'll say what I've said before, those 100+M contracts rarely work out.  By the time the other pieces are in place, you're staring at an even worse version of the Nolasco contract.

 

And we did the trades as well.  We got Meyer, May, and Worley.  Worley certainly didn't work, but I'd hardly shut the book on Meyer and May. 

[Mike Sixel]

FA in a rebuild should be short term deals, that either work and you trade, or you extend. FA in a rebuild, imo, should not be about filling your entire SP rotation.

 

I am baffled that anyone is defending this rotation and the FO at all. It's been terrible 4 of 5 years now.

[DaveW]

 

Most of those 1-2 year deals aren't going to get you your better results.  I'd note I'm not in disagreement on Kazmir (would have taken him over KC, that's for sure), but for every Kazmir, there's quite a few more Pelfrey's.  I'm not necessarily in disagreement on going big for the ace, but I'll say what I've said before, those 100+M contracts rarely work out.  By the time the other pieces are in place, you're staring at an even worse version of the Nolasco contract.

 

And we did the trades as well.  We got Meyer, May, and Worley.  Worley certainly didn't work, but I'd hardly shut the book on Meyer and May. 

You don't need better results, you need equal or close to equal results. Literally, any 1-2 year deal pitcher could have given us what Nolasco has! Ditto with Hughes the past two seasons as well.

 

Signing aging mid to back end of the rotation pitchers to long term contracts is a mistake, especially 3 of them.

[DaveW]

 

FA in a rebuild should be short term deals, that either work and you trade, or you extend. FA in a rebuild, imo, should not be about filling your entire SP rotation.

 

I am baffled that anyone is defending this rotation and the FO at all. It's been terrible 4 of 5 years now.

Yeah it seems like a lot of the defense is: "Well, they needed pitchers and they tried!"

 

As you mentioned the rotation has been a disaster the last 5 years overall. That is an indictment of not only the FA signings, but the clubs ability to develop SP in the minors and inability to make impact trades.

[Kwak]

Go back to the part of [inability] to develop pitching--that's where the problem lies! The FA signings were caused by said inability, the reliance on dumpster diving (in order to cut payroll and satisfy the owner), and the constant kvetching about poor pitching sinking the team. They wore Pohlad down and he said "...get some pitching--he's the money...". The front office fell into the trap of buying multiple pitchers per year, instead of one per year over time. But, of course the fundamental problem of development has yet to be shown "it's fixed".

[Twinsbar107]

 

I never understood any of these signings in the first place. What is the point of signing mediocre pitchers to long term contracts on a losing team? To get a worse draft pick? They should of focused on the rebuild years ago and now we are facing the consequences. Time to clean house in the organization. Hopefully the can find the MLB version of Rick Spielman. 

Because the vikings have been so successful? Hopefully this organization finds MLB version of Theo. Or, if he wins the WS with the Cubs this year. He will have gotten rid of the Red Sox and Cubs curse. He can just make it 3 for 3 and fix the Twins. 

[clutterheart]

 

Have seen a lot of takes recently that Ryan doesn't deserve the blame he is getting,

 

I have not seen anyone say this.  I have seen people say that we need to trust his process and lay the blame on basically ALL of the players who are underperforming.  But even those folks agree that what he he has done hasn't worked well.  

 

[alarp33]

 

You act like the only way to get pitchers are to sign them to long term contracts, there were plenty of people wanting the Twins to give a guy like Kazmir a 1 or 2 year deal, every year there are plenty of guys you can snag for 1 or 2 years on the FA market. If you need "a guy to go out every 5th day" like you suggest, you have plenty of other options: (Trades, 1-2 year contracts) then just "well you have to sign guys long term, it is what it is"

 

 

Or you can even sign a guy who is still relatively young with some potential upside to a slightly high based on performance salary, but for only 3 years and certainly not crippling money.  

 

But whatever you do... just do NOT extend this guy after year 1 of that 3 year contract 

[jokin]

 

 

 

But whatever you do... just do NOT extend this guy after year 1 of that 3 year contract........

 

...Unless you're Terry Ryan, that is.

[d-mac]

 

Garza had a pretty solid 8 years or so as well

 

And Baker was turning into a solid #2 until his arm fell off.

[DaveW]

 

Because the vikings have been so successful?

Give me the Vikings last 25 years over the Twins last 25 years any day of the week. Tons of playoff games, multiple teams that were actually good enough to win super bowls.

[d-mac]

 

Something needed to happen.  That I don't think was up for debate.  The 2012/13 rotations were bad.  Problem is that to get decent ones, you had to go long term.  Now we have 3 long term contracts in the rotation, and only one is still decent. 

 

Unfortunately, so much of this discussion tends to be revisionist in nature as it's really easy to forget the context of what lead to them.

 

I can't speak for everybody, but I've been fairly consistent on my thoughts here. Although it was before I had joined TD, I thought signing Hughes was a hell of a deal, he was an extreme flyball pitcher at Yankee stadium with a solid K/BB ratio. A good buy low candidate signed to a team friendly deal. 

 

I liked signing Nolasco, again, he had a solid K/BB ratio through his career. Has a history of underperforming his xFIP, but he had just come off a pretty solid 2013 season.

 

I was 100% against the Ervin Santana signing from the start. I thought it was one FA signing too many, I felt it was going to block pitchers like May, Meyer, and Berrios. Plus, I tend to think Santana is a bit overrated, his K/BB ratios are pretty meh, he has a history of being wildly inconsistent from year-to-year, plus I felt he was an injury risk as he had torn his UCL, but not had TJ surgery.

 

The extension of Hughes was dumb, stupid, and uncalled for. 

[alarp33]

 

...Unless you're Terry Ryan, that is.

 

I would love to get a look back into that contract extension negotiation.  I'm assuming Hughes agent called TR to start the convo. 

 

"So Terry, Phil had a pretty great year.  Listen, we know he's under contract for 2 more seasons and this was really his only good season he has had in the Majors... but he would be willing to sign an extension today only... it will only cost $42 milion for 3 years.  Just think of the potential savings, if he somehow duplicates 2014 two times, those 3 years would potentially cost $60 million!  You would be saving the Pohlad's a whopping $6 million/ year in 2017, 2018, and 2019 if everything goes perfectly and Phil stays healthy and repeats this outlier season twice."

 

"Ok lets do it" - TR

[DocBauer]

While Nolasco should have been signed to a shorter term, and Hughes should never have been extended, each of the three signings, unto themselves, we're not bad ideas or mistakes. The problem, ultimately, is that all THREE were signed, at relatively the same time, and with contracts that have all three of them overlapping for multiple years.

[alarp33]

 

Can one of you more astute baseball minds help me with understanding the DFA process when you have a veteran that is out of options?  The way I think it works is that if you DFA a hypothetical player (let's call him "Ricky"), there are 5 possibilities:

 

1. Another team claims the player and takes the player and his contract.  The team gets nothing in return but does offload "Ricky" and has no further obligations on his contract.

2.  Another team claims "Ricky", his original team threatens to pull that player back and the teams have 10 days to try to work out a trade.  

3.  Another team claims "Ricky", you can't work out a trade, and you pull the player back onto your roster. 

4. No one claims "Ricky" and he can be assigned to AAA, where he is paid his major league salary. 

5. No team claims "Ricky" and, if the player has enough seniority, he refuses the assignment to AAA and becomes a free agent.  His contract terminates and the team has no further obligation.

 

Do I have that right?  If it is, and let' s say Ricky is a veteran pitcher who isn't performing, aren't all 5 options better than running "Ricky" out there every 5 days?  The worst that happens is that he goes to AAA and either rebuilds some trade value, figures out what's wrong, or continues to suck and gets released. Only in the latter case does the ultimate bad happen where the team has to pay his contract and he might go play for someone else. Just curious.   

 

You're mixing together DFA and Waivers I think.  I believe Ricky could decline a minor league option, making him a free agent (Twins pay whole contract) because he has 5+ years of service time.  

[dgwills]

 

Because the vikings have been so successful? Hopefully this organization finds MLB version of Theo. Or, if he wins the WS with the Cubs this year. He will have gotten rid of the Red Sox and Cubs curse. He can just make it 3 for 3 and fix the Twins. 

Of course I would take Theo. He would never take the job though. The Twins don't have the same resources as the Cubs or Red Sox, so it's not going to be as easy for a GM. Spielman is the same kind of GM though. He doesn't sign players to bad contracts very often and gets a lot of team friendly contracts. Hires talented coaches to develop players. Unlike the Twins who just seem to look for people with Minnesota connections and don't seem to worry about results. Both GM's had a plan to acquire as many prospects/young players as possible and try to build a playoff team.

It's really not rocket science. The Twin's moves as a whole these last 5 years just don't make any sense. The starting rotation in particular. They also should of been one of the teams going over budget on international signings as well. Instead they focused on winning a couple extra games per year.

 

[dgwills]

 

You're mixing together DFA and Waivers I think.  I believe Ricky could decline a minor league option, making him a free agent (Twins pay whole contract) because he has 5+ years of service time.  

Nope. He can't select being a free agent and receive his pay from the Twins. It's one or the other. He can just go home and not play instead of AAA ball though.

[alarp33]

 

Nope. He can't select being a free agent and receive his pay from the Twins. It's one or the other. He can just go home and not play instead of AAA ball though.

 

You certainly may be right.  But wouldn't he Qualify under Article XIX-A.  So maybe my wording was wrong about just becoming a FA, but can't he refuse the assignment?

 

If a player with Article XIX-A rights refuses an Outright Assignment but does not elect free-agency, the club must either retain the player on the club's MLB Reserve List (40-man roster), trade the player, or give the player his unconditional release.

[Han Joelo]

 

 

A couple of weeks ago there were a few national articles about Arrietta.  Sorry, no links, although I know SI Mag had a big one.  I know I read, probably on MLBTR, that the Twins were pursuing him.  That obviously didn't come to fruition.  On the one hand, that is good to know, but on the other, it makes me wonder which trade target of the Orioles was the breaking point in negotiations.

 

Interesting to think that, I don't know, had TR ponied up say Nick Burdi or something, (and Arrietta been 'fixed' by the Twins, which is probably debatable) this whole conversation could be a lot different.  One great diamond found - one crappy free agent signed = much better rotation outlook.  GMing is like hitting a baseball.  Hit one out of four and you suck, but three out of ten ain't bad.

 

I do concur that this rotation, as performing, reflects below Mendoza line 'hitting' for Ryan.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

You certainly may be right.  But wouldn't he Qualify under Article XIX-A.  So maybe my wording was wrong about just becoming a FA, but can't he refuse the assignment?

 

If a player with Article XIX-A rights refuses an Outright Assignment but does not elect free-agency, the club must either retain the player on the club's MLB Reserve List (40-man roster), trade the player, or give the player his unconditional release.

This is absolutely correct.  Nolasco has the right to refuse any assignment.  So he can't be sent to AAA. His refusal doesn't sacrifice his salary, though -- it would just keep him on the 25-man roster, and force the team to do something else with him if they wanted him off the roster.

 

Practically speaking, the only way to get Nolasco off of the 25-man roster is DL, trade, or release.  And the only way to get out of his salary is a trade where another team willingly pays it (unlikely).

[dgwills]

 

This is absolutely correct.  Nolasco has the right to refuse any assignment.  So he can't be sent to AAA. His refusal doesn't sacrifice his salary, though -- it would just keep him on the 25-man roster, and force the team to do something else with him if they wanted him off the roster.

 

Practically speaking, the only way to get Nolasco off of the 25-man roster is DL, trade, or release.  And the only way to get out of his salary is a trade where another team willingly pays it (unlikely).

If you would of said 40-man roster I'd of agreed with you. 

[alarp33]

 

If you would of said 40-man roster I'd of agreed with you. 

 

If a player with Article XIX-A rights refuses an Optional Assignment but does not elect free-agency, the club must either retain the player on the club's MLB Reserve List (40-man roster) AND Active List (25-man roster), trade the player, or give the player his unconditional release.

[Badsmerf]

Plain and simple, if he refuses going to AAA he can be considered a free agent. The twins must still pay his contract. This happened with Bret Boone years ago if i remember correctly. If they lost patience with millone, how the hells bells is Ricky stl in the rotation?

[Dman]

 

But only one team can be the "worst" at it, and the Twins clearly are that.

 

Those weren't really that big of "chances" to begin with since Hughes, Santana and Nolasco were nothing special and mid rotation guys at best to begin with, every saw it.

 

I think that is a pretty large exaggeration there. I mean the Yankees are in terrible shape because of large free agent acquisitions and long term contracts.  The Angels have made terrible mistakes in FA and Boston had to have LA save them from themselves.  So I think Worst is a bit over the top.  Maybe lets go with one of the worst. 

[Dman]

 

I can't speak for everybody, but I've been fairly consistent on my thoughts here. Although it was before I had joined TD, I thought signing Hughes was a hell of a deal, he was an extreme flyball pitcher at Yankee stadium with a solid K/BB ratio. A good buy low candidate signed to a team friendly deal. 

 

I liked signing Nolasco, again, he had a solid K/BB ratio through his career. Has a history of underperforming his xFIP, but he had just come off a pretty solid 2013 season.

 

I was 100% against the Ervin Santana signing from the start. I thought it was one FA signing too many, I felt it was going to block pitchers like May, Meyer, and Berrios. Plus, I tend to think Santana is a bit overrated, his K/BB ratios are pretty meh, he has a history of being wildly inconsistent from year-to-year, plus I felt he was an injury risk as he had torn his UCL, but not had TJ surgery.

 

The extension of Hughes was dumb, stupid, and uncalled for. 

 

yeah I felt pretty much the same way.  I could not have been more wrong about Nolasco but he seemed like a safe deal at the time and considering the crappy pitching we had at the time an upgrade to boot.  Things just went horribly wrong there somehow.  I was applauding the move so I can't take it back and say the Twins never should have done it. It seemed like a solid move at the time.

 

I wasn't uber high on Hughes but it seemed like a safe bet for the money and years involved.

 

I didn't want Santana either.  Would have rather had the draft pick and gone with the young guys but I did get the crowd that said you can never have too much pitching and someone almost always goes down every season so I was OK with it.  Just saw the future and wanted to see the young guys.

 

I also like the idea of going big with signing an ace type instead of mid tier pitchers but was also worried if that one signing didn't work out well that it would sink payroll wise.

 

If you look at it TR has not done a great job and this rebuild looks to be getting longer all the time.  The young guys are the only ones who can bring this team up.  Hopefully they figure things out sooner rather than later.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Hah, are people still defending Terry Ryan on here? Lol. Their is no hope for some of you.

[Kwak]

 

Hah, are people still defending Terry Ryan on here? Lol. Their is no hope for some of you.

Scratch most of these TD posters a little harder--and you'll find a defender.  Just wait, this team will enjoy a winning stretch--and they will be in full voice again.

[Thrylos]

 

Give me the Vikings last 25 years over the Twins last 25 years any day of the week. Tons of playoff games, multiple teams that were actually good enough to win super bowls.

 

Darn.  You are using the same argument I was using comparing Chilly (who albeit more successful, fans and writers wanted out of town) with Gardy (who even though less successful than Chilly had major teflon.) 

 

Same with Ryan and Spielman.  People wanted Spielman's head before last season, while Ryan was treated like everyone's nice little uncle or something

[Thrylos]

 

 

 the Yankees are in terrible shape

 

When the Twins were in the shape the Yankees are now, fans were ecstatic. 

 

I just do not get the double standards here.  If anything, I would think that one would be more critical of their team if it is not winning while competing that of others...