THE NEW YORK TWINS

[old nurse]

 

David Ortiz (.340/.424/.732 16 HR, 54 RBI)

Steve Pearce (.316/.399/.534 8 HR, 20 RBI)

Wilson Ramos (.350/.392/.569 8 HR, 31 RBI)

Yangervis Solarte (.329/.413/.586 4HR, 16RBI)

Peter Moylan (1.86 ERA, 1.99 FIP, 9.6 K/9)

Pat Neshek (2.89 ERA, 0.857 WHIP, 8.7 K/9)

even Casey Fien (0.00 ERA, 0.439 WHIP, 15.4 K/9 SSS)

 

would beg to differ

 

Soon to add Deolis Guerra to the list...

Other than Ramos, how many of these players took multiple years to develop after leaving the Twins?  Neshek had a couple down years. It worked out well for him as he got to be an integral part of a championship team. You really have to stretch to have much of a list. Guerra was outrighted to AAA. It might take a little while.  There would be a pretty decent AAA team of ex Twins playing in AAA

[by jiminy]

Don't forget J. J. Hardy and Carlos Gomez!

 

It was the talk of Ramos that reminded me--that wasn't the only terrible trade!

 

And I have to say, I thought the Ramos trade was gut-wrenchingly awful at the time, and not just for the bad return (an okay reliever overvalued because he was a "proven closer").  I objected just as much to the rationale that they didn't need a second catcher because they had Mauer.  If you have invested $184 million in one player, shouldn't protecting his health be paramount?  And isn't the best way to protect his health not to over-use him?  And isn't the best protection against that having a second catcher?  Even if you want Mauer's bat in the lineup every day, that lets you DH him all you want.  And if something goes wrong, which is the norm with catchers, you're not, well, where they are now.  Terrible, terrible trade.  Giving him up for Capps added insult to injury, but the real injury was wearing out Mauer.  People always talk about his injuries but he actually played more games than almost any other catcher.  What a waste. 

[The Wise One]

 

No point other than it was said that only Valencia and Span are the former Twins who are doing well.  I begged to differ.  A whole bunch of other former Twins doing well.  

 

Anything else is way too much reading into it.

 

Ortiz will always be a former Twin, same as Moylan, same as Pierce.  It is an undisputed fact

Any team will have players that played for them once be playing well elsewhere. The list of exTwins is not all that impressive. That you need to go back as far as you did to come up with a list is telling

[Eris]

 

Is that all?  

 

No.  We forgot Drew Butera.  Butera is having a career year.  I think we would take 0.273 BA from our starting catcher right now.   Sean Gilmartin has been up for a brief stint with the Mets, but has spent most of tis year in the minors getting stretched out.

[Thrylos]

 

The BoSox only got 3 World Series championships out of Ortiz.  The Yankees have over 25 World Series championship victories to their franchise name.  

 

So really, 3, in the grand of scale of things, isn't that many.

 

3 = Exactly how many total World Championships the Twins' Franchise has since its inception in 1900

[Han Joelo]

Parmalee and Swarzak lead the New York Yankees to victory.  Baseball is funny.

[Taildragger8791]

 

3 = Exactly how many total World Championships the Twins' Franchise has since its inception in 1900

 

The Twins hardly even publically recognize their Senators history so it's funny to think of them as having a third championship under their franchise. You'd think with Clark Griffith having such a long history with the Senators, and his son Calvin being the one who moved the team to Minnesota, that they'd feel more of a tie to those years. It wasn't even that long ago. Hell, Killebrew was there 6 years before relocating.

[Shane Wahl]

Parmelee hit two bombs yesterday. The game headline had his name in it! Hilarious.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

When do the statute of limitations run out on the Ortiz situation? I'm guessing there was a bad decision made about Walter Johnson if we go back far enough.

Nope.  Walter Johnson pitched with the same organization from age 19-39.  The Ortiz equivalent move would have been releasing Walter Johnson after his third season so you could play Mathieu LeCroix instead.  A move that would have been cursed by fans until the franchise itself was moved and its past incarnation forgotten about.

[Minniman]

 

When do the statute of limitations run out on the Ortiz situation? I'm guessing there was a bad decision made about Walter Johnson if we go back far enough.

 

It doesn't.

 

[D. Hocking]

For all his success, it seems like Ortiz cannot quite let go of the bitter taste in his mouth of how things ended close to 15 years ago.

 

On one hand, I like an athlete who is honest and not giving the normal cliches.  On the other hand, he does come off whiny at times.  Let it go David... 

http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2016/06/09/david-ortiz-on-his-time-with-the-twins-people-didnt-know-who-the-hell-we-were/

[Guest]

Any team will have players that played for them once be playing well elsewhere. The list of exTwins is not all that impressive. That you need to go back as far as you did to come up with a list is telling

This is somewhat true, although a couple of years ago, you could almost complete an all-star team with ex-Twins, many of whom seemed to credit their success to leaving the Twins. Even Liam Hendriks has complained about how he was handled here.

 

More generally, the issue is that, as a team that doesn't vie for top tier free agents, do they succeed or fail more often in the middle and bottom tiers, and with minor leaguers and waiver wires. Failures seem to be remembered more than successes. Thinking about successes, you have to give credit for picking up Johan Santana in Rule V, which almost balances giving away Ortiz for free. Other than that, however, successes that come to mind include Jason Tyner and Jared Burton, which don't balance the losses. This year, Nunez is doing a great job of adding to the success ledger and maybe Robbie G will continue his current play and become a good success, but overall, it seems that the giveaways are better than the pick-ups.

 

Finally, there's also been a whole lot of Sidney Ponson, Mike Pelfrey, Clay Condrey, Dain Stauffer, Mike Lamb, Tony Batista, etc., and former Twins fantasy campers like Bartlett, Kubel and Guerrier, which have been uniformly awful.

 

Net-net, when you think about the players who have been hired, it hurts to think about the ones who have gone elsewhere.

[The Wise One]

Many of the Twins failures went on to be failures elsewhere after leaving the Twins. Some were failure a couple of times before finding success.  Some continued to fail. Tim Stauffer still pitched a few games for the Mets. He went to camp with Arizona. Do LaRussa and Alderson no nothing about baseball players and pitching?  Ponson got time with the Rangers, Yankees and Royals after leaving the Twins. Daniels, Cashman and Moore are bad  I do believe between them they have had quite a few World Series teams.

[Linus]

It's baseball, it happens. Many times guys don't blossom until several years after they run out of options with their first team. You can't hang onto them for years of mediocrity hoping they will figure it out at 29.