Twins FO Rumors

[laloesch]

 

He didn't do a great job his first time around.  In the 90s it was the same story, he let a lot of veterans go and had no viable plan to replace them.

 

The Twins got good in the 00s because the PLAYERS decided they weren't going to take it anymore, largely because of the contraction talks you mentioned.  He also scored well with the Pierzynski trade and nailed down a great closer.  

 

What you mentioned about "holding onto veterans for dear life" is false.  Take a look at what Johan Santana said as he was going out the door.  

 

Then why are you arguing with me if you dislike his moves so much? sheesh

[laloesch]

 

Median isn't scewed, mean is. 

 

The comment was about how much 100MM would be...and it not being on the low side. 

 

The twins current payroll is $111MM, and is 23rd on the list.

 

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

 

 

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm

[old nurse]

 

Lots of cherry picking of facts here.  Ryan let go of nearly every veteran the team had within the first couple of years of him getting his job back.  In retrospect it really looks like this was done to be snotty towards the previous GM than it was anything else, because Ryan had no plan to replace anybody.  He claims he had to reign in spending but the owner says that was never the case, and now the Twins find themselves spending just as much anyway but with a worse roster than when he started "cutting"!

 

 

Orlando Hudson was the only veteran let go by Ryan that Smith obtained.  Delmon Young was traded  I do not thimk anyone would have wanted Delmon to stay.  Pavano was kept a couple years too long.  Ryan , in hindsight, should havve gotten rid of a Smith player sooner.  Anything else were players Ryan obtained during his first tenure, or bit parts

[Doomtints]

 

Then why are you arguing with me if you dislike his moves so much? sheesh

 

I'm not "arguing with you" ... I simply think you are letting your feelings of Ryan get ahead of the facts.  We are both glad Ryan is gone, it seems.  

[Mike Sixel]

I guess if you exclude any player ever released (even though players are released all the time), and you exclude incentives, or money that changes hands in trades (even though that happens all the time), then sure, the numbers look different.......also can't tell if those numbers include DL'd players or not.

 

So, ya, if you use a different definition of payroll than total money spent on MLB players.....then $100MM looks different.....

[Doomtints]

 

Orlando Hudson was the only veteran let go by Ryan that Smith obtained.  Delmon Young was traded  I do not thimk anyone would have wanted Delmon to stay.  Pavano was kept a couple years too long.  Ryan , in hindsight, should havve gotten rid of a Smith player sooner.  Anything else were players Ryan obtained during his first tenure, or bit parts

 

Orlando Hudson was let go a year before Ryan came back.

 

Which players on this roster were still with the team after 2013?  2012?

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2011-roster.shtml

[HitInAPinch]

 

The other thing about both Anthopoulos and Cherington is that they have proven abilities to turn teams around, which is exactly what the Twins need.  Also, both have been drafting and developing prospects extremely well.

 

Not sure why the current posters are missing those points.  Exactly what we're looking for.

 

On another subject:  the "Molitor coaching next year" thingy:   Who really cares?  With a new front office, I'm assuming they will want to start a rebuild immediately.  One more year of Molitor is fairly unimportant in my book. 

[DaveW]

Also, while they weren't heists, Anthropolous has a pretty decent aggressive history. He was able to get value out of Vernon Wells and Jose Reyes when they were both pretty much past their expiration dates. He also got Reyes and Buehrle with a little left in the tank by targeting the Marlins during one of their fire sales (not unlike how he got Donaldson from cash-strapped Oakland). If he has the support of ownership, you can be pretty sure that Anthropolous will leave no stone unturned.

 

The Halladay trade, which objectively didn't work out as hoped, didn't hurt them too much. They only controlled Halladay for one more season, and beyond that Philadelphia only got one good year out of 3 from him anyway. And in return Anthropolous did get some assets to help support the Dickey trade (d'Arnaud) and even got Devon Travis in a series of moves (via Michael Taylor, via Brett Wallace, via Anthony Gose).

 

The "pricey" David Price trade paid some definite dividends, with their division comeback and competitive playoff showing.

 

Even the maligned RA Dickey trade, while they'd much rather have Syndergaard back now, Dickey was quietly worth 2-2.5 WAR each year from 2013-2015.

 

And there's other nice deals in there too, like Lind for Estrada and Happ for Saunders (although the current Toronto front office gets credit for bringing both Estrada and Happ back).

Well said, and if AA was 100% flawless in all his moves anyways, it's hardly likely he would be available at all.

 

The reality is ANY potential hire is gonna have flaws:

Whether they were let go of a previous position or lack experience, it is what it is.

 

I put AA at the top of my personal wish list for baseball pres.

[Thrylos]

The Indians are paying $86M this season.

 

It is not how much $ you spent, it is how well you spend it.  And Ryan has been a spendthrift who would rather spend $40M for 3 pitchers (Hughes, Nolasco, Santana) instead of 2 better pitchers.

 

After MacPhail left, this team never emphasized quality over quantity.  

 

The aforementioned Blue Jays' payroll is $115M, but much more better in quality than the 15% difference with the Twins' payroll. 

 

And if the Twins win and TF fills with bottoms on the seats with bellies that will be filled with concessions, that extra 15% is negligible.  

 

But got to invest smarter

[Winston Smith]

 

Not sure why the current posters are missing those points.  Exactly what we're looking for.

 

On another subject:  the "Molitor coaching next year" thingy:   Who really cares?  With a new front office, I'm assuming they will want to start a rebuild immediately.  One more year of Molitor is fairly unimportant in my book. 

I think cleaning house with the coaches in the majors and all through the minors is much more important than if Molitor hangs around one more year.

[gunnarthor]

 

Not sure why the current posters are missing those points.  Exactly what we're looking for.

 

On another subject:  the "Molitor coaching next year" thingy:   Who really cares?  With a new front office, I'm assuming they will want to start a rebuild immediately.  One more year of Molitor is fairly unimportant in my book. 

If the next GM thinks we're 4-5 years away, I want a new GM.  We have a pretty nice offensive core in place but some of the development has been choppy.  I don't want Molitor yanking Buxton around next year - his last option year - or screwing with May's return to the rotation.  I don't trust this coaching staff to develop Berrios.  Presumably, next year's team will rely a lot on Sano, Kepler, Polanco and Rosario as well and all of them have had some ups and downs where it wasn't clear Molitor knew how to use them in the best way.  I think he's a bad manager and (worse) bad at getting the most out of the talent he was given. 

 

For all the **** we give Gardy and Andy, they got some surprisingly strong seasons from some pretty mundane players.  You could fairly say that a lot of Gardy's players seemed to overachieve.  I'm not sure that's true of Molitor's guys.

[Otto von Ballpark]

FYI -- Next year is not Buxton's last option year. He didn't use one in 2015 because he spent fewer than 20 days on optional assignment.

[Pius Jefferson]

 What does candidate mean in this instance? The Twins are interested or did the search firm hear from Anthopoulos through his people he's interested? Because the former is kind of no duh rumor and the latter is a significant report.

 

[gunnarthor]

 

FYI -- Next year is not Buxton's last option year. He didn't use one in 2015 because he spent fewer than 20 days on optional assignment.

Is that true?  If so, great.

[jimmer]

I think the media under-estimated the large amount of talent we had in the 2000s (compared to the rest in the Central).  We were always an afterthought, and every year we won seemed to be a surprise and they would say 'Gardy must be the reason because we couldn't have possibly been wrong yet again (over and over).'  

[notoriousgod71]

 

Fair point on the Donaldson trade - that was one of the great heists and I forgot that it was him that pulled that off. 

 

 

Rolen for Encarnacion?

[Darius]

I'm really hoping this late season collapse changes ownership's mind b/c Molitor should have been fired in May.

Honestly, which manager could have done anything with the worst pitching staff in the league, and one of the worst in Twins history, if not baseball history, and two months of an ice cold lineup from top bottom?

 

Maybe a few more hit and runs wouldve totally changed things...

 

I get there are things hes done that many dont agree with, but you could've created a cyborg frankenstein out of Vince Lombardi, Herb Brooks, Nostradamus, and The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, with a built-in sabremetric supercomputer, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

 

This team would have made any manager in the history, or future, of professional baseball look incompetent.

 

Blaming this on Molitor is like filling a kiddie-pool of gasoline, popping the top off of an oxygen tank, filling a tall glass of chlorine triflouride, sitting down in the whole mess and lighting a cigarette.....then blaming the fireman that show up for the fire.

 

Or, you know, like blaming immigrants and the poor for the economy.

[gunnarthor]

 

Honestly, which manager could have done anything with the worst pitching staff in the league, and one of the worst in Twins history, if not baseball history, and two months of an ice cold lineup from top bottom?

Maybe a few more hit and runs wouldve totally changed things...

I get there are things hes done that many dont agree with, but you could've created a cyborg frankenstein out of Vince Lombardi, Herb Brooks, Nostradamus, and The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, with a built-in sabremetric supercomputer, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

This team would have made any manager in the history, or future, of professional baseball look incompetent.

Blaming this on Molitor is like filling a kiddie-pool of gasoline, popping the top off of an oxygen tank, filling a tall glass of chlorine triflouride, sitting down in the whole mess and lighting a cigarette.....then blaming the fireman that show up for the fire.

Or, you know, like blaming immigrants and the poor for the economy.

Ah, bull.  Ignore how he treated the young players for a moment.  We saw a lot of vets start the year slow - Gibson, Jepsen, Dozier, Plouffe, Escobar.  Sure, Gibson, Hughes, Nolasco, Milone aren't the best rotation ever but they should've been a hell of a lot better than they were. They all put up career worse lines.  If every pitcher underachieves, isn't some of that on the manager?  This 40 man roster had some pretty good talent and we're starting to see that in the offense, which is good.  But Molitor did about every possible thing wrong. 

 

He kept putting Danny Santana in CF, over Rosario, which didn't help the pitching.  He didn't give consistent playing time to young players who should have at least had that opportunity.  He pushed for May and Meyer to be in the pen.  He's had incredibly quick hooks on Meyer and Berrios.  He kept Polanco and Kepler on the bench.  He called out Sano and Rosario in the media.  And his bullpen use has been crazy all year, which seems to have led to Jepsen's utter collapse and May's back injuries.  Last year we heard how lucky the Twins were b/c their baseruns were 7 games worse then their actual standings.  Well this year the Twins are already 10 games below their baseruns.  This might be a bad team but Molitor has made it the worst team in baseball.  And when you factor in how much struggling the young inexperienced players have had under him, there is no reason to let him manage anymore. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

Honestly, which manager could have done anything with the worst pitching staff in the league, and one of the worst in Twins history, if not baseball history, and two months of an ice cold lineup from top bottom?

Maybe a few more hit and runs wouldve totally changed things...

I get there are things hes done that many dont agree with, but you could've created a cyborg frankenstein out of Vince Lombardi, Herb Brooks, Nostradamus, and The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, with a built-in sabremetric supercomputer, and it wouldn't have made a difference.

This team would have made any manager in the history, or future, of professional baseball look incompetent.

Blaming this on Molitor is like filling a kiddie-pool of gasoline, popping the top off of an oxygen tank, filling a tall glass of chlorine triflouride, sitting down in the whole mess and lighting a cigarette.....then blaming the fireman that show up for the fire.

Or, you know, like blaming immigrants and the poor for the economy.

 

You know, it is possible the players are bad AND the manager is bad.........

 

He bunts early in games. He has an irrational love for Dan San. He basically benched Polanco and Kepler the first time they were here. The base running and other fundamentals are awful. It is hard to see which young players have improved under him. The bullpen has been oddly used at times.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that the team would be GOOD with another manager, but I think it is reasonable to see what Molitor does, even with a bad roster, and question many of his decisions. 

[HitInAPinch]

 

If the next GM thinks we're 4-5 years away, I want a new GM.  We have a pretty nice offensive core in place but some of the development has been choppy.  I don't want Molitor yanking Buxton around next year - his last option year - or screwing with May's return to the rotation.  I don't trust this coaching staff to develop Berrios.  Presumably, next year's team will rely a lot on Sano, Kepler, Polanco and Rosario as well and all of them have had some ups and downs where it wasn't clear Molitor knew how to use them in the best way.  I think he's a bad manager and (worse) bad at getting the most out of the talent he was given. 

 

For all the **** we give Gardy and Andy, they got some surprisingly strong seasons from some pretty mundane players.  You could fairly say that a lot of Gardy's players seemed to overachieve.  I'm not sure that's true of Molitor's guys.

 

Umm, bull. 

 

1st, if a new GM or Head of Baseball from the outside of the organization tells you the Twins are a 4-5 year rebuild, you had better listen.  A new voice is obviously needed.

 

2nd, Molitor, coaching staff and player development.  I'm reading a whole bunch of assumptions.

 

Buxton's returns to the Minor Leagues were, basically for me,  a mercy kill.  A few good games and clearly became over matched.  What would you do?  Let him suffer?  But, as interviews with Molitor and Brunansky have pointed out, there was a plan:  Work on repeatable mechanics.  This time around, and ignoring stats, Buxton looks much better:  no twisty, toe-tapping thing and overall smoother mechanics.  His maintaining that approach is up to him.  Coaches are there to keep him on track.  He's still diving after the low-away pitches.

 

Berrios:  read above paragraph.  Just add in that Jose seems to panic when things get bad.  I didn't get the chance to watch his last game, so no judgement on what happened.  Experience.

 

May:  it is well known that at the time of his "demotion" to the bullpen, the Twins were desperate for a person that could supply a big fastball and eat innings.  What was not largely known to the public was that May had back issues:  As a starter, he had time to recover.  But not completely and had to skip a start every now and then.  As a reliever, the problem became magnified.   When or if May made this known is pure conjecture, other than the training staff telling Molitor he needed a rest.  On the pitching staff, needs are everywhere.  I, too, hope he gets to start again. 

 

As for Sano, Kepler, Polanco and Rosario:  again, assumptions.  None are finished products.  However, all have shown potential in MLB play.

 

Gardy & Andy vs. Molitor & staff.  Different coaches, different players.........

[Bob Sacamento]

If the Twins bring in AA or Cherington or the type I might consider calling myself a Twins fan instead of a GCL Twins or Ft. Myers Miracle fan.  Either one of those guys would be leaps and bounds better than what the organization has done for well ever.  Of course that being said, they'd have to be given free reign to tear down the club from the bottom up as well as a five year window.  From history though, I just have a hard time seeing a team so steeped in it's own traditions and values cutting ties with guys who have been in the fold for 15+ years.

[HitInAPinch]

 

I think cleaning house with the coaches in the majors and all through the minors is much more important than if Molitor hangs around one more year.

I'm not a believer that this is a coaching problem.  I have to see more evidence of malpractice     

 

And then there's this:

 

http://www.startribune.com/phil-miller-s-sunday-insider-red-sox-show-how-patience-with-prospects-can-be-rewarded/383534181/

[Mike Sixel]

 

I'm not a believer that this is a coaching problem.  I have to see more evidence of malpractice   

 

And then there's this:

 

http://www.startribune.com/phil-miller-s-sunday-insider-red-sox-show-how-patience-with-prospects-can-be-rewarded/383534181/

 

so, unlike sending Buxton up and down and up and down and up and down? Unlike benching Polanco and Kepler early this year? Unlike bouncing Meyer around the RP/SP role? Unlike pretty much how the Twins have been with young players that have struggled at all this year?

 

Young players that succeed, other than Vargas, get to keep playing. Young players that fail, other than Buxton....though even he was bounced up and down, are pretty much sat, roles are changed, or they are sent down.

 

As a rule, the Twins have done the exact opposite of being patient lately.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Mod note, a few posts are moving into the bickering territory.  Please be careful.

[Kwak]

 

You know, it is possible the players are bad AND the manager is bad.........

 

He bunts early in games. He has an irrational love for Dan San. He basically benched Polanco and Kepler the first time they were here. The base running and other fundamentals are awful. It is hard to see which young players have improved under him. The bullpen has been oddly used at times.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that the team would be GOOD with another manager, but I think it is reasonable to see what Molitor does, even with a bad roster, and question many of his decisions. 

When the fundamentals are bad--it's NOT the major league team's manager fault--it's the Milb development executive who is at fault. A player has to know his responsibility on every play like rote, hitting, fielding, throwing, backing-up a teammate/covering a base, and running the bases. The manager can set a strategy like being bunts, run and hit plays, taking pitches or swinging on 3-0 counts--but the players must know and correctly execute the fundamentals at the major league level.

 

The poor play of the team begins at the very top (the owner) and then the executives. They set policy, hire subordinate managers, exercise leadership and quality control. When the fundamentals are poor--it's the system's fault. "Total System Failure" was a very accurate assessment of the Twins in May and as it is now. Removing Ryan was the first step. Hopefully, the new executive(s) will convince the owner that a total housecleaning is needed. Scouting, development, assessment, strategy all need to change. Taking pride in a being a stagnant organization must end and change must be embraced.

removing Molitor isn't the first step--it's the last step for organizational management change.

[Seth Stohs]

https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/773568609914204160 

 

[Doomtints]

 

https://twitter.com/jonmorosi/status/773568609914204160 

 

This is good.  McLeod is the person I would be targeting too.  With laser vision, actually.  

[gunnarthor]

Rehman is an asst GM (like Randy Bush).  http://m.mlb.com/news/article/39489744/cubs-promote-shiraz-rehman-to-assistant-general-manager/

 

"Rehman, 34, joined the Cubs last November as assistant to the general manager after six seasons with the Diamondbacks, departing Arizona as the club’s director of player personnel.  He also held the titles of director of baseball operations (2009-10) and manager of baseball operations (2007-08) after joining the organization as a baseball operations assistant in December, 2005.
Before joining the Diamondbacks, Rehman interned for the Boston Red Sox during the 2005 season in the baseball operations department.
Rehman is a 1999 graduate of McGill University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting and was a starting infielder on the baseball team for four years.  Prior to joining the Red Sox, he spent time as a commodities trader and financial consultant for more than five years and obtained his MBA from Columbia Business School in 2006."

[old nurse]

 

Orlando Hudson was let go a year before Ryan came back.

 

Which players on this roster were still with the team after 2013?  2012?

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2011-roster.shtml

Which one of the players let go was not brought into the system or signed as a free agent by Ryan?

[old nurse]

 

so, unlike sending Buxton up and down and up and down and up and down? Unlike benching Polanco and Kepler early this year? Unlike bouncing Meyer around the RP/SP role? Unlike pretty much how the Twins have been with young players that have struggled at all this year?

 

Young players that succeed, other than Vargas, get to keep playing. Young players that fail, other than Buxton....though even he was bounced up and down, are pretty much sat, roles are changed, or they are sent down.

 

As a rule, the Twins have done the exact opposite of being patient lately.

It could well be argued that the ends with Polanco and Kepler justified the means.  Meyer has done nothing right or wrong. One start by Meyers  proves nothing. One year of healthy MLB production will define it.