Blake Parker Signs Officially; John Curtiss DFAd

[Mike Sixel]

I have seen enough good done to not bash this move. For whatever reason, they felt thjs was the guy to let go. More moves yet to come? A strong belief in the other arms on hand and how the pen will be managed going forward? Who knows. But while Curtiss looked wild at times, you could see the potential. Just not sure i understand this move.

I'm curious. What have they done to build this team? Not one player is signed past this year.

[TheMatt]

Maybe he was the only player they could get a hold of?

[jorgenswest]

I'm curious. What have they done to build this team? Not one player is signed past this year.

I thought that they had control of Cruz, Parker and Cron beyond this season. Maybe I am wrong and it is a two way option in the case if Cruz. If it is the Twins option it sure seems like it is a better deal to have an option on the second year. Isn’t control what matters?

 

Is this a case of semantics or is it reality that those three are free to leave the Twins after 2019?

[Obsvr]

If having or not having Curtiss makes or breaks your year, your doing it wrong.

[Mike Sixel]

I thought that they had control of Cruz, Parker and Cron beyond this season. Maybe I am wrong and it is a two way option in the case if Cruz. If it is the Twins option it sure seems like it is a better deal to have an option on the second year. Isn’t control what matters?

 

Is this a case of semantics or is it reality that those three are free to leave the Twins after 2019?

I may have gotten that wrong, and meant next year..... Still not sure how that's building a team.

[PseudoSABR]

Speaking of Burdi, is he still in Rule-5 purgatory? 

[Dman]

 

Curtiss's K/9 *was* good. Last year, I think it was basically average for a AAA reliever.

And regardless, a "good" minor league K/9 doesn't seem like a very good predictor of MLB success.

 

I agree K-9 is not a predictor in itself but it does show that he can compete at that level (AAA) and with a few tweaks has a chance to make it.  It is harder than I realized to break into the Majors. AAAA can end up being reality if you don't have some pretty special stuff.

 

To me he has the velocity and an out pitch and I think a decent chance to make it, but yeah he could be AAAA as well.  Like I quoted in my other post other scouts at MLB and Fangraphs had him in our 20 best prospects so I don't see him as a throw away either.

[bird]

 

I have no idea how Granite is surviving, given the options

 

 

Yeah, very hard to figure, but we have to remember the guy wasn't 100%, so maybe they see something the numbers don't reveal to us. And who knows, maybe the same applies to Curtiss and to Duffey too.

 

It's not like Curtiss was coming at you with high heat, mind you. Maybe players are catching up to those pathetic 95MPH four seamers.

[Danchat]

 

Speaking of Burdi, is he still in Rule-5 purgatory? 

Nope, he's Pirates property now. They held him for most the season on the 60 day DL and he ended up appearing twice in the big leagues. The Pirates now have full control and 3 option years for him. Seems like another bullpen mishap by this FO.

 

 

If having or not having Curtiss makes or breaks your year, your doing it wrong

I don't believe anyone's claimed that, but I find it rather annoying that this FO has the tendency to give up on young relievers like Rosario, Chargios, and Curtiss before I feel like they're gotten their fair shake. They've also lost Burdi and are committed to not trying Jake Reed out.

[bird]

 

I'm curious. What have they done to build this team? Not one player is signed past this year.

 

 

Mike, your fixation on the length of contracts is remarkable.  What does that have to do with building a team that can compete in 2019? Or any future year for that matter? You make it sound like

e none of the core players could possibly be with the team because they don't have a multi-year contract in their file cabinet here in January 2019.

 

As for the Curtiss decision, I wonder if any angst about it not being Duffey or Granite is pretty short-lived. Maybe they have a trade in the works? Lots of time left.

[PseudoSABR]

 

Nope, he's Pirates property now. They held him for most the season on the 60 day DL and he ended up appearing twice in the big leagues. The Pirates now have full control and 3 option years for him. Seems like another bullpen mishap by this FO.

I thought he need to accrue a certain amount of MLB time before that happened.  IIRC, two appearances are not enough. 

[twins_89]

I would have had Duffey, Reed, and Granite as the guys most likely to get DFAd. I still hope to see a couple of these guys off the roster due to the Twins adding more bullpen help and maybe a starter.

[jud6312]

 

I thought he need to accrue a certain amount of MLB time before that happened.  IIRC, two appearances are not enough. 

I think he has to spend 90 days on the active roster before they can do anything with him. Definitely didn't get that last year.

[Mr. Brooks]

Nope, he's Pirates property now. They held him for most the season on the 60 day DL and he ended up appearing twice in the big leagues. The Pirates now have full control and 3 option years for him. Seems like another bullpen mishap by this FO.

 

I don't believe anyone's claimed that, but I find it rather annoying that this FO has the tendency to give up on young relievers like Rosario, Chargios, and Curtiss before I feel like they're gotten their fair shake. They've also lost Burdi and are committed to not trying Jake Reed out.

I'm quite comfortable believing that Burdi will never stay healthy long enough to haunt us.

 

And as mentioned, Burdi still carries Rule V protection requirements. He didn't spend enough time on the active roster last year, they carry over multiple years until they do.

I believe some years ago, a player carried Rule V restrictions for 3 seasons.

[Mr. Brooks]

I'm curious. What have they done to build this team? Not one player is signed past this year.

They are rebuilding the analytic and scouting/development departments from the ground up.

On field, they are building as deep of a foundation as they can before they start adding a structure.

I understand the impatience, but they're only going into year 3.

It shouldn't be held against them that the club was bad for 6 years before they got here.

[blindeke]

 

Twins drafted Jake Reed - Addison Reed is the one on the 40 man roster. He is still around though, afaik.

 

There is also the OF Michael Reed who they claimed off waivers from Atlanta.

 

That's a lot of Reeds. It's like we're the Minnesota Orchestra up in here...

[Mike Sixel]

They are rebuilding the analytic and scouting/development departments from the ground up.

On field, they are building as deep of a foundation as they can before they start adding a structure.

I understand the impatience, but they're only going into year 3.

It shouldn't be held against them that the club was bad for 6 years before they got here.

Fair. When should I expect them to be good for more than one year?

[jokin]

 

If having or not having Curtiss makes or breaks your year, your doing it wrong.

 

Thread Honorable Mention.

 

It's virtually certain that the bottom four-to-six guys on this 40-man will never perform above replacement level. (At least that number is coming down a bit from years past )

[jokin]

 

And so the last best hope of the 2014 great reliever draft is gone:

 

Burdi, Cederoth, Clay, Reed, Cutura, Steele, and now finally Curtiss.

 

This draft now riding on the shoulders of Nick Gordon.

 

Ironic that the only reliever to see significant time with the Twins from that draft was the 22nd rounder, Hildenberger.

 

Thread Runner-Up.

 

That 2014 draft showed how much the front end was grasping at straws, desperately searching for some hidden prospect-rating inefficiencies. And we never found out who the genius was behind that highly flawed theory.

 

For many of us Twins fans, it was the final straw in the Ryan Era.

[jokin]

 

 

I really do not know what to make of this FO’s decisions anymore. I know I am far from knowledgeable as they are, and don’t have all the information they do, but just don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve worked hard to give them every benefit of a doubt, but that is just impossible to do anymore.

 

Save your fretting and angst for later. I'll wager that there will be bigger headscratching moves in the months to come.

 

Curtiss was cast aside last season when the team was desperate for relievers. I'm not surprised nor mad they let him go. Frankly I am hoping they sign another great reliever or 2 so we can be done with Duffey and Magill. In due time that will happen too.

 

This is Thread Winner.

 

Look for Duffey, Granite, et al, to be jettisoned (or de-rostered and re-signed) by opening day. They are placeholders for now. I'm fairly certain that there are still impactful moves in the works- via FA, Waiver Wire or even a trade.

[ND-Fan]

I agree we need to start trying to put some of our core under contract you can't have team made up bunch of players on one year deals. You never develop a team and get core to build around. Also if you wait to long to sign some of these young players they get to last two years of arbortration its likely they will not sign contract other than one or two year deal. We are fast approaching that with some of young players Rosario, Sano, Kepler, Polanco are within a year reaching there final two years before free agency. This likely means we either keep these players and get draft pick if we loose them to free agency or we have to trade them for other prospects before they become free agents. So we have team made up bunch of one year free agents and players worring about becoming free agents no core to build around for the future. I sure don't see the teams in playoffs last year built this way with exception of A's and we know there success rate for making it deep in the playoffs. I don't understand how this front office thinks they are building a team and also going to sell this team to the public when you have no core to build around or to sell to the fans to come out and watch this club. Maybe they are smarter than i think but i get impression they think they can just coach up these players and then easily replace them with next young player build a winner. If so this will be first front office that has been able to do this. I think everyone of this new generation believe Houston is model to follow but believe me Houston has been lucky in that players they have choosen have developed like they thought and haven't experieced career ending injuries to their top prospects. They have had high rate of sucess but this doesn't always happen. The Twins have had this happen in last 10 years some of draft picks were not bad draft picks based on player at the time but injuries to these players and then not developing like they had hope have turned some draft classes into failures. Also some of the trades they made for top prospects didn't turn out like we all hoped to mention two of the worst were Myer and Young with young being number one draft pick in major league baseball and Myer being a first round pick both ending up being busts and nothing in return for them. This happens more in baseball than the successes so keeping good players in organization is priority because finding new ones is like shooting craps. The Twins prior decade when we won all those division titles was largely do to the fact that Twins were hitting on their prospects with number of them becoming quality major league ball players. So you see there is skill in finding players but also their is large degree of luck to because a lot things can go wrong with these choices in players. I hope we are onto era where we have skill as well as luck in developing players. We will find out in the next year or two but will also see  how we are at keeping this talent here also.

[beckmt]

 

They are rebuilding the analytic and scouting/development departments from the ground up.
On field, they are building as deep of a foundation as they can before they start adding a structure.
I understand the impatience, but they're only going into year 3.
It shouldn't be held against them that the club was bad for 6 years before they got here.

I believe that Rosario, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Adrianza, Sano, Garver, Berrios, Gibson, May, Duffey, Mejia, Hildenberger, Rodgers, and possibly Moya and Vasquez were all acquired by the old regime.  This is still the bulk of the team, so starting from ground  zero in 2011, (Bad team, bad farm system), the rebuild went far slower than we hoped, but this group is not a bad foundation. 

[beckmt]

The above quote is not to cast shade on the current FO, who seem to have found another 6 - 10 players, some of whom have the chance to be really special over the next few years.  The only issue I have is that the top players in this group are represented by Boris, which means that without an overpay, at least the top 2 will be here 6 - 7 years and then gone.

Disclaimer:  This is without knowledge of how the next CBA will change things.

[bird]

 

Fair. When should I expect them to be good for more than one year?

 

 

Thursday evening. Possibly Friday morning. Just wait in the foyer please. 

[bird]

 

Thread Runner-Up.

 

That 2014 draft showed how much the front end was grasping at straws, desperately searching for some hidden prospect-rating inefficiencies. And we never found out who the genius was behind that highly flawed theory.

 

For many of us Twins fans, it was the final straw in the Ryan Era.

 

 

Yeah, I think we can agree that it was a desperation move to try to quickly reverse course. It was tactical more than strategic, and an attempt to overcome the more flawed pitch to contact strategy from previous drafts over a previous decade that invited the idea.

 

In their defense, trying to find a couple of flame throwers with picks ranging from #46 to #170, picks that don't work out all that often, may not have been quite as stupid as the results are making it seem. And a couple of those guys might still work out, just not for us. At least the pros still think they did okay with Nick Gordon and Hildenberger still has a chance to be okay.

[Platoon]

They are rebuilding the analytic and scouting/development departments from the ground up.

On field, they are building as deep of a foundation as they can before they start adding a structure.

I understand the impatience, but they're only going into year 3.

It shouldn't be held against them that the club was bad for 6 years before they got here.

To an extent I agree completely, and have always felt that way. No matter what happens, the old regime had to go. But that does not explain the head scratching moves that have occurred. Take Curtiss v Duffey. To me, Curtiss has an upside of a 'get out of an inning' reliever. Duffey has the upside of a long reliever. To me the inning ender has more value, so why keep the guy whose main duty is to close out a loss? Getting rid of Duffey in the future doesn't make losing a Curtiss type in the present.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Is Belisle still available?

 

Mental note, this needs to be added as banishment criteria to the moderator policy.

 

(just kidding)

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Nope, he's Pirates property now. They held him for most the season on the 60 day DL and he ended up appearing twice in the big leagues. The Pirates now have full control and 3 option years for him. Seems like another bullpen mishap by this FO.

 

I don't believe anyone's claimed that, but I find it rather annoying that this FO has the tendency to give up on young relievers like Rosario, Chargios, and Curtiss before I feel like they're gotten their fair shake. They've also lost Burdi and are committed to not trying Jake Reed out.

Technically, I believe Burdi still has to sit on the active roster for more time in 2019... though I do think it's completely unfair to be allowed to count September time towards that number..

 

Your second point, I'm in agreement with. Chargois in particular tends to hurt given his age and some ML success. It's not just that they gave up on these guys, it's who they let remain on the 40 man in their place (or took with Rule V) that bothers me. I don't know if Curtiss will amount to much of anything, there's certainly question marks there, but I'm at a loss for why he's let go when others remain. 

[Thrylos]

 

I'm curious. What have they done to build this team? Not one player is signed past this year.

 

"Signed" is overrated.  "Team Control" is more important.  Plenty of young players in the majors and minors under team control past this year.  These players will be the Twins' future core.

 

Remember when some of us were mad because Ryan did not blow the whole thing up and rebuilt with youth, instead of signing the Correias, Pelfreys et al of the world, and extending the likes of Capps?

 

It's happening now.   This is what a rebuild (albeit a quiet one) looks like.

 

Purging.

 

 

 

[Shaitan]

 

Mental note, this needs to be added as banishment criteria to the moderator policy.

 

(just kidding)

 

I was half serious. Mostly wondering if he officially announced his retirement yet.