Twins will seek 'affordable pitchers'

[johnnydakota]

Can we stop using Ryan's track record as an indicator of future moves? The dude had a $40m or lower payroll for many of those years. The early 2000s Metrodome Twins have very, very little to do with the 2013 Target Field Twins.

 

Ryan didn't have much money last season but he used it pretty smartly to pick up several players that helped the team enormously. There is no reason to expect him to do anything different this offseason when he has more money to play with and acquire players that aren't awful.

 

his worst move was keeping lame duck ron(larry) gardenhire....what quality free agent will want to come here with the team lossing 95+

games in back to back seasons and knowing some time during the season they will have to adjust to a different manager after adjusting to larryin the 1st place? and wether you choose to believe it or not curly ryan was running this team even when bill smith had the title of g.m.

it is time for a complete sweep of the 3 stooges and ronnies posse ....

[ThePuck]

. We had over 10 errors at SS this season and Castro had (without looking I believe 19?) with at least 9 of them coming on mental mistakes that should get eliminated as he reaches 24-25 years old and has a coach who can hopefully get the most out of him.

 

Its not a lock that these decisions would yield a high payoff but the reward is worth the risk in my opinion.

 

He had 27 errors, 8 more than anyone else at shortstop. He had 29 the year before, 4 more than anyone else at shortstop. And he had 27 the year before that. Now, you'll find as I'm here longer, I don't really put too much credence into errors and fielding % to judge a defender, but GARDY and his gang harp on errors, which was really my point. Whether he'd thrive here under Gardy. On top of that, he really hasn't shown much range either. So, I mean, maybe it's a good idea, maybe it's not. I'd focus on pitching for trades though...at least this year. Just my opinion

[Chance]

Thanks for the exact stats. in general any trade that the twins do makes me nervous, especially if they are trading for a pitcher. I just dont like who they target, there are players similar to who they trade for on the market that would require equal pay but not giving up an asset or trade chip.

[johnnydakota]

with the pile of horse ploop curly ryan normally chases why not look to joba da hut chamberlin?

he might come here if he has a chance to be a starter,at a low cost 1 or 2 year contract , and if he cant cut it we can move him to the pen , he cant be any worse then gray or capps

[ThePuck]

Thanks for the exact stats. in general any trade that the twins do makes me nervous, especially if they are trading for a pitcher. I just dont like who they target, there are players similar to who they trade for on the market that would require equal pay but not giving up an asset or trade chip.

 

Agreed...but IMO, it's the only way we're gonna fix the pitching any time soon.

[johnnydakota]

They have what, one guy in the minors who looks legit as a starter for the next two or three years? If you do not sign any free agents, where does the pitching come from? They will not trade their top prospects, we know that. They refused to trade Willingham at his peak value. So, if you will not get starters this year or next, what is the plan?

 

you say things like won't and refused based on one season. They have always had a pretty good rotation and decent depth in the minors so your historical trends are kind of worthless. Before last offseason they hadn't signed a FA to a 20+M deal either. The Garza/Young trade was also a first for the org.

 

I've already told you what I would do. Try to trade for Shields (willy or Span), sign the best they can get for 3/30ish and bring back Baker on a 1 yr deal with 2 generous options (10Mish). that's the making of a solid rotation without exposing the Twins to significant long term risk. Your plan of signing TWO FA starters for 4/48-5/75 looks awful when you look at the utter crap that comparable FA starters have done.

 

It sucks to lose but you don't fix teams in FA.

 

other then gibson , what pitcher in AA or AAA can be a front of the rotation starter?and gibson isnt a lock to be one either..

terry curly ryan has drafted soft tossing inexpencive pitchers and wonders why we can not win or go beyond the 1st round of the playoffs?

he has been in charge since 1994, how much time do we need to figure out he is in it only as a profit for the company , not to win it all for the team and fans, many bashed ole george stienbrenner,but he tried to win it every year, not just to be the best in the worst division ....

[old nurse]

Ryan has managed to pull value out of low-moderate risk guys at most positions, but I can't think of many successful SPs he's acquired from outside the organization. Kenny Rogers comes to mind.

 

Ryan got pitchers like Joe Mays and Carlos Silva. Do not forget Santana was aquired outside of the organization. Lohse was origionally from elswhere. That is off the top of my head.

 

Joe Mays had one good season out of six with us. Silva pitched one very good year with us, two okay ones and a really bad one. Santana wasn't a FA signing or a trade, he was a rule 5 pick up. And Lohse wasn't that good with us either. He also failed to sign Santana early enough to avoid Smith having to trade him after the '07 season...

 

Rule V pickup I do believe is going out and getting pitching. Mays seemed to have it figured out then he got injured and was never the same again. Silva appeared to have pitched well enough to get a monster contract.

[Brock Beauchamp]

It should also be noted that JR/BS were smart enough to cut ties with Silva and let someone else pay him ridiculous money.

 

It's one thing to pick up a guy that helps the team but is up-and-down overall. That's a good thing. It's another thing entirely to overpay that guy to keep him. That's a bad thing.

 

JR did the first. JR/BS wisely avoided the second.

[ThePuck]

yes, Rule V is going out and taking a chance on a player another team has given up on. It's a stab with little consequence if it doesn't work out. It's not an aggressive move to acquire pitching. It's a low risk, low reward move that worked out very well..but still a low risk move. The kind of low risk, low reward move that brought us Marquis, Ramon Ortiz, Ponson and Livan Hernandez (though that wasn't his).

 

And yes, Seattle paid a big contract to a guy who had an ERA of almost 6.00 in 2006 and over 4.00 in the season prior to them signing him. That makes them stupid, nothing more. They've made many a boneheaded FA signing. And he didn't work out there either.

[Craig in MN]

In my opinion, if we are trading Span, Revere, Willingham or Morneau, we have to get pitching.

 

I don't think that's true at all. There are plenty of holes and there's no reason to refuse to consider filling them via trade. I don't suspect Castro is the right target there, but the Twins could certainly use an upgrade at shortstop and it will be hard to find that in free agency. They can't be satisfied to start the season with a middle infield picked from Caroll, Florimon, Escobar, & Dozier, especially with 3rd base less than settled.

 

There are a lot more decent gambles in the free agent pitcher market than in the middle infielder market. In this market, I think I'd get better value trading, for example, Revere for a comparable young decent shortstop and sign a starter with some upside than vice versa. I really don't see a shortstop that I could sign and feel remotely good about.

[nicksaviking]

 

The '01 Twins and '91 Braves did it through the farm system and were built for long term success. They did not do it through FA.

 

and our minor league system is hurting, especially in the pitching department

 

Pretty sure the Twins signed the 2nd best free agent pitcher in 1991, who knows if they would have gone after Clemons, but it wasn't like he was leaving Boston at that time.

 

Not sure who insisted on the 1 year deal for Jack Morris, but seeing as Terry Ryan learned everything he knew from Andy McPhail, it would seem likely the Twins were pleased it wasn't a multi-year contract. $3.7M isn't a lot for a pitcher these days, but it was likely a top 5 salary for a pitcher seeing as Morris was getting paid more than Dave Stewart who signed his deal the year before. Of course Chili Davis' 2 year $2.5M deal was also likely a top 10 free agent deal that off-season. Add Mike Pagliarulo and throw in the trade that brought former Cy Young winner Steve Bedrosian and his $1.3M contract to the Twins and it's hard to argue they weren't pretty agressive heading into that season.

[ThePuck]

IMO, pitching is our biggest need by far and our best chips need to be used for that. I understand you disagree, but I'm not seeing how needing 3-4 quality starting pitchers doesn't make it our biggest need. We don't have it in the minors, and Terry Ryan already said we aren't gonna pay for them in FA, so how else are we going to get it if not by tradinge for them with one or two of our best chips?

[ThePuck]

 

The '01 Twins and '91 Braves did it through the farm system and were built for long term success. They did not do it through FA.

 

and our minor league system is hurting, especially in the pitching department

 

Pretty sure the Twins signed the 2nd best free agent pitcher in 1991, who knows if they would have gone after Clemons, but it wasn't like he was leaving Boston at that time.

 

Not sure who insisted on the 1 year deal for Jack Morris, but seeing as Terry Ryan learned everything he knew from Andy McPhail, it would seem likely the Twins were pleased it wasn't a multi-year contract. $3.7M isn't a lot for a pitcher these days, but it was likely a top 5 salary for a pitcher seeing as Morris was getting paid more than Dave Stewart who signed his deal the year before. Of course Chili Davis' 2 year $2.5M deal was also likely a top 10 free agent deal that off-season. Add Mike Pagliarulo and throw in the trade that brought former Cy Young winner Steve Bedrosian and his $1.3M contract to the Twins and it's hard to argue they weren't pretty agressive heading into that season.

 

That was over 20 years ago.

[nicksaviking]

 

The '01 Twins and '91 Braves did it through the farm system and were built for long term success. They did not do it through FA.

 

and our minor league system is hurting, especially in the pitching department

 

Pretty sure the Twins signed the 2nd best free agent pitcher in 1991, who knows if they would have gone after Clemons, but it wasn't like he was leaving Boston at that time.

 

Not sure who insisted on the 1 year deal for Jack Morris, but seeing as Terry Ryan learned everything he knew from Andy McPhail, it would seem likely the Twins were pleased it wasn't a multi-year contract. $3.7M isn't a lot for a pitcher these days, but it was likely a top 5 salary for a pitcher seeing as Morris was getting paid more than Dave Stewart who signed his deal the year before. Of course Chili Davis' 2 year $2.5M deal was also likely a top 10 free agent deal that off-season. Add Mike Pagliarulo and throw in the trade that brought former Cy Young winner Steve Bedrosian and his $1.3M contract to the Twins and it's hard to argue they weren't pretty agressive heading into that season.

 

That was over 20 years ago.

 

So using the 1991 World Series team as an excuse NOT to go after free agents was acceptable, but using the same example to show they actually won the World Series by being agressive in the offseason was unacceptable?

[ThePuck]

'So using the 1991 World Series team as an excuse NOT to go after free agents is acceptable, but using the same team to show they won the World Series by being agressive in the offseasons is unacceptable?'

 

That's not my argument. I'm saying just cause he did something over 20 years ago doesn't mean he's going to now. He hasn't shown a willingness to do that in a long time.. On top of that, he's already saying he won't do it this coming year. He SHOULD do that. I'm agreeing with you on what he should do...

[nicksaviking]

Ah, my mistake, I thought the reply was aimed at my statement, instead of Terry Ryan's reluctance to be agressive.

[ThePuck]

Ah, my mistake, I thought the replay was aimed at my statement, instead of Terry Ryan's reluctance to be agressive.

 

No worries :-)

[jharaldson]

The problem is that a majority of the good starters go for 50-100M contracts and most of them end up being poor investments.

 

Just for fun I took a look at all starters signed over the past 5 years to contracts over $50 million in value and return on investment is not that bad.

 

 

If you compare the salary they have earned to what Fangraphs projects as their value you are looking at a 88.44% return on investment which is not great but is not the really bad number I was expecting.

[kab21]

Sometimes I wonder how much actual analysis people do when posting stats. It's like they have made an opinion and look for data that supports it w/o checking to see if the numbers make sense.

 

A) you need to take Sabathia, Lee and Darvish (and add Darvish's 51M posting fee) out since they are clearly elite and not part of the discussion. Elite pitchers actually work out pretty well. The ones that don't are the non-elite pitchers that get paid 12-15M/yr which is exactly what's available this offseason and exactly what people want to sign. Greinke is the only pitcher this year that is close to CC, Lee and Darvish and everyone says avoid him. In this offseason either you sign Greinke or you avoid long term commitments.

 

I'm not sure you can include Wilson or Buehrle since the big risk with them is paying them 15+M when they are in their mid to late 30's. We don't have this data yet and I included them in the too early to tell group.

 

C) extend your look to include those back to 2006 (or further) that I posted. It looks simply awful.

 

D) this suggests that you believe in fangraphs WAR for pitchers - Lowe somehow earned 40M with ERA's of 4.67, 4.00, 5.05 and 5.11 despite pitching in a pitchers park in the NL? If you consider that 40M worth of value then I don't even know where to start because it's not 40M worth of value. He was awful.

 

After adjusting your list you're left with:

Lackey - 4.40 and 6.4 ERA's before having TJ surgery. Absolutely awful.

Burnett - The Yankees got 4.00, 5+, and 5+ ERA seasons out of their 82M investment before eating a lot of his contract and trading him

Lowe - the Braves got ERA's of 4.67, 4.00, 5+ and 5+ for their 60M

Dempster - earned his contract and is one of only 2 guys going back to the 2006 offseason that has

[jharaldson]

A) you need to take Sabathia, Lee and Darvish (and add Darvish's 51M posting fee) out since they are clearly elite and not part of the discussion.

 

You included them in your list that you supplied on page 4 and I will include them in mine. I took the parameters of over 50 million and applied it to the past 5 years. You are correct about Darvish, the ESPN Tracker link did not list the posting fee and I forgot about it. That changes the percentage to %78.6 which doesn’t change my point. Contracts over $50 million are not dollar for dollar great investments but they are not flops either.

 

I'm not sure you can include Wilson or Buehrle since the big risk with them is paying them 15+M when they are in their mid to late 30's. We don't have this data yet and I included them in the too early to tell group.

 

Again, you included them in the list you provided on page 4 so if they weren’t eligible for discussion I would assume you would not have brought them up. Also, they have shorter contracts (4-5 years) then someothers because of that concern.

 

C) extend your look to include those back to 2006 (or further) that I posted. It looks simply awful.

 

Typically I do my analysis in normal timeframes (5, 10, 15, ect…). You are accusing me of cherry-picking stats but you pick a random 6 year period just to pick up Zito’s bad contract. I would also state that there has been a well-acknowledged shift in free agent contracts in the past 5 years where there are no longer ridiculous numbers being given out to guys just because they are the last ones standing. It’s how we got Crede for 1 year instead of 3. It’s how we got Pavano on a decent 2 year deal instead of him getting a bigger contract elsewhere.

 

d) this suggests that you believe in fangraphs WAR for pitchers - Lowe somehow earned 40M with ERA's of 4.67, 4.00, 5.05 and 5.11 despite pitching in a pitchers park in the NL? If you consider that 40M worth of value then I don't even know where to start because it's not 40M worth of value. He was awful

 

Lowe had FIP’s of 4.06, 3.89, 3.70, and 4.37 those years as well. If you can find some other reference that uses a consistent mathematical formula and not just opinions for value I will refer to that, but until I find another source Fangraphs value is all I have for a neutral source.

 

In short, I think if the Twins go after Greinke or Peavy in that over $50 million range they won’t get exact value but they won’t get robbed either but if they take a step down into the $20-$49 million range they will find that money foolishly spent.

[kab21]

I also gave an analysis that said 2 studs, 2 too early to tell, 2 decent pitchers and a big pile of crap. I listed Wilson and Buehrle but I think it's way too early to do an analysis of their contracts since 75+% is left to play out.

 

My selection criteria had nothing to do with cherry picking so I could include Zito. Feel free to exclude him if you want. This was the only range that the mlbtraderumors FA database was searchable.

 

So you think Lowe was worth 40M, Lackey was worth 23M and Burnett 42M because FIP and fangraphs says so then I honestly question your baseball analysis. If they pulled the crap they did with the Twins they would be lumped with the Blackburns of the world. They have been absolutely awful and no amount of FIP can convince me otherwise.

[ThePuck]

Nice post jharaldson. I also like to use Fangraphs. Though some try and discredit the info there, the people who gather that info do it for a living, watching all the players play all their games and evaluating everyone based on the same criteria with unbias eyes. While some of the info probably needs tweaking, at least it's fair across the board. I think it's pretty easy for some to discredit it as geek speak, or whatever, but that happens anytime change is brought about.

 

Someone even mentioned WAR and WHIP together as ridiculous. If you discredit WHIP as nonsense, might a well discredit old school stats like ERA and batting average while you're at it.

[TheLeviathan]

Nice post jharaldson. I also like to use Fangraphs.

 

It's one thing to value alternative metrics that tell a better story of a player's success, it's another to ignore results in favor of those metrics. From what I can see the "value" stat is cobbled together from other stats that are a bit more theoretical than OPS or WHIP.

 

I would suggest that if a stat says that Lowe was worth 40M - it may need some tinkering.

[ThePuck]

Nice post jharaldson. I also like to use Fangraphs.

 

It's one thing to value alternative metrics that tell a better story of a player's success, it's another to ignore results in favor of those metrics. From what I can see the "value" stat is cobbled together from other stats that are a bit more theoretical than OPS or WHIP.

 

I would suggest that if a stat says that Lowe was worth 40M - it may need some tinkering.

 

I use fangraphs more for defensive metrics than anything else, myself...but I look at ALL info...what my eyes tells me, most traditional stats (though not all), new metrics, etc...everything in order to try and get the best info I can.

[TheLeviathan]

I use fangraphs more for defensive metrics than anything else, myself...but I look at ALL info...what my eyes tells me, most traditional stats (though not all), new metrics, etc...everything in order to try and get the best info I can.

 

Which is cool - I think what kab is suggesting is that this particular interpretation of "value" that is being floated here is as questionable as some of the defensive metrics that often don't pass the eye test or have other similar problems.

[kab21]

I use fangraphs more for defensive metrics than anything else, myself...but I look at ALL info...what my eyes tells me, most traditional stats (though not all), new metrics, etc...everything in order to try and get the best info I can.

 

All of this info says that Lowe was worth 40M, Burnett 52M and lackey 23M? WOW!

[ThePuck]

I use fangraphs more for defensive metrics than anything else, myself...but I look at ALL info...what my eyes tells me, most traditional stats (though not all), new metrics, etc...everything in order to try and get the best info I can.

 

Which is cool - I think what kab is suggesting is that this particular interpretation of "value" that is being floated here is as questionable as some of the defensive metrics that often don't pass the eye test or have other similar problems.

 

My post really wasn't about kab's argument. It was just an in general type observation...that so many discredit anything other than traditional stats, whether it's because they truly don't believe in the info, or because the info doesn't support their view.

 

I haven't seen enough of kab's posts to make any kind of true observation on where he stands on new metrics.

[TheLeviathan]

I haven't seen enough of kab's posts to make any kind of true observation on where he stands on new metrics.

 

Then I might suggest, prior to complimenting an argument, you look at the total context of it.

[ThePuck]

[

 

Then I might suggest, prior to complimenting an argument, you look at the total context of it.

 

I was complimenting the research and the fact that he uses fangraphs, as opposed to so many who shy away from it. I wasn't picking either side of the argument or knocking kab. It's their debate, I'm not in it.

 

I will continue to occasionally compliment posts that I think took a lot of effort and thought as I see fit, but I appreciate your suggestion

[clutterheart]

Affordable options = not going to invest in the team to make it better.

Affordable for a poor man does not mean the same as for a Rich man. And the Twins are not poor. Did the 1500 crew challenge him/follow up on this? (I doubt they have the balls to do this)

 

This is beyond annoying to me. If the twins go the Affordable route, many people in MN will start looking for other "affordable" options to spend their entertainment money.

The residents of Hennipen county should ask for their money back.