Marcum To Mets

[jokin]

Not how the game works in mid market baseball and you know that. The Twins don't just jettison folks. I have often wondered why someone has stayed at a level too long and not gotten a shot at moving up. Lotsa times it's a philosophical issue and many others there simply isn't enough room at the next level.

 

So you're saying that "philosophically" the Twins Way is maintaining the status quo as the 30th ranked team in pitching, because as a mid-market team, the FO can't afford hurting someone's feelings if they've reached their Peter Principle level of incompetence? Now there's some dysfunctional pretzel logic that exemplifies why the FO should be swept clean.

[twinsnorth49]

Or the various owners over the last 20+ just don't match offers.

 

 

There, you're finally getting it.

[panolo]

Here's a conundrum for the Ryan appologists:

 

The Twins gave Mike Pelfrey $4 million.

 

The Mets gave Shawn Marcum $4 million.

 

If your logic says that Pelfrey wouldn't spurn the Mets for the small-market (BS), non-contending Twins, then that means the Mets didn't want the guy at $4 million or he would still be in NY. However the Mets did want Marcum at $4 million. So either players DON'T spurn the Twins for big markets, OR the Mets have fewer worries about the risk/reward of Marcum than they do the risk/reward of Pelfrey and the Mets are much more intimately familiar with Pelfrey.

 

Obviously option #2 is the reasoning behind this situation, but the fact that the Mets like Marcum over Pelfrey should have told the Twins that they too should have liked Marcum over Pelfrey.

 

They couldn't tender Pelfrey a contract at $4mil. If Marcum hits zero incentives they would save a minimum of $600k by ditching Pelfrey.

[jokin]

They couldn't tender Pelfrey a contract at $4mil. If Marcum hits zero incentives they would save a minimum of $600k by ditching Pelfrey.

 

Ahh, so the Mets are incentivized and invested in having Marcum fail, I see now....

[panolo]

So you're saying that "philosophically" the Twins Way is maintaining the status quo as the 30th ranked team in pitching, because as a mid-market team, the FO can't afford hurting someone's feelings if they've reached their Peter Principle level of incompetence? Now there's some dysfunctional pretzel logic that exemplifies why the FO should be swept clean.

 

 

LOL! How you gleem that from my reply is funny to me. Yea their whole philosophy is stay at the bottom of the league in pitching. That's it. C'mon man!

 

They don't give up on folks very easily. They don't just give up on AAAA guys in 3 months. Hope this helps.

[jokin]

LOL! How you gleem that from my reply is funny to me. Yea their whole philosophy is stay at the bottom of the league in pitching. That's it. C'mon man!

 

They don't give up on folks very easily. They don't just give up on AAAA guys in 3 months. Hope this helps.

 

No. Actually, it hurts....

[nicksaviking]

They couldn't tender Pelfrey a contract at $4mil. If Marcum hits zero incentives they would save a minimum of $600k by ditching Pelfrey.

 

And after the Mets non-tendered Pelfrey he became a free agent that could have signed with anybody, including the Mets.

[twinsnorth49]

. Yea their whole philosophy is stay at the bottom of the league in pitching. That's it. C'mon man!

 

It would appear that is their phiosophy for 2013, what have they done to think otherwise?

[nicksaviking]

LOL! How you gleem that from my reply is funny to me. Yea their whole philosophy is stay at the bottom of the league in pitching. That's it. C'mon man!

 

They don't give up on folks very easily. They don't just give up on AAAA guys in 3 months. Hope this helps.

 

That just made Matt Fox cry.

[panolo]

Ahh, so the Mets are incentivized and invested in having Marcum fail, I see now....

 

 

That's it! Wilpon needs to pay back the Madoff money and can do it this way.

[drjim]

I think it's even more telling that the Mets passed on Pelfrey!

 

Marcum could be more risky, but he's not coming off of September TJ (Pelfrey) and his last year of pitching effectiveness wasn't 2009 (Harden, w/ catastrophic shoulder surgery overlooming any potential comeback) or being extremely sucky for an entire career (Correia).

 

Also, Marcum was never a power pitcher and still has produced vastly superior "power pitcher"-like results over the alternatives who throw faster. His potential "bounceback" from his current medical issues won't be nearly as dependent on restoring velocity, just throwing his dime-store cutter and restoring overall command. Nearly 75% of what Pelfrey throws is FBs and Split-Finger FBs.... in addition....His career peripherals pale in comparison to Marcum's, if his FB starts to touch below 90 this year, he will be basically useless for 2013.

 

This is a good point. Your medical theory is basically irrelevant but otherwise Pelfrey is an interesting comparison. I suppose that comes down to the known risks of Tommy John recovery versus the unknown risks of whatever is in Marcum's medicals. Marcum along with McCarthy were always my top two choices this offseason but the Brewers thought was giving to me by a good friend who is a diehard fan of them. I hadn't thought of it and thought it was worth sharing.

 

I don't see how a minor league deal with Harden is comparable to either of these deals. Correia is beyond a dead horse.

[jokin]

That just made Matt Fox cry.

 

Outstandingly LOL-worthy

[jokin]

This is a good point. Your medical theory is basically irrelevant but otherwise Pelfrey is an interesting comparison. I suppose that comes down to the known risks of Tommy John recovery versus the unknown risks of whatever is in Marcum's medicals. Marcum along with McCarthy were always my top two choices this offseason but the Brewers thought was giving to me by a good friend who is a diehard fan of them. I hadn't thought of it and thought it was worth sharing.

 

I don't see how a minor league deal with Harden is comparable to either of these deals. Correia is beyond a dead horse.

 

Actually, restoring velocity, or not, is highly relevant for pitchers that rely more heavily on velocity and TJ guys historically take up to 18 mos. post-TJ to regain their velocity. Pelfrey will be gone by then.

 

And the rest of my response was on what level of risks Ryan has taken in this offseason relative to the money spent. The point is, it is very possible that the $4+M plus incentives for Marcum is arguably the least risky move of all of the "risky" moves made so far this offseason.

[edavis0308]

LOL! How you gleem that from my reply is funny to me. Yea their whole philosophy is stay at the bottom of the league in pitching. That's it. C'mon man!

 

They don't give up on folks very easily. They don't just give up on AAAA guys. Hope this helps.

 

Fixed.

[panolo]

It would appear that is their phiosophy for 2013, what have they done to think otherwise?

 

 

On the major league level... Not as much as the minor league level. However adding Worley and presumably Gibson for 125+ innings is going to help. We have no idea what we are going to get out of Pelfrey however if healthy he is an upgrade over Deduno and Walters.

 

Projections are just well....projections and we can argue that all day. Pitching will be better barring injury.

[Oxtung]

You can't pretend to know whether Marcum is any less of a health risk than Pelfry or Harden. You just don't know.

 

One pitcher will be less than a year removed from TJ surgery. One pitcher threw 120+ innings in 2012 including 8 consecutive starts to finish the season. So while you are right, Marcum could fall down in the shower or slip shoveling his drive and rupture his spleen, logic says Marcum is less of a health risk in 2013.

 

Here's another way of looking at it. Would you prefer Gibson or Wimmers going forward?

[panolo]

Actually, restoring velocity, or not, is highly relevant for pitchers that rely more heavily on velocity and TJ guys historically take up to 18 mos. post-TJ to regain their velocity. Pelfrey will be gone by then.

 

 

18 months used to be the norm and I think as we head in the future that number will decrease by a pretty fair amount. We are starting to see guys like Wainwright, Brett Anderson, and even Strasburg come back in about a year with near normal velocity and pitch well. Of course the timing of some surgeries skew in season stats.

[ThePuck]

On the major league level... Not as much as the minor league level. However adding Worley and presumably Gibson for 125+ innings is going to help. We have no idea what we are going to get out of Pelfrey however if healthy he is an upgrade over Deduno and Walters.

 

Projections are just well....projections and we can argue that all day. Pitching will be better barring injury.

 

The bar is set extremely low. Just better isn't good enough. Significantly better is what we need.

[Guest USAFChief]

A few things. You dont have to bold and underline everything. I do agree that it is because we havent offered equal contracts as other bidders. Getting top flight talent through free agency requires you to overbid. It is in the opinion that in the past 20 years, we havent offered equal money to top flight talent. That is correct.

 

Aw what the hell, I will throw in italics. Morris probably signed with the Twins because he was at the end of his career and teams probably didnt think he had anything left in the tank. Sounds like a reoccuring theme doesnt it?

It also helps to throw in a random question mark here and there. Makes the whole thing much easier to comprehend.

[Willihammer]

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g301/Jak_Phreak/seinfeld.gif

[twinsnorth49]

On the major league level... Not as much as the minor league level. However adding Worley and presumably Gibson for 125+ innings is going to help. We have no idea what we are going to get out of Pelfrey however if healthy he is an upgrade over Deduno and Walters.

 

Projections are just well....projections and we can argue that all day. Pitching will be better barring injury.

 

We're talking about the major league level. Meyer and May were good additions for the future but I have no idea how signing Marcum, or someone like him, has anything to do with blocking them or any of these other burgeoning minor league talents you feel we have.

 

Pitching will be better? It can't get much worse.

[jokin]

. We have no idea what we are going to get out of Pelfrey however if healthy he is an upgrade over Deduno and Walters.

 

Projections are just well....projections and we can argue that all day. Pitching will be better barring injury.

 

All of it, so true. And adding Marcum, as well, for even better reasons, would be even a more significant upgrade over the AAAAs.

 

Where are you going here?

 

The Twins have plenty of dollars available, have the worst pitching staff in all of baseball, and we are still(?) worried about 3 filler guys (throw DeVries into the mix, too) who came to, (and will likely leave from), the Twins as probably their last major league stop. From AA on up, there are only, maybe, 3 other guys who end up in mostly remote consideration for a future #5 SP role.

[ashbury]

"Trust the leaks but not the silence"

 

That goes into my quotes file. Too bad I have to attribute it to an anonymized login.

[nicksaviking]

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs had a fun Marcum article.

 

Mets Grab Themselves a Cheap Shaun Marcum | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Basically nothing different than what has been said in this thread, but he talks about how favorable this signing was compared to both Pelfrey and Correia. Aside from those two, Scott Baker was the only comp he gave, so in his opinion, the Twins had two of the three free agent signings that were bad enough to make this look like a steal.

[jokin]

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs had a fun Marcum article.

 

Mets Grab Themselves a Cheap Shaun Marcum | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Basically nothing different than what has been said in this thread, but he talks about how favorable this signing was compared to both Pelfrey and Correia. Aside from those two, Scott Baker was the only comp he gave, so in his opinion, the Twins had two of the three free agent signings that were bad enough to make this look like a steal.

 

Ouch, just read the article, did you mean "fun" in the "laugh in the face of your own adversity" sense?

 

I'm guessing that that's going to leave a nasty butt-hurt mark on the yahoo Twins apologists.

[ThePuck]

Jeff Sullivan at Fangraphs had a fun Marcum article.

 

Mets Grab Themselves a Cheap Shaun Marcum | FanGraphs Baseball

 

Basically nothing different than what has been said in this thread, but he talks about how favorable this signing was compared to both Pelfrey and Correia. Aside from those two, Scott Baker was the only comp he gave, so in his opinion, the Twins had two of the three free agent signings that were bad enough to make this look like a steal.

 

Thanks for the link!

 

The best part:

 

'Kevin flipping Correia signed for two years and $10 million, and he’s Kevin Correia. On that basis alone, it seems like the Mets got themselves a pretty good deal. On that basis alone, it seems like Marcum should’ve had more of a market.'

[lightfoot789]

A few things. You dont have to bold and underline everything. I do agree that it is because we havent offered equal contracts as other bidders. Getting top flight talent through free agency requires you to overbid. It is in the opinion that in the past 20 years, we havent offered equal money to top flight talent. That is correct.

 

Aw what the hell, I will throw in italics. Morris probably signed with the Twins because he was at the end of his career and teams probably didnt think he had anything left in the tank. Sounds like a reoccuring theme doesnt it?

 

No more bold and thank you for the answer. You are at least the first person to say that the Twins have never offered equal pay or top dollar during the last 28 years. Extremely hard to believe, but just as possible as FAs not wanting to come to the cold of the Northern states.

 

Top college players generally come from warmer climate (SEC / ACC / PAC / Etc.) universities. Players generally want warm weather cities to play out their careers if given the choice. That's my view as to why players don't come. Dome or no dome.

[LaBombo]

The best part:

 

'Kevin flipping Correia signed for two years and $10 million, and he’s Kevin Correia. On that basis alone, it seems like the Mets got themselves a pretty good deal. On that basis alone, it seems like Marcum should’ve had more of a market.'

 

Yes. Was about to put up a link and that quote earlier. The open and implied disdain for the Twins' free agency offseason seem to grow every week.

[TheLeviathan]

One pitcher will be less than a year removed from TJ surgery. One pitcher threw 120+ innings in 2012 including 8 consecutive starts to finish the season. So while you are right, Marcum could fall down in the shower or slip shoveling his drive and rupture his spleen, logic says Marcum is less of a health risk in 2013.

 

Here's another way of looking at it. Would you prefer Gibson or Wimmers going forward?

 

I just quoted it so that the guys trying to defend the indefensible respond to this. It really hits the crux of the problem with the idea that Marcum is "more risky".

[panolo]

The bar is set extremely low. Just better isn't good enough. Significantly better is what we need.

 

I agree. However, we need to make sure it is for the long run. The dearth of good, young(fiscally controllable) starters has been terrible.