Bob Sansevere Interviews Dave St. Peter

[Guest USAFChief]

I don't think there's a "right way" to win baseball games, other than having better baseball players than the competition. If there's a "right way" then ignoring one way to acquire those better players--as the Twins have done for decades by refusing to participate in free agency except at the fringes--certainly could be termed the "wrong way." If the Twins skipped the first three rounds of the draft every year--"too expensive, and no guarantee!"--people would be up in arms. But somehow it's ok they skip the "first three rounds" of free agency year after year. Why?

[edavis0308]

I don't think there's a "right way" to win baseball games, other than having better baseball players than the competition. If there's a "right way" then ignoring one way to acquire those better players--as the Twins have done for decades by refusing to participate in free agency except at the fringes--certainly could be termed the "wrong way." If the Twins skipped the first three rounds of the draft every year--"too expensive, and no guarantee!"--people would be up in arms. But somehow it's ok they skip the "first three rounds" of free agency year after year. Why?

 

That is a good point, though they are less likely to overpay in the draft like they would have to overpay for free agent talent. No surprise they don't pursue Boras clients too often, and risk overpaying.

[gunnarthor]

None of those were adds, he let guys walk and backfilled.....when has he had a mediocre player on the roster, and just upgraded the position?

 

Depends on how you view upgrading. Under Ryan we went from Dougie Baseball to Morneau, AJ to Mauer, Punto to Castillo, Blanco to Redmond, Reed to Silva, Rogers to Santana, Keilty to Stewart. In fairness to Ryan, he has revamped a lot of rosters - we went from a playoff team with a nucleus of Hunter, Koskie, Dougie B to a playoff team with a nucleus of Mauer, Morneau, Santana.

 

I'm not trying to make excuses for the payroll. I think the Pohlad's are cheap and are screwing the fans over. We've heard before that the Pohlad's won't spend in down years just to spend but we haven't really seen a commitment to spend in up years. That said, I also think Ryan is capable of building a contending team again, even with the Pohlad payroll BS. I think the Twins could have added 20m to payroll this year and have created a team that could push for the central if the Tigers stumble but that would have required hitting correctly on a lot of free agents and needing the young arms - Hendriks and Gibson - to be ready. If Ryan had signed Baker, Marcum and Drew, each to the one year deals they signed, that's close to 100m payroll but still a pretty weak team.

 

I think what the Twins are doing is probably the right way to go. It's obvious they're rebuilding. They'll most likely move Morneau and Willingham during the season. They'll add a pitcher in the draft to go with a future of Worley, Gibson, May, Berrios and Meyer. Hicks, Gibson and Arcia will all break in this year. But if Plouffe and Parmelee show that they are actually capable of being MLers (not a sure thing at all), then all of a sudden the Twins have a real outfield and a real third baseman and would be surprisingly competitive, Ryan could add salary.

[JB_Iowa]

Doesn't anyone question his numbers? Where does he come up with "Last year, our payroll was north of $100 million and we lost 95 games."? I went back through Jeremy Nygaard's excellent roster payroll list and I just don't get it.

[gunnarthor]

I don't think there's a "right way" to win baseball games, other than having better baseball players than the competition. If there's a "right way" then ignoring one way to acquire those better players--as the Twins have done for decades by refusing to participate in free agency except at the fringes--certainly could be termed the "wrong way." If the Twins skipped the first three rounds of the draft every year--"too expensive, and no guarantee!"--people would be up in arms. But somehow it's ok they skip the "first three rounds" of free agency year after year. Why?

 

They didn't always skip the first 3 rounds but Carl Pohlad had the team adhere to (or remain below) draft slots all the time.

[gunnarthor]

Doesn't anyone question his numbers? Where does he come up with "Last year, our payroll was north of $100 million and we lost 95 games."? I went back through Jeremy Nygaard's excellent roster payroll list and I just don't get it.

 

According to Cot's baseball contracts, the Twins opening day salary was just over 100m last year - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dEdsdFRfTmw1ZlZZQndaX3E0ZnhQQXc&output=html

[JB_Iowa]

According to Cot's baseball contracts, the Twins opening day salary was just over 100m last year - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah4PW47PiAi-dEdsdFRfTmw1ZlZZQndaX3E0ZnhQQXc&output=html

Thanks. Between mis-adding the top part and forgetting the "other obligations", I was really off. And it is all just a reminder of how much some of those bad decisions cost.

[jokin]

Morneau has only one year left and with a solid start to the season suddenly builds trade value has hasn't had the past 12 months, Doumit at least serves a purpose as being a split guy with Mauer while keeping Mauer a bit more healthy, Willingham as discussed in other threads has been shopped before by the Twins, going into 2013 he is the only established major league starting OF on the roster, if Hicks/Benson/Parmelee all prove worthy then trade him, if not wait until you get a good offer like Span and Revere. Carroll has like zero trade value and at this point is blocking no one, other then Dozier potentially catching fire I dont see one legit MI on this roster in 2013 who will step up Florimon, etc all project as util guys as does Dozier at this point. Correia sucks but it is what it is at this point, nobody from the minors is really knocking on the door to get ML innings this year except Gibson (limited IP) and Hendriks, with the rest of the rotation in um...shambles, its not to far fetched to think not a single worthy pitcher will be blocked this year when it comes to getting starts.

 

This reads curiously like the club didn't try very hard...or didn't care much to upgrade the obvious areas of deficiency.

 

And a $60M payroll team like the Rays put together a major depth upgrade as SS and 2B for peanuts.

[Riverbrian]

This reads curiously like the club didn't try very hard...or didn't care much to upgrade the obvious areas of deficiency.

 

And a $60M payroll team like the Rays put together a major depth upgrade as SS and 2B for peanuts.

 

I'd go with "Upgrade"... Qualified with a "Maybe"... But I can't go along with "Major"

 

No one wanted Escobar... He has been passed around like a 1st grader passes along the flu. Johnson wasn't exactly a bidding war.

 

I'd say it's more accurate to say that the Blue Jays had a Major upgrade and the Rays picked up the Blue Jays cast off's.

[jokin]

I'd go with "Upgrade"... Qualified with a "Maybe"... But I can't go along with "Major"

 

No one wanted Escobar... He has been passed around like a 1st grader passes along the flu. Johnson wasn't exactly a bidding war.

 

I'd say it's more accurate to say that the Blue Jays had a Major upgrade and the Rays picked up the Blue Jays cast off's.

 

The Rays are a team legitimately working on a shoe string budget, and still have Zobrist, Rodriguez and Roberts and replaced Brignac (-0.3 WAR) and Johnson (0.3 WAR) = 0.0 WAR with Escobar (1.8 WAR) and Johnson (0.7 WAR) =2.5 WAR. That's more than a "maybe", closer to "major", perhaps "significant" will suffice?

[Riverbrian]

The Rays are a team legitimately working on a shoe string budget, and still have Zobrist, Rodriguez and Roberts and replaced Brignac (-0.3 WAR) and Johnson (0.3 WAR) = 0.0 WAR with Escobar (1.8 WAR) and Johnson (0.7 WAR) =2.5 WAR. That's more than a "maybe", closer to "major", perhaps "significant" will suffice?

 

lol... Is there a word between Maybe and Significant?

[snepp]

lol... Is there a word between Maybe and Significant?

 

Reasonably significant.

[Riverbrian]

Reasonably significant.

 

lol... I'm going with "Mild Augmented"

 

I know... I know that's 2 words.

 

The English Langauge is insufficiant if it doesn't have a single word for this!

 

I'm sending a letter to Webster's.

[Craig Arko]

Confidence = (signal/noise) X sqrt(sample size).

 

The English language is insufficient. Ergo Math.

[Riverbrian]

Confidence = (signal/noise) X sqrt(sample size).

 

The English language is insufficient. Ergo Math.

 

Point Taken... My apologies.

[The Wise One]

Maybe I'm weird, but I get it. I especially appreciate that they aren't taking the shortcuts and are doing it the right way, through development. As we've talked about, that's how the Nationals did it. They developed a very strong core through the draft and through their farm system. As they got close to competing, they complemented their core with some key acquisitions. The Werth deal made no sense, too much money. But getting Span was great for them and wasn't like it was expensive. They could have spent 4-times as much and just signed Bourn and not lose Meyer. But Span likely makes more sense for them.

 

The Twins could just trade Willingham and Morneau, but they won't get enough in return to make it worth it, might as well keep them, especially since Willingham has such a good contract.

 

Well, you might be weird, but not in a bad way.