Was the last regime really worse than the current Front Office?

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Mitch Garver disagrees with this take on Mitch Garver’s defensive improvement, for the record.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mitch-garver-wasnt-catching-strikes-so-he-changed-his-catching-stance/amp/

It's almost like Garver, through the Twins, used all those computer compiled trends to create coaching techniques that dramatically improved a player outside your ability as a fan to notice.

Close enough to fairy dust to the naked eye.

[KirbyDome89]

3 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Fair, but if you think analytics has value to on-field performances I don't think its that unfair to separate them.  Hell, I think if we had hired them after Bill Smith we might have seen completely different career tracks from Sano, Buxton, etc.

I do, but I think assigning credit for players at or near the major league level sets up a sort of false dilemma where the current FO plays with house money so to speak. 

Conversely, I can see Sano being a more extreme version of the player he currently is. I also don't know if Buxton's health/luck changes much, and this FO also tinkered with his swing to the point where he spent an entire offseason away from coaching. They'd be interesting test cases. 

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Mitch Garver disagrees with this take on Mitch Garver’s defensive improvement, for the record.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mitch-garver-wasnt-catching-strikes-so-he-changed-his-catching-stance/amp/

Garver does not disagree with my take that he took the initiative to improve his catching game from what I read. The Twins didn't approach Garver about the changes, Garver seeked the changes out. At least that's how I read it. It's pretty clear Falvey, Levine and Molitor had the same outlook on Garver based on how he was handled based on what I saw.

a quote from the article you linked: "He had heard that a coach hired the previous season was working miracles with the Twins’ minor league catchers. So Garver called Tanner Swanson and invited him to Albuquerque."

[TheLeviathan]

8 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

I do, but I think assigning credit for players at or near the major league level sets up a sort of false dilemma where the current FO plays with house money so to speak. 

Conversely, I can see Sano being a more extreme version of the player he currently is. I also don't know if Buxton's health/luck changes much, and this FO also tinkered with his swing to the point where he spent an entire offseason away from coaching. They'd be interesting test cases. 

Agreed it would be nice to have the counter factual to prove it and I'm not trying to only give credit to them.  Clearly they have some deficiencies as well, but Polanco and Kepler and Garver and several pitchers basically transformed into entirely new kinds of players.  Maybe that was the player but it seems unlikely.

I would agree that Sano might be an example of the flip side of that coin.

[cHawk]

58 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

I think you're giving a bit too much credit to small sample sizes. Sure, Maeda had a great 11 game stretch in 2020. But that wasn't anything out of the norm for him. He had 11 game stretches like that every year with the Dodgers. He's made 32 starts for the Twins and his line is 12-6, 173 ip, 110 ERA+, 1.9 WAR. That's pretty much in line with what he's done his entire career but a bit worse than his best season (his rookie year).

Same issue applies to Odorizzi. Yeah, great season in 2019 but 2018 and 2020 existed too. One solid season, a piddling season and a disaster, injury plagued season. Basically, the Twins paid nearly 34 million for 4.5 WAR spread over three seasons. 

Fair points. However, Odorizzi did have his best season in 2019, so I think that that deserves recognition as him coming here and having a breakout year.

[Brock Beauchamp]

39 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Garver does not disagree with my take that he took the initiative to improve his catching game from what I read. The Twins didn't approach Garver about the changes, Garver seeked the changes out. At least that's how I read it. It's pretty clear Falvey, Levine and Molitor had the same outlook on Garver based on how he was handled based on what I saw.

a quote from the article you linked: "He had heard that a coach hired the previous season was working miracles with the Twins’ minor league catchers. So Garver called Tanner Swanson and invited him to Albuquerque."

If you don’t give a front office credit for hiring a catching coach with progressive ideas and green-lighting that coach to fly to a player’s home and coach him, I don’t feel you’re arguing honestly about this.

If Garver went outside the org for off-season coaching, sure, but Falvine literally hired Tanner Swanson to do exactly what he did with Mitch Garver. 

*screams silently in head*

Come on. If you won’t give Falvine credit for *that*, literally whatever coach they hire gets all credit for everything and they get none. 

[chpettit19]

3 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I think you're giving a bit too much credit to small sample sizes. Sure, Maeda had a great 11 game stretch in 2020. But that wasn't anything out of the norm for him. He had 11 game stretches like that every year with the Dodgers. He's made 32 starts for the Twins and his line is 12-6, 173 ip, 110 ERA+, 1.9 WAR. That's pretty much in line with what he's done his entire career but a bit worse than his best season (his rookie year).

Same issue applies to Odorizzi. Yeah, great season in 2019 but 2018 and 2020 existed too. One solid season, a piddling season and a disaster, injury plagued season. Basically, the Twins paid nearly 34 million for 4.5 WAR spread over three seasons. 

The players people are mad about the FO moving and finding success elsewhere are also small sample size arguments. Wade, Gibson, Ynoa, Gil, etc. have all had very small sample sizes of success and the FO is ripped for them. They haven't been around long enough to have many large sample sizes on either side of the argument. I've commented on the players they brought in that had more success here than elsewhere just to show that there's a balance to this and it happens with every team. Nelson Cruz had the best stint of his entire career in MN at the age of roughly 105. Does that mean they're a way better FO than Bal, Texas, and Seattle? After he got traded last year he was far less productive. Does the FO get credit for that? The FO has plenty of things to be ripped for, but people make too big of a deal of the players that left that have found "success" elsewhere. It's pretty well balanced out with players who have found more success here.

[Prince William]

15 hours ago, wsnydes said:

The maturation topic was discussed on the first page of this thread by @chpettit19.  As for the position players drafted by the current FO, they're just breaking into the big leagues.  The current FO's first draft wasn't until 2017 and saw one minor league season cancelled.  Hardly a reasonable point of comparison at this point.

The Cleveland team manages to push pitchers to the majors within 2 years. It is more than reasonable. Terribly sorry that I did not memorize what other people had previously said. I am so very sorry to have distressed you.

[gunnarthor]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

The players people are mad about the FO moving and finding success elsewhere are also small sample size arguments. Wade, Gibson, Ynoa, Gil, etc. have all had very small sample sizes of success and the FO is ripped for them. They haven't been around long enough to have many large sample sizes on either side of the argument. I've commented on the players they brought in that had more success here than elsewhere just to show that there's a balance to this and it happens with every team. Nelson Cruz had the best stint of his entire career in MN at the age of roughly 105. Does that mean they're a way better FO than Bal, Texas, and Seattle? After he got traded last year he was far less productive. Does the FO get credit for that? The FO has plenty of things to be ripped for, but people make too big of a deal of the players that left that have found "success" elsewhere. It's pretty well balanced out with players who have found more success here.

I think the point I was trying to make was that Maeda and Odo's success is only if you look at their small sample size with the Twins. Instead people want to focus on Maeda's 11 games in 2020 or Odo's 2019 season while ignoring their large sample sizes with the Twins.

As to Cruz, I think he was a really good signing, I urged them to do it (and the Donaldson one). The main reason I wanted Cruz was I thought his RH power bat would play well at Target Field.

[Prince William]

8 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

McPhail wasn’t worried about making risky trades or putting too much payroll on a couple of risky free agents. If Ryan had the guts to keep getting the Morris’ and Smiley’s the team might not have had such long droughts.

He copied (improved upon) McPhail’s hometown Dave Winfield signing with guys like Molitor and Steinbach, but he never had the stomach to pay for pitching. We’re going on about 30 years of that problem now.

The pipeline of players from the minors seemed kind of dry. When the core got old there were not replacements. One or two players were not going to bring about post season glory. 

Analytic would probably say that long term pitching deals are not good business.  Even McPhail did not get Morris nor Smiley to stay. 

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

If you don’t give a front office credit for hiring a catching coach with progressive ideas and green-lighting that coach to fly to a player’s home and coach him, I don’t feel you’re arguing honestly about this.

If Garver went outside the org for off-season coaching, sure, but Falvine literally hired Tanner Swanson to do exactly what he did with Mitch Garver. 

*screams silently in head*

Come on. If you won’t give Falvine credit for *that*, literally whatever coach they hire gets all credit for everything and they get none. 

Falvey hired a great coach and he absolutely gets credit for hiring him.

The way the article reads to me is Garver had to seek the guy out. It's Levine's job to send Swanson to work with Garver, not the other way around. Garver, or any other prospect in the system, should not have to beg to get coaching. It's the front office's job to recognize issues and assign coaches to contact the player or instruct the player to contact a coach. If Falvey had not "green lighted" the coach to work with Garver, that would have been the height of incompetence. 

Now, depending on the way you interpret the article, it could read as though Levine (who should have been the one involved here) told Mitch Garver about Tanner Swanson and instructed Mitch Garver to get in contact with him because Garver's skills weren't good enough. The article does not read that way to me.

 

[Prince William]

15 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

And many of those same scouts still work for this FO.  Smith signed the IFA that this team rode to success recently yet we somehow give Ryan credit for that?  Worse yet in your post, Ryan gets credit when you claim he openly didn't draft the players or have any say in that?  Well, if Ryan wasn't drafting people, he was a no-show in FA, and barely traded when we were bad or good....what are we actually giving him credit for?  Keeping a nice office chair warm?

Towards the end, that actually sounds about right.  I'm disappointed in some things this FO has done (and not done this offseason) but it's clear Covid and now the lockout have dramatically impacted their timeline.  I'd hate to fire them on the precipice of their team building strategy coming to fruition.  The pitching talent looks really, really enticing.  As you say, and I agree with you, their position players leave a lot to be desired.  But let's see how things play out, that's the incomplete grade for me.

The past FOs were clearly either wildly incompetent at trading (Smith) or basically useless (Ryan).  Seems easy to declare that, as of now, this FO is still ahead of them.

one should give credit to the regime. Ryan or Smith of Falvey has headed the Twins. Ultimately whatever the employees do falls to the leader of the regime. The topic says regime, not name. It may be easy for you to declare as of now this FO is ahead. The lifeline of an organization is the controlable players from the minor league.  There is a built in excuse if you want one to say at this point the FO is ahead.  Without being able to judge the main pipeline of players, this whole debate is utterly pointless. Pointless debate is what the internet is about.

[wsnydes]

6 hours ago, Prince William said:

The Cleveland team manages to push pitchers to the majors within 2 years. It is more than reasonable. Terribly sorry that I did not memorize what other people had previously said. I am so very sorry to have distressed you.

Your comment specifically stated position players, nothing about pitchers.  

No need for apologies, I was simply referring you to a comment that had already covered your question.  Nothing more, nothing less.

[Major League Ready]

20 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Don't mean this to be argumentative, but I would say Maeda, Odo and Cruz were great moves, Pineda the first time maybe great as well, minus the suspension and all, the second time was OK to good?  Donaldson IMO was good, others seem to think it was horrible, Schoop/Cron/Thielbar were all good compared to the salary they got.

Trades like Ynoa and Gil, don't bother me (sure it would be nice to have some prospects on the younger end of the age scale, but Gil was traded 4 seasons ago and hasn't done anything in the majors yet (29.1 innings IMO isn't anything). It has been 5 or so seasons since trading Ynoa, and out of the 140 innings the braves pitched to win the world series he got 1. So to me those trades don't bother me at all.

My negatives of the front office, is how they have done a bad job of evaluating the prospects they inherited. Seems like the ones they held onto failed and the ones they left go have fared better, which may or not be true, just seems that way. There inability to communicate a plan to the fans, continuing to employ Rocco.

100% agree if the pitching prospects pan out, they will have hit a homer and both will move onto brighter pastures.

 

I shared your disappointment in some of the evaluations but I tend to be a little more forgiving because every team makes those mistakes.  Yes, they should have been better.  I have a bigger problem with errors in critical thinking.  In other words, I think its bad practice to trade away high ceiling arms for players with very modest ceilings as the Twins did with Ynoa and Gil.  Obviously, this is a judgement call and therefore debatable.

Gil is 2 years younger than Joe Ryan and Ynoa is 21 years old.  The fact the trade took place 4 years ago is not something I would consider in evaluating those trades.  They were high ceiling SPs which the Braves and Yankees recognized.  They have not done much yet because they are very young.  Gil looked dominant in his limited time and as I said Ynoa is 21 years old and already established.  We would be really well positioned right now if we had those two.  Add one strong FA and the Twins look good for the next 5+ years.  Perhaps the next 7-8 years with all of the other prospects.   

The Braves and Yankees obviously saw the potential.  Who knows … The might both be #4s but they look like important pieces at the moment.  Gil in particular looks like he could be a top of the rotation guy.  2022 and beyond would look great if these two were Twins.  IMO, those two trades are the biggest negatives because they have the greatest potential impact if Gil and Ynoa progress as expected.
 

[Brock Beauchamp]

9 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Falvey hired a great coach and he absolutely gets credit for hiring him.

The way the article reads to me is Garver had to seek the guy out. It's Levine's job to send Swanson to work with Garver, not the other way around. Garver, or any other prospect in the system, should not have to beg to get coaching. It's the front office's job to recognize issues and assign coaches to contact the player or instruct the player to contact a coach. If Falvey had not "green lighted" the coach to work with Garver, that would have been the height of incompetence. 

Now, depending on the way you interpret the article, it could read as though Levine (who should have been the one involved here) told Mitch Garver about Tanner Swanson and instructed Mitch Garver to get in contact with him because Garver's skills weren't good enough. The article does not read that way to me.

Either way, that's picking nits. The front office hired a coach and that coach did his job, drastically improving a player in the process. Does the front office actually tell a coach what to do? I suspect that's not the case, particularly in this front office. They put the processes in place to let coaches succeed and then let the system sort out when and where that happens.

And at the end of the day, the front office hired Tanner Swanson and then Tanner Swanson coached Mitch Garver into being a good catcher. They get credit for the process and system, which is literally their job.

[chpettit19]

9 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I think the point I was trying to make was that Maeda and Odo's success is only if you look at their small sample size with the Twins. Instead people want to focus on Maeda's 11 games in 2020 or Odo's 2019 season while ignoring their large sample sizes with the Twins.

As to Cruz, I think he was a really good signing, I urged them to do it (and the Donaldson one). The main reason I wanted Cruz was I thought his RH power bat would play well at Target Field.

I get that. I'm saying that's the same thing people are doing with the players that left. There have to be hundreds, if not thousands, of comments on this site about how dumb the FO was for letting Kyle Gibson go because of how well he pitched last year. Completely ignoring his 5.35 ERA in 2020 or his 5.09 ERA with the Phillies after he was traded last year.

Kyle Gibson pitched out his mind in the first half last year (2.29 ERA in 17 starts) before crashing back to earth in the second half with a 5.51 ERA in 13 starts. If the FO gets ripped based on those cherry picked stats they should be praised for other cherry picked stats. Or we can just accept that there really aren't any massive wins one way or the other and the players that "found success" elsewhere really didn't find that much success and of the things to rip the FO for it's at the very, very, very bottom of the list.

[TwinsDr2021]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Gil is 2 years younger than Joe Ryan and Ynoa is 21 years old.

Just to clarify Ynoa is 23 and will be 24 in May

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Gil looked dominant in his limited time and as I said Ynoa is 21 years old and already established.  

Ynoa debuted at 21 in 2019 and pitched in 3 innings, pitched 21.2 innings in 2020 and pitched 91 last year with a 1.5 WAR (which is good) but I wouldn't say established quite yet, but he could be on his way

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

We would be really well positioned right now if we had those two.

The Twins also wouldn't have gotten the 2.4 WAR from Cave his first two years or 2019 Zack Littell, and then the Twins let him and 5 years of control go.

[mikelink45]

I love the discussions and opinions.  Going back to my original post I think that Ryan has been thrown under the bus too much.  He operated in a different world just like Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds and he was recognized as a very smart baseball man by the industry in his first run.  Time runs out for all of us and it is difficult to tell when that happens, but remember Ryan came in at a point where the Bill Smith regime had collapsed and we needed a father figure to calm things down.  His second stint should not be the evaluation point. 

The current FO is one I have not decided on, but I think that they have gotten a lot of credit that should be shared with their predecessors and they have a list of questionable acquisitions and non-acquisitions that can be judged.  

It is like the hiring of a new football coach in college who comes in and wins in their first year with the players the previous coach recruited.  I do not know how many years it takes to really judge a front off completely.  I do think they have enough years to look at Free agents, trades, and a few other elements.  

In the long run it is difficult to compare and even harder to grade a FO.  That is why I always question front office people in the HOF.  Often they have one good run with one team, but then they have offsetting mediocre teams and seasons.  Like my comparison on Casey Stengel - is he the manager that stunk with the Boston Braves (and Bees), Brooklyn Dodgers  and New York Mets or the Genius of the New York Yankees?

[MABB1959]

16 hours ago, cHawk said:

Which players came here and did better?

Do Maeda, Wisler, Thielbar, & Odorizzi not exist?

Maybe all other teams yank the pitcher at 5/6 innings or when they get in a jam and not allowed to work themselves out of it.

The Dodgers led the league this past season in Starter IP, with 843.1. Over a 162 game season, that’s 5.1 IP per game. The Rangers were last in the league at 798.2. Over a 162 game season, that’s 5.0 IP per game. That’s just how the modern MLB works.

I don't remember seeing much of the players you mentioned.   Maeda (injured), Theilbar did he actually pitch for a different team?   Wisler (non-tendered) was he that good?  Odorizzi 6.59 ERA last year with the Twins.  If he was so good why did they trade him?  I could agree with Maeda but we really did not see that much from him.

[Major League Ready]

28 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Just to clarify Ynoa is 23 and will be 24 in May

Ynoa debuted at 21 in 2019 and pitched in 3 innings, pitched 21.2 innings in 2020 and pitched 91 last year with a 1.5 WAR (which is good) but I wouldn't say established quite yet, but he could be on his way

The Twins also wouldn't have gotten the 2.4 WAR from Cave his first two years or 2019 Zack Littell, and then the Twins let him and 5 years of control go.

I don't really disagree with anything you are saying.  My focus is that Cave and Litell are not impact players.  Ynoa and especially Gil will probably be the kind of players that could be impactful on a contender.  We don't know this for sure but at this moment they look good.  Perhaps another way of looking at it is that Littlell and Cave were easily replaceable and I would give their past production up to have Gil and Ynoa going forward or you could look at it this way .... they would be worth far more as trade assets today.

[TheLeviathan]

9 hours ago, Prince William said:

one should give credit to the regime. Ryan or Smith of Falvey has headed the Twins. Ultimately whatever the employees do falls to the leader of the regime. The topic says regime, not name. It may be easy for you to declare as of now this FO is ahead. The lifeline of an organization is the controlable players from the minor league.  There is a built in excuse if you want one to say at this point the FO is ahead.  Without being able to judge the main pipeline of players, this whole debate is utterly pointless. Pointless debate is what the internet is about.

You separated them, not me.  And, I agree, it's hard to make this judgment right now because we haven't seen the pipeline.  It's why I have been consistent saying I want to see how 2022 plays out before making any decisions on this FO.

[TheLeviathan]

35 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

.  His second stint should not be the evaluation point. 

But he was here, he took the job, and he was bad at it.

For the record, I typically defended Ryan during his first run and I would still do so today.  But I struggle with some of the phrasing about how great he was at the time.  He almost never made free agent signings or trades...how great can you be when you purposely ignore 2/3rds of your ways of acquiring talent?  

Especially since that kind of kick-the-can hesitancy directly led to several of Bill Smith's biggest blunders.  Ryan had a system - pitch to contact guys on the mound with good defenders who used the whole field in the lineup.  It was a smart, cheap team building strategy.  However, while that box had a high floor it prevented him from ever approaching what the team's ceiling could be.  And as the years went on that vulnerability became more and more apparent.  In his second go at GM it became obvious.

[cHawk]

23 minutes ago, MABB1959 said:

I don't remember seeing much of the players you mentioned.   Maeda (injured), Theilbar did he actually pitch for a different team?   Wisler (non-tendered) was he that good?  Odorizzi 6.59 ERA last year with the Twins.  If he was so good why did they trade him?  I could agree with Maeda but we really did not see that much from him.

Maeda may have been a SSS in 2020 but that’s also the case with Baddoo, Wade, Littell, etc.

Wisler had an absolute career year in 2020.

Thielbar hadn’t even pitched in the majors for 4 years before 2020 and he hasn’t been half bad

Odorizzi had a career year in 2019.

I also don’t recall the Twins trading any of those four players.

[mikelink45]

35 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

But he was here, he took the job, and he was bad at it.

For the record, I typically defended Ryan during his first run and I would still do so today.  But I struggle with some of the phrasing about how great he was at the time.  He almost never made free agent signings or trades...how great can you be when you purposely ignore 2/3rds of your ways of acquiring talent?  

Especially since that kind of kick-the-can hesitancy directly led to several of Bill Smith's biggest blunders.  Ryan had a system - pitch to contact guys on the mound with good defenders who used the whole field in the lineup.  It was a smart, cheap team building strategy.  However, while that box had a high floor it prevented him from ever approaching what the team's ceiling could be.  And as the years went on that vulnerability became more and more apparent.  In his second go at GM it became obvious.

I still see Ryan as an emergency fill in during his second stint.  Regarding FA signings, during his first term teams were not looking at FA like they do now - except the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers.  

But the point is, I am not claiming greatness for Ryan, I want to temper our expectations and evaluation of the current front office.  Look at Andy McPhail - he made his reputation on nine very good years with the team - then he left as the wonderboy and then had seven seasons - one winning record with the Cubs and Orioles.  His winning record was his first year in Chicago, then he had a losing club for six straight years.  

Did he become bad overnight?  Did the game change under him?  Were the teams just bad in every way? What is the best way to judge a GM?  

[Prince William]

On 12/23/2021 at 10:07 AM, TheLeviathan said:

But he was here, he took the job, and he was bad at it.

For the record, I typically defended Ryan during his first run and I would still do so today.  But I struggle with some of the phrasing about how great he was at the time.  He almost never made free agent signings or trades...how great can you be when you purposely ignore 2/3rds of your ways of acquiring talent?  

Especially since that kind of kick-the-can hesitancy directly led to several of Bill Smith's biggest blunders.  Ryan had a system - pitch to contact guys on the mound with good defenders who used the whole field in the lineup.  It was a smart, cheap team building strategy.  However, while that box had a high floor it prevented him from ever approaching what the team's ceiling could be.  And as the years went on that vulnerability became more and more apparent.  In his second go at GM it became obvious.

Ryan's team was so bad that adding Hector Santiago and Bartolo Colon led them to a wildcard berth under Falvey  like the good old days under Ryan. Colon and Santiago were Falvey's adds to the team he inherited