Falvine still on pace with their plan... whatever that may be.

[Prince William]

On 12/27/2021 at 12:37 PM, Sconnie said:

I don't remember Falvey or Levine saying this. That was their reputation (esp Falvey) coming in. Do you have a source?

Falvey came from an organization that knew pitching. That organization drafted pitchers and had them in the majors after a couple of years in the minors. That is not the Twins under Falvey.  I don't think Falvey whispered anything in a player's ear. He certainly hasn't found great free agent pitchers. 

[Prince William]

On 12/27/2021 at 12:13 PM, farmerguychris said:

Knowing Twins ownership when it comes to payroll historically - doesn't it make sense that when looking for Terry Ryan's replacement - something that appealed to the Polads during Falvine's interview certainly would be his track record of being able to develop pitching.  Developing your own talent compared to signing free agents is a potential way to spend less money and still put a competitive team on the field.  Its been a few years - they let them spend a decent amount the first few years, but now that we need pitchers - this is what Falvine is supposed to be good at, so if I were the owners - this is when I would also ask them "hey remember how you bragged about being a pitcher whisperer" - show me. 

See my reply to Sconnie for the first error in your post. The other error is that there is nobody named Falvine. Falvey interviewed with Pohlad. Levine would be Falvey's hire.  Neither has had a job in player development side of the business. Neither would be bragging about being a pitcher whisperer 

[KirbyDome89]

7 hours ago, Sconnie said:

How do we know if this is a one year investment, or two, or five?

Exactly. 

It's setting up to be a multi year investment unless they win the lottery as far as the pitching prospects are concerned. If posters want to cling to that asterisk, fine, but I agree with you, the distinction is irrelevant when action, or lack thereof, to this point suggests the team is moving in a specific direction. 

[tony&rodney]

The title to this post is actually pretty funny. Wonder if there is a plan? Pohlad's Plan? Stay tuned as the answer should arrive by April Fool's Day.

[Brandon]

On 12/27/2021 at 12:28 PM, rv78 said:

The FO has been around long enough that the problems they have now are ones they created. It's time to put the past Terry Ryan excuses to bed. Target Field was built to keep in-grown talent and get top Free Agents. They have failed to do both with any consistancy. Whatever their plan is that everyone here is speculating about, hasn't worked so far. "0" (that's a "Zero") playoff wins much less a Championship equals failure. But hey, they said they'll be competitive. Looks like "Competitive" is their goal, not a Championship. BIG DIFFERENCE!

Actually Target Field was to be able to keep ourr homegrown talent.  The Twins didn't say they would compete for top free agents.  THey have from time to time.  but their claim was to be able to keep their own players.

[Finlander]

Many of the so called prospects were injured at some point last year - that, and the Covid interruption to their careers, hasn't helped progress on any supposed "plan".

I'm not sure if they have a plan for pitching, but I would hope it doesn't rely on major innings from injured prospects from last year. I'm concerned that the timeline for a wave of pitching improvement falls too late to take advantage of where the position player window is. To match these up, either we need to get a couple of short term veteran pitchers while the prospect pitchers get innings in AAA and build confidence and strength, or veteran position players like Kepler, Garver, Polanco, Donaldson will have to be traded for prospects that line up better with expected arrivals of our own prospects.

I personally would like to see the team reward the Polanco/Buxton/Garver/Sano service time by getting a couple of short term pitchers via trade and fighting a good fight within the division.

[mnfireman]

You keyboard warriors run a pretty good front office from your home home office...

[Major League Ready]

22 hours ago, Sconnie said:

How do we know if this is a one year investment, or two, or five?

If I look at the pitching staff as it is, Griffin Jax pitched 120 inning last year, Ober pitched 108, and nobody else broke 100 innings. This current group of 21 pitchers totaled 1300-ish innings last year and assuming a 14 man pitching staff at most would provide 1000 innings at last year's numbers, assuming 20% growth in innings for the starters and long relievers. A baseball season is 1500 innings so the plan as of today is for 1/3 of the 2022 innings to come from outside the organization, and a typical Michael Pineda type pitches 150 innings per year. That would make 20% of the innings to come from Quad A types in 2022.

Sano has a buy out after '22, Donaldson has 2 years left on his deal. This looks like a 2+ year "re-tool" to me, but who knows? I'm not in that board room with Falvey, St Peter and Pohlad.

 

 

We don’t know.  We could have 5 pitching prospects burst on to the seen next year or none.  Miranda might be better than Donaldson next year or flop completely.  Martin / Lewis might be ROY candidates or never make it to the ML level.  That’s a very different premise.  That vulnerability is always present when you are in a development stage regardless of the intended timeframe is 1 year or 5.  However, it is very reasonable to expect or plan for this to occur over the next year.  There are so many that the influx will still be going on into 2023 and beyond.

Perhaps more to the point, this conversation started with the actions or more specifically intent.  If their intent was a 4 or 5 year rebuild, they would probably not have signed Buxton.  They would have traded Donaldson at the deadline or this off-season for any salary relief they could have obtained.  Rodgers / Duffey / Thielbar / Kepler / Arreaz / Garver / Sano and Polanco would all be traded for prospects.

It’s just not reasonable to suggest this is a 5 year plan based on the estimated ETA of the prospects alone.  They also have not moved on from numerous veterans.  This is not at all consistent with a long-term rebuild strategy.  I will join you calling this a rebuild if they come back after the lockout and trade the players listed above.  Until then their actions and the timing of prospects are not even remotely indicative of a long-term rebuild.
 

[jorgenswest]

Derek Falvey has led the Twins for five years. In those five years the Twins have won the AL central twice and appeared in the wild card in another. They put up only the second season where the Twins won over 100 games. Two of the four Twins seasons with a winning percentage of .600 or better have occurred in these five years,  In the other two years they were never in the mix. They currently are in the midst of a losing stretch that spans one season. The plan has been pretty successful so far.

[RpR]

2 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

Derek Falvey has led the Twins for five years. In those five years the Twins have won the AL central twice and appeared in the wild card in another. They put up only the second season where the Twins won over 100 games. Two of the four Twins seasons with a winning percentage of .600 or better have occurred in these five years,  In the other two years they were never in the mix. They currently are in the midst of a losing stretch that spans one season. The plan has been pretty successful so far.

And most of the players that made that 100 win season possible are GONE!

[jorgenswest]

41 minutes ago, RpR said:

And most of the players that made that 100 win season possible are GONE!

Is that so surprising? Teams change. Look to 2019 and compare the Rays that contributed more than one WAR to that team against the Twins that contributed more than one WAR. The Twins have retained more of those contributors to 2019.  Is there any significance one way or another? Not that I can see.

 

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, RpR said:

And most of the players that made that 100 win season possible are GONE!

Sano / Polanco / Garver / Arraez / Buxton / Kepler so six of the top position players are still there plus they added Donaldson and Kirilloff.  Their two top RPs ( Rodgers / Duffey) are still there.  Alcala was also here but looking much better than he did when he first came up.   

[tony&rodney]

The Twins play in the AL Central. They do not choose their division. The unbalanced schedule means that a team's record may partially be a reflection of their competition not their place among the better or worse teams in the league. The 2019 Twins finished below .500 against winning teams. They also played fewer games versus competitive teams that year. 2019 was fun and the strength of opponents is not a factor within the control of any team. Nevertheless, one must acknowledge the competition when making an analysis of the relative success of any team. The 1987 team finished .500 against competitive teams, 1991 did much better, and Gardy's division winning teams were all better than the 2019 Twins versus winning teams. 

Winning a division is important in my view and i loved watching the 2019 Twins, but if the strategy is to compete against the better teams, then adjustments need to be made because it isn't often that three teams will rebuild leaving an open path to a winning record. Hopefully, one change in the CBA will be an end to the unbalanced schedule. This would create a more true competitive league. This might also help the Twins management squad define a plan for competitive baseball. The CBA, in my opinion, has held up the Twins and many teams from moving forward for 2022. A resolution at the bargaining table should release teams to pursue their goals. We can only hope this does not drag into February.