It's the Roster

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

3 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

We really going to use BA as the sole measure? Some of those are rounding errors.....

You can think it is the hitting coach, but I would argue having three DFA / backup players as starters in the OF, before this year that's what they were, is the issue, not the batting coach. Also, it is clear Buxton and CC are hurt, so I'm sure that's a much bigger issue for them than the hitting coach. 

That's fair, Mike.

But if I go down that road, then I think the biggest indictment on this FO is how they've handled Buxton. MAT is starting because of Byron. Twins opted for Joey Gallo over Justin Turner because there weren't any AB's for another DH in the line up.

If he's the face of the franchise and the guy you believe in, then you play him in centerfield. If he's injured, he's injured. I'd rather use him and max out his talents taking the injury risk rather than pussy footing around and turning him into Miguel Sano.

I can't fault Rocco or Popkins for that. That's on Falvey and Levine, and ownership. But the problems that this roster faces - it's a domino effect from one gigantic mistake - the mismanagement of Byron Buxton.

[Mike Sixel]

3 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

That's fair, Mike.

But if I go down that road, then I think the biggest indictment on this FO is how they've handled Buxton. MAT is starting because of Byron. Twins opted for Joey Gallo over Justin Turner because there weren't any AB's for another DH in the line up.

If he's the face of the franchise and the guy you believe in, then you play him in centerfield. If he's injured, he's injured. I'd rather use him and max out his talents taking the injury risk rather than pussy footing around and turning him into Miguel Sano.

I can't fault Rocco or Popkins for that. That's on Falvey and Levine, and ownership. But the problems that this roster faces - it's a domino effect from one gigantic mistake - the mismanagement of Byron Buxton.

I'm not sure what they should have done with Buxton, but IIRC, this board loved his signing as a "low risk" opportunity. Alas, sometimes even low risk things don't work out. I am hoping, illogically I think, that he gets healthy next year.....

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

I'm not sure what they should have done with Buxton, but IIRC, this board loved his signing as a "low risk" opportunity. Alas, sometimes even low risk things don't work out. I am hoping, illogically I think, that he gets healthy next year.....

They had to re-sign him at that price, at least, IYAM. But you can't play scared and that's what has happened. I'd rather roll the dice with an injury and have him do what he does best.

[Riverbrian]

5 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Sorry I was unclear.  The point I was trying to make was, don't build your lineup around which way the wind is blowing that day and the dimensions out in right field and the handedness of the opener.  Build it around the best available players you have.  Atlanta trotted out the same lineup all 3 games I believe.  

Roster Resource is an easy way to take a look at every team and see how many teams are playing their best 9 every day. 

Atlanta is the only team locked in with the same lineup every single day. 

The only team. 

Atlanta is also currently healthy.

The Lowest OPS out of the 10 players that they play every day is .750 which is Michael Harris.  

Nobody out of the other 29 teams are the Braves. The Braves are couple of levels beyond rare. 

I'd also be willing to bet that there were no teams in 2022 that locked in like the Braves have locked in their lineup this year. 

If the Twins had the Braves lineup... Even I wouldn't complain much about the same lineup every day.

 

 

[Ricky Vaughn]

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

This, to me, is a very complex question. He's paid to execute the "sweet process" of the FO that they believe will lead to wins. And I think that's part of the hesitation in firing him. He's doing things the way the FO wants them done.

Agree with this 100%. The same can be said for Popkins, he's putting forth a hitting philosophy the FO believes in. I think the problem is they want all the hitters to take the same approach. Now, most front offices have a way they believe things should be done and the coaches need to preach the company line. For better or worse.

[USAFChief]

6 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Roster Resource is an easy way to take a look at every team and see how many teams are playing their best 9 every day. 

Atlanta is the only team locked in with the same lineup every single day. 

The only team. 

Atlanta is also currently healthy.

The Lowest OPS out of the 10 players that they play every day is .750 which is Michael Harris.  

Nobody out of the other 29 teams are the Braves. The Braves are couple of levels beyond rare. 

I'd also be willing to bet that there were no teams in 2022 that locked in like the Braves have locked in their lineup this year. 

If the Twins had the Braves lineup... Even I wouldn't complain much about the same lineup every day.

 

 

Most teams play their best players nearly every day, if healthy. Freddie Freeman ain't getting load managed. Mookie Betts, Randy Arozerena, and on and on. Shohei Ohtani, who legit might have a case for a rest day after pitching, plays every day. 80 games this year so far. 

"Scheduled day off" is mostly a Twins thing, at least to the extent they do.

[Jocko87]

6 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Roster Resource is an easy way to take a look at every team and see how many teams are playing their best 9 every day. 

Atlanta is the only team locked in with the same lineup every single day. 

The only team. 

Atlanta is also currently healthy.

The Lowest OPS out of the 10 players that they play every day is .750 which is Michael Harris.  

Nobody out of the other 29 teams are the Braves. The Braves are couple of levels beyond rare. 

I'd also be willing to bet that there were no teams in 2022 that locked in like the Braves have locked in their lineup this year. 

If the Twins had the Braves lineup... Even I wouldn't complain much about the same lineup every day.

 

 

This juggernaut squad was 55-55 on August 5th 2021.  After some, ahem, drastic roster moves they went 33-18, won a World Series, then won 101 games and are on pace to do it again. It’s largely the same group this year with a new catcher who’s acquisition was made possible by being successful. Olsen for Freeman is a wash. 

It’s a weird game. It’s weird that we are forever tied to the Braves. It’ll be real weird if things clicked in Minnesota in a similar fashion. The ingredients are there, the dough needed punched down so it can rise again. 

Happy Friday

[weitz41]

Definitely a roster issue. Rocco Imo is limited in how much he can affect the team as a whole when he is handed a roster full of 3 outcome players. The FO built the team on pitching, defense and homeruns. The big $ players are not caring their weight which makes a flawed roster even worse. 2-3 of Solano, Castro and Taylor on a good team would be bench players not starters. Vazquez is .100 OPS under his career norms. That is mostly due to lack of slug. A lot of his value comes from behind the plate and plays a part in the pitching this season. So, I'm not as down as others on his performance.

If I'm looking for who to blame, it's 70% FO, 20% Rocco and 10% the players...

The team needs a good two weeks before the all-star break, which feels very unlikely.

We are creeping towards a system wide failure comment from this FO.

[Riverbrian]

6 hours ago, Jocko87 said:

This juggernaut squad was 55-55 on August 5th 2021.  After some, ahem, drastic roster moves they went 33-18, won a World Series, then won 101 games and are on pace to do it again. It’s largely the same group this year with a new catcher who’s acquisition was made possible by being successful. Olsen for Freeman is a wash. 

It’s a weird game. It’s weird that we are forever tied to the Braves. It’ll be real weird if things clicked in Minnesota in a similar fashion. The ingredients are there, the dough needed punched down so it can rise again. 

Happy Friday

Ah Yes... the 21 Braves. .500 team that completely rebuilt their OF at the trade deadline. Rosario, Pederson, Solar and Duvall and all 4 of those guys helped them win a world series. 

For the whopping price of Pablo Sandoval, Alex Jackson, Kasey Kalich and Bryce Ball who at the time were the Braves 15, 16 and 26 ranked prospects. 

Also another example of the rareness of the Braves but what a great story and they are a reason that I'm not throwing in the towel in June. 

 

[DJL44]

At least the front office made sure they can't use "depth" as the excuse this season.

[Hubie29]

#1.  This everyday lineup is not made up of major league hitters.  Do not need to name them and breakdown each one. It's too obvious.

#2. Rocco is a terrible manager.  Again, do not need to give specifics. Too many pitching decisions and strategy blunders to mention. 

#3.  FO did a pretty good job addressing starting pitching. Failed on adding 1-2 shutdown BP arms, have lost games because of it.  Completely failed on adding help to the everyday lineup. We needed 2-3 proven major league hitters added. We added a big fat Zero.

[In My La Z boy]

18 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Results are definitely what matters, and our bosses will fire us no matter what our processes are if we're not getting results, but the company's results won't improve if the processes being executed are the bosses, and don't change. That's why I put this mess on the FO. You have to change them to see real change in the organizations results.

I have made numerous comments on the failure of the front office here. We are a top down organization. This is how we've structured things. Problem #1 has always been ownership. Problem #2 is now this front office. Since you cannot fire 40 players, and since our manager belongs to this front office, and this front office belongs now to young grandson Pohlad. I'd say grandson Pohlad needs to have a meeting and make some decisions. 

[chpettit19]

5 minutes ago, In My La Z boy said:

I have made numerous comments on the failure of the front office here. We are a top down organization. This is how we've structured things. Problem #1 has always been ownership. Problem #2 is now this front office. Since you cannot fire 40 players, and since our manager belongs to this front office, and this front office belongs now to young grandson Pohlad. I'd say grandson Pohlad needs to have a meeting and make some decisions. 

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if the new head Pohlad operates any different than the old ones. How quick on the trigger will he be? He's got a mess on his hands early, and it'd be encouraging to see him be decisive in order to fix things.

[Woof Bronzer]

6 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if the new head Pohlad operates any different than the old ones. How quick on the trigger will he be? He's got a mess on his hands early, and it'd be encouraging to see him be decisive in order to fix things.

As long as fans keep showing up to TF and spending wads of cash I don't think the Pohlads will be motivated to do anything.  It took a Total System Failure (i.e. significant loss of revenue) after 5 years of ineptitude to move on from the Ryan era.

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, Hubie29 said:

#1.  This everyday lineup is not made up of major league hitters.  Do not need to name them and breakdown each one. It's too obvious.

#2. Rocco is a terrible manager.  Again, do not need to give specifics. Too many pitching decisions and strategy blunders to mention. 

#3.  FO did a pretty good job addressing starting pitching. Failed on adding 1-2 shutdown BP arms, have lost games because of it.  Completely failed on adding help to the everyday lineup. We needed 2-3 proven major league hitters added. We added a big fat Zero.

1B - Most of us thought we would be just fine at 1B if Kirilloff was healthy.
2B – Polanco is a well above average ML hitter.  Julien / Farmer are good back-up
3B – We are all excited at the possibility of Lewis.
SS – Most posters here were almost hostile about the necessity of resigning Correa
  C – Jeffer’s is an average ML hitter and most of us were very pleased with signing Vasquez
DH – Buxton's position with fans is pretty similar to Correa.  many were irate at the thought of losing him.
RF – Kepler has been an average MLB hitter for the most part.
LF – We all doubted Gallo to various degrees but we do have Larnach and Wallner in the wings
Bench – Our bench is better than most.

It would be far more accurate to say the guys they depended on (Correa / Buxton / Polanco) have been bad.  However, as a group we rigorously supported these players.  Then, there is the Miranda meltdown.  Sophomore slumps are pretty common but most of us were feeling pretty good about Miranda.  So, who should they have replaced other than going with someone other than Gallo.  Keep in mind the available OFers last off-season were very slim pickins.  

Should we have discarded Kirilloff?  Not signed Correa?  Signed a 3B when we had Miranda at 3B with Lewis waiting?  
 

[chpettit19]

58 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

As long as fans keep showing up to TF and spending wads of cash I don't think the Pohlads will be motivated to do anything.  It took a Total System Failure (i.e. significant loss of revenue) after 5 years of ineptitude to move on from the Ryan era.

Yeah, I'm just curious if the new guy in charge will be any different. Certainly wouldn't bet on it, but he offices out of Target Field so there's an ever so slight sliver of hope that he cares more about the team winning. We'll find out this season/offseason.

[Brian Kingfield]

I’m not sure if I’d agree that the FO assembled a bad roster. If they did, I’m not sure many of us could have predicted its badness. We knew offense wouldn’t be a strong suit, but the lineup at the end of Spring Training was looking not horrible. I put asterisks next to offensive assets. I have no idea how to assemble a lineup so forgive the order…

1. Buxton*
2. Correa*
3. Polanco*
4. Kiriloff*
5. Miranda*
6. Solano
7. Gallo
8. Kepler
9. Vasquez

A lot of us praised the depth at having flexible guys like Taylor, Castro, and Gordon on the roster too. There was also hope in AAA with Julien and Lewis. This doesn’t look that bad on paper at the start of the season. We could have predicted some of those asterisks not panning out and the FO was prepared for that possibility. To have all 5 of them either hurt, in an extreme slump, or relegated to AAA is the worst case scenario. The FO was prepared to have some of them fail, but not all of them. 

All this to say I’m fine if big changes are made with FO, but I don’t think we can act like FO put together a bad roster and we all knew it the whole time.

 

 

 

 

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, Woof Bronzer said:

As long as fans keep showing up to TF and spending wads of cash I don't think the Pohlads will be motivated to do anything.  It took a Total System Failure (i.e. significant loss of revenue) after 5 years of ineptitude to move on from the Ryan era.

Agreed 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

20 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

This is a great point......it is also interesting, because it is the theory that the hitting coach should be fired. 

If the players are just doing what the coach is saying, then he should be fired because the process he's put in place isn't working. But, as you point out, the FO wants THAT PROCESS. So, unless they admit their mistake and adjust, they are the real issue (if it is process, and not skill). 

Yes, but hitting is a skill. This FO signed and traded for 3 replacement level or worse players in an offseason after they struggled to score runs, and traded away their best hitter (not the debate and I still would have done that trade). The FO acquires talent and sets the strategy.

the talent on the hitting side is bad

the strategy isn’t working

Execution of the strategy by the coaches might not be working either, but it’s hard to tell because the talent is so bad and the strategy of dead pull hitters and replacement level utility infielders is so bad.

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Yes, but hitting is a skill. This FO signed and traded for 3 replacement level or worse players in an offseason after they struggled to score runs, and traded away their best hitter (not the debate and I still would have done that trade). The FO acquires talent and sets the strategy.

the talent on the hitting side is bad

the strategy isn’t working

Execution of the strategy by the coaches might not be working either, but it’s hard to tell because the talent is so bad and the strategy of dead pull hitters and replacement level utility infielders is so bad.

Oh, we agree on that. I was adding the process topic....

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Woof Bronzer said:

As long as fans keep showing up to TF and spending wads of cash I don't think the Pohlads will be motivated to do anything.  It took a Total System Failure (i.e. significant loss of revenue) after 5 years of ineptitude to move on from the Ryan era.

Attendance has been down considerably, so your position makes absolutely no sense.  This whole line of thought that the people who own or run the team don't care about winning is incredibly naive.  A good product makes more money and perhaps more importantly increases the value of the team.  

[In My La Z boy]

2 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Attendance has been down considerably, so your position makes absolutely no sense.  This whole line of thought that the people who own or run the team don't care about winning is incredibly naive.  A good product makes more money and perhaps more importantly increases the value of the team.  

I agree with both sentiments here. It certainly didn't appear as if we prioritized winning prior to the infamous Total System Failure 2011-2016. Then we finally let TR go and hired a new front office, and they put on a great show in 2019. Now here we are 4 seasons later, and we're wondering again how much do we actually care about winning? We shall see, but we are on our way to selling Sonny Gray at the deadline, and anyone else that has salary, and someone else could use. Not sure I'd blame grandson Pohlad. He just spent $300M on Correa and Buxton, and watched the front office trade away THE guy who could have filled the largest hole on this team this year, which is contact, base hits and table setting. Lots of things would have been very different this year with a .400 hitter in the lineup. Results so far say these were 3 bad decisions.

[Mike Sixel]

12 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Attendance has been down considerably, so your position makes absolutely no sense.  This whole line of thought that the people who own or run the team don't care about winning is incredibly naive.  A good product makes more money and perhaps more importantly increases the value of the team.  

The value is irrelevant (mostly) unless they plan to sell.

I do agree, though, that this idea that the owner, FO, and manager and players (I've seen all of them mentioned, repeatedly) don't care about winning is ridiculous. Utterly.

[USAFChief]

17 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Attendance has been down considerably, so your position makes absolutely no sense.  

Attendance has been pretty stable.

 

Yr / Ave / MLB rank

2016 24,245 23rd

2017 25640 21st

2018 24489 20th

2019 28322 15th

2021 16377 19th

2022 22514 20th

2023 23038 18th

Post pandemic attendance has been down across baseball, but the Twins relative position hasn't changed much.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance

[Major League Ready]

5 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

The value is irrelevant (mostly) unless they plan to sell.

I do agree, though, that this idea that the owner, FO, and manager and players (I've seen all of them mentioned, repeatedly) don't care about winning is ridiculous. Utterly.

I worked with a lot of organizations on building value and profitability and never ran into one who did not think it was extremely important.  Even if you discount the value, winning creates a much more sustainable revenue stream, a better brand, etc.  Every team wants to create brand loyalty like they have in STL.

[Major League Ready]

2 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Attendance has been pretty stable.

 

Yr Ave MLB rank

2016 24,245 23rd

2017 25640 21st

2018 24489 20th

2018 28322 15th

2021 16377 19th

2022 22514 20th

2023 23038 18th

Post pandemic attendance has been down across baseball, but the Twins relative position hasn't changed much.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance

It's been consistently mediocre.  The premise they don't want to improve it ( not your position) is as I said Naive.  Gains in attendance have virtually no variable/incremental cost.  It's an enormous boost to the bottom line.  

[USAFChief]

2 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

It's been consistently mediocre.  The premise they don't want to improve it ( not your position) is as I said Naive.

I think it's naive to believe Twins ownership believes winning is more important than profits. 

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, USAFChief said:

I think it's naive to believe Twins ownership believes winning is more important than profits. 

He didn't say that, though I agree with you. I think his point stands. They want winning because it generates more profit.....

[USAFChief]

2 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

He didn't say that, though I agree with you. I think his point stands. They want winning because it generates more profit.....

Does it?

I'm not sure. Maybe. 

[Major League Ready]

1 minute ago, USAFChief said:

I think it's naive to believe Twins ownership believes winning is more important than profits. 

The fact that you twisted what I said to this position is self-serving rhetoric.  I said they obviously want more attendance which quite obviously promotes more profit.  You can't intelligently argue that point so you changed the context so completely as to make absolutely no sense.