The Twins Stuck To Their Plan and Stuck It To Their Doubters

[Major League Ready]

48 minutes ago, Linus said:

The bullpen remains a problem. They are more important than ever and this FO just won’t budge off of a strategy that mostly hasn’t worked. 

How is the BP a problem?  They have Duran / Stewart / Jax / Thielbar / Alcala and Funderburk back next year and they might end up putting Varland in the BP as well.  They have Winder / Sands / Ortega / Balazovic and Headrick for depth.  Canterino could also be a big plus if he can stay healthy.  They have plenty of budget to add a RP this off season as well.  Who knows, they might bring Pagan back too.  How is the BP a problem?

[Linus]

21 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

How is the BP a problem?  They have Duran / Stewart / Jax / Thielbar / Alcala and Funderburk back next year and they might end up putting Varland in the BP as well.  They have Winder / Sands / Ortega / Balazovic and Headrick for depth.  Canterino could also be a big plus if he can stay healthy.  They have plenty of budget to add a RP this off season as well.  Who knows, they might bring Pagan back too.  How is the BP a problem?

Because after the first three you listed those guys are not good. And they don’t spend money on the bullpen which brings us back to my original point. Their plan for building bullpen’s doesn’t work. 

[Major League Ready]

19 hours ago, Linus said:

Because after the first three you listed those guys are not good. And they don’t spend money on the bullpen which brings us back to my original point. Their plan for building bullpen’s doesn’t work. 

You need to take a look around the league.  BPs are not built through free agency and the only teams who sign top dollar free agent RPs are the very top revenue teams.  Why?  Because It's an incredibly inefficient use of payroll dollars.   How many of the top 30 RPs were acquired via free agency?   See link below.

The Twins have augmented their BP with free agents and will likely do so again this year.  However, relying on free agency (specifically dollar top RPS) to build a BP is a bad strategy for any team and a horrible strategy for anyone outside the top 10 in revenue.  If you think this is wrong, show us examples of success. 

Top Relief Pitchers

[Linus]

6 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

You need to take a look around the league.  BPs are not built through free agency and the only teams who sign top dollar free agent RPs are the very top revenue teams.  Why?  Because It's an incredibly inefficient use of payroll dollars.   How many of the top 30 RPs were acquired via free agency?   See link below.

The Twins have augmented their BP with free agents and will likely do so again this year.  However, relying on free agency (specifically dollar top RPS) to build a BP is a bad strategy for any team and a horrible strategy for anyone outside the top 10 in revenue.  If you think this is wrong, show us examples of success. 

Top Relief Pitchers

Well I don’t have to show or prove anything. If you would actually read my post you will not see one mention of free agency. I don’t care what player acquisition method they choose. They just need to be a lot better doing it. The list of pitchers in your original post will not be an effective bullpen in my opinion. Enjoy the game. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:34 AM, Major League Ready said:

How is the BP a problem?

Here was one take right after the trade deadline: 

“Given the chance to offset these high-leverage losses and provide some desperately needed support for Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, the front office passed on their chances.”

[Major League Ready]

19 hours ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

Here was one take right after the trade deadline: 

“Given the chance to offset these high-leverage losses and provide some desperately needed support for Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax, the front office passed on their chances.”

They added Varland who was good in that role and they got Stewart and Paddack back.  Who were they going to get at the deadline that was significantly better.  This gave them a BP of Duran / Stewart / Jax / Pagan / Paddack / Thielbar / Funderburk and Kuechel.  Therefore, whomever gave this take was not able to see any solution other than a deadline trade when there were obviously other options which were eventually deployed.  It appeared to me the FO approach was focused on the playoffs where many participants here were focused on them being short-handed right around the deadline.   

[USAFChief]

Heh.

"Playoff bullpen"

 

[Nine of twelve]

Three comments.

One, drafting in baseball is really hard. There have always been and there will always be star players who were chosen in the third round or lower. There have always been and there will always be players chosen in the top 5 who don't see a day in the major leagues. The goal is to do better than most other teams.

Two, deadline trades are always going to involve an overpayment. If a team is doing really well and has one roster spot that can be improved upon then overpaying probably is worthwhile. But if a team is close to the bubble of making the postseason then it probably isn't.

Three, the overall objective is to have a team capable of contending for the postseason every year. Try to make all decisions with that in mind.

[stringer bell]

The postseason set up to mitigate a successful, but less than awesome regular season. The Twins got a #3 seed and because many higher seeds failed had a chance to play teams on their level all the way through. They lost to the experienced, but not overwhelming, Astros and would have played teams they had played well in the regular season. They couldn’t get by that second step. The remaining teams have flaws on a par with the Twins IMHO. 

Are the Twins a long way from being relevant in the postseason? I don’t think so. They need more consistent offensive production and continued excellence from their pitching staff.