What Would a True "Blow It Up" Offseason Look Like for the Minnesota Twins?

[SteveLV]

I strongly believe Ryan would fetch more trade capital than Duran.  Am I way off base?

[Major League Ready]

5 hours ago, old nurse said:

The people who created the metric called in indefinite due to the defensive metric component. There is no difference between a 1.4 WAR position player and a 1.5. Calling a prospect a success with a single season of 1.5 war and ignoring everything else is incorrect. You are getting a prospect to build a team, not to plug a hole for a year. A signing of a player for a one year contract you would likely have to determine the success by ROI. A 1.5 WAR for a Ty France is getting what you paid for. Had Conforto even provided 1.5 WAR for the Dodgers, that would have been a poor contracts  Saying a player that is purchased as a DFA is the same as a player with multiple years in the majors but not 1.5 WAR, and a minor league prospect the same thing is not an accurate description.  

 

Let’s look at a real-life example as see how the model holds up.  The Brewers not only had the best record of teams in the bottom half of revenue, they had the best record in MLB.  How did they acquire the players to build this roster.

They had 15 players that produced 1.5 or greater WAR.  4 were drafted and 2 were International signings.  So there were 6 prospects acquired without trades.  They produced 42.8% of their WAR.  
4 pitchers and 2 position players fall under the category of acquired as prospects.  Peralta was acquired as a minor leaguer as was Chad Patrick.  Quinn Priester had pitched 100 MLB innings and had .1 WAR in the previous season.  I think we can call him a prospect.  The other pitcher that produced 1.5 WAR was Megill who was acquired from the Twins and he certainly was unproven.

The 2 position players were Collins and Durbin and they were acquired as minor leaguers.  These 6 players contributed 40.7.  So prospects contributed a total of 83.5% of their WAR.  They had no production from free agents and two players are categorized as trades for established players.  There is no doubt Yehlich was and established player.  Contreras however had (1) 2.0 WAR season prior to the trade so he was basically an Eddy Julien Equivalent in terms of being proven.  If you slide him to the acquired as prospects bucked, this brewer team only had one player contribute that was not drafted or acquired as a prospect.  If Contreras is not considered a trade for an established player the percentage produced by prospects goes to 93.5%.  

This team was built through prospects as are the majority of success stories among teams in the bottom half of revenue.  It's not rocket science.  It's just not feasible to compete with teams that have a $100M or $200M or $300M revenue advantage unless you build through prospects,  It's just not financially feasible which Riverbrian pointed out in the percentage of prearb players on successful teams throughout the season.   

	2025 Brewers (97 wins)		Acquired	WAR
	Brice Turang		Drafted	4.4
	William Contreras		AaP	3.6
	Sal Frelick		Drafted	3.6
	Jackson Chourio		Intl	2.9
	Caleb Durbin		Aap	2.6
	Isaac Collins		Aap	2.6
	Christian Yelich		Trade	2.4
	Freddy Peralta		AaP	3.6
	Chad Patrick		AaP	AaP
	Quinn Priester		AaP	1.9
	Brandon Woodruff		Drafted	1.8
	Abner Uribe		Intl	1.7
	Trevor Megill		AaP	1.5
	Aaron Ashby		Drafted	1.2

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Let’s look at a real-life example as see how the model holds up.  The Brewers not only had the best record of teams in the bottom half of revenue, they had the best record in MLB.  How did they acquire the players to build this roster.

They had 15 players that produced 1.5 or greater WAR.  4 were drafted and 2 were International signings.  So there were 6 prospects acquired without trades.  They produced 42.8% of their WAR.  
4 pitchers and 2 position players fall under the category of acquired as prospects.  Peralta was acquired as a minor leaguer as was Chad Patrick.  Quinn Priester had pitched 100 MLB innings and had .1 WAR in the previous season.  I think we can call him a prospect.  The other pitcher that produced 1.5 WAR was Megill who was acquired from the Twins and he certainly was unproven.

The 2 position players were Collins and Durbin and they were acquired as minor leaguers.  These 6 players contributed 40.7.  So prospects contributed a total of 83.5% of their WAR.  They had no production from free agents and two players are categorized as trades for established players.  There is no doubt Yehlich was and established player.  Contreras however had (1) 2.0 WAR season prior to the trade so he was basically an Eddy Julien Equivalent in terms of being proven.  If you slide him to the acquired as prospects bucked, this brewer team only had one player contribute that was not drafted or acquired as a prospect.  If Contreras is not considered a trade for an established player the percentage produced by prospects goes to 93.5%.  

This team was built through prospects as are the majority of success stories among teams in the bottom half of revenue.  It's not rocket science.  It's just not feasible to compete with teams that have a $100M or $200M or $300M revenue advantage unless you build through prospects,  It's just not financially feasible which Riverbrian pointed out in the percentage of prearb players on successful teams throughout the season.   

	2025 Brewers (97 wins)		Acquired	WAR
	Brice Turang		Drafted	4.4
	William Contreras		AaP	3.6
	Sal Frelick		Drafted	3.6
	Jackson Chourio		Intl	2.9
	Caleb Durbin		Aap	2.6
	Isaac Collins		Aap	2.6
	Christian Yelich		Trade	2.4
	Freddy Peralta		AaP	3.6
	Chad Patrick		AaP	AaP
	Quinn Priester		AaP	1.9
	Brandon Woodruff		Drafted	1.8
	Abner Uribe		Intl	1.7
	Trevor Megill		AaP	1.5
	Aaron Ashby		Drafted	1.2

You don’t understand. You can’t make the basis on just one year’s performance and call it good. 

[Major League Ready]

10 hours ago, old nurse said:

You don’t understand. You can’t make the basis on just one year’s performance and call it good. 

And you don't understand several things.  One I collected the data from literally every 90 win team in the past 25 years and the numbers I am quoting are the result of all of those teams and provided an example of a given team to illustrate.   Two, the entire premise is to determine how a good team was built.  That is done in a given year.  If you want to understand the impact on all teams you simply average the total of all of those teams or takes the best teams from a given successful organization which I have also done.

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

And you don't understand several things.  One I collected the data from literally every 90 win team in the past 25 years and the numbers I am quoting are the result of all of those teams and provided an example of a given team to illustrate.   Two, the entire premise is to determine how a good team was built.  That is done in a given year.  If you want to understand the impact on all teams you simply average the total of all of those teams or takes the best teams from a given successful organization which I have also done.

You are determining what the team has for a single year, not ongoing success.  You are giving equal credit to the bit players as the solid player for success. 

[Major League Ready]

15 minutes ago, old nurse said:

You are determining what the team has for a single year, not ongoing success.  You are giving equal credit to the bit players as the solid player for success. 

Man you just don't get it.  If we want to determine the relative contribution of acquisition methods used to build the 97-win 2025 Milwaukee Brewers you identify the acquisition method for the players that contributed to the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers.  Pretty simple.  If you want to understand sustained success you take the data from the individual years for the teams that have had the most success and average the results to determine which acquisition strategies have contributed to their success.  If Cleveland has (10) 90-win seasons in a 20 year period, how do you determine the relative contribution from each acquisition method for their most successful teams?  You take the data from all of those 90-win seasons, and average it for each acquisition method,  That would illustrate how a team sustained success over a long period of time.   

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Man you just don't get it.  If we want to determine the relative contribution of acquisition methods used to build the 97-win 2025 Milwaukee Brewers you identify the acquisition method for the players that contributed to the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers.  Pretty simple.  If you want to understand sustained success you take the data from the individual years for the teams that have had the most success and average the results to determine which acquisition strategies have contributed to their success.  If Cleveland has (10) 90-win seasons in a 20 year period, how do you determine the relative contribution from each acquisition method for their most successful teams?  You take the data from all of those 90-win seasons, and average it for each acquisition method,  That would illustrate how a team sustained success over a long period of time.   

It tells you nothing as it is all generalities. One could find similar numbers for how teams acquire player. The key is successful players and your analysis does nothing to further the knowledge off how to do that. 

[Major League Ready]

6 hours ago, old nurse said:

It tells you nothing as it is all generalities. One could find similar numbers for how teams acquire player. The key is successful players and your analysis does nothing to further the knowledge off how to do that. 

OK, I will bite.  How does identifying the players that contributed the most to a successful team and how much they contributed (via WAR) "do nothing to further the knowledge off how to do that".  

[tony&rodney]

FWIW, a true blow it up will result in a 26 person payroll below $25M. That would be extreme.

[old nurse]

22 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

OK, I will bite.  How does identifying the players that contributed the most to a successful team and how much they contributed (via WAR) "do nothing to further the knowledge off how to do that".  

Your research does nothing to identify the process. Miami is built the same way as Milwaukee. There is a difference in results 

[Major League Ready]

50 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Your research does nothing to identify the process. Miami is built the same way as Milwaukee. There is a difference in results 

How would I possibly know a team's process with any degree of accuracy and when was that ever the conversation?  We don't have the access and information to determine any team's process. 

I think it was quite clear we were discussing which acquisition practices were the most likely to produce success.   That we can clearly identify.  As a matter of fact, we can identify the acquisition method (practices) for 100% of every contributing player on every team.  Therefore, we can determine exactly how much each acquisition method has contributed to every successful team.  There is no mystery as to if we can clearly identify how a team was built if you are willing to actually take an objective look and acknowledge what has worked. 

The fact they every team have varying degrees of success is indicative of the quality of their process but tells us little about the relative merit of acquisition methods.  Would you expect any practice to work universally even when executed very poorly?  That's a ridiculous argument.  Do you want the organization to follow the practices that have produced the best results or should we ignore them if they don't work when applied poorly?  The alternative is to follow practices that have worked to a far lesser degree.   That's not what I would hope for from the Twins.

[old nurse]

12 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

How would I possibly know a team's process with any degree of accuracy and when was that ever the conversation?  We don't have the access and information to determine any team's process. 

I think it was quite clear we were discussing which acquisition practices were the most likely to produce success.   That we can clearly identify.  As a matter of fact, we can identify the acquisition method (practices) for 100% of every contributing player on every team.  Therefore, we can determine exactly how much each acquisition method has contributed to every successful team.  There is no mystery as to if we can clearly identify how a team was built if you are willing to actually take an objective look and acknowledge what has worked. 

The fact they every team have varying degrees of success is indicative of the quality of their process but tells us little about the relative merit of acquisition methods.  Would you expect any practice to work universally even when executed very poorly?  That's a ridiculous argument.  Do you want the organization to follow the practices that have produced the best results or should we ignore them if they don't work when applied poorly?  The alternative is to follow practices that have worked to a far lesser degree.   That's not what I would hope for from the Twins.

Looking at a one year window and also calling mediocrity a cornerstone to winning is not an accurate way to assess for ongoing success. Sorry the rise and falling of the Twins has not shown you that  

There are only 2 ways to have  new talent into the organization to build it. One is to sign a free agent who is either a useful player or a discarded one. One costs a lot of money, one doesn’t. Waiver claims, DFAs Rule V would fit in the discard pile. Then there is amateur talent acquisition.  Without having any acumen for that, the team would have nothing to shuffle for trades. Your method of evaluating talent acquisition ignores the cost of acquisition. 

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

Looking at a one year window and also calling mediocrity a cornerstone to winning is not an accurate way to assess for ongoing success. Sorry the rise and falling of the Twins has not shown you that  

There are only 2 ways to have  new talent into the organization to build it. One is to sign a free agent who is either a useful player or a discarded one. One costs a lot of money, one doesn’t. Waiver claims, DFAs Rule V would fit in the discard pile. Then there is amateur talent acquisition.  Without having any acumen for that, the team would have nothing to shuffle for trades. Your method of evaluating talent acquisition ignores the cost of acquisition. 

I don't know if you still don't understand that the goal is to determine which acquisition methods are the most effective or if you just refuse to accept any information that does not fit your narrative.  The "method" you refer to identifies precisely the percentage of production from each acquisition method.   That's it.  Job done.  We know exactly how much each acquisition method has contributed.  You want to know the relative impact of drafting or any other method, you have it.  Why exactly one method has produced better than another could be debated but the relative amount is quite certain. 

We might assume free agency only contributes 11% because it's more expensive but I don't need to consider cost to understand it's far less impactful than drafting or trading for prospects.

The one-year thing has become comical.  The data spans 25 years.  How do you identify a playoff team with looking at a specific year?  Obviously, that's the only context that makes sense.  If you want to understand if an organization has sustained success, you look at their relative success over many years.  Once you identify the most successful organizations, you aggregate all of the years to determine the relative percentage of production from each method over whatever period of time is measured.  In this case, 25 years.  The sample size is literally every team in the bottom half of revenue for 25 years and you somehow think we are talking about 1 year.  You see only what you want to see.