Week in Review: Reality Check

[TheLeviathan]

It's almost like a small sample size of one week is a bad one to use to judge a bad team as a contender.

Jim Mora should've been used during that slate of ridiculous articles:

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

It's almost like a small sample size of one week is a bad one to use to judge a bad team as a contender.

Jim Mora should've been used during that slate of ridiculous articles:

I believe the panel would also have accepted a Dennis Green gif.

[USAFChief]

11 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I believe the panel would also have accepted a Dennis Green gif.

As you wish

[hitterscount]

Nothing to add to what has been voiced here. Injuries definitely hurt and I can be on board with that excuse for the SP's to a degree, otherwise injuries are part of the game and aren't exclusive to this team. We are going nowhere fast, looking at the 40 man roster I have to believe it is one of the worst in baseball.... when we are using the Alan Roden as a big injury blow you know we are screwed... a career .191 hitter with 2 hrs and 9 rbi's. I also thought Carantini's speciality was his defense.... he has no ability to throw anyone out, the Sox and Pirates ran at will. Big week coming up....7 game homestand, need to go 5-2, which isn't happening unless something changes....no idea what that might be.

[Linus]

I believe we are seeing the results (in part) of two of Falveys I’m the Smartest Guy in the Room theories. First, that slow, bad defenders that could hit was a market inefficiency. Turns out having good athletes that can run and field as well as hit are desirable. Second, that they skimp on starting pitching draft capital by drafting a bunch of late round college guys and use their magic powers to make them good big leaguers. Turns out that pitchers taken in the early rounds are usually better. Who knew?  To be fair, Falvey did eventually go away from these two strategies but it took five or so years. We are living with that 5 year period where we didn’t really add talent to the organization. One reason I believe we have to trade Ryan and Jeffers is because this org needs a talent infusion. I know we have some good prospects but if you consider a reasonable attrition rate we don’t have enough. We literally need to upgrade every position except CF. Pitching wise our rotation is in decent shape if they stay healthy but the bullpen is in need of an overhaul and there is no pitching left in the upper minors - none. And if EmRod / Culpepper/ Jenkins fail, we will be in for a grim period of time. 

[Mike Sixel]

27 minutes ago, Linus said:

I believe we are seeing the results (in part) of two of Falveys I’m the Smartest Guy in the Room theories. First, that slow, bad defenders that could hit was a market inefficiency. Turns out having good athletes that can run and field as well as hit are desirable. Second, that they skimp on starting pitching draft capital by drafting a bunch of late round college guys and use their magic powers to make them good big leaguers. Turns out that pitchers taken in the early rounds are usually better. Who knew?  To be fair, Falvey did eventually go away from these two strategies but it took five or so years. We are living with that 5 year period where we didn’t really add talent to the organization. One reason I believe we have to trade Ryan and Jeffers is because this org needs a talent infusion. I know we have some good prospects but if you consider a reasonable attrition rate we don’t have enough. We literally need to upgrade every position except CF. Pitching wise our rotation is in decent shape if they stay healthy but the bullpen is in need of an overhaul and there is no pitching left in the upper minors - none. And if EmRod / Culpepper/ Jenkins fail, we will be in for a grim period of time. 

They have plenty of SP depth compared to every team in baseball. They are just having awful luck that they are all hurt at once and SWR forgot how to pitch after being fine for two years. I'm not sure what people expect. 

We can't complain that he didn't draft pitchers high, and that he didn't get enough hitters high.... But we can question the picks and types of hitters, agreed. 

People also forget that the previous regime left them with one good young player. One. It's hard to fix that when your owner decides to drop into bottom of the barrel payroll. 

[ashbury]

12 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

People also forget that the previous regime left them with one good young player. One. 

I'm confused.  Which "previous regime" are you referring to in this?  Falvey's, with Zoll representing the new regime?  Or Terry Ryan, prior to Falvey?

[Vanimal46]

11 hours ago, bean5302 said:

SWR has been utterly awful. He was not wanted or needed, period. Nobody should be saying they actually wanted to see Sim on the mound in the big show. 

What can be argued is maybe there's something in the tank from the bullpen the Twins could have tapped into. Sim is not and never has been an MLB caliber rotation arm in my opinion. He's gotten results, but it's taken a fair bit of luck and a whole lot of kid gloves yanking him after short inning starts which tax the bullpen. It's also worth noting the Twins optioned him last year after his poor performance forced him off the roster.

He simply does not have the stuff. He has never had the stuff. Sim has always had to rely upon pinpoint locations at the very edges and corners of the zone. This is exactly what I expected out of SWR which is why I've felt he belongs in the 'pen if he's going to make it.

We'll see if he gets claimed. I think he will, but I've been wrong about that in the past where I'm a Twins fan so I see potential in Twins players who are fringy. If Sim goes unclaimed, well, that is virtually irrefutable proof Sim isn't viewed as an MLB level talent.

You’re thinking about SWR for this year only. He’s making MLB minimum until the end of 2027. You’re making a bet at this time that SWR won’t be worth exploring the next 3-4 years of control. I find that wild since he’s been a 2 WAR pitcher the previous 2 seasons. 

[bean5302]

12 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

You’re thinking about SWR for this year only. He’s making MLB minimum until the end of 2027. You’re making a bet at this time that SWR won’t be worth exploring the next 3-4 years of control. I find that wild since he’s been a 2 WAR pitcher the previous 2 seasons. 

While it's great Sim was able to get balls to inexplicably find gloves instead of seats, his metrics have always suggested he was living on the edge and he was overdue for this kind of regression.

His fans tend to point to what I consider a completely broken metric (bWAR/rWAR). My opinion is based on 2024 Nola vs. Berrios who had largely identical ERA, ERA+, RA9, yet had massive differences in WAR. I've discovered nonsensical WAR values in Baseball Reference previously only to see him adjusted in subsequent years due to positional value duplication, etc. Buxton's 2017 is a good example where I believe his WAR value has been adjusted/reduced 2x over the years due to calculation errors and adjustments. Baseball Reference made a change to pitcher WAR value in recent years, and I really don't care for it.

In any case, Sim doesn't have any good pitches and he can't throw strikes or they'll get destroyed. That's not a recipe for a pitcher with sustainable success built into his profile, and that has ALWAYS been SWR's profile.

Aside from that, last time I checked, you can't substitute his lucky performances from previous years into current games, and the current games are the ones the Twins are playing. If you want to trot an 8 ERA guy out there, I think you'll be amongst the "nobody wants to see that" group. Perhaps there are a cluster of 0.001% die hard Sim fans who believe he's going to suddenly start getting results again.

[Mike Sixel]

15 hours ago, ashbury said:

I'm confused.  Which "previous regime" are you referring to in this?  Falvey's, with Zoll representing the new regime?  Or Terry Ryan, prior to Falvey?

Ryan. 

[ashbury]

18 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

People also forget that the previous regime left them with one good young player. One. It's hard to fix that when your owner decides to drop into bottom of the barrel payroll. 

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Ryan. 

I liked Ryan and yet I also felt it was time for him to go as a GM.  Total System Failure was a harsh self-assessment, and at the time it sounded right.

But "good" and "young" are fuzzy terms in the first place, and I'm not sure perfect 20/20 hindsight is the only way to judge a front office.  At the time, Nick Gordon, Stephen Gonsalves, and Alex Kirilloff were all listed in MLB's top 100 prospect list.  They all fizzled for various reasons, but that snapshot in time was cheerier than things turned out.  Prospects fail all the time, but that top-100 list wasn't constructed with soothing Terry Ryan's feelings in mind.

And it bears remembering that the Twins posted a winning season and made the playoffs the very first season of the Falvey regime.  Falvey made many moves that season, but unless you're playing OOTP in easy mode, it's very hard to turn a franchise around like that in one off-season with all-new talent.  A lot of young players were already contributing.  Buxton, Sano, Berrios, Polanco, Kepler, and Rosario all were 25 and under, and all made positive contributions.

A common refrain is that the Twins are perpetually slow in promoting players.  Ryan brought up this core while still young, and it shouldn't be held against him.

[Linus]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

I liked Ryan and yet I also felt it was time for him to go as a GM.  Total System Failure was a harsh self-assessment, and at the time it sounded right.

But "good" and "young" are fuzzy terms in the first place, and I'm not sure perfect 20/20 hindsight is the only way to judge a front office.  At the time, Nick Gordon, Stephen Gonsalves, and Alex Kirilloff were all listed in MLB's top 100 prospect list.  They all fizzled for various reasons, but that snapshot in time was cheerier than things turned out.  Prospects fail all the time, but that top-100 list wasn't constructed with soothing Terry Ryan's feelings in mind.

And it bears remembering that the Twins posted a winning season and made the playoffs the very first season of the Falvey regime.  Falvey made many moves that season, but unless you're playing OOTP in easy mode, it's very hard to turn a franchise around like that in one off-season with all-new talent.  A lot of young players were already contributing.  Buxton, Sano, Berrios, Polanco, Kepler, and Rosario all were 25 and under, and all made positive contributions.

A common refrain is that the Twins are perpetually slow in promoting players.  Ryan brought up this core while still young, and it shouldn't be held against him.

Plus Pressly, May and Gibson. There is a narrative that Falvey inherited this huge mess. The farm was depleted but the mlb lineup was largely in place. 

[ashbury]

24 minutes ago, Linus said:

Plus Pressly, May and Gibson. There is a narrative that Falvey inherited this huge mess. The farm was depleted but the mlb lineup was largely in place. 

I was listing players 25 and under in response to a post using the word "young".  A complete analysis of the franchise Falvey inherited would be much lengthier, I agree.  While I mentioned a few prospects, a balanced view would indeed use words like "depleted" to describe the farm, because (in part) of very strange draft choices like Tyler Jay.  Ironically, the final draft under Ryan was a pretty good one - Kirilloff, Rortvedt, Baddoo, Miranda, Jax all saw major league time and held potential, with Jax the only one who panned out.  But now I'm descending a rabbit hole and I'm climbing out this very minute.   😁

[Linus]

7 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I was listing players 25 and under in response to a post using the word "young".  A complete analysis of the franchise Falvey inherited would be much lengthier, I agree.  While I mentioned a few prospects, a balanced view would indeed use words like "depleted" to describe the farm, because (in part) of very strange draft choices like Tyler Jay.  Ironically, the final draft under Ryan was a pretty good one - Kirilloff, Rortvedt, Baddoo, Miranda, Jax all saw major league time and held potential, with Jax the only one who panned out.  But now I'm descending a rabbit hole and I'm climbing out this very minute.   😁

Agreed and when a farm system graduates a bunch of guys to the bigs in a short time frame it’s always going to be depleted for a while. Same thing will happen again when / if Culpepper/ Jenkins / Em Rod graduate. 

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, Linus said:

Plus Pressly, May and Gibson. There is a narrative that Falvey inherited this huge mess. The farm was depleted but the mlb lineup was largely in place. 

I was talking about the farm, I should have been more clear. He missed on three straight top five picks.... And his last draft was great. In any event, way off topic.