Article: Grading Last Year's Free Agent Pitching Market

[jokin]

Considering I think they'll be fringe contenders next year avoiding 90 losses should be part of that.

 

Upgrades coming on the pitching staff to account for your prediction?

 

Growing maturity in this year's current group of youngsters seeing the bulk of the playing time in 2013 (Hicks, Arcia, Dozier, Florimon)?

 

Pending hole filled at 1B with a significant FA signing upgrade or Parmelee having a breakout season?

 

Seems like lots of variables and significant transaction activity on the part of the GM have to fall into place just right for the Twins to move up to the status of fringe contenders.

[PseudoSABR]

I also want to note that the relative short deals so many pitchers received this offseason is an acknowledgment by baseball front offices what a crap shoot (beyond the top tier) free agency pitching was last year (and probably is in most years).

[Mike Sixel]

Who is the DH, 1B, 2b, LF or who are the pitchers. It isn't just the pitching, the hitting, base running, and defense are all bad. Contending? Ryan would have to be the busiest GM ever to fill all of these holes.

[diehardtwinsfan]

What do you see the pitching staff looking like in 2014?

 

I don't expect many big moves. I could see them going after a guy like Hughes fairly hard. That said, the big difference next year is that they will likely have Meyer, May, and Darnell all lined up as reinforcements for next year as compared to the AAA guys they've been using.

[drjim]

Upgrades coming on the pitching staff to account for your prediction?

 

Growing maturity in this year's current group of youngsters seeing the bulk of the playing time in 2013 (Hicks, Arcia, Dozier, Florimon)?

 

Pending hole filled at 1B with a significant FA signing upgrade or Parmelee having a breakout season?

 

Seems like lots of variables and significant transaction activity on the part of the GM have to fall into place just right for the Twins to move up to the status of fringe contenders.

 

I expect one significant free agent starter signed, Gibson full year, another holdover or two from current rotation (out of Correia, Deduno, Pelfrey, Diamond), Meyer and May to both debut at some point.

 

Similar production from the pen.

 

Definite maturity out of Arcia and Hicks and a full season of at bats for each. Florimon and Dozier staying about the same (maybe slight upgrade for Dozier over full season), Rosario as a possible middle infield backup plan. Sano getting bulk of time at 3B with Plouffe going to corner OF or 1B. A free agent corner OF/1B signed. Willingham to perform somewhere between the last two seasons. One more bat out of Parmelee/Doumit/Cabello to emerge as competent. Mauer being Mauer. Buxton perhaps available to emerge at end of year.

 

I think most teams that take a jump see it primarily from internal improvements, being able to replace declining players, and by adding a player or two. I think the Twins do all three next year.

[drjim]

What do you see the pitching staff looking like in 2014?

 

I see one significant free agent signed. Full season of Gibson. Meyer/May both up at some point. Rest filled in with current guys in rotation or AAA or perhaps another free agent.

 

Not a great rotation by any means, but an improvement over this year.

[Mike Sixel]

Wow, you are more confident the young players will be here early next year than I am. I do not expect Sano until June or July. I think Rosario could be up to start the year, but I bet it is Dozier. I also do not see May or Meyer up to start the year. I guess it could happen, but I would be surprised.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Wow, you are more confident the young players will be here early next year than I am. I do not expect Sano until June or July. I think Rosario could be up to start the year, but I bet it is Dozier. I also do not see May or Meyer up to start the year. I guess it could happen, but I would be surprised.

 

I suspect most will get rotated in throughout the year as injuries/ineffectiveness hit.

[Otto von Ballpark]

On Saunders: I've mentioned him, specifically as well. We can agree that the Twins were in on him and lost out, we don't know if they were given the opportunity to outbid the Mariners, perhaps they should have offered him more money in the first place. TR didn't get the job done here. But bleh it's still just Saunders.

 

Saunders is left-handed, has barley missed a start in his whole career, and has a career ERA+ above average for an MLB starter. Bleh.

 

On Kuroda, Dempster: Both are over 35 and signed with contenders/big markets. I don't think there's enough Pohlad money to get them to play for the last place Minnesota Twins.

 

Yes, not every player could/would sign with the Twins.

 

On Colon: He's forty years old, likely a cheater, and resigned with the playoff As. Again, I don't think he'd sign with a last place team, when his current, contending team brought him back.

 

Colon signed for $3 million. You think he gave a hometown discount of 2-3 million to stay with a team he played less than one season for?

 

On Villanueva, Feldman, and Bedard: now we're using hindsight, here, and I think this speaks to how much FA can be a crapshoot--we might as well add in the names of players who have had similar careers and are not working out (Blanton, McCarthy, Marcum, Haren). The parenthetical four were far more championed around here, than these three.

 

What bearing does the collective voice of this internet message board have to do with judging Terry Ryan's baseball acumen? I will never understand why people keep bringing this up.

 

Also, there is certainly no "hindsight" at work with Villanueva -- look at his record. The dude has been a solid swingman for 7 years now. He's really not comparable at all to the other names you mentioned. He would have been a perfect fit as an extra starter for the Twins -- he could always transition to the bullpen if needed.

 

On Santana: Hindsight again. He was awful last year and expensive, that he came so cheap speaks to how highly he was thought of.

 

Ever hear of buy low, sell high? Santana's another durable guy with a career ERA+ above average for a starter. It's a one-year deal, for crying out loud.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Basically, TR took the quantity over quality approach, which isn't a problem, but I think it's pretty clear he fell short in the quantity department.

 

Look at our 2012 starters. Only one guy out of that lot deserved a spot to begin 2013 -- Diamond -- and even he was coming off minor offseason surgery and was due to regress anyway. So TR basically NEEDS four new guys to begin 2013. He only gets three, two with big question marks of their own (Worley collapse and minor surgery in 2012, Pelfrey major surgery and accelerated recovery).

 

And thus, Hendriks was in the opening rotation, Hernandez was in before the end of April, and both Deduno and Walters were in before the end of May. And it was 2012 all over again.

 

Look, I get that we can analyze every pitcher and come up with a reason why TR didn't get him for this particular season, but take the long view here: TR has acquired nothing but duds for free agent starting pitchers for the last 10 years. Kevin Correia is a shining beacon of light in TR's free agent starter record, which is pretty damning.

 

And he's going to need to get better at it if the Twins want to get better. Having an almost completely homegrown rotation (draft or trade), like the Twins did for much of 2001-2010, I feel is more of an anomaly than anything else. And the cupboard is pretty bare right now, even with Meyer and May and some guys in A ball.

[Mike Sixel]

I suspect most will get rotated in throughout the year as injuries/ineffectiveness hit.

 

 

Probably, but if they mostly start in the minors, that does not bode well for who is up here to start the year......do people think Ryan will sign guys that might block a close prospect? I expect next years opening roster to look depressingly like the current one, except at 1B.

[drjim]

Wow, you are more confident the young players will be here early next year than I am. I do not expect Sano until June or July. I think Rosario could be up to start the year, but I bet it is Dozier. I also do not see May or Meyer up to start the year. I guess it could happen, but I would be surprised.

 

I think Sano is the only one that is up really early. Most of the improvement will come from step forwards by Hicks and Arcia and a little bit of a rebound by Willingham. Sano will basically be replacing Morneau.

[PseudoSABR]

Spy, I really don't want to respond to you piecemeal, but I do want to respond to your one quote and try to address all your points in earnest.

 

What bearing does the collective voice of this internet message board have to do with judging Terry Ryan's baseball acumen? I will never understand why people keep bringing this up.

It doesn't. That's my point (what the heck do we know, right?). We're working with incomplete knowledge and many of us are deriving a haughty sort of certitude. Look, I'm not so sheepish as to use an internet message board group think as some sort of grand baseball wisdom--I'm looking at the short and rather inexpensive contracts each pitcher received (as well as so many of the ones that didn't worked out)--the material market value of these pitchers as dictated by people in baseball paid to priceout that market. I just don't think there's meaningful scouting or statistical evidence to separate the group of Saunders/Villenueva/Haren/Blaton/McCarthy/Marcum/Baker/etc--yes, some have more obvious warts than other, but largely as the result of the contracts they received are viewed as risky endeavors. Only a few teams are celebrating their offseason pitching acquisitions. Again, you're expecting the ideal scenario.

 

To the suggest that Twins didn't buy low on Correia, Pelfry, Harden, Worley is to ignore the context of each acquisition. Not all these buy lows worked out, but they certainly cost lest than Santana. Villenueva never topped 120 innings and has average around 100 for his career--there's not substantial statistical evidence that he could withstand as a starter--it would have been a good signing for the Twins, but that it was an obvious one is hardly a given. I concede on Saunders, but really he's a mid-rotation starter in his mid thirties (which, yes we have so few of). My point on Saunders is that we can't be certain about the nature of his failure to sign. You assume the Twins messed up rather than got screwed. And on Colon, no one offered him enough to pry him away from Oakland, the guy has obvious question marks, and he's known cheater who probably will end his career in suspension. You mentioned quite a few names, and as we parse out each case, it's pretty understandable why the Twins took a pass (or didn't desire to overpay).

 

 

Really, as I've said, I believe beyond the first tier of pitching, the market was a crap shoot (as demonstrated by the contracts such pitchers received), and you don't. Yes, the Twins should have positioned themselves to acquire another of the questionable commodities, but the one they acquired could (maybe likely) have been just as bad. And again, there's more spots open in the rotation because of the epic failure of Diamond and Worley (and yes, there's applicable criticism to be levied against the Front Office for counting on these two).

[kab21]

Ryan had a pretty lackluster offseason improving the rotation but the failure of the rotation this season is due to Diamond being absolutely awful, Worley being absolutely awful and Gibson becoming the 2nd coming of Liam Hendriks. It doesn't help that Hendriks has continued to be Hendriks. Ironically the move that everyone was critical of (Correia) has been as successful as reasonably possible.

 

I think it's awesome that many are championing the likes of Colon, Feldman, saunders and Villanueva in hindsight.

[old nurse]

Really? Because I thought the vast majority of us thought upgrading the putrid performance of last year was going to be relatively easy? It was an awfully, awfully low bar afterall.

 

The results of the pitching performances of the free agents show how wrong it is to think it would be or will be easy to improve the pitching through free agency

[TheLeviathan]

The results of the pitching performances of the free agents show how wrong it is to think it would be or will be easy to improve the pitching through free agency

 

i don't think it shows that at all. It shows Ryan had to make good selections, but isn't that his job?

[Alex]

The results of the pitching performances of the free agents show how wrong it is to think it would be or will be easy to improve the pitching through free agency

 

Ok, even if we give him some credit for recognizing what may have been a crap shoot, it's worth remembering that even he recognized starting pitching as problem #1 and that FA was going to be one way to look at fixing it (he said this in multiple interviews).

 

I just have a very hard time giving him a pass when the starting staff has been bad for three years and they have not used assets to improve it. They've sat on money, held onto players they probably should have traded (and still are), re-signed a player when letting him go would have netted a draft pick (Capps), and have mis-evaluated what talent they have and talent have acquired to some extent.

 

Now, this thread is about FA, so we'll stick to that, but there are pitchers out there that did succeed and it would have been nice to see the Twins at least take some risks or make a better effort than they did (I think you'd see many of us far more forgiving if they did), considering the money they had. Ryan on interviews seemed shellshocked by the amount pitchers were getting and rather than recognize it as the changing landscape backed completely off and sealed this season's demise as well.

[old nurse]

I give you a direct quote where he says he would go to the highest bidder regardless of the team's competitiveness and you still can't accept it. Classic.

 

Grienke made the statement well after he signed with full knowledge of what teams bid for his services. You can make that kind of statement when the only teams bidding for your services are competitive.

It also allows him to sidestep any leadership role as he is there only for the money. Baseball teams don't need players to be leaders, right.

[diehardtwinsfan]

Probably, but if they mostly start in the minors, that does not bode well for who is up here to start the year......do people think Ryan will sign guys that might block a close prospect? I expect next years opening roster to look depressingly like the current one, except at 1B.

 

I think you are right here. I don't see Ryan being terribly aggressive. I could see him going after one guy who can be an anchor, but any other signings will be of the 1 year type so as to not block the guys coming up. I think Gibson and Deduno will be the guaranteed guys. KC, if he isn't traded will be there as well. If KC is traded, I could see Ryan going after Hughes or someone like that, but those other two spots are likely going to guys like Hendricks, Worley, Diamond, etc. to see if they can figure it out. If they cannot, they start getting replaced with the likes of Meyer, May, and Darnell.

[diehardtwinsfan]

I said this in my original post, but I'm not sure I said it clearly enough. There were only 3 good signings that the Twins could have reasonably acquired. One of those three they attempted and failed to acquire (Liriano), and I'd argue that this board would have been mostly up in arms about it. I'd also argue that I doubt he has as good of a season as he's having right now if he's still here. The second no one wanted because of his age (Colon) and there were also biogenesis concerns with him if I remember correctly. The third (Santana) was really expensive and would have taken up pretty much all of the budget.

 

The Twins didn't have one spot to fill, they had 3 or 4. They did take a gamble on Worley, and I think that was a wise move. It hasn't panned out this far, but given his minor league track record and two seasons with the Phillies, it was a reasonable gamble, and a far better chance of success than many of the other signings we championed around here. Harden wasn't a bad option either given that it was a 50k minor league deal. The remaining FA options have all faired from mediocre to horrible. Very few of them would have amounted to more than a couple of wins for this team.

 

I wasn't terribly happy about Ryan's free agent acquisitions, but look at this in hind sight, he did a pretty good job. I don't think it's fair to look at the 3 good guys and saying "you should have gotten them", when there were 30 some guys that we were quite glad we didn't get.

[drjim]

Colon also had the suspension for PEDs last year. That, combined with age, made it more than reasonable to stay away.

[Alex]

 

I wasn't terribly happy about Ryan's free agent acquisitions, but look at this in hind sight, he did a pretty good job. I don't think it's fair to look at the 3 good guys and saying "you should have gotten them", when there were 30 some guys that we were quite glad we didn't get.

 

If you are just arguing the top three, then fine, but there were a lot more that would have been upgrades to our current staff.

[diehardtwinsfan]

If you are just arguing the top three, then fine, but there were a lot more that would have been upgrades to our current staff.

 

True, but they would have been marginal upgrades... which was my point in the article. Certainly not enough to make this team competitive.

[Alex]

True, but they would have been marginal upgrades... which was my point in the article. Certainly not enough to make this team competitive.

 

I'd settle for them being better. It makes it easier to upgrade next year as well rather than start from the exact same point this offseason as last offseason. Not to mention overall options (trades) become better with better players.

[ThePuck]

I'd settle for them being better. It makes it easier to upgrade next year as well rather than start from the exact same point this offseason as last offseason. Not to mention overall options (trades) become better with better players.

 

A team should always be looking to get better. Even the very good teams look to get even better.

[Oxtung]

Grienke made the statement well after he signed with full knowledge of what teams bid for his services. You can make that kind of statement when the only teams bidding for your services are competitive.

It also allows him to sidestep any leadership role as he is there only for the money. Baseball teams don't need players to be leaders, right.

 

You are disputing comments made by Greinke about Greinke. You don't know the man. You don't have any inside information. Do you see how preposterous that is?

[Oxtung]

I said this in my original post, but I'm not sure I said it clearly enough. There were only 3 good signings that the Twins could have reasonably acquired. One of those three they attempted and failed to acquire (Liriano), and I'd argue that this board would have been mostly up in arms about it. I'd also argue that I doubt he has as good of a season as he's having right now if he's still here. The second no one wanted because of his age (Colon) and there were also biogenesis concerns with him if I remember correctly. The third (Santana) was really expensive and would have taken up pretty much all of the budget.

 

The Twins didn't have one spot to fill, they had 3 or 4. They did take a gamble on Worley, and I think that was a wise move. It hasn't panned out this far, but given his minor league track record and two seasons with the Phillies, it was a reasonable gamble, and a far better chance of success than many of the other signings we championed around here. Harden wasn't a bad option either given that it was a 50k minor league deal. The remaining FA options have all faired from mediocre to horrible. Very few of them would have amounted to more than a couple of wins for this team.

 

I wasn't terribly happy about Ryan's free agent acquisitions, but look at this in hind sight, he did a pretty good job. I don't think it's fair to look at the 3 good guys and saying "you should have gotten them", when there were 30 some guys that we were quite glad we didn't get.

 

He signed a pitcher that has pitched to the best of his abilities and is worth next to nothing in the trade market and has been only mediocre for this team (and if you look at his peripherals that might be generous). He also signed a pitcher that has been bad and it was easy to see he was going to be bad. Can you explain to me how he did "a pretty good job"?

 

If you are giving credit to Ryan for the pitchers he didn't sign then he also needs to be held accountable for those he did sign, which have been bad, and those good pitchers he didn't sign. You can't have it both ways.

 

Ryan shouldn't be judged on how players perform after they were signed. He should be judged on how they were expected to perform at the time of the signings. He has little control over what happens after the pen meets the paper.

[PseudoSABR]

You are disputing comments made by Greinke about Greinke. You don't know the man. You don't have any inside information. Do you see how preposterous that is?

And you don't know his level of sincerity, lip-service, and media sweet-nothings. You can go on believe that if the Twins would have paid Grienke one more dollar than the Dodgers did he would come here, but I really doubt his decision was so simple.

[Brock Beauchamp]

And you don't know his level of sincerity, lip-service, and media sweet-nothings. You can go on believe that if the Twins would have paid Grienke one more dollar than the Dodgers did he would come here, but I really doubt his decision was so simple.

 

To boot, endorsement money in the LA area is worth quite a bit more than endorsement money in the TC area. Money has more to it than just the amount written on the contract.

[kab21]

True, but they would have been marginal upgrades... which was my point in the article. Certainly not enough to make this team competitive.

 

They would be more than marginal upgrades. but it's only hindsight that would have told someone that Diamond, Worley and Gibson would have been dreadfully awful this year. Some on this board were up in arms that Gibson should have been up opening day and would be an #2/3 as early as this year. I was pretty optimistic about Gibson this year myself.