Were the "glory years" a fraud?

[Alex]

You lost me there. The Twins have had their fair share of PED users. Juan Rincon, Matt Lawton, Rondell White, JC Romero all come to mind. And those are just the ones we know about.

 

This one tends to get hard to debate because we tend to think "our guys" (whoever they are) aren't doing it.

[Boom Boom]

This one tends to get hard to debate because we tend to think "our guys" (whoever they are) aren't doing it.

 

I think we tend to forget that guys who don't throw 100 mph and guys who don't hit 40 home runs are just as capable of using PEDs as the ones who do.

[Alex]

I think we tend to forget that guys who don't throw 100 mph and guys who don't hit 40 home runs are just as capable of using PEDs as the ones who do.

 

Absolutely, or it's just not looked at as such an egregious offense because they're not "wrecking baseball" with gaudy numbers.

[gunnarthor]

Willihammer put up some pretty telling statistics. They were outscored by the east and west divisions, while mopping up in the weak Central. And of course their playoff performance speaks for itself. At the least 2002-2010 deserves one of these *

 

How telling are the stats? The six playoff seasons, the Twins avg 92 wins and had a 213-203 record against the AL East and West (avg of +2 per season). This years Tigers won 93 games while going 34-32 against the AL east and west. Cleveland won 92 this year and went 37-29 against the east/west. Teams interdivison games matter more. The 2011 Rays won 91 games and were a +2 against the central and west. The 2010 Rangers were +1 against the central and east.

[JB_Iowa]

One fact that nobody has brought up is that the Twins philosophy has always been that if they make the playoffs, anything can happen. So they built teams that would win the division and then hoped for the best.

 

I would settle for those teams again, teams that had a chance to win every series vs. the team that we have now.

 

I shake my head at all the 'World Series or bust' posters, you're setting yourself up to always be unhappy, only one team can win the series every year.

 

 

I actually think this is the crux of the issue -- not the "fraud" question but "would you be satisfied with JUST a return to the success of those teams in the 2000's"?

 

And for me, the answer is NO. It isn't "World Series or Bust". It is "SOME PLAYOFF SUCCESS or Bust". To me there is a vast difference between being unwilling to take the chances needed to add pieces to give you a stronger chance in the playoffs and saying you HAVE to win the World Series. I'm not convinced that Terry Ryan will ever take those risks.

 

I would consider a repeat of 2002-2010 with the same playoff record to be a gigantic organizational failure.

[ashbury]

I would consider a repeat of 2002-2010 with the same playoff record to be a gigantic organizational failure.

 

Is there some bigger category than "gigantic" to describe worse failures in other organizations that occurred in the same time span?

[Willihammer]

As mentioned before, the Twins played 4 teams that won over 100 games. In fact, the 06 A's and the 10 Yanks were the only team that didn't win at least 99 games (the 06 Twins being the only team that won more than 94). The avg Twins record in those 5 years was 92 wins. Their opponents avg 100 wins/season. Their best teams also had the happy coincidence of being unhealthy while playing teams stacked with known PED users. Not sure why it's surprising that they lost. Or why it should be used to devalue how good those teams were.

 

I didn't mean to devalue the Twins accomplishments in the 2000s, just put them in context. As others have said, they were good, but not as good as their win totals indicated. By the same token, their ALDS opponents were actually better than their regular season win totals, after weighting for divisional strength and the unbalanced schedules. So I agree, they were overmatched most of the time.

[YourHouseIsMyHouse]

I think we tend to forget that guys who don't throw 100 mph and guys who don't hit 40 home runs are just as capable of using PEDs as the ones who do.

 

So the point is that Twins players did use steroids, but just not enough.

[Seth Stohs]

Willihammer put up some pretty telling statistics. They were outscored by the east and west divisions, while mopping up in the weak Central. And of course their playoff performance speaks for itself. At the least 2002-2010 deserves one of these *

 

Those teams weren't a "fraud." They were what they were. They were very good teams that won the division that they're in. We know they weren't perfect. We know the playoff success. Those years are what they are, just like any year or any team, they're not a fraud.

[Boom Boom]

So the point is that Twins players did use steroids, but just not enough.

 

No, the point is that good players on steriods > mediocre players on steroids. There's not enough 'roids in the world to turn Doug Mientkiewicz into Mark McGwire.

[Mike Sixel]

No....you can only play the schedule you are dealt, and they won what they won based on that schedule. The issue, as pointed out, is that Ryan is NOT McPhail, and refused to add the missing piece to get over the top. Oh, and McPhail did it while constrained by dome revenues.......

[Otto von Ballpark]

"Fraud" isn't the word I would use. But that playoff record was off-the-charts bad. Not just the streak of sweeps, but even the streak of "one-win-then-lose-the-rest" before that. That's not luck or a curse, that suggests something fundamentally wrong with how you approach the playoffs. Even with a similar frequency of early exits, Oakland and Tampa have generally been pretty competitive in their playoff series -- one break here or there and they could have advanced (and Tampa did actually advance to the World Series one year). Most of the time, the Twins needed that one break just to win a game.

 

Obviously, first and foremost the Twins need to get back to contention first. But that playoff record is the "elephant just outside the room" so to speak.

[gunnarthor]

"Fraud" isn't the word I would use. But that playoff record was off-the-charts bad. Not just the streak of sweeps, but even the streak of "one-win-then-lose-the-rest" before that. That's not luck or a curse, that suggests something fundamentally wrong with how you approach the playoffs. Even with a similar frequency of early exits, Oakland and Tampa have generally been pretty competitive in their playoff series -- one break here or there and they could have advanced (and Tampa did actually advance to the World Series one year). Most of the time, the Twins needed that one break just to win a game.

 

Obviously, first and foremost the Twins need to get back to contention first. But that playoff record is the "elephant just outside the room" so to speak.

 

Interesting point on Oakland - since 2000, they are 1-7 in playoff series with their one win coming against us in 06. (And the Twins one win was against them). They just set the ML record for losing 6 straight winner moves on games and every one of those 6 series, the A's had the better regular season record (twice they had over 100 wins and twice their opponents had 88 or fewer wins). That's gotta hurt.