Berardino: Tough Talk from Rob Antony

[cmathewson]

I don't think it's that bad of a roster If they take the best players regardless of Spring Training results. Antony whines about how no one has made the decision easy for him, but the decisions should be easy. The following players are clearly the best players for the open positions: Hicks, Deduno, Gibson, Pinto. Nothing that has happened in Spring Training has invalidated that. In fact, Spring Training has validated it. What Does Antony want? 4- homer games? No hitters? Is he even watching the action?

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Auditioning mummies? I tend to demur with your conclusion. I have a sneaking suspicion both Jason's are about to be re-animated, and that they already have their chosen crypts in place, stenciled in with their names and numbers in the Target Field Locker Room (and Mausoleum).

 

WTH, a little carried away on the metaphor there?

 

Antony's comments on Kubel were a little ominous: "ok he's had some moments, but you have to pay attention to the way things are playing out." Ominous for Kubel, that is. We're happy for Kubel but he's kind of redundant here, to say the least.

 

But I can see a scenario where Bartlett makes the club. Reports are that he's playing well. If Florimon starts in AAA, or someone turns up injured, or maybe Bartlett just puts it together and gets productive this final week. It sounds snarky to praise a guy who's 1-for-Spring Training but I could get on board with Bartlett maybe. Or, to stay with the metaphor: don't put the final nail in his coffin just yet.

[ashbury]

Moderator's note: The Berardino article, referenced to start this thread, is a discussion with the front office about the state of competition for spots on the 25-man roster. It's easy to let this morph into other discussions about the front office. Please don't. Practically any topic in some way bears on the front office or the past off-season, but that doesn't make such side discussions pertinent.

 

We had this happen only a week ago, and one of the moderators posted this summary:

 

http://twinsdaily.com/showthread.php/10544-NOTICE-And-then-there-were-two-addendum

 

Please heed it. This thread is about the current state of spring training competitions for jobs, and there should be plenty to talk about. If you want to discuss something else, even if related, start a new thread.

[Major League Ready]

.I don't have a huge problem with what Antony said. He'd like to see someone step forward and win a job. Nothing wrong with that.

 

Seth,

 

I have to disagree. There is an old saying ... Praise in public and criticize in private. Mr. Anthony is probably a very talented guy. I don't know nearly enough about him to offer an opinion as to if he should succeed Mr. Ryan. However, I do know that you have to know how to deliver a message without tearing down individuals if you are going to be an effective leader. He could have simply said "we have not had players step-up as we had hoped". What was to be gained by flogging specific players. You would think Ozzie Guillen's example would have taught the rest of league to avoid this behavior.

[jokin]

I would start by stating that since I put little stock in WAR, I don't necessarily believe "a win in free agency costs around $7M" just because some people throw that number around.

 

Here, here! Yeah, the math doesn't really add up that it "really" costs you $210M/YR in acquisitions to pick up only 30 wins. And putting all of your eggs in an Albert Pujols basket is certainly not the way to go. Improvement at multiple positions, a little bit at some and a lot at a few others, now you're at least competitive- and then let the chips fall where they may. Only 85 wins won the AL West back in 1987- and then series wins over Detroit and St Louis . Yes, the wheels would have to fall off the cart in Detroit and KC to get there, but none of this is unprecedented. The Twins key offseason acquisitions after 1986 (71 wins)? Jeff Reardon, Juan Berenger and Ron Gardenhire.

 

And 85-90 Wins in 2014 was at least within the outside realm of possibility with just a couple additional major league bats in the lineup and one more elite SP- many of us have shown that these moves could have been accomplished for right around the 2011 payroll number, plus throw in some impact help from some current sophs and a rookie prospect or two, stranger things have happened. The current rotation, sans Correia, plus a Garza, plus an improved Gibson, plus 2nd half impact from Meyer, is at least an even bet to cut the ERA by a full run. And adding 2 elite bats plus some positive regression from existing players and some help from the youngsters and newbies makes it a fair bet to increase runs scored by at least .5 runs/game.

 

So all in all, that's about 1/7th the net additional cost- compared to the proposed $210M for 30 "wins"- to at least make a decent attempt to get close to a 20 win improvement.

[jokin]

A) I never claimed that spending the money would equate to a contending team. But in that case dont criticize the players for being EXACTLY who they are. I'm just saying don't fill the stadium full of trash then complain about the smell.

 

Do the other "rebuilding teams" go out and sign guys like Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey to multi year deals? Do they fill out their roster with guys like Jason Bartlett and Jason Kubel?

For all this talk about rebuilding, there is a chance we start the season with not a single rookie/2nd year guy on the team. Gibson, Hicks, Pinto, Tonkin could all easily join Meyer, Buxton, Santana, et al in the minors.

Tell me what other "rebuilding" team is looking at possibly starting the season with no rookie or 2nd year players on their 25 man roster?

You can talk all you want about rebuilding, but looking at their actions I don't see much rebuilding, I just see a perennial bad team.

Players can only learn so much in the minors.

 

Welcome back, Mr Brooks. It seems like more voices like yours are needed, as the TD community, as well as the club itself, are uncomfortably "caught" at the proverbial road sign:

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-53xi8FepdeY/TiNuuwyaRCI/AAAAAAAAAZc/qtQZFzjcgZE/s1600/images+rock+%2526+hard+place.jpg

[Shane Wahl]

Is this "tough talk" or simple irresponsible talk?

 

I laugh at the notion that Hicks hasn't separated himself from Presley. Just because neither has been outstanding doesn't mean that there isn't a difference. Good lord. I can't believe an assistant GM talks like this and still has his job.

[Shane Wahl]

I will say this about Terry Ryan: he takes responsibility for the product on the field. I have never heard him blame players by name like this before. Unbelievable. I hope this isn't our GM in the waiting.

 

Exactly. These comments are inexcusable.

[Shane Wahl]

Exactly, and I'd guess two or maybe three of those guys will be in Rochester on March 31, meaning the whole "stepping up" conversation is a load.

 

Also, ripping Hicks is just insane to me. He was hitting .269/.269/.462 when the comments were made. He went out and "won the job" last year and what good was that.

 

For all the ripping of mediocre and washed up players (Hicks being the only guy he ripped who has any shred of true, current MLB talent), where's the vitriol toward Josh Willingham and his .080 batting average or Trevor Plouffe's 9 strikeouts in 31 at-bats? Is it ok for those guys to suck because they've already been handed jobs? Deibinson Romero has outplayed Plouffe this Spring, has he stepped up and won the third base job?

 

I also thought it was convenient that he didn't say anything good about Gibson ("he's going today" - hey that's true!) and he found a way to rip Escobar. That makes it a lot easier to send Gibson to AAA and to keep Pedro Florimon and his inevitable sub-.200 Spring Training batting average in the lineup. If only Gibson and Escobar had just stepped up and won the jobs by outplaying their competition!

 

I almost never get this fired up about sports, but his comments feel very disingenuous to me.

 

You are right to be angry. I cannot believe Antony statement. Other than showing complete ignorance about certain players' performances, it also is very inappropriate.

[Shane Wahl]

Here, here! Yeah, the math doesn't really add up that it "really" costs you $210M/YR in acquisitions to pick up only 30 wins. And putting all of your eggs in an Albert Pujols basket is certainly not the way to go. Improvement at multiple positions, a little bit at some and a lot at a few others, now you're at least competitive- and then let the chips fall where they may. Only 85 wins won the AL West back in 1987- and then series wins over Detroit and St Louis . Yes, the wheels would have to fall off the cart in Detroit and KC to get there, but none of this is unprecedented. The Twins key offseason acquisitions after 1986 (71 wins)? Jeff Reardon, Juan Berenger and Ron Gardenhire.

 

And 85-90 Wins in 2014 was at least within the outside realm of possibility with just a couple additional major league bats in the lineup and one more elite SP- many of us have shown that these moves could have been accomplished for right around the 2011 payroll number, plus throw in some impact help from some current sophs and a rookie prospect or two, stranger things have happened. The current rotation, sans Correia, plus a Garza, plus an improved Gibson, plus 2nd half impact from Meyer, is at least an even bet to cut the ERA by a full run. And adding 2 elite bats plus some positive regression from existing players and some help from the youngsters and newbies makes it a fair bet to increase runs scored by at least .5 runs/game.

 

So all in all, that's about 1/7th the net additional cost- compared to the proposed $210M for 30 "wins"- to at least make a decent attempt to get close to a 20 win improvement.

 

WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement. That figure starts in the mid 50s in terms of wins. Spend from there.

[The Wise One]

You are right to be angry. I cannot believe Antony statement. Other than showing complete ignorance about certain players' performances, it also is very inappropriate.

 

Ignorance? OBP .269 from a guy you wanted to lead off is good and says PLAY ME? Is there someone else that Antony mentioned actually doing well this spring? From what I have seen the offense has mostly come alive in the later innings when the minor league pitchers were on the mound and our mleaguers were batting. This season may make last season's offense look good.

[Highabove]

I have affection for 'em, but watching diminished Kubel, Bartlett and Guerrier is like watching a '90s hair band at a casino.

Howard Sinker

[Mr. Brooks]

Welcome back, Mr Brooks. It seems like more voices like yours are needed, as the TD community, as well as the club itself, are uncomfortably "caught" at the proverbial road sign:

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-53xi8FepdeY/TiNuuwyaRCI/AAAAAAAAAZc/qtQZFzjcgZE/s1600/images+rock+%2526+hard+place.jpg

 

Thanks.

Just glad to have spring baseball in the air.

No matter how bad the home team may be, baseball season is still the best time of the year.

[Kwak]

I call this "preparing the ground". It has been surmised that all of the millions spent on pitching won't result in a contender--so blame the players. Start with the group "competing for a job". These guys are the low-hanging fruit. I have to stop there given the moderator's note about only discussing ST.

[Brad Swanson]

Everyone (including Antony) should understand that Spring stats are useless because the level of competition is hard to gauge and the sample is too small. In 30 plate appearances, the difference between an unacceptable .269 OBP and a completely acceptable .369 OBP is three times on-base.

 

Now, to Antony's credit, he didn't really cite any stats. I did, but mostly because I haven't seen enough of the players this Spring to know how they are playing. Antony has. In that way, I do need to defer to him. If he sees players playing poorly, he has the right to feel that way. I'd prefer he communicates that message directly to the players, not indirectly through the media. If I have a problem with an employee, I talk to them, I don't rely on another group to relay my message.

[jay]

He could have simply said "we have not had players step-up as we had hoped". What was to be gained by flogging specific players. You would think Ozzie Guillen's example would have taught the rest of league to avoid this behavior.

 

As if we wouldn't have known who he was talking about if he didn't use names? Why not just come out and say it? Challenging a few players to step up (even by name) doesn't put you in Ozzie Guillen territory.... or even on the map.

 

Exactly. These comments are inexcusable.

 

I don't get it. I'd think this crowd would embrace the front office finally being more direct and forthright. I can understand disagreeing with parts of his sentiments, but I don't see the full on blasting that some people are making this out to be. Flogging? Inexcusable?

 

Feels like more assumptions from lack of context around a small portion of a much larger conversation. These types of reactions are exactly how you end up with players, managers, and front offices that won't give you any information... and then the speculation is even worse than what we get today.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Ignorance? OBP .269 from a guy you wanted to lead off is good and says PLAY ME? Is there someone else that Antony mentioned actually doing well this spring?

 

Antony does say "Deduno has done a nice job" but then moments later says "Nobody’s really stepped up to try to earn the spots." Seems like a contradiction there. Gibson has also done well, performance pretty close to the 3 FA SP signings.

 

Tonkin, Guerra, and probably a few LHP have done well too out of the bullpen.

 

Offense is a bit more muddied, and the various CF have been underwhelming, but if they were genuinely competing for something, Pinto, Herrmann, Arcia, Colabello, and Santana all did okay with the stick.

 

Then again, all but a handful of hitters in camp are making league minimum or are NRIs, with few current/recent prospects, so what could be reasonably expected? Even of the vets, the starting catcher is an acknowledged poor hitter, the starting LF is 35 and coming off his worst MLB season to date, and the starting 1B is making a position switch that will likely diminish the value of his offense.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Antony absolutely should be the heir-apparent to the GM job. He's been in the organization and worked his way up. He's been in the upper front office levels for probably a dozen years. He's absolutely ready to take over.

 

Seth, do you realize the exact same thing could have been written about Bill Smith in 2007?

 

I don't think anyone disputes whether the Twins think Antony's ready, but the debate here is, is he likely to succeed?

[cmathewson]

Rereading the article in the sober light of the morning: He talks about how not to get too caries away with stats, which is good to hear. But then why is he getting carried away with stats relative to the center field battle? Havering watched both players this spring, it's clear to these amateur scouting eyes that Hicks is playing better. His outs are hard hit, after seeing five pitches. Presley's outs are pop ups and dribblers on the second or third pitch. Defensively, there's really no comparison. So why would he say what he said?

 

1. He's building a case to send Hicks down to buy service time. This possibility seems far fetched since Hicks spent last August and September in Rochester.

 

2. He's trying to motivate them. This seems the most likely, but it doesn't reflect well on him. Somebody said praise publicly, criticize privately. I agree. It's never good to make your employees think your a dick.

[Shane Wahl]

Everyone (including Antony) should understand that Spring stats are useless because the level of competition is hard to gauge and the sample is too small. In 30 plate appearances, the difference between an unacceptable .269 OBP and a completely acceptable .369 OBP is three times on-base.

 

Now, to Antony's credit, he didn't really cite any stats. I did, but mostly because I haven't seen enough of the players this Spring to know how they are playing. Antony has. In that way, I do need to defer to him. If he sees players playing poorly, he has the right to feel that way. I'd prefer he communicates that message directly to the players, not indirectly through the media. If I have a problem with an employee, I talk to them, I don't rely on another group to relay my message.

 

Ok, I will say that if he is aware of the things we don't know about in practice and whatnot and isn't referring to game statistics, then that would be nice. I don't get that impression. And *this* place is full of super-attachment to spring training stats as though they mean anything. Judging the offense as a whole because of spring training games is comical. We jabber about SSS meaning little but then we resort to it every spring. Good lord, Wilkin Ramirez homered in one of his first 10 at bats and people were calling for his "bench power bat."

[Shane Wahl]

Rereading the article in the sober light of the morning: He talks about how not to get too caries away with stats, which is good to hear. But then why is he getting carried away with stats relative to the center field battle? Havering watched both players this spring, it's clear to these amateur scouting eyes that Hicks is playing better. His outs are hard hit, after seeing five pitches. Presley's outs are pop ups and dribblers on the second or third pitch. Defensively, there's really no comparison. So why would he say what he said?

 

1. He's building a case to send Hicks down to buy service time. This possibility seems far fetched since Hicks spent last August and September in Rochester.

 

2. He's trying to motivate them. This seems the most likely, but it doesn't reflect well on him. Somebody said praise publicly, criticize privately. I agree. It's never good to make your employees think your a dick.

 

This is a good post! Thanks for articulating it well. Sometimes my flabbergastedness gets in the way of even a shred of eloquence!

[Brock Beauchamp]

Ok, I will say that if he is aware of the things we don't know about in practice and whatnot and isn't referring to game statistics, then that would be nice.

 

I suspect that the organization isn't particularly impressed with Hicks for a few reasons:

 

1. He didn't play winter ball, something they wanted him to do.

 

2. He was out for nearly a week early in ST.

 

I don't think this has anything to do with stats in Spring Training... When Gardy made the comment about not knowing where Hicks was and that he hadn't spoken to him, I muttered "uh oh".

 

Right or wrong, I think Hicks has irritated some of the Twins brass.

[Brad Swanson]

 

Right or wrong, I think Hicks has irritated some of the Twins brass.

 

I get this sense too. I look forward to seeing Hicks as the Twins' closer in 2019.

[Mike Sixel]

It's hard not to comment on the job the FO did, when discussing why no one is stepping up. The issue is that they don't have enough good players. Their vaunted minor league system is set to graduate zero players onto this roster this year that will be starters, three years into being one of the five worst teams in the game. And, between 1 and all of the players that graduated last year might start in the minors. Until they have some actual good players, the FO should be lamenting what they are seeing on the field.

[Willihammer]

Rereading the article in the sober light of the morning: He talks about how not to get too caries away with stats, which is good to hear. But then why is he getting carried away with stats relative to the center field battle? Havering watched both players this spring, it's clear to these amateur scouting eyes that Hicks is playing better. His outs are hard hit, after seeing five pitches. Presley's outs are pop ups and dribblers on the second or third pitch. Defensively, there's really no comparison. So why would he say what he said?

 

Hicks will get the job. Antony is just moaning that he's not playing like Kirby Puckett, which he never was to begin with.

[jokin]

WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement. That figure starts in the mid 50s in terms of wins. Spend from there.

 

I understand that the concept starts from a presumed baseline. I spelled out the case that you don't necessarily need to spend an additional $210M in annual payroll to get an additional 30 wins from that baseline. Can we all agree with USAF Chief, that this concept of WAR is still an inexact science, at best?

[cmathewson]

I suspect that the organization isn't particularly impressed with Hicks for a few reasons:

 

1. He didn't play winter ball, something they wanted him to do.

 

2. He was out for nearly a week early in ST.

 

I don't think this has anything to do with stats in Spring Training... When Gardy made the comment about not knowing where Hicks was and that he hadn't spoken to him, I muttered "uh oh".

 

Right or wrong, I think Hicks has irritated some of the Twins brass.

 

He spent the winter working out, including putting on a bunch of muscle and spending three days a week in the cage with Rod Carew. They knew where he was. They're just being dickish. It's not endearing from the manager who hasn't managed to win 70 games in any of the last three years, or from the assistant GM who presided over the building of those teams.

[TheLeviathan]

I understand that the concept starts from a presumed baseline. I spelled out the case that you don't necessarily need to spend an additional $210M in annual payroll to get an additional 30 wins from that baseline. Can we all agree with USAF Chief, that this concept of WAR is still an inexact science, at best?

 

The problem is that the foundation of talent isn't sufficient here to buy themselves much past mediocrity. The problem isn't the money spent, the problem is about a half a decade's worth of drafting that produced little in the way of contributors, some bad luck with centerpiece players (looking at you Morneau), and some bad personnel decisions.

 

The notion they could spend their way out of all that just isn't feasible or reasonable. It's also not reasonable, as Barreiro was right to say, to feign shock publicly that your meagerly talented team is performing meagerly. I would've had more patience for these quotes if Antony had gone out of his way to laud Deduno, Gibson, and others for coming in ready to earn a job. This would've felt more authentic and meaningful in that case.

[Mike Sixel]

Man, sprialling into 52% talk range again......

 

the players are bad. That's the problem here. They don't have enough good players. And yet, most of the FO and scouts still have their jobs, right?

[jokin]

He spent the winter working out, including putting on a bunch of muscle and spending three days a week in the cage with Rod Carew. They knew where he was.

 

They're just being dickish.

 

It's not endearing from the manager who hasn't managed to win 70 games in any of the last three years, or from the assistant GM who presided over the building of those teams.

 

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/scott-baker-getty.png?w=200&h=170&crop=1 "You don't say?"

 

 

 

 

 

"Nuff said"http://media.scout.com/Media/Image/31/316385.jpg