Berardino: Tough Talk from Rob Antony

[jokin]

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.

 

Were this all to be true, then it was also just as foolhardy to spend $84M on a series of second-tier starting pitchers- and they made an earnest attempt to acquire a frontline starter, besides. Which direction is this team going? I stand by my roadsign above, this team is really caught between a rock and a hard place, and Antony's comments show some combination of a guy frustrated at that very notion, an element of newbie naivete and in over his head as far as his public pronouncements on personnel issues.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

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?

 

Yes, on another thread, we can agree on this

[cmathewson]

One other thought. This guy started in PR. Apparently, he's lost the ability to tell good stories about his prime assets. Instead of praising Hicks for all his hard work in the offseason, they publicly criticize him. This doesn't happen in other markets. Guys like Hicks have their own PR interns in NY. Instead of generating some buzz about a talented former first-round draft pick, they say stuff like this. It won't help ticket sales, that's for sure.

[Major League Ready]

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.

 

Great post. Winning in this league is primarily predicated on drafting and development. You can’t correct the problem you cited (several years of bad drafting) in a couple years. The core problem would appear to be corrected based on the current condition of the farm system. Of course, this is a relative statement. If you are the Dodgers or Yankees you have an extra $100M in payroll budget over the Twins and $150M over the Tampa Bay/Oakland. Obviously, spending practices and strategies are going to vary widely given the enormous difference in revenue. .

 

Why anyone in the FO would make any statement of substance is beyond me. You can’t win with the fan base. No matter what you say, a substantial percentage is going to disagree. Twins Daily is good proof of this point. Anthony should have said that the determination of who to take North has been made even more difficult because of the struggles of some players this spring. He actually could have went on to say that increases the chances they will make a mistake. He should have acknowledged the difficulty of the situation and in broad terms let the fans know they are doing to address this situation.

[Thrylos]

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.

 

Spring stats may be useless. But if Willingham and Plouffe (the Twins' power RH bats) have not hit any HRs yet (and sometimes against AAA and AA pitchers), I see this as a red flag. Unless the cement at the Hammond Stadium new boardwalk has not settled yet and is to blame.

 

As far as the Hicks/Presley comparison by Antony goes, it is ridiculous. Presley has let at least 4 balls sail over his head, over slid second base twice when trying to steal, bounced throws to the cutoff man from the OF and has been heating meagerly. The only comparison that might stand is on the last of these 4 points and Hicks has been hitting much better than Presley as well.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I'm going to cast a wide net in this thread.

 

Tone it down a bit or we're going to start issuing infractions and warnings. This thread is not an open invitation to start whipping the front office for the umpteenth time.

[Thrylos]

Another thing I find interesting about this comment is this:

 

Danny Santana hit .391/.462/.696 this Spring. He was cut. It just conflicts slightly with Antony's comment, unless he expected more...

[Brock Beauchamp]

Another thing I find interesting about this comment is this:

 

Danny Santana hit .391/.462/.696 this Spring. He was cut. It just conflicts slightly with Antony's comment, unless he expected more...

 

After last year's Hicks fiasco it doesn't surprise me that Santana was sent down, performance be damned.

 

Though I certainly hope they're open to calling him up in 6-10 weeks if he continues to rake. He's close, I'm just not convinced that he's close enough to be on an MLB roster out of Spring Training.

[Thrylos]

After last year's Hicks fiasco it doesn't surprise me that Santana was sent down, performance be damned.

 

Though I certainly hope they're open to calling him up in 6-10 weeks if he continues to rake. He's close, I'm just not convinced that he's close enough to be on an MLB roster out of Spring Training.

 

Agreed, but my point was different a bit: You cannot use the same metric (Spring Training performance, in this case) to say that someone has not shown much, but cut the ones who have shown enough. It is inconsistent. Add the fact that players like Hicks have performed like Hall of Famers compared to Kubel and Bartlett without comment about the last 2, and ...

[Major League Ready]

Another thing I find interesting about this comment is this:

 

Danny Santana hit .391/.462/.696 this Spring. He was cut. It just conflicts slightly with Antony's comment, unless he expected more...

 

They seem really high on Santana. He just is not ready defensively to play MLB. I think he gets a shot as soon as he gain consistency in the field. I recorded the St. Louis game and their announcers we extremely impressed with Florimon in the field.

[Mike Sixel]

I hope they measure consistency differently than they did last year with Gibson....

[tobi0040]

I agree with the sentiment here. Expecting Florimon or Escobar to "step up" and be a MLB SS is probably an uphill battle. Journeyman like Pressly, Matroanni, etc.

[cmb0252]

I see nothing wrong with the front office calling out players for underproducing but they are the ones who put them out there. While pitching was the Twins #1 priority in the off season it was obvious this team needed at least one bat, if not two. Outside of Choo I wasn't a big fan of the offensive free agents but that doesn't mean we couldn't have traded for a bat.

[TheLeviathan]

Were this all to be true, then it was also just as foolhardy to spend $84M on a series of second-tier starting pitchers

 

If budgets worked on a strictly year by year basis...fine. Putting all your eggs into one year's basket that restricts future flexibility? That's foolish. And the label I would give to that kind of short-sighted impatience would probably get me a warning.

 

Suffice to say, this kind of criticism is bunk and it undermines legitimate criticisms to keep hammering it home. So let's stick with the real point - the tone and effectiveness of this public criticism. The FO does deserve some heat for these remarks because they were handled incompetently. Anyone who has been in management and developed skills to be a competent, influential manager knows that bash-bash-bash without any effort to reinforce positives is a horrible way to influence behavior/sentiments. And if the positive reinforcements are coming privately...their practices are flipped from what would be best practice. There isn't much room to wiggle out of this being poorly articulated.

 

You get A LOT further with your criticisms when it comes couched in an effort to praise those that deserve it. This just comes off as resentful.

[Dman]

Great post. Winning in this league is primarily predicated on drafting and development. You can’t correct the problem you cited (several years of bad drafting) in a couple years. The core problem would appear to be corrected based on the current condition of the farm system. Of course, this is a relative statement. If you are the Dodgers or Yankees you have an extra $100M in payroll budget over the Twins and $150M over the Tampa Bay/Oakland. Obviously, spending practices and strategies are going to vary widely given the enormous difference in revenue. .

 

Why anyone in the FO would make any statement of substance is beyond me. You can’t win with the fan base. No matter what you say, a substantial percentage is going to disagree. Twins Daily is good proof of this point. Anthony should have said that the determination of who to take North has been made even more difficult because of the struggles of some players this spring. He actually could have went on to say that increases the chances they will make a mistake. He should have acknowledged the difficulty of the situation and in broad terms let the fans know they are doing to address this situation.

 

I tend to agree that you can't win with the fan base pretty much no matter what you say.

 

Although I don't think his comments were caustic, I guess I agree with other posters that it is in his best interest to focus on the positive. It should generate more interest in the team and he comes off looking like an optimist. It also shows he has his players backs.

 

For myself I preferred his method as I get tired of the PR game where essentially nothing gets said. He called it like he saw it and I personally found that refreshing, but then again I am not your average fan.

[VandyTwinsFan]

For myself I preferred his method as I get tired of the PR game where essentially nothing gets said. He called it like he saw it and I personally found that refreshing, but then again I am not your average fan.

 

Agreed! Maybe he wasn't exactly correct on each little thing he said, but it sounds like a rant. As if he was throwing out examples of how guys have been disappointing. He just went through each position battle and made a little comment, but for the most part he was stating how a few position battles haven't been resolved at this point because the players haven't been performing. Perhaps their off-the-field attitudes haven't been there either. Players can either take it and use it as motivation, or they can cry and play the 12-year old girl part because someone said something bad about them. Suck it up. Work for your pay. And impress someone.

[Highabove]

Excellent commentary by Michael Rand regarding this topic.

 

Thursday (On offense, Twins getting what they deserve) edition: Wha' Happened? | RandBall | StarTribune.com

[Kwak]

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?

 

Jobs? Bonus checks!

[VandyTwinsFan]

Jobs? Bonus checks!

 

Post 1,111...make a wish!

[stringer bell]

Another thing I find interesting about this comment is this:

 

Danny Santana hit .391/.462/.696 this Spring. He was cut. It just conflicts slightly with Antony's comment, unless he expected more...

If only looking at offense, I would agree. I saw Santana play a couple of times and he was really bad, dropping balls, booting balls etc. What I saw wasn't major league defense, but I think it was closer to Gulf Coast League defense than Triple A defense. Santana hasn't been an outstanding hitter either, but it looks like he could make a big jump in that category. I will continue to be concerned about his defense until he proves otherwise.

[Seth Stohs]

Mike Berardino wrote an article and asked the players who were called out for their thoughts.

 

http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_25388017/struggling-twins-shrug-off-boss-criticism

[Squirrel]

Well, if tonight is an answer to it ... Hicks said what he had to with his bat.

[Thrylos]

Well, if tonight is an answer to it ... Hicks said what he had to with his bat.

 

and 2 hits from each side too...

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Ugh. Would have liked to see a little more modesty from Kubel. "He ain't too worried about it." I wonder what other people think.

[ashbury]

Presley: "there's a fine line between trying to play your game and trying to get hits."

 

 

I think I would like to see him erase this line entirely.

[tobi0040]

I see nothing wrong with the front office calling out players for underproducing but they are the ones who put them out there. While pitching was the Twins #1 priority in the off season it was obvious this team needed at least one bat, if not two. Outside of Choo I wasn't a big fan of the offensive free agents but that doesn't mean we couldn't have traded for a bat.

 

It was a weaker freee agent hitting class, but certainly upgrades existed, specifically at SS and DH. And that is cutting some slack at catcher as we were in on guys that signed elsewhere. AJ specifically wanted to win and Suzuki is probably OK if he can tutor Pinto.

[tobi0040]

Presley: "there's a fine line between trying to play your game and trying to get hits."

 

 

I think I would like to see him erase this line entirely.

 

Good call, what exactly is his strategy if it doesn't involve hits? Walk every at bat?

[tobi0040]

If only looking at offense, I would agree. I saw Santana play a couple of times and he was really bad, dropping balls, booting balls etc. What I saw wasn't major league defense, but I think it was closer to Gulf Coast League defense than Triple A defense. Santana hasn't been an outstanding hitter either, but it looks like he could make a big jump in that category. I will continue to be concerned about his defense until he proves otherwise.

 

My worry with this kid is that he never earns Gardy's trust on defense, which is a high hurdle.

[twinsnorth49]

Antony should expect more from himself when it comes to publicly criticizing players. As a leader it shows a lack of poise and displays weakness in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with negative feedback, it's an essential part of development along with healthier doses of positive feedback but singling out individuals in a public forum will have no lasting effect. To be accurate, Antony only criticized, he didn't provide any kind of feedback that would be of any benefit to the players he called out.

 

It was a rookie mistake, hopefully one he realizes and doesn't repeat.

[bird]

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.

 

This is spot on.