Do the Twins Have One of Baseball’s Best Front Offices?

30 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I understand you would manage the team differently but that's not at all what I asked.   I asked what team is employing strategies that would be more likely to lead to a WS.  You have stated repeatedly that's all you care about so it seems appropriate to ask what team is following strategies that promote this goal unless you don't believe any team in the bottom half of revenue understands how to build a WS winner. 

BTW ... spending ability is not an "owner thing".  It's a revenue thing.  It would be so great if a TD writer would put together a comparison of payroll as a percentage of revenue.  Then, we would know just exactly how the Pohlad's rank in terms willingness to spend.

Again, the question is which team(s) are following strategies more likely to produce a WS winner.  Is there a team we should follow or is there not a single team in the bottom half of revenue that understands how to build a WS winner?

Yeah, we're not turning yet another thread into a conversation about your incomplete research. Which teams aren't as extreme in their platooning? 28 or 29 of them. Which teams don't bring in extreme injury risk pitchers on a regular basis? 29 of them. You want to clump every bottom half team into 1 strategy and talk about how they acquire talent and that's it. I get it. It's not happening.

BTW...spending ability is 100% an "owner thing." We're also not turning yet another thread into a conversation about your firm. There are no rules in major league baseball stopping the Pohlads from spending some of their personal money on the Twins payroll no matter how good or bad of a business decision it would be. This isn't a thread about that, though, so I didn't mention it and I won't be allowing you to force your narrative down everyone's throat in another thread. That talk stops here.

Teams follow all kinds of different strategies when it comes to how they build their teams and what sort of players they look for. I listed 6 strategies this front office deploys that I disagree with. Not all 15 bottom half revenue teams are deploying the same 6 strategies. That's your answer. I'm not going to go through how all 15 teams differ in all 6 of those strategies. That's a ridiculous request. Either discuss more broad strategies than just the player acquisition buckets you've created in your "research" or move on.

12 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Not asking to turn the thread into anything and I am not asking you to go through all 15 teams.  Simply asking you to pick a team or two utilizing strategies you feel are likely to produce a WS Champion.  Real simple.  Which team(s) or is there not any team following strategies that will produce a WS winner in your opinion.  

They all use a different collection of strategies. I like how some of them do certain things and how others do different things. It is far too broad of a topic to just say "Team X is doing things the way I want." Some of them platoon more than I like, but develop their own pitching so don't have to trade for it. Some develop really well, but trade guys before I would in my hypothetical rule of their organization. Some switch their lineup around more than I would while managing their pitching staff in a way I like, but others run their lineup how I like while running a pitching staff the way I like. You're not going to get me to point to the As, Rays, or Guardians and say we should do things they way they do. I like the way the Rays and Guardians do certain things, but not others. 

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

I apologize the question was not clear.  I am not interested asking what you want or how you would do it.  I am wondering if you think there is a team or teams in this group that are being managed in a way that promotes winning a WS.  That's a related by quite different question.  Obviously, I am wondering if you think it's the Twins or is there not a single group of FO professionals among this group that understands how to win a WS.  Reading the totality of your posts in this thread, it would appear you don't believe any of these teams understand how to win a WS.

I think the history of the sport says it's very unlikely teams run the way the Twins, and, really, every lower half payroll team, are will win a championship. Is it possible? Of course it is. But are they giving themselves the best chance? No. And history is screaming that at them.

But that's not all on them. It's on a number of factors (including ownership and their priorities). Since none of the teams in your prized research have won championships outside of the KC team that ignored your advice and actually did things the way I suggest I'm going to go ahead and say the evidence isn't strong that any of these teams are doing things in a way that is likely to lead to a WS title. Since, you know, none of them have won one.

We've taken over this thread and we need to stop now. If you'd like to continue this conversation we can do so through messages. I disagree with some of the FO's decisions. Does that mean I'm calling them incompetent? Not even a little. Does it mean they can literally never win a WS? Of course not. Does it mean I want them fired? Nope. Nuance is possible. Agreeing with some things while disagreeing with others is possible. Them doing better than most MLB FOs while not doing as well as others is possible.

2 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

We finally came to the point.  You and I have come to different conclusions as to why teams in the bottom half of revenue win WS very infrequently.  You have concluded that the teams in the bottom half of revenue just don’t do manage all of the aspects you mentioned adequately.

I think big markets are going to have people equally adapt at creating and managing the strategies you outlined.  Obviously, some will be better than others but some of the big market teams are going to do these things just as well as the best small/mid market team.  I think the difference is that if the Twins can spend $6M/player on a 26-man roster.  The Dodgers can spend that same $6M/Player on 20 players and sign six $30M/AAV players.  That advantage shows up in the playoffs when the additional talent is Betts / Ohtani / Freeman / Yamamoto / Glasnow / and Hernandez.  I don't think history is screaming they are not doing the right things.  I think it's screaming that it's really hard to beat a team that sll other things being equal has the advantage of adding six superstars.   

The Dodgers aren't emphasizing short-side platoon bats or extreme injury risk pitchers (although Glasnow definitely fits that category). By definition short-side platoon bats are not as good as everyday bats. Going out of your way to collect that type of player is not "all other things being equal." And when you're paying those short side bats 4, 5, or 6+ million it's not about spending power. That is an internal strategy that is not strictly financially driven.

Obviously spending gives you more avenues to success, but, again, the low revenue team that actually won built their team through everyday players and didn't trade them in fear of "losing them for nothing." The Royals had 6 guys get 550 PAs in 2015. The Twins had 1 last year (Correa). 3 in 2022. 1 in 2021. 3 in 2019. 2 in 2018. 4 in 2017. That's barely twice as many total in 5 more seasons. The Twins are making strategic decisions that are not tied strictly to spending power. You don't have to agree with the strategies I believe in. But it is not correct to just say it's only spending power. The Twins are making strategic decisions based on far more than spending power. And I disagree with some of them.

This isn't me calling anyone incompetent or suggesting I know more than all of them like you find a need to claim anytime people disagree things. There are so many factors that go into building a WS title contender. And, yes, spending is absolutely one of them. But you also can't ignore the human nature side of these guys not wanting to lose their jobs. You don't often get fired when you win your division a lot for a lower spending team because you're often able to make your owner money doing that and most of those owners are just fine with that. But that desire to not get fired leads to many (most) people being more risk averse in order to maintain their team's "floor" at the cost of their "ceiling" because a sturdy floor keeps you in your job for a long time while missing your ceiling and crashing through the floor leads to you looking for a new job. So the "smarter" strategy for these guys is to maintain a floor and hope you can be the 1 team with that strategy to get hot in October/November and come away with a title. History says you're far more likely to just stick in your job for a decade+ while never actually winning a title, though. I don't blame them. I don't think they're incompetent. In fact I said from the beginning I think this particular FO is better than average and replacing them more likely leads to someone worse taking over than someone better. But that doesn't mean they're infallible and make all the right decisions and have all the right strategies.