Imitation Game: 3 Ways the Twins Emulate the Rays

16 minutes ago, rv78 said:

If you don't win it all, yes, you can call it a failure. Isn't that why they play? As a fan of any team in any sport I want my team to win it all. Do I expect them to win it every time? No. But I expect my team to try. How many players at the start of a season say to themselves, I hope to finish second? The Twins have failed so many times in the playoffs that fans were ecstatic that they finally won a game and a series. Woopie!! Mission accomplished. Finishing 2nd best accounts for nothing. This organization has lost sight of what the fans want. Instead they are satisfied with just giving them a team that is good, they don't care if it isn't good enough.

No teams goal is to finish 2nd. But by finishing 2nd. It means you had an OPPORTUNITY to finish 1st. 2nd isn't the goal but it sure isn't a failure. Its a disappointment. And do you think the Twins care (fan) what you want? What you're saying is the Twins are striving to put a team just good enough to keep you interested as a fan. That would be conspiratorial. They're not smart enough to have those thoughts. The loaded Dodgers aren't guaranteed a WS win either. But if for whatever reason they don't, they've created a window of opportunity to win for several more years.

One of the problems with the use of the power bullpen is that they get used so much that they burn out and what had been a strength becomes a liability especially in the post season where the same relievers are used game after game and the hitters tend to catch up with  them.   A bullpen is not a substitute for quality starting pitching. Of course, the problem is the availability of starting pitching either home grown, via trade, or free agency.

10 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

The one way I'd hate to see the Twins emulate the Rays is to trade our star players before they become FA's.  If this were to occur, we could see Lewis, Julian, Lopez, and others traded when their costs escalate.  Given that several of them utilize Boras as their agent, I fear that this could occur.  I for one would find it difficult to see our stars go and have a team with little identity from year to year.

...... and if like the Rays... will get great prospects that will end up being as good if not better keeping the team relevant and winning. 

21 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

It is, but as much as people like to sing the praises of TB, they only had the one year where they made a dent in the playoffs. These strategies are clearly great for the regular season, but I'm not sure they translate in the post season. Having enough players who don't need to be taken off of the field for platooning, along with having some top end starting pitching seems like it's needed come October. A roster full of platoon players and using 'bullpen' games in the post season doesn't seem to work too well.

As it is, I think the current Twins are trying to copy the Rays, who are in fact re-enacting a version of the Twins and A's from the first decade this century. I don't want to emulate that.

What team with equal or less revenue than the twins would you like them to emulate?

14 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Why do all Minnesota teams have to be followers? Trailblazers tend to be the franchises people remember.

Besides, their lack of revenue is 100% on them. They've been bungling their TV deals since they incompetently tried to create their own platform two decades ago. There's no reason their revenue shouldn't be in line with their market size. Dave St. Peter should have been replaced with an acute business mind long, long ago. And their market should be bigger. How do they let the Cubs, Cardinals and Royals basically get to claim Iowa? 

Let's just assume the Twins are riddled with incompetence.  Let's forget about the twins.  I want to know what the right practices entail.  What teams are employing better practices and strategies?  I have asked you and anyone else here to name any franchise with equal or less revenue.  Yet, not one team has been held up as an example by a single participant here.  Is it your position that not a single organization outside the top revenue teams are competently run? 

1 hour ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

Agreed, but by always having young players and always rotating them through, they never become a cohesive unit long enough and capable enough to win a WS. Look how long our core WS team's played together.  Yes, we plugged in a few new players between our two WS's, but the core was still there for both. The Rays are always good but never seem to get over the hump because as soon as they are close, they trade their stars away.

The Nationals let Harper go the year before they won the WS and the Astros won the WS the year after Correa left for free agency and was replaced by Pena who played a pivotal role in their playoff run.  Eovaldi was in his first year with the rangers and they also probably would not have won without adding Montgomery at the deadline.  Josh Jung in his first full year was also big and they got a huge boost from a 21 year old rookie with a total of 23 games experience.

37 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

How many of them have won a World Series this century? There's only one, so yeah, they aren't being competently run. The current practices of small and mid market teams ARE NOT WORKING. It is near impossible for these teams to win it all with the strategies that are being and have been used, and equally impossible for them to be consistently competitive. If the league has completely crapped it's pants and salary caps and floors are not possible, the Twins need to stop being followers and try brand new strategies. Blasphemy, I know, we like to be reactionary not revolutionary here in the Upper Midwest.

Personally the practice I think they should first try, is to NEVER blow their precious budget on middle of the road free agents unless there are no internal options. Spend all your money on a handful of high quality players and then use your optionable and low cost players for the rest. Keep your 26-man roster as flexible as possible and leave yourself nearly endless possibilities through out the season. Only take the risk of paying a couple of high upside players locking up the roster, not a dozen low upside players you can only part with by burning money.

If that doesn't work, try something else. If they don't like that idea, try something else, maybe off the field. Like forcing the owners of the top revenue teams, which is the minority, to 100% share revenue. Just stop doing what other teams are doing that also aren't working.

The reason they are signing the middle of the road free agents to one year contracts is that they viewed their internal options were not adequate. The Twins at one point had 4 players with high upside when the contracts were signed. Sano, Polanco, Kepler and Buxton.  What could possibly go wrong has been demonstrated. 

changing revenue sharing. Low hanging fruit argument that again ignores reality of the vote that would be needed to change it. 

I don't think there are any strategies / practices that will nullify the enormous revenue advantage some clubs have.  The results are quite clear.  We can pretend they don't exist but teams in the bottom half of revenue are not having success in the playoffs and they never will.  Tampa has been to the WS twice in the past 20 years.  Most of the teams in bottom half have not been there at all.

A handful let's say 5 players, at today's prices would cost the entirety of any team in the bottom half of revenue.  Even 4 top free agents would require the twins basically fill out the rest of the roster with league minimum players.  The Rays got 4.8 fWAR from Zach Eflin at $11M.  The Twins got 1.1 fWAR from Correa for $33M.  That's how you compete with half the budget.

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

The Nationals let Harper go the year before they won the WS and the Astros won the WS the year after Correa left for free agency and was replaced by Pena who played a pivotal role in their playoff run.  Eovaldi was in his first year with the rangers and they also probably would not have won without adding Montgomery at the deadline.  Josh Jung in his first full year was also big and they got a huge boost from a 21 year old rookie with a total of 23 games experience.

The Scherzer trade busted. Lucky for Texas they got two starters.  They gave up decent prospects, but not great ones. 

The secret formula is not all that hard to figure out but is difficult to accomplish. Identifying talent in the late first round is key. High ceiling prospects in the later rounds that flourish in the low minors in the later rounds for trade bait. That means you have to have good low minors development teams That is what Texas traded for Montgomery. Get lucky in the Internationals. This FO has not been good with the late first round picks. If you need to build through trades you need to look at who your trade partners are and see what they covet.  Personal opinion is you need the high ceiling player more than the high floor players for the playoffs. Jung was hot for the first two rounds. There are a lot of playoff MVPs were meh players who got hot at the right time. I also think the mid market teams need the 6/7 starter in AAA to be coming up to spell the starters. In planning workloads for the season the teams need to incorporate the games of the post season. The Twins might have gotten more out of Ryan and Ober in the playoffs that way

11 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Every other league has done it. The powerful Jerry Jones and Wellington Mera didn't want to do it, tough luck to them. And the NBA's salary situation largely changed due to two Timberwolves deals. The illegal one with Joe Smith and Kevin Garnett's record breaking contract.

But this is all really just picking at the minutia. My suggestions were only examples. My argument is that the Twins shouldn't emulate any team; they should blaze their own trail as these other clubs aren't winning championships either. Find a way to win that the others have not, by strategy or by politics, I couldn't care less. I'm fed up with simply being happy getting to the playoffs because that's our lot in life as a mid-market team.

I would say that the baseball players union would fight tooth and nail against any NBA styled salary cap. The disparity between the top 8 revenue teams and the bottom 22 are so significantly different that it prevents any change. There was not that difference in football 

58 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Every other league has done it. The powerful Jerry Jones and Wellington Mera didn't want to do it, tough luck to them. And the NBA's salary situation largely changed due to two Timberwolves deals. The illegal one with Joe Smith and Kevin Garnett's record breaking contract.

But this is all really just picking at the minutia. My suggestions were only examples. My argument is that the Twins shouldn't emulate any team; they should blaze their own trail as these other clubs aren't winning championships either. Find a way to win that the others have not, by strategy or by politics, I couldn't care less. I'm fed up with simply being happy getting to the playoffs because that's our lot in life as a mid-market team.

You are asking us to accept the premise that literally none of the 15 teams in the bottom half of revenue are competent.  None of them have your insight apparently.  On one hand, you insist the key is to invest in elite players.  How is this possible for teams with half the financial resources as the teams landing these players?  This simply lacks reason.  This is where fanaticism goes off the rails for me.  Fans think the people running these teams must be incompetent without being reasonable about how difficult it is to compete with teams that can literally go buy 5 -7 top free agents and have the twins entire budget left over for the other 20 players.  

Can someone alert me when the payroll Greek chorus subsides on TD? We did it now to emulate the Rays?

Is all of this just click-bait? Is it to appease Bonnes who spent 10 Patreon episodes exploring how to spend a $170 million payroll and then spent 10 more episodes ripping the Twins for not spending the money he invented in the first place?

If he had been an Uber driver he would be arrested for driving customers around in circles.

It is so tedious. It ignores the reality that baseball lived off the fat of the cable bundling land for years and those days are gone. Gone. Get used to it.

Here's a novel idea. Try enjoying baseball instead.  

15 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Knock it off, you continue to pick at the details because you can't argue the big picture. * Bottom line, no other mid level team is winning, so the Twins need to try something else. Something that none of them are doing. **If it's impossible to compete because of the payrolls, then the Twins and the other teams in their boat need to demand a change. Like every other league was capable of doing.

*This is the point, argue this one.

**This is not the point, stop trying to change the argument to fit your narrative.

If by details you mean facts, then yes I continue to pick at the details.  The fact is that Oakland, Cleveland, and Tampa Bay rank 6-8 in MLB for 90 win seasons since the turn of the century.  That's pretty darn good and better than a lot of teams with considerably more revenue.  It's also a fact that these teams are not winning the WS. 

Your narrative is that none of them follow best practices and need to find alternative (trail blazing) strategies.  The only actual example of a strategy you have offered is that they should avoid mid-level free agents and only sign top free agents.   Do you really think you have figured out something none of these organizations have been able to understand?  Do you really think the FOs of all of every team in the bottom half of revenue is incompetent and don't understand what you understand?  

My narrative is that the revenue disparity is very difficult to overcome when the measure is WS wins.  Sorry, but I just can't accept your inference that all of these teams are run poorly.  Nor do I believe there is a trail blazing innovation that will counteract the revenue disparity.   The rest of the industry views the Rays as innovators, but you discredit them because their way contradicts your view of how to do things.   BTW .... They got huge production out of Morton on a 2-year deal and the first year of Eflin produced 4.8 WAR for $11m and we got 1.1 from Correa for $33M.  

Now you want to change the narrative to a scenario that does not exist "If it's impossible to compete because of the payrolls,"  That's not changing anytime soon.  This is a complete copout that has nothing to do with what we have been debating.  You have insisted the answer is trail blazing innovation and more specifically that these lesser revenue teams should be able to do better.  The truth is the last decade or so has produced enormous innovation in many aspects of scouting and development.  The Rays have arguably been the best team in this regard but their way is not what you want so you discredit it.  You want big names / big $ players and they are getting performance out of inexpensive players.  Which strategy do you think best serves a team with low revenue?

The big picture IMO would be that the Twins incorporate many of the practices that have resulted in the Rays, As, and Guardians outperforming the teams in the bottom half of revenue.  Then, use the revenue advantage they have over the Rays and As to extend young core players.   

Rather than theorizing what will work, let’s look at was has contributed to successful roster construction.  The example below is the 2021 Tampa team that won 100 games.  What stands out and this is true of most of the rays teams is that over 50% of WAR came from players that were acquired as prospects.  Some of these players did come via trades for popular players.  One of those trades was Archer for Glasnow, Meadows, and Shane Baz who looked like a great prospect until he need TJ.  He is scheduled back this year.  Yes, they traded away a popular player but that was a true fleecing.  The other was Willy Adames who of course was replaced by Wander franco.

They had 3 Free agents contribute 7.8 WAR for less than $10M.  They are not the kind of free agents that are popular here but they find guys that produce.  None of the players acquired in trade were proven when acquired and they did not have an international signee produce 1.5 WAR or more.

The list below does not include every player.  It’s meant to identify the source of their better players.  This is defined as Position players and SPs that produced 1.5 WAR or greater and RPs that produced 1.2 WAR or greater.  Players are considered as being traded for as prospects if they had never previously produced the above WAR levels.  I all of the As, Rays, and Guardians teams that have won 90 games if anyone wants to see other examples.