Brock Beauchamp

Absolutely. The stuff MacPhail did right shouldn't be overlooked.

Honestly, I think "far easier" is a pretty accurate assessment of the NLE. In Interleague play, the AL beat the NL at a clip (.557) that approached the record of the best AL division winner, Toronto (.574). Every American League team but one had 74 or more wins. In the NL, nearly half (seven) of the teams had fewer than 75 wins. Three of those teams were in the NLE with two of those teams under 70 wins. The winning percentage of the entire NLE division (.461) was significantly better than only one American League team, the Oakland A's. (.420) and a virtual tie with the second worst team, the Tigers (.460). The National League East was really bad last season. Really, really bad.

While I agree that Meyer can still turn into a big asset out of the bullpen, your bolded statement is... No. Just no. A shutdown starter is several magnitude more valuable than a shutdown reliever.

I'm struggling between conflicting emotions with Berrios: - Part of me hopes the rotation is good enough that we argue endlessly about Jose and he doesn't make an appearance in Minnesota until late in the season - Part of me hopes at least one, maybe two, of the current starters fall off a cliff in March and the decision makes itself

Yep, I remember the team breaking camp with those guys. Pretty funny in hindsight. And to be fair about Bartlett/Kubel, Ryan wasn't in charge of the team at that time. They were horrible decisions but can't really be pinned on Ryan (and are a great example why I'm leery of Antony ever sitting in the GM chair).

Thankfully, I think a modern comp is hard to find because front offices are too smart to give a 1991 Jack Morris the equivalent of $20m today. I think the 2014 Bartolo Colon contract is a good example of what usually happens when you give an old pitcher too much money. He didn't kill the Mets but was below average (just as Morris was five out of his final seven seasons).

Also true. New, interesting metrics are constantly being revealed on this board but it's hard to sift through some of them because the way the data is presented and the way it's defended/attacked.

Why are we concerned about Sano getting injured in right? Did the Twins install landmines in the outfield this offseason? I'm sure Miguel is perfectly capable of not getting injured while performing the rigorous task of "running several feet with one glove in the air". I see no reason to believe the injury risk is any higher for him in RF than it is at third (it's probably lower). Disclaimer: am no way am I defending Miguel Sano in the OF, as I think it's a bad decision... But there are plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike the decision without creating hypothetical injury situations.

Both of these points are valid and when juxtaposed together, reveal a lot about the nature of this board. 10% of this board is "Math is right!!!!!" 10% of this board is "Math is dumb!!!!" 80% of this board is "Math is useful. Now will you 20% STFU for five minutes?" One of the biggest problems on this board - or any other internet forum - is that those two 10% groups try to lump the 80% into their extreme black-and-white analysis whenever it's convenient for them to do so (whether that is in alliance or opposition to their viewpoint depends on circumstance). Not everything needs to be strictly categorized into one camp or the other. It's acceptable to find use in math-based analytics while pointing out that they're often used incorrectly and/or wrongly presented as fact (and vice versa).

I've mentioned several times that Ryan didn't do enough on the trade front, particularly in midseason (and he didn't have much free agent money in the 2000s)... But did the 91 team even make a trade at the deadline? I don't believe they did. My point is addressing the free agent situation leading into 1991, specifically the lauded Morris acquisition. MacPhail threw what easily could have been bad money (maybe even likely to be bad money) at Morris but got lucky so people hold it up as some kind of gold standard. Coupled with the much more solid Davis pickup and a huge dose of luck, the team won it all. Inversely, Ryan threw bad money at Hunter in 2015 (but threw very good money at Rogers in 2003) and has been panned for it by a huge segment of the fanbase. Am no way am I absolving Ryan for some of those lackluster 2000s trade deadlines but it's only fair to judge both men and their actions by the same standard.

Sure, the 91 team tried to win. So did most of the 2000s teams... But the 91 team had a lot of luck on its side while the 2000s teams... Not so much. The Morris/Rogers comparison illustrates that better than anything else, I think. Could some of the 2000s teams have done more to win? Yeah, maybe, especially midseason... But if luck ain't on your side, you're pretty much screwed. Remove one of Morris, Puckett, Mack, Davis, or Erickson from the 91 squad and they do not win the World Series. Add a healthy Liriano or Morneau and who knows what happens to the 2006/2010 squads. Hell, add a dead cat bounce (maybe a 120 OPS+) Torii Hunter to the 2015 squad and maybe they go all the way, as unlikely as that seems today. Acquisition X was a good idea because it worked. Acquisition Y was a failure because it didn't work, even though it was more statistically likely to succeed than Acquisition X. Not trying to take anything way from MacPhail or give Ryan undue credit, just trying to be fair here. Results-based judgment only works in hindsight.

I don't blame them for having difficulty projecting players - particularly young ones - but I do blame posters on this board for putting too much stock in them. Buxton having a negative defensive value is a great example of a projection veering off the rails. I think they have a lot of value in the aggregate but not a lot on an individual level.

Possibly... But play that Morris season out ten times and I suspect the majority of the time it's condemned as a bad, maybe even terrible, deal. And the inverse probably applies to the Rogers deal. Money isn't everything. The Morris deal happened to work out and that's great, games six and seven were the greatest Twins moments of my life (even better than 87 for me)... But apply the Morris thinking to today and we'd absolutely crucify Ryan for giving a formerly good (not great) 36 year old pitcher a boatload of money. Half this board would have pitchforks in hand storming 1 Twins Way for that move (see Hunter, Torii). With that said, I wish Ryan would have spent more money more intelligently in past years but it's unfair to apply a different standard to Ryan because a move didn't pan out than to MacPhail because a similar move did work.

If you don't like Trout comps - and I agree they're probably a bad idea - then use what I call the UFCAF (Upton Family Ceiling and Floor) system. Now of course injury can derail any ceiling and floor. Byron, bless his heart, could be killed by a falling Goodyear blimp tomorrow, rendering this all moot. But a reasonable ceiling for Buxton is Justin Upton (.825 career OPS) and a reasonable floor is BJ Upton (.726 career OPS). Both Uptons were among the most highly-regarded prospects in baseball at the time and both reached MLB quickly (in roughly the same timeline Buxton would have reached Minnesota had his lost injury season not occurred). Both have had good MLB careers, though one lived up to his potential and the other "scuffled" a bit (if one can refer to a decent MLB starting player as scuffling). I'm worried that Buxton may turn into BJ Upton instead of Justin, not that he's going to OPS under .600, .650, or hell even .700. That's unlikely to happen if he stays healthy.

Heheheheh. Again, the lack of midseason moves were frustrating and I agree more should have been done. No arguments about previous trade deadlines and how little action was taken to shore up deficiencies. But as I pointed out with the Rogers/Morris comparison, praising the Morris acquisition as some kind of "WE'RE GONNA WIN TWINS" move unrivaled in the history of Minnesota sporting clubs is a revisionist take on the deal. It was a good move but mostly because it worked, not because it was the modern day equivalent of signing Clayton Kershaw. Because, on paper, the 2003 Rogers acquisition should have paid better dividends. It didn't and that's baseball.

And before we say one more word about Jack Morris, take a moment to mull over the 2003 acquisition of Kenny Rogers. A guy with a career 109 ERA+ to that point, coming off a 123 ERA+ season. He pitched his way to one of his worst seasons with a 99 ERA+ in 2003. 1991's Jack Morris had a career ERA+ of 108 going into the season and was coming off an 89 ERA+ season (and hadn't posted an ERA+ of over 100 in three seasons). He pitched his way to a career year with a 125 ERA+ in 1991. But but but! Rogers was old, right? Well, he went on to post four more seasons of better than average ERA+, peaking with an ERA+ of 133 in 2005. Jack Morris never completed a season with a 133 ERA+, FWIW. Rogers did it at age 40. Morris? He posted one 101 ERA+ season with Toronto, pitched two way below average seasons after that, and was out of baseball at age 39. Kenny Rogers, three seasons previous to 2003: 551 IP, 104 ERA+ (one bad injury season sandwiched between two very good >110 ERA+ healthy seasons) Jack Morris, three seasons previous to 1991: 655 IP, 89 ERA+ Kenny Rogers, three seasons following 2003: 611 IP, 117 ERA+ Jack Morris, three seasons following 1991: 534 IP, 85 ERA+ So, luck.

While I'm not defending the lack of impact trades during the 2000s, this is a point worth making and is too often overlooked when people talk about the 1991 season. The 91 team started off abysmally and then caught fire. Sure, the team was constructed pretty well but there was a lot of luck involved with that squad. Jack Morris went into the 91 season having posted an ERA+ of 97, 79, 89 the previous three seasons. He wasn't a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination. Davis was a decent, not great, player who played out of his friggin' mind, posting the second best season of his career in 91. While there is no comparable to Davis in recent years, the Morris acquisition wasn't terribly different than the Santana (and even possibly Nolasco) acquisition. Basically, the 91 season was the result of a few good moves that turned into great moves in hindsight, partially through dumb luck (particularly in the case of Morris). That happens and that's why it can be important to take risks occasionally. You never know when the stars will align. On the other hand, the 2000s Twins had (mostly) the opposite luck. In 2006, they lost Liriano, their best pitcher and, at the time, an unstoppable force. Radke was pitching with... Well, I'm not really sure what was attached to his shoulder at that point but it wasn't an arm. In 2010, they lost what may have been the best player in baseball in Justin Morneau, a guy on his way to a 10 WAR season (!). Again, I'm not absolving the Twins for some of their past moves but winning it all takes some luck, often a lot of luck. The 1991 Twins had it; the 2000s Twins did not. Does the 1991 team win if Scott Erickson goes down after eight starts? No. Well, that's basically what happened to the 2006 squad. Does the 1991 team win if Davis receives a concussion mid-season? Well, that's what happened to the 2010 squad. We talk about luck/unluck in its various forms on this board all the time... It's only fair to point out just how bloody unlucky the Twins were at times in the 2000s. In what were possibly their two best seasons - 2006 and 2010 - they lost an elite player. Not a good player, an elite one. Someone worth 8+ wins over a full season. And before we praise the 1991 offseason too much and use that as a benchmark from which to grade current offseasons, we should acknowledge that everything went right for that team. Not most things... Pretty much everything.

I find it extremely unlikely Buxton hits .215 this season. I don't understand the consternation over Byron's 2015 season. 21 years old, fighting off minor injuries, facing MLB pitching for the first time. In September when he was finally healthy again, he posted slightly better numbers with an OPS around .650. With his speed, tools, discipline, and a bit more experience under his belt, I'd be surprised if Buxton doesn't post something close to league average offensive numbers this season.

I also liked what I saw, I simply didn't see enough of it to pass judgment.

Starting caliber? Possibly. Strong side platoon? Almost definitely. The guy was what, 23 years old in 2014?

It was a nice play but not spectacular. Diving means little to me. I spent the late 90s and early 2000s living amongst Angels fans who wouldn't shut up about Jim Edmonds. Yeah, he was a good defender. He also dove for many balls that Torii Hunter caught at a jog. It looks good on a highlight reel but it doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Agreed. I don't like Sano in the OF but I *hate* Molitor's statement. Not only was it unnecessary, it seems like a bad decision.

He played nine games at third, Dave. That's not SSS, that's irrelevant data and tells us nothing.

I wasn't a big fan of the Hicks trade. My argument isn't that I like Sano in the OF - I've been pretty vocal about not liking the decision - it's the assumption the team is better with Kepler replacing Plouffe on Opening Day. That's a big assumption.

He'll certainly be better than Sano in right but Miguel might be a disaster at third, offsetting any gains.