Brock Beauchamp

Like I said, I'm not defending their decisions, merely pointing out they had some pretty awful luck at exactly the wrong times.

My greater point is the Royals were outstanding at a few things and those "bad" players contributed in some way. One can't look at the 2015 Twins and say the same (Santana is bad at everything and Suzuki is bad at almost everything). The rotation is adequate. Would I like it to be better? Sure, of course... but I think the most prudent use of resources is to acquire players who fill the biggest needs at the biggest holes.

Excellent point. That's why I don't get too upset if a specific player is not traded away or acquired. We have no idea if either side has a reasonable valuation of the player(s) in question, good or bad. I tend to work in the aggregate because of that lack of information. The Twins need a shortstop. Maybe they get Tulo, great... but if they don't, I will not consider it a failure because we have no idea if the other side is reasonably valuing Tulowitzki (let's say they set the price at Buxton + Berrios and refuse to move from it). But not getting a shortstop at all is a failure. I like certain players and I'd love for the Twins to get them but without concrete information telling us the details of negotiations, it's intellectually dishonest to get mad at Ryan for refusing to sign off on a bad deal. Shortstop is just an example here. The same argument applies to the bullpen and catcher. It's fine to lose out on signing/acquiring a specific player. It's not okay to ignore the problem entirely.

Heh, fair enough. The point was more "when he started striking out people, almost all his stats started improving, traditional or otherwise". Missing bats is not a flukey thing. It's not BABIP where you just happen to find a lucky hole in the defense once or twice a week. Maybe Gibson isn't an 8 k/9 guy - hell, I might even say that's likely - but if he's even a 7 k/9 guy, that's a good pitcher once you factor in Gibson's groundball profile. I don't see Kyle returning to his 5 k/9 ways, at least not in the near future. I'm not in love with Kyle Gibson's potential, my only worry is what replaces him in the Twins' rotation. That's why I'm wary of trading him, though I wouldn't rule it out by any means.

4-5 years is a big "hell no". But given the oddities of the past few years in the free agent market, it's hard to say where he'll end up. I could see him taking a 2-3 year contract as easily as I see him going 4-5 years. I'd be willing to gamble on the 2-3 year deal.

Yes, you expect a few of those runners to score... but not all of them. It comes back to the bullpen. It seems as if everything on this team comes back to the bullpen. Yet, the bullpen doesn't significantly change. Arghblargh.

It's all a bit infuriating, isn't it? You can (maybe) talk yourself out of each decision but when you factor them all together, it makes you want to scream.

Well, here's his xFIP by month: April: 5.65 May: 3.89 June: 2.89 July: 3.05 I'd say that looks like a pitcher who rather abruptly turned a corner some time in May. Not coincidentally, that's exactly when he started striking people out. Also not coincidentally, his July xFIP is still pretty good because it doesn't factor in that Kyle was replaced by a pitching machine in his past two games and that the pitching machine allowed every inherited runner on base to score.

I don't agree with that at all. The Twins don't need an ace, they need a guy who pitches like one at the right time. The Royals made it to game seven of the World Series without a bonafide "ace". They had two very good pitchers and one of them was terrible last postseason. The other guy has been pretty bad this season.

Instead of shuffling a dozen deck chairs (a la the 2014 Athletics), why don't you just skip right to the biggest problems and find a way to acquire Tulo or Lucroy? It makes way more sense to keep your good, young players at a position of relative strength and acquire pieces that fill the biggest holes for the longest period of time possible.

My thoughts as well. He could be a borderline two during his peak seasons. He looks like an above average pitcher. How much above average? That I don't know. His K rate of late is super-promising but I don't think he's elite even if it sticks.

Does he play shortstop, catcher, and fill three positions in the bullpen? Then it doesn't really matter. The Twins have horrible, gaping holes at multiple positions. Picking up a starter doesn't solve any of their real problems.

Perkins doesn't even come into one of those games if the rest of the bullpen isn't a joke. One dominant closer does not a bullpen make. Perkins is good but he's going to make mistakes. And the Twins can't close even most of their holes without completely blowing up the farm. Does anyone really want to see that happen in 2015?

I'm not against a big trade. I could see the Tulo deal working under the right circumstances. I'm also in favor of going after Lucroy or maybe even Wieters if it makes sense. But Hamels? No, man, no. Why?

And that would make more sense if the Twins actually looked like a good team.

I look at that rotation and it instills very little confidence. Hamels and Santana are going into their age 32/33 seasons. Hughes is getting good results but it's not based on solid peripherals. May is good but far from a sure thing. Is that a good playoff rotation in 2015? No, because Santana can't participate in the postseason. Is it a good rotation in 2016? Yeah, probably but it's built on three pitchers in their 30s. That... makes me uncomfortable.

The guy couldn't find the strike zone yesterday. He fell behind over half the hitters he faced. And let's not forget the bullpen's contribution to Kyle's stat line. In his past two starts, Gibson has been credited with five (!) runs that scored after he left the game. Given that it's impossible to be credited with more than six runs after leaving two games, that's... wow. It's just wow. Has he been good his past two starts? No, but I doubt we're gnashing our teeth over his performances if the bullpen didn't allow every inherited runner on base to score after Kyle left the game.

On top of that, it seems to me like the bullpen is killing the rotation. I haven't looked up the stats to confirm this but if a starter leaves a runner on base, it feels almost automatic the bullpen is going to allow that runner to cross home plate. Gibson should have finished the game with a 5.1 IP, 4 ER line yesterday. That's bad but not impossible to overcome on a day when your best starter wasn't on his game and couldn't find the strike zone. So what happened? The bullpen came in and finished the inning with seven runs on the board. That's the type of outing we've come to expect and it's unfair to pin all those issues on the rotation. With that said, the rotation is acceptable but far from dominant. Also, May should be in it.

I agree this team is soft... on talent. Drive to win? I'm sure they have a drive to win. The problem is they have a bunch of mediocre/bad players and the luck well has run dry. I believe Denny Green famously said something that could be accurately applied to the 2015 Twins.

This team was 20-7 in May. A whopping .689 winning percentage. Outside May, the team is 32-39. An ugly .405 winning percentage. Past winning percentages include: 2014: .432 2013: .407 2012: .407 2011: .389 Which of those two winning percentages looks more like the Twins? It sure ain't that .689 number. I don't understand how some people see that and say "go for it" at the expense of young players. I prefer my teams built on talent, not luck.

While I won't defend the Twins' lack of enthusiasm for "going for it" in past seasons, people tend to overlook some of the truly awful luck they had in their best seasons. In 2006, they didn't lose a good pitcher. They lost a phenomenal pitcher, a kid who was better than Johan-freakin-Santana that season (4.5 WAR in a ridiculous 121 IP). In 2010, they didn't lose a good player. They lose a phenomenal player who was challenging Miggy for the "best player in the game" title before an untimely concussion (4.9 WAR in 81 games). No matter whether they went all-in during one of those seasons or not, it's damned difficult to overcome losses of that kind. Teams lose players all the time but it's hard to swallow that in two of your best seasons of the past decade, you lost the best player on your team, a player that was having a season for the ages. But still, more could have been done to shore up those losses. I won't argue that point.

It worked out for KC the second season with Shields but it sure didn't work out for them the first season. I'd prefer to skip that first season when trading away talent. I keep saying it over and over again... The 2015 Twins are simply not that good a baseball team. One name is not going to fix their problems (especially when that name plays at a position of relative team strength). People are too fascinated with a name and not fascinated enough with the gaping holes at catcher, short, and the bullpen. Sure, the Twins can fill one, maybe all three, of those holes (unlikey) but they're not going to fill all those holes and acquire the best SS (Tulowitski) or the best SP (Hamels) on the market. It's not like this is a great (or even very good) team with a few holes. This is a team that is not very good at anything they do. They're not particularly good in the rotation. They're pretty horrible in the bullpen. They're not particularly good at scoring runs. They're not good at hitting for average. They're not very disciplined at the plate. They're not making good use of their team speed. They're not very good at preventing runs in the field. Sure, they had one great month of baseball. I enjoyed the hell out of that month... But there's a reason why they're way under .500 outside of that single month. This isn't a team that likely wins the World Series because they have Cole Hamels on it. This is a team with multiple flaws that are too great to fix in a single deadline. So, shore up the biggest holes, hope for lightning to strike, don't be surprised if it doesn't, and prepare to make real fixes to your biggest problems in the offseason when it's not only easier to do it but often cheaper to do it. I saw all of these issues before the past nine games but after seeing the Twins flounder against some of the better teams in the AL, I don't see how it could be any more obvious the Twins are not built to win in the 2015 postseason. They don't have the horses and one name doesn't change that fact.

As I said in my last post, I'm not against giving up talent but I'd want that talent to fit into specific categories before I traded it: 1. Is not helping the team right now 2. Will not help the team in the next 12 months 3. Is superfluous due to organizational depth If you acquire a pitcher of Hamels' talent level, either Gibson or Berrios might be expendable... But not both of them. The goal is to improve the rotation as a unit, not sacrifice multiple spots to fill one. The net gain there is probably negligible and might actually be in the negative as soon as 2016 or 2017. That's a bad foundation on which to build a long-term contender. Rosario is probably expendable but he's helping the team right now. While I'm not against trading him, I'd prefer to do it this offseason and sacrifice as few 2015 wins as possible. Gibson and Rosario have combined for 1.9 fWAR. In Rosario's case, that's a partial season of just 260 PAs. Cole Hamels has contributed for 2.7 fWAR. I know WAR doesn't exactly translate across league and position but it's a useful tool to gauge whether it's likely you'll see a net gain from a player acquisition. In this case, it's less than 1 WAR, which tells me that if a gain is seen, it's likely to be a small one. Remove any possible contribution by Berrios in 2016 and I don't see this deal working for the Twins. If they were truly on the verge of breaking through in 2015 and challenging the Royals, I might feel differently about it but I look at two teams and see one that is more refined, talented, and built for a postseason run than the other. Cole Hamels moves the needle but not enough that I'd be willing to part with all those good, young players for him. And again, the Twins can keep all those players, pick up a SS and a catcher for less, and pretty easily cover that one win improvement in 2015 (assuming Hamels is worth one win through the rest of the season). We need to stop being fascinated with a name and think about where the biggest team can be found for the least amount of money/prospects. Those gains will be found in the bullpen, shortstop, and catcher.

Notice I said "good young players", not "young players". Gibson is turning into a nice piece, particularly if he continues to strike out hitters. Berrios is a top 20-30 prospect who is on the cusp of entering MLB. Rosario has a few more question marks but because he's capable of playing good up-the-middle defense, he doesn't need to hit a lot to have a lot of value. It's one thing to give up a lot of talent for someone like Hamels. It's another thing entirely to give up that much talent when it's already in MLB or on the cusp of breaking into MLB. If you want to improve the team, give up talent that is going to help you down the road, not talent that is helping today or will help tomorrow (as in, could literally be "tomorrow"). That's enough talent to start rebuilding a franchise in a hurry and right now, I think that's too much for the Twins to give a 31 year old pitcher when they're clearly the second-best team in the division and Hamels won't change that fact.

They'd be fools not to jump at that deal. That's 16 years of control over three good young players plus whatever in Nolasco. The Twins can't afford that deal, IMO. They can give up Berrios or Gibson but not both of them.