Brock Beauchamp

Yeah, I think that's best case or close to it.

Considering that last year's staff was roughly -3 WAR (including Corriea and Deduno's positive WAR), it's really not the best-case scenario. To get +8 wins from the rotation, we need less than 1 win over replacement level from each starter. That's far from a best-case scenario.

I'm pretty shocked by this move. I thought they'd try to salvage something out of Worley, not just give up on him entirely. And it's strange that the Pirates didn't simply claim him when he was placed on waivers just six days ago. *scratches head*

Without digging into it, I'd assume that has to do with defense, ie. the Rays are good at it (and therefore less credit goes to the pitching staff) and the Tigers are not-so-good at it (more credit goes to the pitching staff). And then there are ballpark adjustment considerations.

As Chief pointed out, 900 innings is really optimistic but the point is a good one. This rotation, barring complete disaster, will be better than the 2013 version. It's almost inevitable. And chances are it's much better than the 2013 version without being anything better than league average.

I don't find that fun at all.

To quote Terry Ryan: "Jesus Christ, John. You can never have too much pitching." Probably my favorite JR quote ever, even funnier that he said it to Bonnes.

As long as they make room for Arcia, I don't care what happens to Kubel or Bartlett. But if Arcia goes to Rochester... *screams and kicks the cat*

You're being sarcastic but there's a smidgeon of truth in this statement... With an offense this bad, there simply isn't much room to go down. It will take a key injury to Mauer, Dozier, or Arcia to make a significant impact on this offense comparative to last season. The rest of the guys were so bad that it simply doesn't matter. The Twins will pull another .600 OPS bat off the scrapheap and keep on truckin'.

Eh, comparatively speaking and taking position into account, Dozier might be the second best guy. But Arcia is definitely in the conversation. And that's pretty sad, actually.

I agree that the bullpen won't be better through a smaller workload but it *should* be easier to manage at a decent level of performance. It's easier to piece together 3-4 good relievers out of a crop of 6-7 guys than be in a situation where all 6-7 guys are needed on a regular basis. For example, Burton crashes and burns. Slide Tonkin in his place as the setup man. That makes the manager's life a lot easier if Tonkin is in the minors and isn't already slated to pitch 60+ innings in the sixth and seventh innings because starters are lasting an average of 5 innings a start. I don't see the bullpen getting better but I see Nolasco, Hughes, and Pelfrey helping to make sure the best guys get used in later innings instead of constantly scrambling to throw warm bodies on the mound for 4+ innings a night.

The difference between Meyer and Arcia is competing player. Meyer is competing with the likes of Gibson, Pelfrey, and Correia. Correia and Pelfrey should be adequate starters. Gibson is also a prospect and should be in line to get a shot before Meyer, especially considering how he has looked this spring. On the other hand, Arcia is blocked by two bad players. It is not only likely that he's better than Kubel and Parmelee on Opening Day, it's likely that he's much better. The same can't really be said for Meyer, who won't be killed by another couple of months in the minors. Arcia has already dominated every level of the minor leagues and looked like a decent MLB player in 2013. He needs better competition to advance at this point.

The notion of this makes me want to scream. Arcia needs to play everyday. Period.

I agree that the kids need to play but I don't see it being an issue. Gibson is probably the fifth starter. Arcia is almost surely on the roster. Hicks looks to be on the roster. That leaves Tonkin... It's unfortunate that the team doesn't have space for such a promising arm but I can't fault the team for holding on to Deduno/Swarzak/Diamond for a bit at the expense of Tonkin staying in the minors for a month or two. After the last three seasons, the Twins need as many backup plans for the rotation as possible. It will sort itself out quickly enough.

If Meyer is on an innings limit, I can't see how it'd be lower than 170 or so, which makes it (mostly) a moot point. He might miss September, which is no big deal as the Twins will almost surely be out of contention at that point anyway. Let's just hope that he doesn't throw 120 IP in the minors so that he only gets a handful of MLB starts.

Absolutely. Except that in 2014, the next starter in line was the Twins' second best starter of 2013 by WAR. Unless disaster strikes, the Twins shouldn't have to dip below Diamond or Meyer on the depth chart. That's a big step up from De Vries and Albers and a few others who should remain nameless.

And there is no correlation other than uniform. Past underperformance by players has no bearing on potential future underperformance by different players.

And that's just it... The rotation can be worth several wins more than 2013 and still be below average. I don't expect anything better than mediocrity from the rotation and that is still miles above the 2013 squad, which was several wins below replacement level.

Yep. The atrocious play is bound to abate a bit if only through dumb luck. It's a logical fallacy to predict that players will underperform simply because different players in the past have underperformed and happened to be wearing the same laundry. At some point, the Twins are bound to get career-level performances from a handful of players which is enough to propel them above their 2011-2013 levels.

And that's fair... I simply don't believe "worst" is interchangeable with "disappointing". 2011 was both the worst season and the most disappointing season, in my opinion. 99 losses following a playoff season in Target Field's inaugural year. It's going to be mighty difficult to top that season as a fan. This season could be mighty disappointing, I won't argue that. Lots can go wrong with few guarantees from anyone outside of maybe Mauer and Nolasco. If either one of them goes down, all hell could break loose on this season... But one can't predict injury so why bother? On the other hand, something has to break right for the team sooner or later. Last year, Arcia and Dozier were the only real positives (Deduno and Pinto didn't log enough time to matter). Hicks, Gibson, Hendriks, Willingham, Plouffe, Parmelee, Morneau, Pelfrey, and Worley were all massive disappointments. I just listed over 1/3rd of a MLB roster as disappointments. Ugh.

Chris Jonson and Kris Collabella approve of this post.

FG WAR is not a good metric for this argument and Pelfrey, as it is based on what "should" have happened, not what actually happened. And we're talking about what actually happened. Pelfrey was an awful pitcher last season and BBRef WAR grades him as such. Of course, we're not even mentioning the fact that he was bad coming back from surgery and decent once he got his feet under him... Quickly adding up Mauer+Doumit+Morneau+Pinto in 2013 versus expected production from Mauer+Pinto+Suzuki+Kubel, the team looks to lose ~4 WAR, which I think is a pretty fair assessment, provided Kubel doesn't step up in any way (and there is no reason to expect him to do so). It should also be noted that Pinto is only graded at a 1.0 WAR right now. Should Kubel falter (and I think he will), Pinto should be able to make up a lot of ground there. -4 offensive WAR is still far shy of the +8 or so WAR we should see from the starters just through them not being completely awful. Steamer has the four starters (excluding Correia) pegged for about a 5 WAR, which is a whopping +9 WAR over 2013 according to BBRef (excluding Deduno's starts, as he is not likely to be a starter out of Florida but should provide solid production through the season and help ensure that your predicted bullpen regression isn't particularly impactful). And I'll note here that despite my supposed optimism, I'm not using numbers that predict any significant improvement outside of what Steamer uses for their 2014 modeling. No mention of rebounds by Plouffe or Willingham, no improvement from Arcia or Hicks. I cannot see how the offense will be bad enough to erase the huge gains found in healthy seasons from Nolasco, Pelfrey, Hughes, and Gibson versus last year's Pelfrey, Gibson, Albers, Hendriks, De Vries, et al and the numbers back me up.

My argument is technically semantics but it's not a misrepresentation of the point of this thread, which is titled: "Will this team be the worst of the last four years?" By replacing guys who posted a combined -6.0 WAR with guys who are likely to post positive WAR, I don't see how that will happen unless catastrophic injuries happen early in the season. Vegas oddsmakers agree with me, putting the line at 70.5. -6.0 WAR. I think many in this thread are ignoring just how terrible that is and how any improvement into plus WAR territory will mean close to ten additional wins from the pitching staff. Even Drew Butera can't be that bad with the stick to erase that enormous improvement. It took 5-6 guys to combine for a WAR that awful and swapping out Justin Morneau and Ryan Doumit for Kurt Suzuki and Parmelee/Colabello/Herrmann/whatever isn't going to even come close to -6.0 WAR. Not to mention things like Arcia and Pinto getting full seasons (or close to it) and the fact that centerfield can't really get worse than last season. Overall, I expect the offense to end up somewhere close to where it was last year, which was "really bad" but not "historically bad". And the pitching staff should make huge strides, especially if Meyer is called up in June/July. To predict the "worst season in four years", you are expecting regression from every. single. player. on. the. roster. And that's pessimistic any way you cut it.

I'm not arguing they have to be better as a team. I'm saying it will require disaster to be worse than 2011, which happens to be the point of the thread. And it requires a lot of pessimism to believe this team is worse than the 2011 squad.

Ugh. And the betting aggregate is generally in line with predictions. Seriously, Levi. Don't miss the forest for the trees.