etwink

I don’t know. I think that this article wouldn’t have been written if Santana hadn’t been “our guy”. Looking at comps for Santana, a really good one is Cliff Lee....no one is calling for HIS induction. Johan just had some bad luck: he could’ve been in the rotation full-time one year earlier (his 12-3 year), in 2005 he had an L or ND in about 9 close games which would have cinched his 3rd Cy Young, he has a really mediocre 2007 year, then the exact same thing as 2005 happens to him in 2008 which loses him a 4th Cy Young...and then he gets injured and falls off the cliff. If Santana wins four Cy Youngs in five years, THEN we can all be outraged that a guy with only 140 career wins bombs out of the HOF voting. I feel a lot worse for guys like Jim Kaat, who had a great long career and fell short of the only counting stat that matters for HOF pitchers - 300 wins. Kaat pitched for 25 years - maybe to chase that number - and fell 17 wins short. Imagine thinking about 17 more lousy wins across 25 years....

I also had just read this article and was about to make the exact same reference!! It’s not great to retroactively simply look at the stats and then make a judgement call on a league-wide award. It’s like the Cy Young award that Bartolo Colon won in 2005; every Twins fan brings that up as the worst vote ever, but mostly because it robbed “our guy” Santana. Colon wasn’t a chump that year; the voters were just swayed for non-stats reasons. I wasn’t around to watch it, but Versalles is probably just another example of that. He was deemed the best player on the best AL team in ‘65. Why was that? If you look up and down the lineup, there were a lot of “decent” years, but nothing really stands out. Oliva had the great BA, but didn’t have the great counting stats that should have gone with it (for the time). Killebrew would have been the obvious choice if it had been any other year, but he only played in 110 games and didn’t have the kind of great year despite that in order to sway people (if he hits .300 with 35 HRs and 100 RBI, for instance, he might have gotten it). Bob Allison hit .233. I could go on. So, I expect that the voters just went with Versalles because he had 666 AB and thus great counting stats, especially for a shortstop. At least “our guy” got the award!!

I don’t see this as an indictment of TR per se, but as a view into how “the Twins Way” failed at the point where it could have fuelled a team that was sagging. Good organisations find ways to pull out that last bit of talent out of flawed players; bad ones don’t. Anyone can nail the development of a Joe Mauer, but the Chris Colabello’s of the world will always have a place on a good team. TR’s organisation failed to cop on to the nuance of Colabello’s strengths and thus failed the team. It doesn’t mean that TR was a bad guy. But you can’t have it both ways; you can’t say that HE was a smart baseball person who found talent, but “those other guys” messed up the talent. As the most powerful voice in the Twins org for years, he had the position to influence the entire system. And if the author of the book is right, he did influence it (and the org was confident about the direction), but just in an archaic direction. Smart guy...dumb behaviour.

Cruz has been a great sign and had been amazing specimen despite his age (rubs rabbit foot while chanting “I hope it’s not steroids”). However a re-sign at this point, when we don’t even know what we’d get out of him THIS YEAR, is fairly pointless. The likelihood of us getting an old and slow version is astronomically high, unless he starts employing a faerie to drop pixie dust on him as he power-naps.

Joe Mauer.....the “most underrated” Twin in history?? The guy that literally the entire fan base couldn’t stop talking about (good or bad) for 20 years?? The universally accepted view of “underrated” would be a guy who was ignored but did pretty well in reality. Everyone knew how good Joe Mauer was......they just expected more out of him. Unappreciated? Maybe. Underrated? No.

What was Ryne Harper doing pitching in a pressure situation to a dangerous lefty??? Even in virtual games, Rocco tries to be cute by saving his big guns for later situations!! :-)

Wow. I know that the MLB suspension is affecting people, but come on. Comparing a guy with like 30 innings in the majors to any veteran is the height of folly. Referring to the “small sample size” doesn’t allow you to then ignore it. The next thing you know, someone’s going to write an article rating the Twins on a scale of handsomeness.....

Honestly, I don’t know why people keep reacting to ZIPS projections for minor leaguers. Everyone is flabbergasted about how they project our best guys to, basically, suck if they make it to the majors this year.....when literally ZIPS says this every year! Everyone know that’s ZIPS is just a statistical tool, right? Basically put, statistics assume that everyone will regress to their mean; which is is why every guy who has a breakout is expected to regress the next year....and every guy who had an off year (unless he’s old enough for the statistics to suggest natural age-related regression) will bounce back the next year. I don’t know ZIPS’ algorithms, but I know stats. Also stats doesn’t work well when there isn’t a lot of data (it generally can’t be trusted until there is a bit of history to play off), so the ZIPS folks must be using another method to “water down the numbers” from a guy’s minor league results to estimate how they will do upon reaching the majors. I’m sure that they’ve compared the records of a ton of guys to do this. The problem is that stats don’t know what to do when a guy like Arraez comes in right away and starts raking....so 2019 “came out of the blue”, despite his established hitting and OBP tools. It just made assumptions that had been established for young guys with similar minor league numbers. The same thing goes with the other young guys; the stats are just cookie-cutting them into the algorithm. They will only be trusted once they have a few years in the majors to guide the stats. The bottom line is that ZIPS, and other tools, are they are just a predictor; don’t panic and either throw out the numbers......or put too much stock in them.

I’m not sure which part of this straw man article was the most pronounced; comparing a starting rotation likely built for 162-game success to one that is clearly superior in a short series (apples and oranges) or sharing two videos which were picked solely to make the Astros look 1) foolish and 2) inferior to the Twins. You “might” have a point, but this article didn’t make it. Sorry.

Great write-up, Nick! I think that there has been enough said so far that, anecdotally, people assumed that the Twins had a legit chance....but it’s always nice to get more data! The only bit that I could argue with is that there seems like a bit of wishful thinking with respect to the Yankees pitching and Houston’s hitting w/o banging cans. For the latter, all I can say is that I’m sure there will be an effect, but come on we’re not talking about a team filled with Nick Punto lookalikes who have never faced pressure! Yes, we don’t know how good Jose Altuve (or whomever) will be but he’s not going to be replacement-level, and their pitching will still be great, minus Cole. For the former, you can’t look at the Twins pitching and say that they’re going to really be great once Pineda and Hill are ready in May or June, but then say that the Yankees are screwed because they are looking at the same for Paxton and Severino (though I realise it could be much worse for Severino). If everyone is healthy by the all star break, they will TORCH the AL East and be just fine for the playoffs. I love that we can actually debate this, but I don’t think that we can be better than 3rd in the AL at this point in spring training.

Exactly what I was going to say - waaaaah??? The Twins, with barely enough pitching to seriously call themselves WS candidates, only a couple legit starting MiLB options, and having just traded their #1 pitching prospect, can not afford to swap a prospect for ANOTHER outfielder! It’s literally the Twins strongest position.

Totally agree. The point of this article wasn’t Berrios’ salary, but instead it was around his performance and whether he was a risk for an extension. I think the point was well made - despite how much I hope that it doesn’t turn out to be correct!! Having said that, if he’s not extended it’s not because the “evil management” just stuck it to another “poor working-class athlete”. This isn’t the 1950s, when guys had to have winter jobs just to make ends meet; Jose Berrios is going to make 10s of millions in his career AT WORST and retire with more money than most of us will make in a lifetime. This bleeding-heart mentality for the athletes belies the fact that there are rich baseball players AND rich owners; you can debate to your heart’s content about who is getting the bigger slice of the pie but anyone who has a decent baseball career should at least be setup for long-term financial security. We can’t relate to people in modern sports (for instance recall that ex-Timberwolf Latrell Sprewell infamously said he needed to “feed his family” when turning down an $7M/year contract....we can’t understand their world); stop trying to make them out to be blue-collar workers in a sweat-shop.

I agree with 2/3. The Twins need at least one established SP to take a significant step forward, or else we’re looking at another disappointing Fall (unless the offence just scores 10 runs per game, which would be great), so Odorizzi is as good a choice as any. Buxton is an obvious choice and has been talked about endlessly. I wouldn’t have gone with a minor league SP though. Not because I’m down on Thorpe, but because the Twins have pulled in so many established SPs, who are going to be given the chance to make good, that I just don’t think that one of the few minor league options will be able to pitch enough to make that true “X-factor” difference. Sure things can change and injuries happen but if that’s your rationale then you could throw in Rooker or Kirilloff there if you are playing that angle. think that Sano or Rosario (both of whom could be argued to have not done their best the last couple years) are much better choices because they are much more likely to be around enough to actually have the chance.

Yes, this is the big takeaway from the article! Hahaha I do like the pinstripes, though. Seriously, the whole reason why you bring in the “old dudes” is because they aren’t worried about making the team, firstly, and then you just avoid the guys who want to “get theirs”. The Twins have done an excellent job of getting the right old guys to help the young guys relax a bit. Secondly, these guys are helping to bring a swagger to the Twins that I’ve not seen before, and is really exciting. Gardy’s best teams were filled predominantly with “team first” good guys who generally did their jobs and didn’t make a fuss, but honestly weren’t the most savvy or intelligent....well, because they followed the lead of their manager. Gardy was a good guy, but would he have brought in new systems and ideas to break guys out of moulds and challenge them to be better than they were? Of course not. It’s a great time to be a Twins fan....especially given the state of the Wolves, Wild and, arguably, the Vikings.

Jeremy, I like the thought that went into this. Your premise that the current schedule and playoff system looks either boring or flawed is sound and rather than just come up with something conventional, you went totally against the grain! With the rule for brainstorming being “don’t critique”, I’ll just say that there are a lot of elements that I’d like to see happen. I think that the biggest issue for any changes like this is that it either bends or breaks baseball’s continuity to the past, which I personally think is one of the sport’s primary selling points. Want to shorten the schedule? Sure, but those of us who like counting stats won’t be able to compare people from the past. Want to lengthen the playoffs? Sure, but again you blow a lot of counting stats and potentially make the regular season meaningless (like can be argued with the NBA). I personally think that baseball is heading for significant change; I just hope that Manfred has smart guys working for him because I don’t really trust him to make great decisions.

I’m not sure if Nick was being ironic or purposely had three pitchers as the picture for the article. Either way, this team’s long-term success will sink or swim based on its ability to translate starting pitching prospects into solid major leaguers. You can cast your eyes around the roster and see young guys who (for better or worse) will be with us for years. The OF is so locked in that we will have to trade talent just to open up the roster for Larnach or Kirilloff. The IF is completely blocked either with long-term contracts and stud players, so there is currently no room for #1 prospect Lewis at the moment. Catching could be viewed as an organisational weakness, but you really only need two out of Garver, Jeffers and Rortvedt. Anyone extra can be stashed in the DH spot once “Father Time” retires. Finally, the bullpen is brimming with current talent and young flame-throwing options. But....then you stop on the starting pitching and you see a bunch of “hopefuls” on 1-year, make-good contracts, a couple mid-level guys on multi-year contracts, our best guy not locked up long-term, and (if I want to be unfairly pessimistic) a bunch of young #5 starter options. Then you go to the minors.....and you see promise, and all you can do is hope for the best!! You just can’t assume that minor league pitching results will translate, to the same degree that you can with hitters. For every “can’t miss” hitting prospect like Billy Beane who fails (just look up his stats...or watch MoneyBall), there are dozens of pitching prospects who never figure it out. Pitchers are just funny that way. Given the price of starting pitching, the Twins’ talent development organisation will make or break this team’s promise. We’ll either be shelling out $15M/year on a succession of #3 guys just to keep up with the hitters, a la Gardy’s best teams, or we’ll translate all of this talent into cheap, long-term viability and then we’re talking World Series for years to come. Flip my entire comment on its head and you really, really have to like this team - now and in the future. It’s going to be fun to be a Twins fan!!

This is a fascinating subject and a concept that has caused me to scratch my head for years. In fact I can recall reading the Strib in the mid 80s and seeing Sid Hartman plug guys “who were burning up the minors” and were soon to be in the majors....only for them to never make it! Now this probably highlights more the poor minor league system that the Twins had at the time, and how much of an insufferable homer Sid was. with that in mind, it’s always bothered me that talent evaluators get weak in the knees for a snot-nosed kid who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, but destroy a guy in the high minors because they aren’t a Cy Young candidate (hello Brusdar Graterol?). I get that people draft on promise, but it’s maddening to see people who have accomplished very little get ranked higher than someone who has shown a thing or two. There had to be a balance, so that we can find the diamonds in the rough, and at the same time not over-value “our guys” and just see them wilt in AAA rather than trading one or two when their value is still relatively high.

I’m sorry Nate, but your article didn’t “reveal” anything. The article felt more like you came to an independent conclusion and filled in a story to justify the position. There seems to be a trend in TD articles over the last few months that either poke fun at the reactions of the community, with a “TD readers are weird” title, or seek to analyse the reactions of that community, with a “TD readers overreact” title. This, along with the recent “don’t call Buxton ‘injury-prone’” article would be an example of the latter. I know that healthy communities can self-analyse and poke fun at itself, but when there seems to be more and more of these articles, it starts taking on an elitist feel where the people writing the articles are making fun of the poor slobs who read and comment on the articles. Just my opinion.

Totally agree. As we have been told so much about our stocked farm, 2021 is where those prospects have to start making an impact. Pulling in $40M of free agents is great, at some point you’re at risk of keeping guys in the minors too long.

Like Darius, I agree and disagree. I reject the straw-man concept that was built that we can only call a guy “injury-prone” if he happens to injure himself in the same way or in just his arm / leg all the time. Instead, the fact that he had had so many freak injuries instead proves the point....he’s prone to injury. It doesn’t have to a naughty word! Buxton needs to figure out how to stay on the freaking field 140+ times a year or his career will devolve into a “what if” like Mauer or Morneau or Koskie....regardless of how we might think of his play when healthy. On the other hand, we can’t be overly harsh on the guy because he plays at such a high level when healthy. You can’t just give up on him. Buxton is a singular talent; his ceiling is virtually limitless and therefore pinning an ambiguous term onto him is misleading. THIS is why people are frustrated with him getting hurt - the guy is amazing! At the end of the day, Buxton has all of the control here. He will either succeed or fail depending on how well he plays when healthy and how seriously he takes the notion of staying healthy. At some point he needs to own the fact that he seems to attract injuries, for whatever reason, learn whatever lessons there might be to learn, and control the stuff he can control.

Me too. I got Jhoan wrong too. In other news, I’m incredibly excited for this year and keep getting more and more excited!

Ok, so what? Are you saying that you’ll need to see the 2019-2020 off-season repeat itself multiple years in a row before you’ll be willing to drop the “Cheap Pohlad” mantra? Good luck with that.

Totally agree. If you measure “impact” by “we don’t have to put (insert name of Bailey or whomever #5 guy) into the #3 slot in our rotation”, then sure, that was definitely an impact alright and Maeda looks pretty promising. However, if you mean “we’ve just supplanted Berríos as Ace”, which I think that we all were reasonably hoping for, then sorry Maeda doesn’t make the grade. Good pitcher.....not an Ace.

Dude, seriously?? How much does the FO have to spend, and what does it have to do, when... 1) They re-upped Odorizzi for $18M for a flipping 1-year contract. 2) They signed Donaldson to the biggest FA contract in club history, filling a 1B gap that could easily have been filled with a cheap minor league replacement. 3) They currently have the biggest payroll in team history. 4) The payroll could end up in the league’s Top 10 for the first time in God knows how long. 5) Actually came through on their “open window” promise that so many of us were furious about a few weeks back. 6) Pivoted smartly after the “impact pitching” punt didn’t pan out. 7) They’re still in the same small market they’ve always been. I’ve been watching these guys seriously for more than 30 years; this is definitely atypical Pohlad activity.

Matt, this was a fantastic article!! I’ve gotten accustomed to the good old one-point article where the opening and closing were nearly the same statements, substantiated by the aforementioned one point. But you packed and incredible amount of references and conclusions into your short posting, made a solid conclusion that was independent from the opening supposition, and left me wanting more. Excellent writing that should serve as a best-practice for the rest of the site!