LaBombo

Harper played more than he had in any of his previous 8 seasons the first year he arrived, full time from the year after that, and immediately after he left here he went back to not playing nearly as much as he had here. Harper was finally given a full-time job when the Twins left themselves no other alternative to Tim Laudner, who went back to being Tim Laudner in 1989 by batting .222/.293/.351. And Harper's reduced playing time after his very good run with the Twins was due to the fact that he was, at age 34, nearing the end. And even then, he was a better hitter than Matt Freaking Walbeck, the guy with the mediocre minor-league stats who the Twins scouts loved. Who cares about numbers when a hitter's swing looks good?

Having studied statistics in school (I was a math major) I know that statistics can be made to say just about anything you want. They can be a helpful tool, but I would never trust them completely in making decisions. They are an aid to the decision-making process, but not the sole (or even the most important) aid. About the article, well written and cogently argued. That said, how many more "Free Slama" articles are we going to have? At what point does this become dead-horse-beating? Sure you were a math major and studied statistics "in school", sb. And that's how you were able to brilliantly deconstruct the stat-based argument in favor of giving Slama a chance instead of relying on some of the worst pitchers in baseball. Oh, wait. At least one of those things never happened. Also, how many posters can you name who are backing the idea of scouting that's based purely on statistics? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Sure, as long as no solicitors will call on me... Also, make sure your raft is shipshape if you're in the central Pacific. Rough weather ahead.

It's hard to imagine how somebody can think that even an "average" reliever can't possibly offer anything of value to an organization that gave 52 innings of 'relief' work to Jeff Gray, and another 52 to the law firm of Maloney, Manship, and Robertson. And there's hardly universal agreement that Slama could never put together a season that's a tick above average. And if second-guessing the Twins' callups seems trivial to you, just remember that the organization you've invested your blind faith in has brought this on themselves by following up a 99 loss season with another stink bomb effort and a promise by Ryan that virtually nothing will change. In other words, wtf else is there to talk about? The incredibly stupid 'Mauer waived!' story?

Yes, let's trust the Twins to subjectively evaluate another player based on a couple of innings of spring training instead of two years of undeniable success in AAA. After all, the virtually scouting-only approach is working out great again this year, isn't it?

Nice article, but the info on Steve Pearce is not quite correct. He was originally drafted but not signed by the Red Sox in 2004, and then drafted and signed by the Pirates in 2005. He spent 7 seasons with the Pirates organization and earned the dreaded 'quad A' label by crushing AAA pitching but never achieving sustained success in 685 PA's spread out over 6 seasons. He was at the very least a worthwhile gamble by a Twins organization with a serious lack of depth in the high minors.

Because the Twins had to come up with some sort of narrative to support the illusion that his success was sustainable.

+2. That, and let's see him dominate a few lineups better than the Twins before we start planning to mortgage the farm for him. He is the kind of guy they'll probably have to roll the dice on eventually, though.

Bartolo Colon. I will never hear that name again without remembering Dave Wint-hoser's pathetic, submoronic cry for attention that was disguised as a defense of Colon (3.7 WAR) receiving the Cy instead of Santana (6.9 WAR). Easily the stupidest thing I've ever read on the internet.

More deck chair movement. Too bad for Mansihp (sic). "Nice job out there today, kid. The traveling secretary has your ticket to Rochester".

Not sure where I implied otherwise, and it reinforces my point anyway. It's not like an army of Twins scouts scoured the Tigers system looking for a diamond in the rough. They pulled a name they liked less than probable bust Cole Nelson out of their collective @ss and may have actually gotten a pitcher out of it. Good for them. Your understanding of PTBNL looks about right. Here's the wiki link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_to_be_named_later.

Jeff Gray making his case by allowing a leadoff double followed by RBI single. More proof that nobody in this organization has the slightest idea what they're doing...

stringer was referring to Delmon/Oliveros, not Delmon/Barza, is my guess. And that just makes the Delmon episode that much more painful. After all, the deal wasn't Delmon for Lester Oliveros. It was Delmon for Cole Nelson, who is now 22 and still getting his butt kicked in A ball. Oliveros was a PTBNL, for heaven's sake. And that, for me anyway, kills the notion that Bill Smith 'won' the trade with Detroit. If anything, it just shows that even the Twins' bizarre talent valuation was due to hit on a prospect out of sheer luck. Blind squirrel, meet nut.

If you missed it the first time, or just haven't seen it in a while, check out the best Delmon action photo ever:

Are you saying it's ok to sell a.........nevermind. The answer to your other question is yes... it is too soon.

That last sentence is one of the sweetest summaries of Bill Smith's reign of terror I've ever read.

Great. I was just thinking this morning, "What I could really use is another reminder of how the Twins were destroyed by one of the worst GM's in the history of baseball". And here's this awesome thread to do just that! Cool! Bartlett/Garza post-trade WAR: 18.6 Delmon Young post-trade WAR: -0.8 Other people may see this move as a failure, but I see it as an ingenious maneuver by Smith. It makes the +0.4 WAR received in return for a perennial Cy Young candidate look like an absolute haul. Is anybody else discouraged by the fact that the same people who let Bill Smith run the Twins for four years still own this team? Edit: Oops, forgot to include the 0.1 WAR that Lester Oliveros churned out for the Twins in return for Delmon. And DY's WAR total does not reflect today's home run. Still leaning Garza/Bartlett, though.

Are we talking about the same thing? The OP was talking about how surprising the current state of the Twins rotation is relative to how locked in it seemed looking forward to this year from the 2010 offseason, not this past offseason. Following the 2010 season the only lineup issues were replacing Hudson and wondering how much of the team's offensive decline was Target-induced. On the other hand, the rotation was Liriano and question marks. You're right about the hindsight 20/20, dime a dozen on the internet thing. And yet I still reject the idea that a rotation like that of the opening day 2012 Twins built exclusively of guys with a history of falling apart...fell apart... is like being hit by lightning from a clear blue sky. No. It's more like being hit by lightning from a sky like the one that forms over the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Agree to disagree, I guess. If you can look at a kid with 15 innings of AAA, 3 veterans who had collectively managed consecutive healthy, above-average seasons zero times in their careers, and a guy who'd done it once in 13 years and was already in his mid-30's with a drastically dropping K rate... and see a promising, reliable rotation, well, you're more of a glass half full guy than I am. At any rate, you have every right to chalk it up to bad luck if you like. Instead, I see an organization that has shot itself in one foot with a misguided talent valuation philosophy that undervalues pitcher strikeouts (among other problems), and then shot itself in the other with sub-par diagnose and treatment of injuries. Ryan is a huge step up from BS in terms of trading players and signing free agents, but I'm waiting to see some signs that they're moving out of the Dark Ages of baseball before I start doing cartwheels.

You were talking about the Twins front office and their best guess in 2010 what a 2012 rotation might look like. They obviously had no idea what Liriano would do in 2011 and 2012 or they would've traded him after the 2010 season. So your point about "1 good season in 4" is irrelevant. After the 2010 Liriano was 26, a fringe Cy candidate, and cheap through 2012. Alex Wimmers was a 21 year old with 15 innings of A ball under his belt. Suggesting that the front office projected Wimmers as a 2012 major league starter over Liriano at that point is absurd. So your predicted rotation becomes Liriano, Baker, Pavano, Blackburn, and Gibson. Your point was that unforeseeable injuries ruined that rotation. My contention is that even then it didn't look great, and by the end of 2011 it should've been obvious that NONE of those guys could be counted on in 2012. Setting aside that wildcard Liriano guy you forgot about, the 2010 winter meeting FO brain trust was rightly (according to you) counting on these guys to anchor the 2012 rotation: Baker: Almost as maddening as Liriano. Very good stuff, but zero previous seasons in which he wasn't either injured or mediocre. Pavano: Coming off a good season which also saw his K rate plummet by 2.5/9 innings. 36 years old at the start of the 2012 season. Blackburn. One of the most hittable pitchers in MLB, he got worse in 2010. Miniscule K rate went even lower. Gibson: A rapidly rising star, he finished his first year of pro ball in AAA. So Gibson was a promising but unknown quantity who suffered a serious injury. But how on earth can you say that any of the other three tanking was some sort of unforeseeable shock? None of the four pitchers had pitched 200+ innings more than once in the three preceding seasons. And at the end of 2011 it should've been obvious that not a single one of the guys in your projected rotation could be counted on. The Twins responded to their shattered rotation plan by signing Jason Marquis and conceding the 2012 season. That's no big deal if he's just a body while you rebuild, but the Twins haven't behaved much like a rebuilding team. If you think that an organization finds itself with a rotation full of castoffs because of bad luck, you've got to make a better case than that.

Probably a bad attempt at humor? If it isn't, then it's also NOT further proof that the mantle of racism in America continues to pass from the ugly, meaningful kind against minorities to the increasingly more common kind perpetrated by concern trolls like this imbecile trying to create an issue where there obviously isn't one.

Fair enough. It was quality sarcasm; just seemed 180 off the P.T.C argument, ie. the Twins DON'T want them. And I lean heavily toward believing that an organization with a reputation for quality scouting cannot possibly fail so consistently to get strikeout pitchers if it's a priority. We'll have to see where Ryan takes the Twins in the next few years. Organizational emphasis on various kinds of ballplayers aside, Ryan simply exceeds Smith in terms of trading players and signing free agents in my view. It's not that Ryan is a genious; he's pretty good in my book, and looks twice as good as he is due to the blinding contrast between his recent years and the nightmare that was Bill Smith's tenure.

Mauer was a signability pick. Santana was a great move that happened a dozen years ago. The Nathan/FL/BB trade was another great one that took place in 2004. Pavano has provided one ERA+ season above 100 at a cost of nearly $8 million per year. The last 4 are all BS's moves. If you want to make Ryan look better, how about Willingham and Doumit? That would hold more water. That said, I'm happy with Ryan the roster chess player. I'm ready to give up on Ryan the shaper of the franchise's future direction.

Same straw man. More sarcastic clothes. The Twins have had an awful K rate the past three seasons, including distant, dead last in MLB twice. They've usually ranged from mediocre to bad in previous years. Other than that the Twins are a franchise that doesn't value strikeouts as much as other teams, or are plagued by an organization-wide ineptitude at finding guys who can miss bats (good luck with that one), what's the story? Let's hear your theory. And you're at the point where even your sarcasm doesn't make sense. Almost anybody who disagrees with you about the overall organizational pitching philosophy would expect Deron to be saying some shade of exactly the opposite of that. "Pitches to contact. Doesn't walk many. Perfect Twin! Let the defense worry about the high rate of balls put in play and the screaming line drives. It keeps them happy and engaged". Obscure FO non-player talent evaluator: "His K rate is low for a high pick". Radcliff: "Shut up and go get us more beer". There's the sarcastic version of the argument you're failing to put even a tiny dent in.

Nice article, Nick, but there's one part I don't fully agree with. "Nishioka's $3 million salary is hardly a massive burden" Yes and no. You're referring to the 2013 sunk (suck?) cost and its relatively likely modest effect on what the 2013 payroll can buy . Agreed. But when you include the cost of the bidding rights and buyout, the Twins will have blown over $14 million on this guy. To paraphrase the immortal quote by Senator Everett Dirksen, "A million here, a million there, pretty soon you're talking about some real money". Amortizing waste and failure is a way to minimize and sometimes even ignore it. Most people at least acknowledge that Nishioka's utter collapse was unforeseeable, and Hardy's near-AS caliber 2011 was a bit of a surprise. I get that. But there are also plenty of people wondering why the Twins gambled by letting a proven above-average SS go for nothing, then signing a guy who'd never played an inning of American ball in his life to start for an alleged contender while only saving about $1.6 million per year over 3 years. Other risks are even harder to justify. Marquis, Blackburn's extension, Pavano's, Punto before that... the Twins are predictably, reliably p!ssing away a few million 'here and there' every year. It's adding up to "some real money", nearly enough to knock them out of the 2013 market for an ace and place them in the '2nd/3rd starter if you're lucky' market. That's unacceptable.