Riverbrian

If you want to know where you are and why you are there. You must know where you've been. Things that you have touched on... Have ramifications being felt today. We have built no value. We've have consistently exhausted our assets Garza/Young trade - It's easy to minimize this deal as a simple bad trade... It was a bad trade. 11 years later, it's even worse when you trace what the Rays still have and what we still have. Matt Garza is still giving to the Rays with Glasnow, Meadows and Shane Baz. Carlos Gomez 9 years later is still giving to the Brewers. Josh Hader, Ben Gamel and Adam Houser are with the Brewers today. I encourage everyone to trace the trade trees. I've done it... it takes your breath away a little. Look at what we hold today and what other teams are holding and you realize soon after that maximizing value was something we were terrible at and this is a major reason we are still wondering what kind of team we have in 2019.

Or somebody besides Machado and Harper. I’m sure they have projections and I’m sure different doors of different considerations surprise them all the time. Having some extra financial flexibility is a good thing. Regardless if they spend it or not because you have the option to spend it. If you don’t have it... you don’t have the option to spend it. Even if they don’t spend it. I don’t what their budget guidelines are. I don’t know if it’s a loose guideline or a hard guideline but I’m reasonably sure that the Twins won’t spend what the Red Sox are going to spend and that creates a self imposed cap. The millions they got back from Hughes May be used for whatever falls into their lap because it increases payroll flexibility no matter how much Mauer money came off the books. Who knows maybe the Hughes money paid for Cron and the plan to use the Mauer money or a portion of is still available for Cruz and bullpen help. I don’t know what the plan is but getting money back compared to not getting any money isn’t a bad thing. The question is... what is the value of the draft pick they coughed up? I’m not going to assume the Hughes money was just acquired for the sole purpose of going into Pohlads pocket.

I could see ownership asking to salvage what they could. I just can't see hanging on to him longer than necessary because ownership is too cheap. Heck, I'd ask them to salvage what they could. And it's 6 million that could be used this year... or not. You never know what you need until you need it.

It could be validation of the signing. Nobody wants egg on their face if they project the player to produce this and they are not... they let them keep going until they produce it. Of course, if they don't ever produce it... that only increases the pure volume of egg on their face. See Logan Morrison as an egg provider. Paying money for a failed player is a survivable mistake but playing a failed player because you paid the money is a fatal mistake. The first mistake costs you cash... the 2nd mistake costs you cash and wins. Also players with options can be moved when a player who doesn't have options can't... This might also be a factor in some of the decisions that are made. But... the driving factor in my opinion... with nothing concrete to base it on... just a spidey sense... is that there seems to be a strong desire for veteran players that comes with a long leash and tolerance of the vets. Coupled with intolerance for any mistake made by a newer player fighting for a job. I have nothing to base that on other than random public comments from Gardy and Molitor about Cuddyer as a rookie and Cuddyer as a vet (and others) (and just for example)... I could be way off base so I'd hope nobody takes issue with this basic assumption. All in all... after researching the Twins roster habits for the past decade... I've kinda come to this conclusion. The Twins staff rosters a lot like I purchase my cars. I buy used and I run it into the ground and then I buy used again and run into the ground and repeat. Not alot of value left over taking this approach and that's part of the reason we can't seem to produce a superstar, trade for a superstar or trip over one by accident. We just drive our used cars around with no expectation of our used car... other than it shows up and does whatever it does. If you don't increase value... you have nothing to offer anyone to get value back.

Yep. Not just Puig as you know. Joc Pederson who was a heralded prospect took on a diminished role instead of suffering with his struggles. AGon was gone quickly and the list goes on and the roster spots go to players actually getting it done. The Dodgers have money to fill rosters. They shouldn’t have room to find a Muncy. The Twins don’t have that kind of money and have under performance spanning decades that cry out for the discovery of. We should have plenty of room to find a Muncy but we consistently don’t. As a result the Dodgers are always drafting after us round after round and they find the Bellingers and Buehlers and the Twins consistently don’t. I don’t know why they beat us at everything but I believe it starts with simply playing the players who are playing better. The Dodgers do that and the Twins don’t. The Twins play who they think should be playing better. (Fist Bump)

There were a few but I suspect they were part of the scouting department who recommended the trade to Terry Ryan.

Those who live near the Morin will eventually end up in the Morin.

I remember there being quite a discussion between the two sides and there were two sides. I know because Chief and I were on one side. I stand here with hindsight, foresight, and just plain ole' sight. In my opinion, the trade was terrible at the time it happened and has advanced to gruesomely painful as of December 21, 2018. We traded a 5 tool player who was just starting to figure it out for a one tool position scarcity overpay catcher. Our track record with these 5 tool CF's is beyond gruesomely painful. Aaron Hicks should be in a General Managers pamphlet explaining how to get absolutely no value from your 1st round pick. The Twins rushed him to the big leagues before he was ready... gave him the starting CF job with no safety net for 3 years straight and he looked completely lost at the plate in the process. and then when he finally started to produce... and you could even see that he wasn't looking lost at the plate like before. They trade a 20/20 maybe 30/30 potential player for a catcher that could maybe hit 10 home runs if everything went perfect. And then they hand the CF job to a younger Byron Buxton, rushing him to the big leagues with no safety net for 3 years straight and he looks completely lost at the plate in the process. Make the same mistakes over and over again. And before that... Carlos Gomez was another example of rushing with no patience. How many times can we repeat the same mistake over and over again has become a legitimate question. Yeah... I was against the trade... still am. Kinda pissed about it actually. Then and Now.

The ownership "demanded"? This makes it sound like he was parent demanding his kids eat Broccolli and the kids choked it down in protest. He announced it the day Terry Ryan was fired/stepped down. He re-affirmed it in a letter to season ticket holders (along with a pledge to pursue pitching. ) And he was then asked about it consistently by reporters afterwards. I think it would be safer to imply that Pohlad named the 2019 Manager before he named a President of Baseball Operations and before the POBO named a GM. I won't argue that he was out of order in a stupid kind of way but... Falvey would have walked into that interview wide-eyed and well aware who is manager was going to be. Paul Molitor was going to be part of the package of a job offer that he took just like Joe Mauer was going to be his 1st baseman. He knew that as well. To answer your question... I did... but not clarified enough I guess. I don't know for certain... but 6M dollars will spend and just because you say they won't spend it doesn't mean that they wouldn't spend it. It was May... not happy with the record obviously but they were also a hot streak that never came away from contention. If in contention that 6M gives them additional flexibility to maybe trade for and pay for additional help for the stretch run. If you don't have the 6M you have possibly reduced options. Every team has a budget some are hard budgets and some are loose but teams have budgets and 6M spends a lot easier than not having the 6M. The decision does not have to be mandated by ownership. And if ownership is mandating that the team play a failing player and therefore creating losses because he doesn't want to eat the cash. It would make him the worst owner in Sports. Do we expect owners to say "I don't care... you bought him... play him". Do you expect an owner to risk a 100 loss season and the money lost from that... season ticket revenue, parking, hot dogs, beer, jersey sales, corporate sponsorship's, advertising. Do we really expect an owner to risk all of that in pure spite over a line item in a previously agreed upon 2018 budget?

Yep I’m asking the question a lot. Where is/are our superstar/superstars. If we wanted to rebuild (which we didn't) where is/was our player who can/could stock the shelves. Its a fair question.

Good question. I don’t know. Another good question. Why wouldn’t they wait for him to clear waivers. I don’t know either but they wanted a draft pick and that is the only thing I can reasonably bank on.

I never called for Molitor’s head because I didn’t know if it was Molitor or group think but however it was happening... it has to stop and I was just hoping that lessons were learned for 2019. Molitor is gone now... if it happens again... I’ll know it was group think and the lesson hasn’t been learned. Great post. I’m with ya. Secure yer hatches. We will be facing decades of built in resistance fighting the good fight and I could use a hand.

It’s quite possible that the Padres went “What the hell... let’s see” and I believe the draft pick was the primary motivation but... I’ve been making this point and its understood by me that the Padres may not be in tune with my thinking but... There is absolutely undeniable downside to wasting a roster spot on a player who doesn’t increase in value. So I’d guess that the possibility of Hughes increasing in value was why he made 16 appearances.

I remember being for the Nolasco signing and against the Hughes signing so I clearly admit I was wrong. This is also why I'm not zeroing in on specific names anymore and focusing on a big picture fundamentals instead. But Yeah... In hindsight... They took the wrong approach here. When you sign a free agent to a deal. The very nature of what it takes to sign a free agent maximizes their value and it makes it hard to trade them afterwards. But, the Twins never declared a rebuild and instead tried to find competing pieces out of the secondary level. They should have declared rebuild and then went with players that could actually increase in value with opportunity over time. This is a big factor in the slowing down of our rebuild.

As I mentioned in the post above... It may not have been as obvious as you suggest. The Padres didn't release him until August... He made 16 appearances for the Padres.

It doesn't have to be "satisfy ownership" directly. And it's an answer that none of us will be able to provide with certainty. But I'd imagine that both the Twins and Padres have their own valuations and each have a dollar figure attached to the draft pick and this catcher the Twins got in return and the trade satisfied both teams valuations. Teams have budgets, loose or hard but budgets none the less and maybe that 6M could be something we could throw at Free Agents this year (not that they will). Here's another thing to consider... Maybe the Padres called the Twins? Maybe Preller called the Twins and said "Hey Thad... We got some cash to play with here and we lost a draft pick when we signed Hosmer that we'd like to get back. Would you consider trading us a draft pick if we help eat some of that Hughes money and Thad was thought to himself... well we were going to release him anyway. Here's another thing to consider. It has been suggested that it was clear that Hughes was toast in spring training and that is causing the why did we wait to trade him discussion. You need to consider that maybe it wasn't clear. Even after the Twins ate a portion of the remaining contract and traded him to the Padres. Hughes made 16 appearances for the Padres out of the bullpen. The trade was made May 27th... the Padres released him August 16th (August 10th was the DFA date). Bottom Line: If an owner is sitting in his office demanding that a failed acquisition play at the expense of wins and losses just to avoid eating the money. I wish he'd make that public so I can file the divorce papers with certainty and move on to a different club with an owner that doesn't do that. That type of pressure is going to come indirectly from the owners (not just ours but all owners) when the released player regains his value after he was thrown in the garbage. In that scenario, the money will be an issue but secondary to the larger concern about the ability of the front office to make the kind of assessments necessary. In other words fitness for the job. That kind of pressure should make any front office slow down a little before they just start throwing babies out with bath water.

100% right. Expiring contracts in a lost season need to be converted into a possible future value or your standing still. We’ve had a lotta lost seasons to apply this fundamental approach.

It’s the same situation for every team in baseball. If the players perform you win. If they don’t you lose. It’s why teams will ping pong from good years and bad years and everything in between. Injuries and bad play are unpredictable no matter what algorithms project. It ends up being the equivalent of a spin of the roulette wheel. The combination of things that happened to the Twins probably couldn’t be survived but it’s still no excuse for playing failing players everyday and being slow to find a Cave or Astundillo. There is no excuse for the combination of tanking players and the burning of roster spots on players that are not played at the same time. Hiding a rule 5, Rostering a LaMarre, Petit or Motter that isn’t good enough to try or sticking with a Wilson or Morrison. You can say every team does this and you’d be close to correct but I’m telling everyone that the Dodgers don’t and they are closer to bulletproof as a result. They didn’t buy it. They identified Muncy and Taylor and Kike and Justin Turner by simply saying Muncy is out playing Forsythe. Muncy plays more and Forsythe plays less and after years of this approach. They have quality cheap depth in their pocket and the cheap depth gives the ability to burn large dollar amounts on free agents that sometimes don’t perform as expected and survive. I’ve been talking about a lot of things this off season but I can boil it down to two points. Fill the rosters with players that the manager will play and dont waste a precious roster spot. Give the majority of the playing time to the players who are producing more. Don’t let the players take you down without trying something else. This simple step will create depth and speed up any rebuild tenfold. Morrison doesn’t have to be cut. He can just simply play less until he pulls it together or better yet... put him on the DL where he belonged so I don’t have to read about hip pain being the reason his numbers were bad.

I did the research over the summer. I’ll have to see if I can find it and repost it. I did a bunch of research on various things when I got off the game threads in an attempt to find former ground on my concerns. I believe you are somewhat right about the quality of trade chips causing the low amount of trades to a degree not entirely but to a degree. However not having trade chips can be traced as a major issue attached to the previous front office in regards to development, identification and playing time deployment. All this research is the main reason why I’m a broken record on the same subjects over and over again.

Only a few teams are actually trying to have so much quality depth. The Dodgers are one of them and the Dodgers survived horrible injury luck this year. Much Worse than the Twins. What the Dodgers didn't have... that the Twins had coming out of their ears... were players tanking at a very large scale... But again... the Dodgers benched Brian Dozier fairly quickly and turned to Kike Hernandez. Injuries and Bad Play is an excuse that I'm hearing frequently... it's not a valid excuse. It happens every year and the time has come to prep for it in the off season and the time has come to not tolerate sub-par play. There are enough players. This isn't an impossible ask. In the words of Pink Floyd "You say the hill's too steep to climb... Climb it".

I think Brad Wesley had one of those things in the movie Roadhouse. Just in case the Double Deuce missed a payment.

In all seriousness. What Yarn and you are suggesting is a horrible horrifying thought. What you are both describing is dysfunction and an extreme form of it. Pohlad should know by now that mistakes are going to be made. And in any other business, mistakes are going to be made. When you extend someone or sign someone to a free agent contract there are risks involved. Signing Hughes to an extension was a mistake... to keep trotting him out there while he is getting lit up like a X-mas tree is a mistake on top of that mistake and that will kill a business. That roster spot he occupies will keep you from giving the roster spot to someone else who could actually increase in value. Bird is right... This couldn't be a Pohlad thing... If it was... I'll become a Brewers fan tomorrow because our situation would be hopeless. However... I'd be OK assuming that the Twins front office would need to be absolutely sure he is done before cutting their losses. Cutting Hughes and eating the money wouldn't be the problem... nobody would like it but the company has to keep moving forward. The problem would be the paying Hughes all that money and having him sign with the White Sox and then becoming decent again. After Hughes throws a shut out against us... That's when Pohlad calls Falvey into his office and says... that million dollar dump truck you pushed off the cliff seems to be working fine. Our competition recovered it, replaced the spark plug and they just dumped 15 cubic yards of dirt in our parking lot with it.

Million Bucks? That's one special dump truck. I'd like to see what else it can do besides dump things. Also... In your scenario... you are dumping a dump truck! That's like painting a paint ball or shopping for a shopping cart. That's Awesome. OK... I just had to type that... Back to the discussion.