Riverbrian

It was giving up Turner and Ross for him where they lost me. Souza vs. Myers... I'm probably taking Souza. I realize the deal was more complicated than just that.

I remember the Myers, Turner, Souza trade... In hindsight that sure turned out to be a goofy trade for the Rays. If the Twins are able to strike a deal with them for a pitcher. I hope the Rays are still just as bad at making deals.

I've figured it out. He is meeting with teams in order... based on the size of contract. Working from least amount offered to largest amount offered. The Twins will be the last team he meets with. I hope nobody takes this post... or any post of mine... seriously.

Personally, I'm not going to worry about a meeting... that much... at least not yet. Maybe one is scheduled for later. Maybe the Cubs and Astros need the meeting to throw a hail mary because they are behind. Maybe the Cubs and Astros need the meeting because they are offering less and they have some B.S. to peddle. Maybe the Cubs and Astros need the meeting to get a quick assessment on probability before determining if they need to move on to Arrieta or Cobb. I'll worry later. Although... it sure would be a lot easier if we didn't have 29 other teams to contend with on EVERYTHING!!!

Pay the Man He's earned it

So if we need 24 of them... Asking for 7 seems reasonable.

We don't seem to be too far away. As long as neither of us assume that either of us is not advocating doing it only with bullpen or ignoring the bullpen entirely. I'm a 25 man guy I want 25 men on the roster who can all contribute to victory. I'd like the Twins to top the Astros in all phases. I'm praying that we sign Darvish. I just don't believe that Money that was previous allocated to filling out a bullpen is sustainable at that budget rate anymore for any team... and absolutely not... for any team that considers themselves contenders.

Kab repeatedly asked for some sort of tangible proof of a correlation and that's why I asked him to do the same thing to support his side and that was the context for the quote you highlighted. My contention is that you will not find that proof either way because this is such a new thing. Kab has my respect... I think he's very knowledgeable but he was a little heavy handed asking for proof without proving his opinion. (Which I respect without proof because I'm sure he came by it honestly). I'm not contending that a bullpen is the single most important thing. It may come across that way because I'm strongly advocating the need for it. I liked what you put together (Gave you a like) and I appreciated your effort but limiting the discussion to the past 4 world series winners makes what is already a too small sample size even smaller by ignoring the Yankees Bullpen last year and the Indians Bullpen Last Year and the Year before that. The set of data is just too new since it seemed to start with the Royals. I come by my opinion honestly... I watched the Royals in 2014 do amazing things with a bunch of young energetic position players that were able to put up crooked numbers with a very average starting rotation still keeping it close. Then that scary bullpen would hit the stage and they overcame the average rotation and almost got the job done if it wasn't for Bumgarner and then get the job done in 2015 against the big scary Mets rotation. I watched the Indians acquire Andrew Miller in 2016 and then I watched Francona put him in the game in the 4th inning and then leave him in for the 5th and 6th before turning it over to Shaw or whoever. I watched Francona put Miller in the 7th inning the very next day when everyone would assume he was toast and I realized that Francona just created a new valuable thing and everybody needed one. It's my opinion... that if the Twins would have acquired Miller under similar circumstances. He would have been the traditional 8th inning set up guy or closer and locked into that role. Francona showed everyone a new way to do it. Put him in... regardless if the team was ahead or behind. Use him when it matters no matter what the inning was. I watched the Yankees take the bullpen to perhaps a higher level still last year. Adding Robertson and Kahnle to Chapman, Betences, Green and Warren. I believe the prices will continue to go up and I believe that results will be inconsistent or volatile because players are inconsistent and volatile when you are using 50 to 70 IP's or 100 to 200 AB's data sets. However... I am not advocating ignoring the rotation or any other position from Shortstop to the I.T. department because it can be done with a bullpen alone. BTW... I'm Ok with the Rodney Signing.... I'm just really really pro bullpen.

Ouch http://a.fod4.com/misc/Punch%20Friends%20Bubblewrap.gif

You keep asking us bullpen supporters to show a correlation between bullpens and winning. That's going to stop us all dead in our tracks unless someone pours through the necessary research or finds someone who knows what they are doing and pours through the necessary research and publishes it for us to regurgitate. I think it's fair to return the request back at you. Please show some correlation that a bullpen doesn't produce winners. The best bullpen argument I can make is this: Jake McGee RP 31 Rockies 3 years $27,000,000 Bryan Shaw RP 30 Rockies 3 years $27,000,000 Brandon Morrow RP 33 Dodgers 2 years $21,000,000 Tommy Hunter RP 31 Phillies 2 years $18,000,000 Pat Neshek RP 37 Signed Phillies 2 years $16,250,000 Joe Smith RP 33 Signed Astros 2 years $15,000,000 Anthony Swarzak RP 32 Mets 2 years $14,000,000 Steve Cishek RP 31 Signed Cubs 2 years $13,000,000 Luke Gregerson RP 33 Signed Cardinals 2 years $11,000,000 Brandon Kintzler RP 33 Agreed Nationals 2 years $10,000,000 Yusmeiro Petit RP 33 Signed Athletics 2 years $10,000,000 Hector Rondon RP 29 Signed Astros 2 years $8,500,000 The Rockies, Dodgers, Phillies, Astro's, Mets, Cubs, Cards, Nats and A's are disagreeing with you by the contracts they are offering. Those front offices might be going through that research that you want H2O to provide you. Then again... they might not. I totally respect your position when you state that you would spend money/resources making starting pitching a priority. I don't disagree with that. However... The KC Rotation in 2014 or 2015 wasn't lights out. The Indians rotation was decimated in 2016. The Bullpens got them there. I just don't think you can elect to spend less in the bullpen on purpose anymore. I also agree that the 9th inning is way overrated... I don't care if Rodney is in the 9th... I want additional guys who can get a big strike out in the 7th... Protect a lead in the 6th. Stop a bad 1st inning with a great 2nd and 3rd inning. I want a bullpen full of these guys. I admit I can't predict who those guys will be but I do expect the front office to try in this day and age. At least... I expect the front office to try... until someone can prove that Kansas City and Cleveland bullpens didn't overcome a weak rotation and help them immensely.

David Price Jason Heyward Chris Davis Justin Upton Jordan Zimmerman Jeff Samardzia Wei-Yin Chen Mike Leake Alex Gordon Ian Kennedy Ben Zobrist Scott Kazmir John Lackey Denard Span Yiesel Sierra Just listing another 15 from 2015 to provide food for thought. Maybe Multi Year Contracts are just plain risky all around. However... Multi Year Contracts are the cost of doing business.

You can't win unless you try.

I think Realmuto is one of the top catchers in the league. He reminds of a young Mauer. However... I personally would be against going after him because he will be expensive and I will never advocate paying big sum's of money/talent for a catcher regardless of how he ranks against his peers. I believe that Catchers should be home grown. If you are not growing them... get better at it. Grow your own catchers and maybe you can take advantage of the position scarcity price tag in a trade someday instead of paying the price.

I imagine that the free agent signing dance has a certain timeline to it that will go at it's own pace. I'm not going to worry because I'm sure Falvey and Lavine have the phone number of his agent. However... At this point... I'd prefer if Falvey and Lavine find out exactly where Yu Lives and then buy the homes on either side of him. Falvey moves into one and Lavine moves into the other. Exchange recipes... host block parties and give sage advice over the fence. http://www.rvgfanatic.com/mediac/400_0/media/DIR_1188315/WilWilJr.JPG

Not only is my head wrapped around it. I'm scratching other teams off the potential list and it's dwindling down. Dodgers and Yankees are going to try and stay under the cap. Red Sox are focused on hitting... JD and Hosmer should be priorities over Darvish and they probably don't want to go over the cap either. Cubs are possible but I think they will offer a bargain price instead of max price. They were willing to let Arrieta and Davis walk and potential payroll was probably why. Giants want hitting. D-Backs want J.D. Lots of the usual suspects may be sitting this one out.

We must have been reading different stuff. The Giants may have been dwarfed by the Dodgers love but nobody was talking D-Backs. Everyone had the Giants penciled in for 2nd place in the NL West with the Rockies as the new darling darkhorse. The Tigers were the clear 2nd place in the Central team because nobody liked the Royals, Twins or White Sox. And Everybody loved the moves made by Dipoto so I read Mariners enough times. Anyway... There is no doubt that superior talent wins out over 162 games. The trick is predicting who will be that superior talent in 2018. It doesn't always match up with what the predictors predict.

I agree but also believe it will be impossible.

Yep And the Blue Jays, Rangers, Mariners, Tigers, Mets, Cardinals and Giants.

I agree that Ryan gets slammed harder and more often than he deserves. However... I intentionally bolded three words of your paragraph. Nick is right... We better spend on some pitching because you are also right. "We are way better than that"

I've never known Baseball to go as predicted. Personally... I won't hand Cleveland anything. They still got to earn it.

One year deals are always preferred. However... it does appear that one year deals won't get the deal done anymore for decent bullpen.

I agree that Cubs didn't have the best bullpen in 2016. However... I shudder to think what would have happened if they didn't give up Glayber Torres to improve it. I also contend that the Indians had a fantastic bullpen and they almost won it all because of Miller, Allen, Shaw. Otero and McCallister. Kluber was great. The other two guys they had starting were Tomlin and Bauer. When building a roster... you want to turn on all the spigots. FA, IFA, Trade, Draft and Develop, Rule 5. You don't want to ignore or turn off any of the spigots. Same thing when it comes to: The ways you win a ball game. You want to crush them with your bats. You want your starters to hang zero's and you want to suck the life out of them by giving them very little hope of coming back against a killer bullpen. When they get down because you built a lead after crushing them with your bats and your starter hung some zeros. It is sure nice to have a bullpen full of arms to choose from. It is also nice to have them when you don't crush them with your bats and your starter doesn't hang some zero's. P.S. The Dodgers and Astros bullpen may have under performed a little in the W.S. but there was clear effort taken by the GM's to stack them up and the Astros were one of the teams that just spent 7 Million Plus AAV for two years to get Joe Smith. Also the Giants bullpen in 2014 was nothing to sneeze at. It was loaded. There is simply no excuse for any contending team to Craig Breslow the bullpen together any more. Bullpens may be fungible but they need to be fungible at a higher level.

The Cubs going after Darvish has become the most recent rumor. If true: What does that say about Arrieta? To me it says we'd rather pay a lot of money and a little bit more to a pitcher that we haven't worked with before. To me it says... We have the money to spend on a pitcher... we just won't spend it on Arrieta. If it's not True: It says that the Cubs are trying to lower the price on Cobb or Arrieta or Darvish agents are trying to up the price on Darvish.

The Braves took on 51 Million of contracts that expire this year. The Dodgers took on Kemp who has 43 million left that is spread over two years. The Braves chose to take a heavier hit this year to be lined up as a potential buyer in the big FA Class next year. The Dodgers with the trade were able to get under the luxury tax and avoid the penalty for the 1st time in awhile and that luxury tax penalty increases for consecutive years over. Do the Twins want Kemp? Only after he is released and available for the minimum and even then... I'm not sure I'd want him because Grossman/Vargas may be better. Or as Nurse suggests... Trade Phil Hughes for Kemp but make the Dodgers throw in a very very very nice prospect or... no deal. DO YOU HEAR ME FRIEDMAN!!! The Twins would add 8 million a year for the next two years and In return: The Twins would get a player that has a chance of producing something for a lot of money (Kemp) instead of a player who may not produce at all (Hughes) for a lot of money and a top 100 prospect. The Dodgers would lose a prospect but they will cut an additional 8 million of payroll this year and next year. Tack that 8 million to the 23 million that will be coming off the books next year (Ryu, Forsythe, Arruebarrena) and the Dodgers have 31 million that could make them players for Harper and still stay under the luxury tax threshold. It would have to be a real nice prospect or it wouldn't be worth the Twins time or attention.

Sabathia signs a deal with the Yankees. That might take the Yankees out of the Cole sweepstakes. Might... I have no idea.