Brandon

I figured Sano would be the competition for Plouffe next season maybe not at the onset but someone like Punto could be brought back as a back up/ competition for both SS or 3rd next season and the idea of signing Aledmys Diaz is impressive. I do not see the Twins going big after pitching so maybe Pelfry and another (Hughes likely) to go with Gibson, Dedunno and Corriea and Vanimal, Diamond, Meyer and Albers as the 6th+starter. The Twins cold sign a 1B (Morneau or other) or a bench bat all the same. the main objective for next season is to see if the bats improve (Parmalee, Plouffe, Arcia, Hicks, Colabello to a lesser extent) plus the up and commers (Pinto, Sano, Buxton and Rosales) and the continuance of Dozier and Florimon and the development of Dedunno and more importantly Meyer and Gibson into the rotation.

And that is where our good but inexpensive bullpen would have been a key factor if the Twins were in that game last night.

I was thinking of trying to offer ways to upgrade their formula at the end but i wanted to atleast explain it in full detail I figured the title "as i see it" would imply that i am distancing myself from what they are doing. as far as writing goes, it is not my strongest suit.

Verlanders 4.6 WAR cost 20 million the Twins bullpen cost half that with 6.7 WAR. we have 2.1 more WAR with an extra 10 million to spend. I just compared their value. and I would rather have the extra WAR even though Verlander is more entertaining.

the system works but it needs to be firing on all cylindars and we do need better starting pitchers. I am not debating that.

the other 2 outfielders were Revere and Span. we already had the speed in the OF. we needed some offense. Offense is the next installment.

I agree and i have more on that subject in the last rule of how i see them operate. This all ties together, you can't have 1 rule in their system it takes all of them working together to be more than the sum of their parts. How often have the Twins record been better than the sum of all parts for lack of a better term.

I am sorry if you are somehow offended by how i try to communicate my observations. they are meant to create discussions. but i still have not seen anyone yet show a better observation of how the Twins operate. I have been watching this for years trying to find the patterns and nail down the system as every offseason we all clamor for certain acquisitions and then get something else and wonder what the Twins were thinking. I am putting my observations out there to see if anyone has better insights to their system cause they definately have a school of thought as they don't very from their plan.

If you go back through the game logs of when Hernandez pitched for the Twins. He only gave up 4 runs in 1 of the 10 wins and 3 earned runs in 2 of the other wins. the other 7 wins he had with the team he gave up 2 runs or less. Hernandez was not a great pitcher in terms of stuff but he did have the ability to compete and with the defense behind him he won more than he lost. yes he did have a lot of games where he pitched 5 innings and gave up 7 runs. But he was able to chew innings in a lot of those games to help save the bullpen too. He is a perfect example of the type of pitcher the Twins go for.

Defense doesn't win games is absolutely wrong. and I am not saying having a better k rate wouldn't help the staff. The bullpen k's people at a pretty good rate and it is good. What I am saying is: The Twins build their staffs by looking at the aggregate team Run Average and go after a less expensive shorter contract requiring starter who will be around a league average type (Corriea, Pelfry, Pavano, Livian Hernandez, even the ones in trade Silva, Mays, Blackburn, Rick Reed) Hernandez won 10 games with us a few years back. He needed all the offensive and defensive help he could get to get there but he also gave us innings, did not strike out that many, didn't walk many, did have a high ERA, He was successful because he had enough successful starts that resulted in a win than he had horrible starts that resulted in losses. Would I advocate signing him again? no but his signing is explained by the rules above whether you agree with them or not they are what they are. All of the starts listed fit the mold of the types of pitchers the Twins acquire...Scott Backer, Slowey, Radke also fit that list.

Last week I posted the 1rst rule here if you want to go back and review http://twinsdaily.com/minnesota-twins-talk/9066-terry-ryans-rules-constructing-low-cost-risk-averse-winner-i-see-part-i.html Basically it stresses the importance of a bullpen and going for average starting pitchers. To make the starters better or to give them a better chance to succeed the Twins stress 2 things, do not walk anyone and do not make defensive mistakes. While there is plenty of statistics out which are able to help determine who is good defensively and who isn't. There is no statistic developed yet to determine how each defensive play affects the outcome of the game. The closest one to that is the one Twinsgeek has written about more than once regarding runs scored in these situations with runners on base and number of outs. (I can see that as being one of the major stats the Twins use too as we'll talk about that more on offense). (Also if Twinsgeek is reading this can you provide a link to your study below in comments) If there is a runner on 1rst and the batter hits a ball to right CF and Hicks is able to make a running grab with an outstretched dive and get the 2nd out vs being an ave defensive CF who misses the ball and it turns into a 2b with runners at 2nd and 3rd and one out. How will that affect the pitcher and how will that affect the hitter coming to bat, this is how a team falls into a hole they cant get out of with that next hit they give up, which could turn into another.....or with the catch we now have the 2nd out and a runner on first. The Twins have always been known as being a good defensive team. That is a big part of the term "doing things the Twins way" that has been attributed to them. In the early 2000's when the team started winning we had Torri Hunter in CF and Jacques Jones in LF, Koskie at 3rd who went from being below average to near elite, Mientkewicz who probably should have won a gold glove, Guzman and Rivas weren't bad either. then we added Punto who was great defensively, Morneau replaced mientkewicz and became above average defensively until his injury. Crede who was signed as a FA was excellent defensively if he could play. Looking forward there is real promise as we have Buxton for CF and hopefully Hicks for LF, Dozier and Florimon are both above average and borderline elite at 2nd and SS. The Twins are really pushing defense on Sano in the minors with the hope he can be average to slightly above average with the glove as he already has a game changing bat, imagine his value if he was elite defensively too. Mauer is also gold glove candidate the question seems to be will he still be behind the plate when the Twins are restructured to win again? That gives the future Twins 5 potential gold glove candidates on the field all at premium defensive positions (Mauer C, Buxton CF, Hicks LF, Florimon SS, and Dozier 2B) 1b is still a major ? moving forward so we don't know how the defense is going to play out. same with RF will it go to Arcia? will he move to 1b or DH and will Rosario be in RF? The overall point is that a strong defense will convert more batted balls into outs thus limiting runs scored further. This plus limiting walks will help make average starting pitchers better. This also makes it more likely that the average starter will succeed when he pitches, and that validates the 1 rule on pitching. And now you know how and why Ryan goes after the pitchers he does. Whether you agree with it or not this is his philosophy based off of his actions of play acquisitions . But there are more rules to building a winning team to come....

I don't see the posting fee breaking 40 million by that much. only one team was willing to post 50 million when Yu posted. wasn't second place around 30 million? The only team with that kind of money available not in Minnesota is the Yankees and they are drawing back. the dodgers are saving for Kershaw, the Rangers are near their 125 million target and the angels are near theirs too. I wouldn't be surprised if the winning bid was between 20-30 million. a 5 year 60 - 70 million contract with a 6th option would make sense for the Twins. I do think the total cost to get Tanaka will be around 100 million.

I like it when we get something for nothing. I would rather keep Morneau for his career or at least most of it then trade him. But since we did I thing a stop gap CF in Presley who will compete with Mastroianni for the 4th OF job when the OF settles with Arcia, Buxton, Hicks, and Rosario....Arcia probably gets bumped to a new spot but for now both Hicks and Buxton are not ready and Rosario is just a step away. Plus Presley keeps the Twins from using Thomas on the 25 man roster so that alone makes this trade a huge win for us. Welker is the next Tim Wood only healthy. He'll likely be the 7,8, or 9th reliever meaning he'll either just make the team or just miss making it. He does have the potential to contribute and be a part of the inexpensive, deep bullpen I've been talking about.

I am going to chime in on a minor point made earlier in this post. The Santana trade while not great wasn't that bad. We were handcuffed by his no trade clause so we didn't have a lot of options on where we could trade him. We should have just kept him and let him leave after the season but we did flip some pieces of that trade for Rauch and Hardy. Gomez did provide value while he was here. Yes we lost on the trade. The Delmon Young Garza trade was more of a loss for the team. Also Liriano is more likely to get injured throwing more sliders again. That's how he blew his arm out his rookie season.

3.7 would put the Twins 5th in the league in ERA. They have been 5th before. I think they were 5th in 2010. The environment to score runs is changing and going down across the board.

If we average 3.7 earned runs per game given up who cares how they are given up. TR doesn't and that is why he patterns the staffs this way. The dollars and years are too high so he goes after lesser pitchers for the rotation. How often has the Twins signed a good pitcher in FA? Once when the pitcher had no where else to go. He kept the team good by having a strong relief corps to follow the starting pitcher. How often did we have a vulture reliever go in and get a win? Crain won 12 one year, Fiore won 10 another, Guerrier and Rincon would win 4-6 games consistently, with a strong bullpen we are able to come back a lot of times as long as the game wasn't too far gone by the time they came in. Note the 3.7 ERA is a number I came up with.

The offense and 3 starters failed the club this season. If we get 3 average to above average starting pitchers and Willingham and Doumit returns to form and Hicks and Arcia continue to develop. we can be a decent team with very few shortcommings next season.

Pressly was up for the whole season. Though Thielbar had the better stats while he was up. I am still going to go with Pressly on this one.

My main objective in writing this post was to show how I see the Twins building their teams. they are risk averse and cost conscious. People say the Twins don't use statistics and here is how they obviously use stats to their means to an end. they target aggregate team era. That is why they go for a bullpen on the cheep and a deeper rotation that may not have the best number 1 starter because this way on any given night the Twins have a chance if they score more than the aggregate number of earned runs allowed. Most statistical analysis is done on an individual level. how often do you see analysis done on the aggregate? My points again are not to be right or wrong but to show what TR does and to create discussion. I will expand on some of the other concepts like defense and the offense a lot more in a later post as I started a series so I can go more in depth on the concepts I see management use.

This is a great point on why aces or veterans are good to have around but the point I am making is this is how the Twins use statistics to build their staff and try to minimize risks. Everyone says the Twins don't use statistics to build a team but no one ever writes about the aggregate and only writes about the individual. Terry Ryan builds his staff by thinking of the aggregate more than the individual.

mlbtraderumors has been fairly accurate in arbitration guesses so while I do not expect them to be 100% right but from a deserving or arbitration standpoint the contract is not far off and if he does get more I doubt it will be too much. What do you anticipate Feldman making?

Actually what I am saying is to look at the aggregate pitching. It doesn't matter how your team gets to a 3.7 ERA in this example. what matters is that the team has a 3.7 era. And I am not saying it is right or wrong. I am saying this is how I see he Twins and Terry Ryan approach constructing his pitching staffs. This is why he goes after the pitchers he does. Ryan seems to go after average or less than average pitchers because he has a good bullpen to balance it out. He does this because that is the most economical and risk averse way to get to the Team ERA goal to compete. It does work but you need the other aspects to win as well. hence why I wrote all the rules the first time. I will try to show how these interconnect as I go. the bullpen and rotation ERA are combined and aggregated when looking at the final number of where we need to be.

I am going to breakdown the concepts I introduced the other day into a series so we can go more in depth into each area of what I mean exactly with each rule. The goal is to construct a team with the most cumulative talent at the lowest cost with the lowest amount of risk in the process. When you consider the costs we need to be mindful of, the Twins have stated they will use up to 52% of their revenues and we have seen them go as high as 110 million. So that’s our ceiling. So with that in the back of our minds let’s start with pitching since it is the biggest issue. What does out staff ERA need to look like to give us a chance at 90 wins next year? Teams 2-7 in the AL team ERA all won 90+ games. Kansas City led the League but only won 86. Cleveland was 7th with a 3.82 and Detroit was 3rd at 3.61. So I think it is safe to say that a 3.70 ERA would give us a great chance at 90 wins next season if all things remain the same. How do we get to a 3.70 team ERA? Detroit’s starters had a 3.45 ERA while their bullpen era is closer to 4.01 (from espn.com stats 2013 MLB Team Pitching Stats - Major League Baseball - ESPN ). Our bullpen had an era at 3.50 because of the late season swoon from pitching by far the most innings this season so I am going to use 3.30 for this exercise (you can debate the numbers I am using these for this exercise regardless). This allows us to have a higher ERA for the rotation and still achieve our goal of a 3.70 team ERA. This brings us to the equation I introduced the other day. (I was surprised no one talked about this more or considered tweaking the numbers) (Number of innings per game X earned runs per game) / 9 = weighted average of earned runs per game Starters = (6 innings X N) / 9 = Unknown # Relievers = (3 innings X 3.30 ERA) / 9 = 1.1 earned runs per game Total earned runs should be 3.70 That would make the starters averaging 2.6 earned runs per game. Now we can solve the whole equation and get the following needed rotation ERA to reach our goal. Starters = (6 innings X 3.90 earned runs) /9 = 2.6 Earned runs per game. So we need a rotation ERA of 3.90 to end up with the team ERA of 3.70. The most cost effective way to achieve this goal is to find 5 starting pitchers who all average 6 innings per start with a 3.90 era capability. There are costs associated up or down depending on performance and likely continued performance on the FA market. And those costs do not go in a linear line. A pitcher who can pitch to a 2.50 ERA is likely to command a 20+ million per season and 5+ years like Kershaw, Greinke, Verlander. The next tier is someone who can be in the low 3.00’s will command 15-20 million like Sanchez (Schertzer is about to get paid too). Then you have the 3.5 ish pitchers like Edwin Jackson who got 4 years 52 million. Then there are those from last offseason who got 2 year deals in the 10-15 million. Those are good budget pitchers if you get the right ones. (these examples are not exact) The most ideal pitcher coming on the market this offseason is Scott Feldman who had 181.2 innings with a 3.86 ERA. MLBtraderumors.com is estimating a 2 year 17 or 3 year 25 tops for him (this is great because the contract is less money per year and less years for the risk averse) AL East Notes: Orioles, Matusz, Casilla, Red Sox: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com If we signed Feldman this offseason we would have a rotation of Feldman, Corriea, and Dedunno with 1 spot for a free agent and one for the 5th/6th/ and 7th starters next season Gibson, Albers, Diamond, Hendriks, and potential future ace Meyer when he is ready. So we have room for 1 more FA. We can go expensive and get Tanaka or Ervin Santana or go down a tier and there are several to choose from, or a buy low candidate like Hughes with high upside and lower risk, Pelfry is more stable at a lower cost as well. This will make for an interesting debate. But I propose we hold off to the end of the exercise and determine our other needs and options available at likely costs and how we want to allocate them with this offseason and beyond in mind. Some side notes on this topic. While getting 5 pitchers close to the aggregate is in theory the lowest risk and lowest cost way to build a rotation, we can do other things too such as sign an expensive FA and a minor league FA to compete for a spot. Or an even better idea is a market efficiency such as Santana’s first contract extension of 4 years and 42 million which was a bargain while his next extension of over 120 million was not. Meyer is the hope for an ace in that regards but his extension is a few years away. Radke was also a market efficiency for us as he signed below market deals to remain here. Last post I pointed out the 2010 Twins rotation to prove that an ace is not needed to be a winning team. Also that a low cost bullpen can be valuable. Who was more valuable this season? Verlander with a 3.46 era in 218 innings at 20 million salary or our bullpen with a 3.50 era in 579 innings at a total lower cost than Verlander…. You decide.

A couple of things about this post, It was a bigger undertaking than i figured it would be. I would have liked to put more into showing examples and i may go back and do that in a series of posts. But you can see the framework of what TR is trying to do to rebuild the team its very similar to what they have done in the past. For Example: This last season Willingham, Doumit underperformed as seasoned vets, Morneau would have likely hit 20 had he stayed here all season, Dozier was close and Parmalee and Plouffe missed the mark as well. Thats 5 plus 1 surprise player meant to be the 20 HR 75-85 RBI crowd I was talking about. THe offense way underperformed expectations this season. 2, The point that we don't need an ace isnt that we don't need one, but the importance of 5 starters who are solid each time out and i explained why that was important. Here is a reason why an ace isn't as important as you think in the long haul. 1 pitcher 180 inning with 2.5 era = 1.667 4 pitchers 180 innings each with 4 era = 2.667 the weighted average of runs allowed is 2.467 which is .21 runs lower per game at a cost close to 15-20 million or even more per season vs our bullpen which has a low era. I know its in the low 3's and the entire bullen costs less then that and we get more innings from the group. I would venture that our current bullpen is worth more than an ace pitcher. I am at work so i will continue this post later this evening.

I titled it innovative more so as a responce to the story about no innovation from the Twins as this is story highlights the framework in which they build there team here.