StormJH1

The Boras angle kind of sucks, but at the end of the day, if Meyer turns out to be good enough to even warrant a long term deal, that will have meant we got enough out of this trade. Olney, Law, and even Gleeman seemed to generally like this prospect. Sure the Twins could have gotten more in theory. But with the Braves out, a Fowler trade and a few FA signings could have left us holding the bag too.

Ehhh, I dunno. It was 7 games at High-A, is that really enough of a track record? Some pitchers would never post a 10.7 K/9 rate at ANY level, but that's what Meyer did at Low A. No, I don't think the guy is Gerrit Cole, but until he pitches bad at any level, I'm not even sure what the cause for concern is. We were not going to get an elite pitching prospect for an oft-injured CF who is only an above-average defender, has no power, and is actually a terrible baserunner for how fast he is. Obviously, the odds are against Meyer being a quality MLB'er, as they are with any prospect, but given that we don't seem to be able to stockpile these guys in any other way, I like it. Also frees up a little more money to stock the rotation for next year.

I like this deal. I was trying to lower expectations earlier this morning about what we could actually fetch in a trade for Span, and this as good as we could have realistically hoped for in a prospect. Plus, he's absolutely huge, throws hard, and his control is not that bad. I understand that he's 22 and was pitching in two levels in A-ball, but he pitched well at both levels. The Nationals have a decent organization, and it wasn't Meyer's choice not to get a call up. Danny Hultzen was considered close to MLB-ready, but the Mariners kept him in AA ball for most of the year, and he's a little older. I think the bigger thing though is that this guy gives us a chip and a chair at a frontline starter, and the loss of Span really does not harm the team's future plans too much. Span was a likable guy and a good ballplayer, but he had other limitations, and we're lucky that he was even tradable given his prior concussion issues (and other little injuries).

I think the expectations about the trade returns for Span are way overblown. Even on the G & G podcast, there was straightfaced talk of Span-for-Mike Minor, or Span/Willingham for Billy Hamilton. Really? The Reds have the best athlete in all of baseball in their system, and they're just going to dump him off for Willingham (who overacheived last year and will kill them defensively in the NL) and Span (who is a nice player, but has injury/concussion concerns). Hamilton may only be "elite" in one category, but he's as elite as you could possibly be in that one category. Plus, you have to figure his range will at least be good whatever position he ends up at. I think you can get something for Span, but it's probably more along the lines of a back-of-the-rotation starter. This is a built-in phenomenon with Twins fans and even many of their smart bloggers - we were so accustomed to having garbage position players for years who never should have been major league starters, that as soon as we get somebody decent (Willingham's power, Span's average and plate approach), we fail to understand just how average those guys really are from the perspective of all the other teams in baseball. Also, I wouldn't limit the returns to just "major league ready pitching". Just because we have a dire need for ML starters doesn't mean we couldn't also use some "B" level prospects in the 21-25 age range either (AA or AAA). We really don't have coming down the pipeline either. However, as I said above, I'm not sure Span could fetch that type of player, given the other FA or trade options available to teams that need a CF or LF.

Ah well. I did think "Tommy Field" was a cool name for an infielder, but from what I heard, this is no big loss.

Alright, easy on Nick. I disagreed with his overall position on Liriano, but it's not like he's being totally unreasonable. I just think it's a moot point because there will be some money for Liriano somewhere, and in order for him to end up back on the Twins, both Terry Ryan AND Liriano would have to want that to happen. Oh, and the money has to be there for him. I'm not sure ANY of those 3 things are true, despite the recent reports about the Twins' interest. Lots of pitchers have had flashes of brilliance and completely lost it due to physical or mental breakdown. Ubaldo Jimenez was nearly a Cy Young winner in 2010, but then he started sucking, got traded, threw at Tulowitzki in the preseason over contract jealousy and was as bad (or worse) than Liriano last season. I'm prepared to be wrong about Liriano - I honestly won't be shocked or terribly jealous if he goes somewhere else and has a successful year. Sometimes you just need to move in another direction.

If we're talking about acquiring a back-of-the-rotation starter who will leave the Twins flexibility to add more pieces, you're not going to do much better. Scott Feldman's ERAs over the last 6 years: 5.09, 3.94 (32 IP), 5.48, 4.08, 5.29, 5.77. And he just got $6M. I'm obviously aware of Liriano's control problems and clearly he's not a safe bet but to rebound, but at that money you're not going to get a safe bet. Expectations need to be adjusted. Frankie still has more upside than just about anyone you're likely to find in his price range. I'd also add that his xFIP numbers over the time span you mentioned are 4.48, 2.95, 4.52 and 4.14, so with decent defensive support and neutral luck he should be expected to be no worse than average even if the control issues linger. And while I don't mean to speak for Gleeman, I strongly doubt he would build a case entirely around the ERA statistic. No, Aaron would not build an argument around ERA (he got on Bonnes for doing that in a recent podcast). I'm wasn't necessarily doing that either, but I'm not a hardcore stat guy, and I (like John) don't think that ERA is entirely worthless. I'm fairly confident that there's any number of metrics that could used to quantify the fact that Liriano was not a very good pitcher last year. Or 2011. Or 2009. Until we know what type of deal Liriano gets, it's premature to say what his price range is. The assumption seems to be that he takes 1 or 2 years at $5, 6, or 7 million per. If Jeremy Guthrie can get a 3-year deal, couldn't Liriano also? If it takes a commitment of $25 million to sign him, or maybe even $20 million, sorry, but I'm out. I won't hate it if Liriano comes back. I have nothing against him personally, and there is enough upside to think that he could help us for portions of the season, particularly in our desperate state. But given a choice between a somewhat-risky multi-year deal for Baker, or a multi-year deal for Liriano, I'd honestly prefer Baker. Also, I have serious doubts that Liriano would want to put himself back in Minnesota, but we'll have to see.

I looked it up, and Mauer has somehow only played 16 games at Fenway, with a .283 BA, yet 3 HR's in only 70 AB's. That would seem to be slightly ahead of his "usual" power pace, and none of his Fenway AB's came in his "outlier" 2009 season. But, yeah, that article is severely flawed. First, I totally reject the premise that Mauer is in the "prime" of his career. There's a good chance Mauer will have many productive years ahead of him, but when you've pretty much already begun to transition out of your primary position (and were defensively terrible at it when you did play there), that HAS to be figured in. Mauer as a 30-year old part-time catcher is more akin to Torii when he started to move from CF to RF at age 33, 34, or whenever it was. But also, it just strikes me as supremely ironic that they would give up anything too significant to play Mauer at 1B, when it seems like the BEST CASE scenario for Mauer would be the type of hitter that Adrian Gonzalez "disappointed" Boston fans with. It was assumed that Adrian would hit 40+ HR's per year in that park given his track record, but nagging injuries and a change in approach led him to become more of an average hitter. Productive, but not dominant. Does that sound like any player we know here in Minnesota?​

Right, and let us not forget that this guy got himself dropped out of the rotation pretty quickly last year, and not just any rotation - it was possibly the worst rotation in baseball.

If Aaron Gleeman were typing this post instead of me, he would respond that if the aggregate of those brilliant stretches and unquestionably horrible stretches is an end product that is still, well, pretty terrible, then it doesn't matter. Here are Liriano's ERA's for the last 4 years: 5.80, 3.62, 5.09, 5.34. Hoping for "2010 Liriano" to happen again is like the people who expect Mauer to hit .360 with 29 HR's every year - it isn't going to happen. Moreover, he actually got slightly WORSE after going to Chicago, despite people's perceptions of that move. Also, I really don't agree that the Twins would ever target a pitcher like Liriano as a free agent, had he not been with the team previously. Over the past 2 seasons, he's been pretty consistently a guy with 5.0+ walks per 9 innings. That's probably the biggest reason that a guy with a K/9 rate of 9.0+ can barely stay in the rotation. How would picking up a guy like that fit the Twins M.O. in any way? Liriano now is basically a slightly more wild version of what Jonathan Sanchez was prior to 2012, when he completely fell off the rails. The Twins may change their tune out of utter desperation, but there's zero track record of the Twins targeting free agent starters who miss bats but are also irreparably erratic. Ultimately, the "boring" pitchers who manage to give up about between 3-5 runs almost EVERY game are going to be more useful to the twins than a guy who either gives up 2 runs or completely implodes.

That may be the case, but since when do the Rays have a problem parting with a star player on the open market? The Rays understand better than anyone that the peak years for a guy like Longoria are not 4 years from now, they are right now. They had him under control until his early 30's, and he's a 3rd baseman. This ESPN article views the signing extremely favorably: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/31029/rays-make-great-move-to-lock-up-longoria But the new deal didn't generate those numbers through the Age 30 season, they were already there with the old club options. So, really, this deal acts like a 6-year extension for a player for his Age 31 to 36 seasons, and increases his salary to $16.67 million for those years. But, I mean, Scott Rolen is 37. Eric Chavez is 34. The Rays have no idea if Evan Longoria will be worth $16.67 a million for six more years four years from now. I'm not saying it necessarily will be a bad deal for the Rays, I'm just surprised at how "un-Rays-like" it is for them to decide that Longoria will be worth that much four years before they had to make that decision.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/26/evan-longoria-signs-six-year-100-million-extension-with-rays/ The Rays are frequently celebrate as one of the smarter front offices in baseball, and their early long term deal for Longoria (pretty much immediately after his call-up) is often cited as one of the more team-friendly deals in baseball for a "star" player. They had him under team control through 2016 with team options that topped out at $11.5 million per year. Low enough to be a significant value for a franchise player, but not so low that said player would feel "cheated", especially if he misses significant injury time from an assortment of nagging injuries (and a mysterious foot problem). But then they go ahead and extend him anyways until age 37, under no externally obvious pressure to do so. Why? The sad part is that Longoria just turned 27, and even with all his problems, this new deal seems more likely to pay off than Mauer's will. But that doesn't mean it's a "good" deal, or a necessary one. Thoughts?

Somewhere in there was an argument/position about what you think the Twins front office might be thinking, and that seems to be that they could just limp into 2013 with the same assortment of crap they had last year, plus 150-ish innnings of Kyle Gibson and a Jason Marquis-like rotation stuffer. If that's the plan, good luck. It'll be a fun month and a half of baseball before we're talking about Morneau as a rental player trade and moving Josh Willingham again (provided he's still here). I think Terry Ryan will do SOMETHING tradewise, if only to avoid the Free Agent market as much as he can. It's just sad/frustrating because you would to think the Twins could sign 2 or 3 of these mid-tier guys, trade Span for "B" or "C" prospect or post-hype young starter, and probably threaten 80 wins next year while keeping the payroll under $100 million. And they absolutely won't do that. Also, let's not get too married to the idea that Scott Diamond is a "staff ace". He pitched well last year, but there was absolutely no track record to support that, and it's not like he was blowing guys away even when he was "on", either. I just get the sense that Twins fans will feel this deep sense of betrayal if Diamond posts a 5.00 ERA next year, and they probably shouldn't.

In terms of the offseason timeline, no, it's not too late to acquire other pitchers. But I'll go ahead and panic for a different reason: The Royals just set Jeremy Guthrie's price point at $8.33 million per year. Anybody else here hoping we would pick up somebody better than Jeremy Guthrie? Given that his deal was significantly more than Willingham's, which is far and away the richest FA contract the Twins have ever paid out, I'm don't think this is exactly a good development for us. The only plus side to it is that we aren't stuck with Jeremy Guthrie, but neither are 28 other MLB teams. Back in September, there were people hoping to get Anibal Sanchez for exactly the type of numbers Guthrie just got. How delusional does that look now?

Partially true. People also forget that the Tigers do things like sign Dontrelle Willis to 3 years, $29 million, then watched it blow up on a Hideki Irabu-like level of disaster. Of course, the Mauer vs. Cabrera portion of your rant is absolutely true - Mauer was essentially paid for having a single "Cabrera lite" season under the expectation he could continue doing that for 10 more years AND keep playing catcher. Still, it's not like can really blame Mauer for not being Miguel Cabrera, because nobody else is either, not even some other guys making $20 million. Also, the Tigers have spent a lot of money (on FA's or option years to retain players) for guys that end up losing playing time to more defensively-oriented rookies. Guys like Magglio Ordonez or Johnny Damon. But they usually do so with short-term deals, so it's tough to really find too much fault with it.

I liked Torii as a Twin and I still like him on other teams. I felt that he was pretty open in 2007 about the whole process (including a memorable phone interview with Barreiro from the State Fair), and he had the right to play on West Coast in a totally different environment. Given the lofty standard of retiring numbers set by such Twins greats as Kent Hrbek, you could even argue he should have an outside chance of getting his number retired! He had a big mouth at times, and said some dumb things about African Americans in baseball, but none of it was ill-willed, and he was also very good with the RBI program and was a positive ambassador for the game. He was certainly one of the more important Twins players in "selling" me on the Twins as my favorite baseball team later in life.

It's funny that the Marlins' strategy bears some similarity to what the Rays have become so celebrated for doing (Building up young talent, playing them early, then selling off when it becomes too expensive), yet even though the Marlins have actually WON two championships, they are considered the scum of the Earth. I think the difference, however, is that Marlins do it with a lot of huge free agent signings, and also lack any subtleness to what they're doing. If you're a fan of the Marlins (and there aren't that many that really care), it must outright torture. If you're a player that signs a mega-deal with them, though, is it really that bad? The people it's worse for are the people they DON'T trade, like the Giancarlo Stantons, Logan Morrisons, etc. These guys see that the money is there to bring in all the talent, then when it doesn't work after 3 months, they get left with a shell of a team. But the guys who signed those contracts still have their contracts, and get to play them out for (presumably) greener pastures. I don't feel sorry for Redmond because guys like he, Matheny, and Walt Weiss are traditionally "under-qualified" for the job to begin with. I think we're seeing that baseball managers really don't matter as much as some people think they do. And in the case of Redmond, if he doesn't work out for the Marlins, how is that a black eye? Fredi Gonzalez and Joe Girardi trampolined off the Marlins to much better jobs anyway.

Mrs. Riverbrian's post was EPIC, except if I let my wife answer like that for me, she'd either go on WAY too long with super embarrassing stuff, or just say something like "you spend too much time on dumb internet forums". As for the original question, I have some perspective on this as a native Detroiter (22 years) who is now a proud Minnesota resident and Twins fan (last 10 years). While it's natural to become frustrated by the Detroit Tigers and their spending at times, you need to keep in mind that few teams are like the Tigers, and few owners (maybe none are like Mike Illitch). As any Detroit Red Wings fan will tell you, Illitch is the definition of a "fan owner". While he has other successful businesses (Little Caesar's Pizza, etc.), he doesn't own sports teams as "investments", he owns them because he loves sports and understands how a good sports team can become a part of an identity (especially a troubled identity like that of "Detroit"). While it would nice if the Pohlads and other owners were like Illitch, expecting them to be like that is extremely unfair, since few owners are. Illitch is also in mid-80's and a lot of people have noticed he appears to be in declining health. He's made the Red Wings Stanley Cup champions 4 times and appeared in 6 Finals. There's a sense that he knows the end might be near and he wants to see the Tigers to succeed in the same way before that time comes. If there's even a kernel of truth to that, it could help to explain signings like Fielder and Hunter that are great in the short-term, but don't make much long-term baseball sense. Also, Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski was the Marlins GM during their first buying spree and subsequent sell-off in '97. It's pretty evident he has a special relationship with the Marlins that gave him in a "in" on deals for Miguel Cabrera and Anibal Sanchez, who obviously made a huge impact on that team. The fact is that the Twins have "enough" payroll to succeed, whether you like it or not. Teams like the Giants and Cardinals won World Series with payrolls comparable to what we trotted out in 2010 and 2011. They were not "one free agent away" from winning they AL this season - they were fundamentally flawed as a roster, and that's on Bill Smith and Terry Ryan.

Yeah, I don't buy the argument that players are opposed to coming here. That's CERTAINLY an issue for the NFL (because player have to play in the cold) and NBA (because they would primarily live in Minnesota during the coldest months of the year), but summers in Minnesota are nice. And I think pro athletes have a much broader knowledge than the general public of which major cities are nice and which are less nice based on the fact that these guys travel CONSTANTLY. The only legitimate part of that argument came from the fact that the team has just been BAD the last two years, and I do agree that some of the more sought-after free agents don't want to play for bad teams. However, this is usually a problem that takes care of itself because teams that are bad for any period of time usually lower their budget, and don't run out and sign guys to $20 million/year contracts, unless they also happen to be a in a huge, lucrative market, like New York.

Actually no. I mean, we can't say for sure what Bill Smith and Gardy were thinking at the time (as opposed to publicly saying), but I'm fairly certain that Nishioka was understood to be the Opening Day shortstop, since he was a "Gold Glove" equivalent at that position in Japan. It's not like the Japanese infields are smaller or anything. Only when they got him into Spring Training did they have concerns about hit arm strength enough that Gardy moved him to 2B. Only took him a week to break his leg there because he didn't know how to bail out of DP situations. Even when Nishioka fielded a ball cleanly, he had to get a rid of it very quickly because he had no arm. This probably exacerbated his other consistency problems. He was like a poor man's David Eckstein out there, if David Eckstein was also a headcase.

That's right. The Twins basically got a free pass at the time because there was excitement over this Japanese shortstop they were bringing over, who was going to hit like Ichiro and field like Omar Vizquel. When those predictions turned out to be jussssst a bit off, we were left holding the bag.

I support bringing back Baker. No sure thing there, but he should be ready early enough next year, and let's not forget that this guy was essentially our "ace" before everything fell apart. Not Liriano (too erratic), not Pavano (had one good year), but Baker. So if he could've made $9.25 million without the TJ surgery, I don't think he's taking $1 million or $2 million next year. He can get a better 1-year deal somewhere for sure, but even in the $3 to $6 million range he's a better value than paying a healthy guy in the FA market.

Wow, between Mauer's "aww schucks, give a 110%" Midwestern demeanor and Greinke's mental health issues, we would we would have about $300 million of money tied up in two guys with virtually no chance of serving any type of leadership purpose on this team. Or, if "leadership" is too amorphous a topic to debate on for you, let's just stick with the fact that it ain't going to happen. No way. If you think we're handcuffed my Mauer's deal NOW, at least Mauer played last year, won a batting title, and sells a boatload of tickets. Greinke could blow his arm out April 26th, and you'd be left holding the bag. If you're the Yankees, Red Sox, or Tigers, that'd be bad. If you're the Twins, you're looking at half-decade of guaranteed Triple-A baseball. This team is cutting payroll, and Terry Ryan simply doesn't believe in that type of reform. Teams are already making trades, and unless Terry has one of those lined up, we'll probably be sitting well after the Winter Meetings like we always do, waiting for the price to go down on the mid-tier guys we can actually afford. The ONLY good thing I can say about 2012 that might prove my assessment wrong is that it was a complete failure devoid of legitimate excuses. You had a healthy Mauer and Morneau, and Willingham was everything you could have hoped for and more. Yeah, there were a few injuries to the starting staff, but welcome to baseball. When your formula "works" and you still don't even sniff 70 wins, it might be time to reevaluate.

I hadn't really put much thought into Jonathan Sanchez, but I really thinking that signing 2 or 3 guys with high upside like THAT is a better formula for success than signing 2 or 3 Jason Marquis/Roberto Hernandez types that aren't really going to miss any bats. Everybody knows that the Twins had bad starting pitching and injury problems with starters this year, but the dirty little secret is that the rest of the team was surprisingly healthy. You're not realistically getting anything BETTER than you got out of Mauer/Morneau/Willingham in 2013. It's very possible you'll get something worse. And to sign just a couple of placeholder starters that just throw innings and put the ball in play...I'm not really seeing how that formula makes this any better than a 70-win team next year. On the other hand, Jonathan Sanchez COULD figure things out and miss enough bats to be a Liriano-esque starter. And lets face it, if you try these high risk guys out and they implode, you'll just be sticking DeVries/Deduno/Blackburn/Walters/whoever in their spot again by June.

FYI, from the Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121008/SPORTS0104/210080411/Tigers-want-keep-rather-than-rent-pitcher-Anibal-Sanchez?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE Obviously, it's just a speculation piece about the Tigers wanting to retain a good starter, and it's not like their GM is going to say during the playoffs..."Oh Sanchez? Yeah, his ass is gone after the playoffs!" But I posted it because Anibal Sanchez was probably the highest-end pipe dream that I thought the Twins might look at signing. Greinke and Dempster aren't going to happen and Sanchez isn't even 30. Unfortunately, he's pitched better of late, which only improves his stock.