ThejacKmp

At the time I though TR didn't do the deadline well but as time passes . . . There doesn't appear to have been a catcher out there who wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg. They bet on Suzuki regressing up to the mean, which he did. Can't fault them there. They didn't panic and replace SS. Well done, Escobar looks league average at worst. They made an astute trade for Jepsen and Cotts wasn't bad. You could argue they needed more but who knew that Perkins was going to crap the bed like he did? With an effective Perkins their bullpen would have been okay. I'm glad they didn't trade away too much. At the time hated the deadline moves but in hindsight, hard to see where there were too many trades that don't involve elite prospects that would have changed things. The Twins problems (bullpen, catcher) will be much easier to solve in the offseason, when the prices are cheaper since there aren't three sellers driving prices up with 12 suitors.

It's not just Sano. It's Buxton and Kepler and Berrios and Rosario and Hicks and all the other guys who come up. The Twins can't take that risk - some of those contracts are going to be big. Agreed on Hughes. Not a bad move but sideways. They locked down a guy who looks like a solid #3 starter and who has excelled in the pen in the past (if you want a doomsday scenario). No he can't but we were talking upside. He has #2 upside as he showed the last half of last year. Hopefully he won't be the Twins #2 when we achieve glory (we have young pitchers coming up who can hopefully pass him) but he's not farfetched starting a game #2 (but better a #3, agreed).

I mean, you're always going to get different perspectives on trades. This guy makes specific arguments against prospects. But read this: http://deadspin.com/cole-hamels-traded-to-rangers-phillies-get-top-prospec-1721008071 The key part is: ·SP Matt Harrison ($28.4 million guaranteed left on his contract) ·C Jorge Alfaro (Top-3 prospect within the Rangers organization, consensus top-5o prospect overall) ·SP Jake Thompson (Top-5 prospect within the Rangers, top-100 prospect overall in most publications) ·OF Nick Williams (71st best prospect in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus) ·SP Alec Asher ·SP Jerad Eickhoff So how did I translate it? - I made Harrison Gibson. They aren't really the same but it's the closest comparison and I think decent. If anything, Harrison has a longer track record. - For a top 3 prospect and top 50 overall (midway through the season) we might even be selling Kepler too high. In fact, he's rated #96 at http://m.mlb.com/prospects/2015, an up to ranking. Kepler was a guy with half an elite season, I'm not sure he's even close as a comp. - For Thompson I went with Gonsalves. Gonsalves is unlikely to be top 100. Once again, I inflated the Twins prospect. - For Williams I went Rosario. Like Gibson not a direct comp but the twins don't have one (ABW is not there). Seeing as Harrison had more MLB experience than Gibson, I felt okay going with Rosario, who before the season was probably ranked around that line. - I didn't bother figuring out who the other two were. I just said low level Twins prospects. I think this is a very fair comparison to what the Twins would have given up. Disagree?

The Astros are a very fair comparison to the Twins. The Cubs not so much. But I disagree about the high tier guys. You can't sign those guys for 4 years and if you sign them for 7, you hinder your efforts to sign Sano and Buxton and Co. Way too big a gamble. Also, Hughes and Santana have looked like solid #2 upside guys thus far - you're selling them short. If you want to draw a difference between the Nolasco signing and the Hughes/Santana it would be that Nolasco's upside was maybe a #3 (but likely a #4) while Hughes and Santana both had a higher ceiling (heck, last year Hughes was a #1 starter). You can absolutely criticize TR for Nolasco but the other two were smart signings that had no chance of weighing down the Twins future. Any signing of a 7 year deal until a guy is 36 or 37 can do that. Not worth the risk.

Billy Beane's teams suck in the playoffs and we don't say he's a bad GM. The playoffs aren't exactly a crapshoot but you can't judge a GM by them - getting there is the battle. The Twins consistently got there last decade and it looks like they'll be in the running for a long while here after a relatively short rebuild. That's good work by TR (and Bill Smith).

See below. That $10 million gap this year will be nowhere near as close as the Cubs spending on pitching continues this offseason. There's a difference between three short term mid-range deals and the massive contracts the Cubs can offer (which buy elite pitching for the first half and are awful the back half). The Twins don't have the luxury to do that. And of those three, the Twins seem to have gone 2 for 3 (with the caveat that you obviously don't know until the contract expires, Hughes could implode, Santana too). That's pretty good GMing by TR there. The Twins could mirror the Cubs strategy but it would be disastrously short sighted. If Lester had sucked for the Cubs, they would have been able to go and sign another elite guy this offseason and slot Lester into the 5 spot. The Twins would be paralyzed as a club. TR is smart not to roll the dice on huge contracts to guys in their 30s - no amount of Sano/Buxton/Rosario magic would be able to make up for that albatross - especially if the Twins traded assets to get a guy like Cole Hamels as the poster advocated.

In the period between Royals playoff appearances, children were born who could legally drink through 7 more years of losing baseball before reaching the playoff promised land. During that period of time the Twins WON two World Series and won their division six times. Point Twins.

$10 million now but that number will balloon as the Cubs sign another elite free agent pitcher this offseason (Lester was always part 1 of 2, the Cubs didn't expect to be this good this year) and will keep all of their young guys. The Twins will be much choosier about who to keep because they will have to be.

It took them 12 years. The Twins rebuild took 4 years. Does that mean that TR/Bill Smith get 3 times the credit Dayton Moore got? And two to three years from now the Royals will be in trouble when they can't afford to resign all of Cain/Gordon/Moustakas/Holland/etc. The game is set up so that unless you have a ton of money, you can't stay on top forever. The Twins had a solid 8 years of competing in the 2000s and then had a relatively short 4 year bottom out before what looks like another solid decade of competing. In 2020, Royals fans will likely say that they would trade the last two decades with Twins fans.

Woah woah woah there. You’ve gone way too far. You can’t compare the Twins and the Cubs, they are two incredibly different organizations. The Cubs have taken a very unique strategy to rebuilding which, quite frankly, is not an option for teams like the Twins. The Cubs have massive amounts of resources as they are in a major city and have a national fan base. As a result, they made a decision (correctly) that drafting pitching is a crapshoot while hitting is much easier to project. So they’ve spent the last 5 years drafting nothing but hitting prospects with their top picks. The reason the Cubs can do this is because they have the resources to buy pitching – the Twins can’t really afford the risk of a Lester but the Cubs can. If you look at the Cubs rotation, they have Arrieta (who they got via trade in one of those lucky trades teams hope to get), Lester (massive free agent signing), Hammels (mid-range free agent signing), Kyle Hendricks (gotten in a trade for Ryan Dempster – a free agent signing himself) and Travis Wood (trade for Sean Marshall). None of these guys were drafted by the Cubs (who will undoubtedly be in on the elite free agent pitching this offseason as well). The Cubs traded away pitching (Dempster, Smardjzia and Marshall) knowing that they have the resources and market and brand to compete for elite free agent pitchers. This allows them to use all of their high end draft picks on hitters. Epstein did the same thing in Boston too. It’s smart but it only works for the four or five clubs that have the resources to buy elite pitching. The Twins don’t have that luxury. They don’t have the money flexibility to make long term commitments to the elite free agent pitchers and even if they did, there’s never been any indication that free agents will choose MN over other places - we’d have to overpay. So the Twins have to pump draft resources into developing young pitching. This is more of a crapshoot and takes longer than developing position players. We also made similar trades for pitching depth (and I would argue that Meyer + May is better than Wood + Hendricks). The difference between the Twins this year and the Cubs this year is that due to injury the Cubs position players are a bit more advanced (by next year that should even itself out), the Cubs gamble (Arrieta had a similar profile to Hughes) turned into a Cy Young candidate this year and the Cubs were able to buy Lester (the rotation drops off considerably after Lester, he may not be their best pitcher but they wouldn’t be where they are without him). As to other points: (A) Joe Maddon was never going to go to the Twins. He wanted to go to a big market and that Cubs job is the most interesting on the market. The Twins made a detailed manager search and seem to have done well. They reached out to Maddon and he wasn’t interested. Can’t blame TR for that. ( Russell: The Twins didn’t have a Jeff Smardzjia to trade and if they had, likely would have had to hold onto him because he would be expensive to replace in free agency. You can’t blame the TR for not making a trade they didn’t have the assets to do. © Lester: the Twins should never sign that contract. The Cubs can afford to have Lester as a $20 million 5th starter in three years, the Twins can’t. (D) As stated above, the Twins took a shot at Phil Hughes around when the Cubs took a shot at Arrieta. Sometimes a team gets lucky when a guy does more than they expected. There are 29 teams wishing they could get a time capsule and trade for Arrieta. Can’t blame the Twins for not having a sixth sense. If Hughes has a bounce back year next year, we may not be that far short on these two “buy low” moments. (E) If the Twins had traded what it took to get Hamels, I doubt you’d be excited. A rough translation of what Texas traded might be Kyle Gibson, Kepler, Gonsalves, Rosario, two lower prospects and $10 million. That’s way too much for the Twins to give up for Hamels. Hamels is on the wrong side of 30 – this time next year the Rangers may be regretting what they gave up. Terry Ryan may or may not be amazing but Epstein has never run a team like the Twins. The Cubs can do things the Twins can’t do; they can try to take shortcuts because they can afford to pay for the mistakes. TR has to develop No 1 and No 2 starters from within (though Santana and Hughes have looked like solid 2 starters the past few years – both seem like good TR signings) and has to trust that the kids will develop. It’s easy to be negative and use hindsight to criticize. This Twins team is set up very nicely for the next 5 years with a lot of high upside pitching talent (Gonsalves, Berrios, Thorpe, Stewart) on its way to complement a batting lineup that only really misses a catcher. They have the resources coming up through the minors to augment any shortcomings at the top and inject new blood into the team for the next half decade. So stop nitpicking TR and enjoy what he (and Bill Smith) have created – a team that looks to be really fun to watch for years to come.

I'm not as convinced that a Nolasco deal involves the Twins sending out prospects to sweeten the deal. You just need to find a similar asset. For instance, I think the Padres would have to at least think about a Nolasco for Shields trade. While Shields is the better pitcher, he's a year older than Nolasco and is signed for three more years at $63 million with a $16 million club option for year 4. Nolasco is signed for "only" $24 million over two years with a $13 million club option for year 3. Who knows what the Padres are going to do now but if they rebuild they may be interested in dumping salary and if they are planning on retooling, Nolasco instead of Shields may give them more room to make the other changes they need to. Once again, this is all conjecture but it seems somewhat sound to me. Note that I also am not sold on the Twins having the desire to take on a massive Shields contract (they have been reluctant in the past) nor am I convinced that it would be smart to devote resources in this way. Just a thought.

Cueto's Sunday start is also not a given. If the Twins win the first two, the Royals will likely be out of the home field advantage picture. They may want to give Cueto some rest since he's had some arm soreness down the stretch. Then again, he's slotted as the Game #2 starter for them and wouldn't pitch until Friday October 9th. So pitching Sunday would mean he would pitch his regular schedule. Interesting to see if Royals place more value on getting some rest or staying on schedule.

I still see no scenario in which a 4 team tiebreaker doesn't result in two games. Elaborate?

Actually, a 4 way tie is in some ways better for MLB and is at least no worse than a 3 team tie. Both a 4 team tie and a 3 team tie mean that there are two nights of games but in the 4 team one, at least all teams play 2 games - it seems more fair to the casual fan that someone doesn't get a pass on the first game based on some random tiebreaker. Plus, we all know MLB just wants more do or die games. "eight team tie? Let's do it!"

Yeah. They have to win out to have a realistic change at this. 3-1 is not totally insane but a lot of things have to break their way. 2-2 just gets too nuts. Great thought on the Royals. Lots to cheer for tonight. Go Twins/Rangers/Blue Jays/White Sox. Well maybe not the White Sox. Maybe not the White Sox.

So my cousin was asking me if there was any reason for us to not care much about the first few games of the Angels-Rangers series because we possibly don’t want the Rangers to clinch and not have anything to care about later in the series. Some of this is obvious but it’s kind of fun to think through logically. As a note, below assumes the Twins win out. If they don’t they need things to get real messy. That’s not impossible by any means since the Rangers are capable of taking 3 or 4 out of 4 from the Angels and the Astros are capable of crapping the bed on the road in an NL park but it’s not worth planning for now. Thus, we are assuming the Twins win out. ++++++++++++++++ Here’s the first part of this, which may seem simple but is necessary to discuss: Who do we want to win the Angels-Rangers overall? I love that this series is taking place because it turns out that the Twins win no matter what happens. Assuming the Twins win out, only five outcomes happen as a result of that series: A.) Texas sweep, the Twins pass the Angels B.) Texas 3-1, the Twins pass the Angels C.) 2-2, the Twins pass the Angels D.) Angels win 3-1, the Twins tie the Angels E.) Angels sweep, the Twins tie the Rangers All of these are good outcomes, begging the question “Should we be indifferent?” A closer view of the outcomes shows that we should be rooting very hard for the Angels to lose since we can only tie the Rangers while we have 3 out of 4 scenarios where we pass the Angels and avoid involving them in Game 163 scenarios. There is also the side point that if the Twins do lose a game, they can’t catch the Rangers in any of these scenarios but there are still three outcomes where they catch or pass the Angels. So go Rangers! We want the Rangers to win at least two, with any more only sweetening the pot. +++++++++++++++++ So now we need to address whether we care which order the Rangers/Angels games go – e.g. if we could choose, is there any way we would to order the Angels wins and the Rangers wins of a series that goes 2-2 in order to maximize Texas’s investment in the series? In other words, if Texas clinches too early, will they quit trying and in doing so, hurt the Twins chances? First of all, the Rangers are going to have to care about at least the first two games. If the Rangers win Thursday, the Angels are eliminated in the AL West but the Astros, who don’t play Thursdau, would still only be three games back and could tie it over the last three. The Rangers would still be gunning Friday because if they lose out and the Astros win out they need to play the Astros for the division, a huge deal. So there isn’t a scenario in which the Rangers win Thursday and are all done. Thus, we now need to examine scenarios where the Rangers are done after two games to see if that hurts the Twins. For the Rangers to clinch after two games, they need to win Thursday. In our Twins-win-out world, the Twins are now even with the Angels and are a game back on the Astros. Giggity giggity. So then we come to Friday where a Rangers win means they clinch the AL West. If this happens, the Angels are a game back of our dauntless Twins and the Astros have also been eliminated from winning the AL West crown. Texas can now rest guys but it doesn’t matter because the Angels are a game back on the Twins and are out of it as long as we win out. If the Astros win Friday, they are still a game ahead of the Twins and the race comes down to the final two days, with the Twins needing the Astros to lose one game to tie and two games for the Twins to be the Wild Card without Game 163. If the Astros lose Friday, the Twins are tied for the Wild Card and all bets are off. Giggity giggity. The other way for the Rangers to be done after two games is if the Angels win Friday but the Astros lose. In that case the Twins are tied with both the Angels and the Astros for the Wild Card. The final two games become wildly crazy but if your Twins win out, they are playing Game 163s and maybe 164s. A great outcome, though not as good as the Rangers-win-and-Astros-lose Friday scenario we looked at previously. The Rangers won’t be trying hard over the rest of the weekend but the Twins will control their own destiny. We’ll take it! Any scenario where the Rangers lose Thursday and Friday leaves the Twins in the precarious position of needing to catch or pass the Angels in the last two days (while likely also having to catch or pass the Astros). Thus Rangers wins in the first two games makes this a two team race, which is way better than a three team race game. We should always be cheering for the Rangers to win. Always. +++++++++++++++++ So the nice thing about the Angels-Rangers series is that the Twins have positive outcomes no matter what happens. Assuming we win out and the Astros lose at least once, we will be in a Game 163 regardless of the outcome of this series. That said, we have a very strong preference for Texas to win games because it can keep us out of a Game 164 and makes it more likely that two Astros losses makes us undisputed Wild Card #2. It also gives the Twins a sliver of hope if we go 3-1 instead of 4-0. It's also important to know that there is no scenario in which the Twins are hurt by Texas winning early in the series – if Texas clinches that means we passed the Angels and are now mano y mano with the Astros. We can cheer for the Rangers unabashedly all weekend. Thoughts?

Disagreements: 1) Sano can be the team MVP, I am down with that. The reasoning not so much. If you had said that Sano’s presence in the lineup was unprecedented except for Harmon I would take that on the narrow focus that the Twins haven’t had that 40HR threat since Harmon. But saying since Kirby? Kirby wasn’t a power hitter so you’re not going on power. That means you are severely underselling Mauer and Morneau’s performance in the 2000s. Both of them were fearsome presences in the middle of the lineup (and both have years with better OPS than anything Kirby put up and more than anything Sano has done in a half year). 2) Torii Hunter??? I mean, unless he taught Aaron Hicks how to hit it’s an insane tribute to his “leadership”. Like he should be manager. Rosario has been significantly better at the plate (more XBHs in 100 less at bats, better OPS) and is a markedly better defender (not just because people run on him and he kills them dead but because he has better range, arm etc.) 3) I love Joey more than anyone but Eduardo Escobar belongs on this list. He’s played 122 games and has hit better than Joe while playing a premium defensive position. He also plays a position where the Twins would have no one else, whereas Joey playing first base keeps other strong candidates from playing. Should be: Sano Dozier Rosario Gibson (I guess, I can't get excited about too many pitchers but if you want Gibby, that's fine by me) Escober

But if they win out Texas drops below us and we get the WC (or a tie for it) while the Angels win the West. Angels also control their own destiny. So does Texas. And Houston. Any team wins out they get a Game 163. Exciting stuff.

I also don't think the Diamondbacks at home is a pretty bad team. If the Twins lose a game I still like the shape they're in. That said, they've got to go out and do that. #GoTwins #GotWins

Um, erroneous. Angels finish with four in Texas. That's tough. In fact, the Twins now control their own destiny. Even if the Angels win out, that would drop Texas into (at best) a tie with the Twins for the second WC. Houston was the one team the Twins needed to lose a game to control their own destiny and that happened. Win out and we get a Game 163.

Unfair to say that about Gardy since his late 2000s teams were insanely resilient. The teams of the past 4 years just weren't very good. No amount of resiliency overcomes PJ Walters being your #3 starter in August.

I just mean that the question was "Because of all the negativity on these forums lately, I thought I'd start a debate on which shortstop/2nd basemen are you most excited about?" There was not a hint of negativity to that (inf act it was explicitly asking for no negativity) and your post went straight to "we should trade dozier, he's not that good." That's negative and belonged in another thread. You said you liked his HR and D but then listed four things he wasn't very good at. It isn't what % negative you were, it's that you went there at all. You didn't even accompany it with "because I'm super excited about _______" or "we can gamble on losing dozier because _______ seems ready". This author asked us to have a fun positive discussion about exciting prospects and the first reply was anything but. It's not personal or saying you are wrong, it's just that in an amazing season, every TD thread turns into griping. Yours took it in that direction. Heck the guy who started it gently chastised you for not being positive and asked who you were excited about and then you gave one sentence on guys you were excited for before jumping back into the trials and tribulations of Brian Dozier. It just belongs in another thread.

The real solution is to Connie Mack this and have coaches dress in suits. It would be awesome. And same thing for the NFL. Belichek looks like a street youth, it would be great to force him to wear a suit.

Plus the twins in 2013 were not a contending team. They were a team with no advanced elite pitching prospects and a glut of OF talent coming up the pipeline. They sold high on Revere and got value for Span. Hicks would've needed to be Mike Trout to make the Twins contenders in 2013 and we all knew that. The situation is not the same in 2016, where the Twins have a chance to be a contending team and can't be focused solely on developing the next wave of talent. Right now we would be creating a gaping hole at 2B in the hopes of maybe solving C. That might be the correct move if the Twins cupboard was bare but there are so many better places we can trade for to solve our one gaping hole, C. Plouffe at 3B is great but there is an elite replacement available. We have outfield surplus whether you want to trade a minor prospect (Arcia) or an elite prospect (Kepler/Rosario). Note I would never trade Kepler/Rosario but if you put a gun to my head and said we have to trade from 2B or OF, I'm taking OF every time. Hell, we could trade some of our A league pitching talent (Stewart etc.) if we really needed a C. Not 2B though. Maybe next year if there is significant prospect development? And Escobar shows that he is for real and not just a one-year wonder?

Please for the Love of Sano, can we stop buying into the myth that Dozier had a fade last year? This year Dozier has had a tough second half but it’s just plain old-fashioned wrong to think that happened last year. Here are his splits first half and second half in 2014: .242/.340/.436/.776 .244/.352/.387/.739 There's a fall off in slugging but an increase in OBP. Overall this is not much of a drop off and certainly not a fade. That false narrative is almost entirely driven by the differences in his home runs, which we focus on way too much. Dozier had 18 HR to 5 HR between the two halves but also had 16 doubles and no triples vs 17 doubles and one triple. As the first half has 100 more at bats than the second half, the real story is a little less pop with some home runs turning into doubles. This myth of Dozier falling apart in the second half last year colors the way we look at Dozier this year. He's slumping but a strong finish here could change that entirely. We certainly shouldn’t be building patterns out of one half season and a mistaken impression of another half season. As for trading him, that's ludicrous. He's on a team friendly deal and the Twins cupboard for 2016 is bare other than him. You'd be starting Nunez at 2B or transitioning an unproven Santana/Polanco to 2B at the major league level. I don't have to look up his numbers to know that isn't an improvement. Did we all forget the Alexi Casilla/Luis Rivas years? The Twins haven't had a competent 2B since Knoblauch. We should enjoy Dozier, not trade him away. And please, the next time you see someone on Twins Daily or IRL talk about how Dozier always fades in the second half, introduce them to this funny thing called statistics. We can do better than rehashing the tired plotlines of the FSN broadcast.