SkyBlueWaters

I think we agree on wanting a quality rotation. But do you see many rotations with *five* quality starters? We could get bogged down in what quality means I suppose. My problem with the Twins at present is that we have a collection of good no. 4-5 starters. I'd love to see Pineda come back--with Gray, that might mean we have capable no. 2 and 3 starters. We still don't have a horse to front the rotation. I agree with those who point out how deep we are in quality position players. I've got concern about depth at catching, but otherwise, in the field, this team could be playoff caliber. The *huge* problem remains the front of the rotation. We have to hope we are developing good starters for the future. But if we can add another *quality* arm, they could be fun this year. And after the Happ/Shoemaker debacle of last year, wouldn't it be nice to see the Twins simply in contention again?

SABR has an interesting bio of Jimmie Hall, including a Kaat quote at the end, indicating he was a bit disgruntled. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/jimmie-hall/ For a while, Hall hit so well it looked like we were set at CF for years. Personal favorite, in the entertainment category, is Disco Dan Ford. Mid 70's we had Ford, Larry Hisle and Lyman Bostock all available to play center. Bostock hit for both average and power. Still so sad, how he died.

A deal like this would be a lot more appealing to me if someone in the Glasnow camp signaled that he was open to a multiyear deal, somewhat similar to the Pineda deal where he was paid to convalesce, and then more upon his return, only covering more years for Glasnow. (Maeda signed such a team-friendly long-term deal with LA, albeit while healthy.) Could/would the Rays permit Glasnow to talk about it with another team? The Twins have a lot of talent, much of it in or approaching primetime. Front-end starters are obviously our biggest deficiency. I suppose it makes sense to write off 2022 this way, but it kind of *pains* me to consider dealing away valuable assets for a guy who had TJ surgery last August.

As unimaginable as it might seem after this train wreck of a season, some day the Twins might go deep in the playoffs again. Lately, people have been remembering the Halloween blizzard of 1991, which happened right after the series. Now imagine combining the two. The nation tuning into the world series in blizzard conditions at Target Field. The dome offered some advantages, especially after all those years of the country mocking the old Met. Especially Rams fans.

My concern about trading Sano is that we would be dealing him after a down year. Not a good way to get comparable value in return. Also, remember letting David Ortiz walk? That one is still nightmare worthy. What if someone gets through to Sano and he adjusts his approach at the plate? I agree with those who want to retain Buxton. Players with that kind of transcendent talent are rare.

Minor league players have no one advocating for them, which is a shame. I wish guys first turning pro had a higher floor than they do. Baseball should pay the incoming talent a living wage. No, I don't expect this will even be on the table during the CBA negotiations--but I'd have more respect for the MLBPA if they made a point of it.

Maybe an opportunity to enjoy lots of offense? Well, maybe not for the thrice no-hit offense of the Tribe. (We can call them that for a few more weeks, yeah?) I like games with lots of runners spinning around the bases. Polanco, et al. should be licking their chops for this one. Maybe even Miguel won't be swinging at air.

Exactly. the conversation many Twins fans were having last winter was: What will it take to get this team, after winning the division two years in a row, to playoff success? Granted, it isn’t easy to acquire elite pitching, but that’s what many identified as the missing component. Now the conversation is: I didn’t think the new arm or arms would be terrible. I’m not sure we can expect much from 2022. But there is a lot of young position player talent, and in 2023 maybe our young pitching talent will have developed, and Maeda will be back… Ready to sip that koolaid 18 months before it’s served.

I generally agree with you about one-year deals. One minor quibble about Morris: born 5/16/55, he was 35 when he signed with the Twins, and turned 36 that May, while pitching well enough in that first half to earn another trip to the '91 all-star game. (Remember how Scott Erickson started the year 12-2, AL pitcher of the month in May & June, yet Morris went to the A-S game?) Some don't place a high value on Cy Young voting, but that Morris was in the top 10 in CY voting in 5 previous seasons, and in the top 5 three times, indicates elite success to me. I'll grant you that he struggled in '89 & '90. I just think he comes in arguably as much more high end than Happ did. Hopefully, we agree that Morris was a pretty good signing by the Twins, whether or not they were consulting Bill James Abstract that off-season. To be clear: I do not blame the Happ/Shoemaker signings alone for this season. Sano, Buxton's injuries--a lot went wrong, and perhaps the signature moment involved the unfortunate Mitch Garver. Maybe I was kidding myself, but last off-season I (along with some others) thought the Twins were an elite starter away from being able to go deep into a post-season. I find it instructive that the Yankees had a $17M option on Happ, but let him walk. Understandably, he wasn't too pleased. https://www.nj.com/yankees/2020/08/yankees-ja-happ-relationship-sounds-touchy-with-17-million-hanging-in-air.html We might also agree that the Yankees franchise puts a premium on post-season success, not just making the playoffs, but advancing. Do we think they were simply pinching pennies when they let him go, as he turned 38 last October? Or might they have questioned whether they could rely on him when facing elite playoff opposition? Last winter, I posted that I thought Happ's 27-2/3 innings, over 15 post-season games, is *not* a small post-season sample. I think it's a lot of chances to prove yourself. I think a helluva lot of pitchers would give their eyeteeth to pitch 27.2 innings in 15 post-season games against elite hitters. His giving up 36 hits and 16 walks for a playoffs WHIP of 1.88 concerned me. Well before this year happened. BTW, I do like some of the FO moves. I liked both Maeda and Pineda signings. I don't blame the FO for their injuries. Losing Berrios (however talented the new prospects) pains me. I don't blame the FO for being concerned Berrios was out for a bigger payday than the Pohlads might have okayed. I'm not pretending elite pitchers grow on trees, or that it would be easy to acquire one. (Forgive the cliched Tom Hanks reference: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.") Just speaking as a guy who (apparently falsely) believed his team was capable of playing with the best, and needed an elite pitcher to create some post-season magic. Instead, I watched them turn the wrong way before spring training.

Several of us sounded off on this forum last winter when they signed Happ and Shoemaker, saying we didn't think these were the arms that would take the team to the next level. We looked at their track records and didn't see them as a step up from what they had in house. According to baseball.reference.com, here are the deals Texas gave Kyle Gibson since the FO decided to let him go: $10.667 in '20, $9.667 in '21, and he's due $7.667 in '22 with a bonus available. Was that so out of line for the Twins? It isn't just the mediocrity that they've added recently, hoping these guys might hold up the back of the rotation. It's the starting depth we let get away. Falvey and Levine really, really need to have a good off-season showing us how they earned that reputation for being so good at building pitching staffs,

Frankie "Sweet Music" Viola! I like the song. I couldn't believe it when the guys who were brought in as experts in building a pitching staff last winter brought in Happ and Shoemaker. Who have since turned on them! A multi-year contract for Dobnak? Meanwhile, Houston goes for Greinke, the Dodgers acquired Scherzer, the Yankees ink Cole, the Bosox dealt for Sale ... Do you think their all bummed they lost out on Dobnak? The Twins brain trust treats our pitching staff like it's four A: a notch above triple A, yet not playoff caliber MLB.

Mike8971 wrote: “… At that point it is incumbent upon ownership to step up and declare money is available for signing current stars and adding the necessary high end talent rather than nibbling around for bargains - a strategy that has obviously contributed to our record-setting playoff losing streak, as well as this year's collapse.” Couldn’t agree with this more. Losing Berrios would be disastrous for the near future, the mid 2020s, on this team. We can speculate forever about Sano, Pineda, Polanco, Kepler, etc., but we simply don’t have enough quality pitching—especially guys who can give us close to 200 good innings a season—to believe we measure up with the elite teams come October. If they want to see these players contend, the bottom line is that the Pohlads and the FO have to decide to spend what it takes to get the pitching we need to leverage our depth of hitting—a huge plus on this team—to bring this roster to the level of the elite teams.

Given our tattered pitching, Gibson’s success is particularly painful. They dealt both Lynn and Pressly. But they simply let Gibson go. Then signed Happ and Shoemaker.

Ha! Reminds me of the classic Ozzie Guillen line about AJ Pierzynski: “If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less.”

Oh, yeah. A number of us were not happy with the Shoemaker and Happ signings in January. Life on get by, rather than getting the horse this team needs.

We're down to Berrios, Maeda, Happ and Ober for starters as it is. Even when we get Pineda back, we're still trotting Ober out there--who gets smacked around like the triple A pitcher he is. I think it gets hard on the players to go out and get shellacked on a regular basis. Also, if we look too much like a pitching basket case, it might become hard to sign any quality free agents. I see the points being made about Maeda, in isolation. But in our context, we need innings from starters. He's thrown 56.2 so far, halfway through the season. If we can get the 130-150 IP you mention, I'd think we can leave him in the rotation a bit longer before bringing up more minor leaguers to face major league hitters--before they might be ready for it.

Yes, that was clear. But once the topic became baserunning during a homerun, were the rules of how the bases should be run during a home run somehow off limits? Back to the point: It matters to some of us that the original rules of the game be observed. Now, in order to speed up the game, we have walks without four pitches being delivered. To me, these alterations in how the game is played mattered. That seemed to be the point. How far off base would it be to recall a world series game where an intentional walk seemed to be happening--until the pitcher abruptly threw the third strike across the plate? That wouldn't happen now, with automatic walks. The point is what deviations in the game we want to see.

It rarely happens that runners pass each other on the basepaths and the trail runner gets called out. But it does, so it matters that baserunners touch them all. Didn't Disco Dan Ford get turned around twice in one year and turn hits, advancing runners, into outs?

Agreed about the boneheaded moves by Falvine, especially this last off-season. What worries me now is that they will be unable to retain Berrios and Buxton when they become free agents. Our rotation isn't deep enough to thrive if Berrios leaves. And knowing that Buxton is in CF chasing down fly balls might help make the Twins more attractive to veteran pitchers. Hopefully pitchers with more talent than desperation moves like Happ and Shoemaker.

Bingo. Look at the rotations that have carried their teams to the world series last decade. Do we see anything like the depth of Lincecum/Cain/Bumgarner developing? Strasburg/Scherzer/Corbin? All the talent that has cycled through LA, enough to make Maeda, Wood and others expendable? Falvine was sold to us as the brilliant FO that was going to turn Twins pitching around. I fear they won't even be able to retain Berrios, the ace they inherited.

We can't keep signing guys like Shoemaker and expect to contend. Happ isn't a difference-maker, either. Pohlad pockets are plenty deep--it's earmarking the money that's an issue. The Dodgers got Maeda to sign that contract. Obviously, the best pitchers are going to get guaranteed contracts. But we did well with Pineda and Maeda is a cut above the two we signed this off-season, who were mistakes.

Bingo. No one could have predicted the injury problems, but Happ and Shoemaker were never legit playoff-caliber pitchers. I really liked the Pineda signing, along with acquiring Maeda. I'm very leery of giving big bucks to pitchers, but they of course want as many years as they can get. I like Maeda's incentive-laden contract. I wish our FO would explore this more often, giving starters fat bonuses for reaching 160, 180, 200 IP. If this is one way to lure Pineda and others (who might pitch at the front of a rotation rather than being mediocrity in the back), I'm all for it.

Al Worthington, I love it! He went on to be the "head coach" at Liberty University for years. Retired now, is 92 and lives in Alabama. Says his life has been great ever since he got saved at the Cow Palace in SF. So maybe he does have some saves left in him ...

He sounds pretty level-headed. I enjoyed his take on the different levels of MiLB. Thanks.

I like your point about the 162 game, full season schedule. Yet I like to look at the opponents over the schedule each season, and try to assess the patches where competition is tough and the places where we have a chance to gain ground. It looked to me like the early schedule was a little easier than later. I may have under-estimated Boston and Oakland--I thought losing Semien would hurt the A's. We still have a lot of P'burgh, KC, Tex and Detroit before facing the Chisox May 11, scheduled now to be their 34th game. It would be good to make up some ground before facing LaRussa & Co.