ashbury

Moderator's note: All right. That's enough* of the personal sniping, on all sides. Not to mention, the sub-thread about draft strategies has gone pretty far afield from the question of ranking our prospects. Stick to the topic, please; start another thread if you want to revisit the past. * Too much, actually. But you know what I mean.

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An ignorant answer from another non-athlete: arm strength has been the knock on Polanco for as long as I remember, including comments from Twins personnel, so I would presume he's worked with whatever experts there are, already. The lack of zip on his throws when he guides it to first, or the scattershot results if he really tries to bring it, is not a sudden revelation.

Having both Dozier and Polanco on the same team is a sub-optimal use of their talents, as they belong both at 2B and putting one at SS or 3B diminishes his contribution. The question for me is whether trading either one brings back enough to exceed the suboptimal combination. (SydneyTwinsFan among others also expressed this point of view.) Therefore, before making any other decisions, I would shop both Dozier and Polanco hard. I want to know concretely the return either player would bring. Tactically, I think letting it be known both are being shopped will slightly increase the offers for the one who other GMs want more, probably Dozier - "I don't especially want Polanco, but if I lowball on Dozier, the Twins might accept an offer on Polanco from someone else, and then Dozier won't be traded". Dozier is at an age that he'd be the natural one to trade, if your business model is to exploit your minor league talent pipeline. We may look back and realize 2016 was his career year. On the other hand, if he's achieved a new level of performance, it's enough above average that he's the kind of player you want to retain. There is also the public relations problem with trading your best player, something that can not be ignored. So I want a lot in return for him, if I trade him - high upside starting pitching, to start with. The point of putting together a contending team is to fill all your positions with above MLB-average players. Those don't grow on trees. We finally have one. Polanco, as has been stated by others already, is less likely to bring back much in trade right now. If that assumption proves wrong, he's the one I probably deal. He projects as an above average 2B eventually, so I don't let him go for scraps in return. If neither trade option works out, I would roll with Polanco at SS for 2017.* I have been a harsh critic of Polanco's arm for a couple of years now, and I remain very skeptical he can ever become even an average shortstop overall. But his bat looks like it's good enough to make up for it, during a transition season; and unlike some players, being in over his head on defense didn't seem to harm his offensive production. Keep the channels open for a trade during 2017, and re-evaluate a year from now if I still have both players. * An option I haven't seen discussed: move Dozier to SS instead of Polanco. Both players are about average at 2B; if Dozier might provide marginally better defense at SS then that change has to be considered. The old regime seemed to give undue preference to veterans in their choice of positions; maybe under Falvey that changes. I think Dozier sees himself as enough of a team player to accept the challenge of being a mediocre SS for the good of the team. It's something Molitor wouldn't have asked of Dozier mid-season, but perhaps now he would.

I'm hoping the new front office does a bit of culling among the glut of corner/DH types we have, preferably via trade rather than simply non-tender them. Minus a couple of those players, Vargas's role will become clear. He's either with some other team, or is part of the Twins lineup as a platoon bat at minimum. Plouffe gone, Vargas for a prospect in single-A, or Park for a prospect in single-A - I'm not sure I care which two of these happens.

This football star has a movie now? http://67.media.tumblr.com/f4ccd60df683d68c1657ac1f52fc8839/tumblr_n6ab8yu0Sx1td5zevo1_1280.png

Terrible. Terrific. What's a few letters, among friends?

He was a 20 year old, at high-A. To me, those numbers project just fine. If he can stick at SS, even more so.

A little poetic license.

Satire just doesn't play well on this site. Had I just straightforwardly said his pedigree compares interestingly and favorably with Jed Hoyer's, that pedigree would all of a sudden seem like a small plus, no?

The Twins just hired an ex-jock, a pitcher, from a liberal arts college in Hartford, who eked out an economics degree. The Pohlad organization will be comfortable with this kindred spirit from the east coast variety of the country club. No threatening Ivy League MBAs or law degrees to shake things up or anything. Or maybe I just described Jed Hoyer. No, Hoyer's degree was in History. Never mind.

I choose to believe this one gets walked back, as needed. Mollie gets promoted to VP of Strategic Acumen and Advanced Baseball Thinkology, and the GM's choice is thereupon ushered into the dugout.

Old Air Force sergeants never die, they just go to a higher plane.

Click on image for solution to puzzle.

ISWYDT http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/obama_iswydt.gif

It's the manager's job to pick a role each pitcher can succeed in. It's the pitching coach's job to help the pitcher succeed in the role he's been assigned. Even if the role isn't quite ideal, adjustments might be possible. It's the pitcher's job to succeed, obviously. I'm wondering if a different coach could have helped Tonkin adjust better, though. I'm willing to roll the dice with a different coach next season, as I've said probably too frequently by now.

He's not a number. He is a free man. "Who is number 1?"

Came here to do that, discovered it to be unnecessary.

We're currently sitting at 55 wins, not 70. I don't think it's smart business for a PBO/GM to flirt with consecutive 100 loss seasons, with a downside risk of 110. There seems to be an unstated assumption that once in the neighborhood of 100, it's all the same, or that it's impossible for a team ERA to get worse than the 5.11 we currently have; run enough Pat Deans out there for lack of anything better to try, and you can have ERA 6.00. Being the go-to laugh-getter for Jimmy Kimmel every night is not where you want to be. It takes a long time to re-fill the ballpark even after the team starts winning, once you let that happen. Houston, now an attractive team in a large enough market, still is drawing just above 2M attendance. It may already be too late for the Twins to avoid long term damage like that, but waving the white flag even before Opening Day would be a compounding mistake. I can envision offers where trading ESan makes sense, but it's far less likely we receive one than for Dozier because of the ready replacement at 2B.

Yes, and more the point, we have someone to step in for Dozier if he is traded (Polanco, with Escobar returning to starter's duty at SS). Debatable dropoff, unless you believe Dozier is at a new permanent plateau in performance (in which case Polanco is the trade bait), in return for some appreciable help at a position of need. Who is the equivalent, ready to step in with minimal dropoff, if Santana is traded? That's the crux. A team would need to knock me over with an offer for Santana, and no GM is going to do that.

You can do that to fill four of the spots I named in my so-called plan. I applaud Ryan's ability to do that. It can't be plan A, for the three critical spots on the relief staff. And that's how it's worked out, too many years. We've had Perk, and then, uh, er, ummm... guys.

An ideal pennant winning pitching staff these days needs three guys who can shut down the opposition in innings 7, 8, and 9. You then want a Loogy and a Roogy for tactical purposes - guys who might not be effective against all batters but have their uses, including mopup. And you need a couple of guys who can go for longer stints and hopefully keep it close - if your starter makes it through the fifth, you can use one in the sixth if need be. With 5 starters, that's a 12-man staff; sometimes teams dabble with 13 but I'm not going to plan on that. Based on that, I'd assign roles as follows Closer - (we don't have anybody) 8th - Chargois 7th - Duffey ROOGY - (I don't know) LOOGY - O'Rourke Long man 1 - Rogers (could be the LOOGY too, but he is a recent starter) Long man 2 - (I don't know) And that's it. The cupboard is pretty bare for the new PBO/GM, unless or until the new wave of prospects is ready. Notes: I have May in my starting rotation so that's why he's not here.I'm not counting one iota on Perk and Hughesie.Kintzler is just a guy - his ERA is good but his peripherals aren't, and for a righty he isn't that good against righties, so I have trouble saying what his role is on a good team.Pressly has the same issue against righties, and he's just basically so hittable, that at this point in his career he's becoming roster filler.Tonkin is a disappointment.I can't see a role for Milone either as a starter or a reliever.Boshers, Darnell, Dean, Albers, all are filler, or less.I'm assuming Light has minor league options, and I'd stash him at AAA. (Edit: ditto Wimmers, Melotakis - and Landa and Rosario somewhere below.) None of the guys currently not yet on the 40-man strike me as ready to kick the door in for entry, quite yet. Again, I'm talking about a staff for a good team. The 2017 Twins won't be good, so I don't basically care if any of these current pitchers I'm dismissing are retained for another year - and relievers are always capable of putting together a surprise season and looking good, so let them try, and we can reevaluate a year from now. I'm frustrated, borderline depressed on this topic, and like I said, the new PBO/GM really have their work cut out for them to make anything out of this shambles. Nobody but Chargois and maybe Duffey would be worth anything in trade, and for good reason, so it's not like a wheeler-dealer could make something happen from the existing pieces. Maaaaybe, a different pitching coach can make something out of a couple of the pieces I am dismissing, such as Pressly or Tonkin. If this is a classroom, I get an Incomplete. I realize this isn't a plan. It's a surrender.

My assumption when the trade was made was that we would benefit by non-tendering him in the off-season. Combine that money with other funds from other releases and non-signings. Now, I'm less sure. Where can the money be better deployed this off-season?

I think the main constraint is that when you send a guy down, you can't recall him for a certain number of days. Ten, maybe? Not every pitcher has minor league options remaining, either. If you factor in injuries as well, it means you need a very lengthy list of MLB ready pitchers on the 40-man, and the additional padding will be even more Albers types than we have now. (If you had someone better, you wouldn't be in this pickle in the first place.) The GM will find the roster-juggling a very great challenge, and you'll have even more innings in which pitchers are overmatched by major league hitters. I am all for outside the box thinking. Good luck to the GM who attempts this one, though.

Or, he's a damaged player, who bounced back to have his career year in 2015 and will not reach even that level of averageness again. I'm no doctor, but his good-Gibby bad-Gibby track record suggests to me he has lingering intermittent finger numbness, post-TJ surgery, even after all this time (or more acute again through further wear and tear). Or pick a different theory, but the good-Gibby bad-Gibby pattern has me no longer ready to count on him whatsoever, and I doubt you could get anything decent in trade so I really don't know what to do with him except keep him in the mix as a fifth starter candidate. The entire 2017 plan for the rotation laid out in this thread frustrates the heck out of me, with the state that our pitching options have come down to. May and Santana, and pray for mañana. I really hope the new PBO and GM have some magic up their sleeves that will make the present discussion so moot that we'll all be laughing six months from now. Yep. I'm down to hoping for magic.