DaveW

Please Brock, you know as well as anyone that Ryan was clearly the puppet-master the whole time!!111!!!one!! Also can we stop criticizing the Twins for letting Dickey go? NOBODY could predict the success he was going to have.

Pageviews baby, pageviews. You should be thanking me when this thread alone buys you a new Mercedes.

Rockies signed Jeff Manship yesterday to a minor league deal.

Easy to be an ahole at 3 in the morning vodkadbag. I agree it is early to get down on offseason but your tone is unneeded. Did I miss something? Seems like your tone is a whole lot more contentious than his. And he's right -- it is pointless to be speculating how many wins the currently assembled roster would win. TR is probably not even close to finished yet. LOL this explains the private message he sent me at 4am with only the words "Suck my Poop" in the message box. I'm not sure how I was being a jerk there, I was just pointing out how its a little silly and premature to jump all over Terry Ryan right now when this off-season when something like 80% of free agents are still available! Also it doesn't make sense to start making predictions when our roster is only about 70% complete (60% of rotation still needs to be filled etc etc) If anything Ryan needs to be given some benefit of the doubt moving forward, he had some real nice pick ups last year, and has done a great job so far this year addressing our pitching depth in the minors. It seems like people have a hard time distinguishing between his track record and the track record of Bill Smith.

My favorite Ben Revere moment was during an intrasquad scrimmage a few years ago in spring training. Revere was playing CF and Cuddyer was on 2nd base. Morneau was at the plate and hit a deep one back to the warning track. Revere caught it and sort of took his time throwing it to the cutoff man (3 bounces), Cuddyer seeing this decided to not only tag up to third, he in fact went all the way home. Beating the relay throw home by a hair.

Big difference between Dozier and Hicks though. Hicks is already ML ready defensively.

We need some way to find if people are being sarcastic. Maybe we use some "patron saint of bad ideas" that we could use to let people know. How about, "as reported by Patrick Reusse". Examples: We should have gone to 6 million for Marquis. As Reported by Patrick Reusse. We could get James Shields for Ben Revere and Anthony Slama. As Reported by Patrick Reusse. How's about "as posted by VodkaDave?" Works for me. Can we replace all your comments in anything related to WAR with an old guy on a porch yelling at the kids to get off his lawn?

It was obviously in jest (maybe in poor taste, but this is the internet after all!) Sorry if I offended you with my hyperbole? Greinke's mental healthy history should be taken into factor though (and it is), just like any players injury history or substance abuse history (Josh Hamilton). Greinke is fine and dandy, but giving him 140 million is HUUUUUGGGGGGEEEE RISK

Having unprotected "whoopee" with Lindsay Lohan > Chone Figgins

No, FIP is a terrible way to judge him because it makes the case that his low BABIP is "luck" rather then "Skill". The majority of balls put in play against Dickey are "bad batted balls" as in the hitter is not making even close to good contact. Again you can point out FIP all you want, the fact is Dickey's ERA is over a full run lower then Dempster over the last 3 years, and it's not due to luck. You pointing out there WAR shows how WAR is a flawed stat. 2009 has no bearing on this discussion in regards to Dickey and it shouldn't even be brought up, he was clearly a totally different pitcher as he wasn't even starting back then. (other then a single game)

Lets say its 88 games like last year... The Twins won 66 last year. Just 16 more wins and you are 82-80 and that puts you in contention. If you are in contention. Deadline deals can be made to improve the squad... The team will play with more competitiveness. Everything can change. 16 more wins... That's one more win every ten games... If anyone thinks that isn't do-able... They lack something or haven't really put it in perspective. I would love to be wrong on this, but I don't think that this is likely, considering that there are only two decent starters on board, a pretty big hole in CF, a weak middle infield, and no great defenders in the outfield. I think that it is more likely that the Twins will lose 90+ games next year. The off-season isn't even CLOSE to over yet. The Twins still have a ton of money they can spend. It's really pointless to start playing the whole "how many games will the Twins win next year:" when they still have 3+ months to fill the rest of the roster. 2 decent starters in the rotation is one more then we had 95% of last year, so there is a start!

2010: Greinke: 4.17 ERA 2011: Greinke: 3.83 ERA 2012: Greinke: 3.48 ERA 2010: Dickey: 2.84 ERA 2011: Dickey: 3.28 ERA 2102: Dickey: 2.73 ERA Can we please stop with the "Derp, Dickey is Old and he will suck moving forward" when there is zero evidence supporting that case? You want to tie up 7 years and $140 million in ****ing Zach Grienke? A guy who is about as mentally stable as a 15 year old fat girl? $140 million to a guy with a career 3.77 ERA and 3.62 xFIP? Greinke is solid no doubt, and a better option then Dickey moving forward. But $115 million extra over 4 years better? looooool no.

I don't disagree with a thing you just said. I think Dempster is a safer bet to be "better" in 2013/2014 then Lannan. My whole point is I don't want the Twins rushing out to overpay for Dempster a guy who is "just above an average pitcher" who is 35. but if you ask me who I would rather have: Lannan at 2-3 mil for 1 year or Dempster for 33-39 mil for 3 years? Give me Lannan any day. Worst case scenario is he sucks and the Twins live to fight (spend) another day/year. Signing Dempster long term could hurt our potential to bring in not only help this year, but moving forward. As they say, there really is no such thing as a "terrible" one year deal.

Not really. Sanchez, Greinke, Jackson, Marcum, Dempster (puke) are still out there. The dumpster will continue to be full of back end guys like Lannan, Pelfrey, Webb??, Liriano etc, so there is no rush to overpay and sign any of these guys. Lavelle...(I trust him more than most)... Said that Marcum is about the only guy on that list that the Twins are still in on. If that's true... I really hope we land him. A Dickey,Marcum,Diamond, Worley, Gibson rotation would look pretty good to me Also I could have sworn I read somewhere the Twins were the "mystery" team on Sanchez.

Double post sorry!

A combination of good defense and a decent but by no means great GB% (53%) Dempster is 46% FWIW

Not really. Sanchez, Greinke, Jackson, Marcum, Dempster (puke) are still out there. The dumpster will continue to be full of back end guys like Lannan, Pelfrey, Webb??, Liriano etc, so there is no rush to overpay and sign any of these guys.

Did I ever say it was an end all be all stat? I was just pointing out that if you look at their careers, and past 3 years, the "results" are pretty similar. Also a guy like Dempster at age 35 isn't likely to suddenly show some huge vast improvement. By no means am I saying Lannan is a better pitcher then Dempster, I am just saying that giving Dempster 30-39 mil over 3 years is a mistake.

I look at Dickey and see a guy who's ERA is out of whack with his peripherals. His 9 k/9 in 2012 was the only time in the last 10 years he has been over 6 k/9 and I think that is a fluke. I see a guy who is going to be 38 and I think he is likely to succumb to age just like everyone else (including many other knuckleballers). I also see other pitchers out there who are very good pitchers and would be HUGE upgrades to the Twins rotation that would cost about the same money without giving away any prospects. So to sum it up: Huge Risk Costs Prospects Other options Certainly you are more the welcome to your own opinion. Dude, he is a knuckleball Pitcher.XFIP/FIP and several others don't apply to him as much as the other 99.5% of pitchers who aren't knuckleballers. Most of the time when hitter did put bat on ball it was with very weak contact. Hell even with that said his xFIP and FIP were 3.27 last year, add in his 2.73 ERA and k/bb rate and that is top of the rotation stuff all the way. Granted his strand rate was 5% higher then normal, but at the same time his HR% was high as well, what does this say about 2012? It wasn't a fluke for Dickey. Also his two years prior were pretty damn good as well! As far as knuckleballers not aging well, I'm not sure what you mean. Wakefield pitched effectively into his 41 year season, and wasn't even that god awful in his 42 age year. Phil Niekro had a 3.09 ERA when he was 45! His brother Joe had a sub 4.00 ERA his 40th year and pitched to 43. Also as I mentioned in the other thread: Lannan has a better Career ERA then Dempster, and a better past 3 full seasons ERA then Dempster. This isn't to say Dempster has no value or Lannan is better, it just illustrates that Dempster at 3 years and no prospects is not better then Dickey at 3 years and some prospects. Give me Dickey any day of the week over Dempster, especially if it only costs 26 mil over 2 years and only 1 of our top 8 prospects (+ some other pieces)

Also fun stat: Lannan career ERA: 4.01 Dempster career ERA: 4.33 last 3 full years: Dempster: 4.04 ERA Lannan: 4.03 (4.13 if you don't count his 2009 and swap in 2012 instead) Lannan: 28 Years old Dempster:35 Years old Off topic: I have no idea why people are talking about giving 30+ million and 3 years to Dempster!!!!

I think that is a little overkill. I don't want him on the Twins really, but Lannan does have a 4.01 ERA in 780 major league innings as a starter. That certainly deserves at least a one year major league contract at 2-3 million. His peripherals aren't pretty no doubt, but he has been a perfectly solid back end guy in 3 of his 4 full seasons (sub 3.95 ERA's) and even his worst year (4.65 ERA) wasn't exactly the biggest disaster ever. Again, I don't want him on the Twins bc of the lack of upside, but if they do sign him to a 1 year 2-3 mil deal I wouldn't get to worked up about it. Just because he spent last year in AAA doesn't mean he doesn't deserve a major league roster spot. Not all teams had the Nationals starting rotation last year Also I would be pretty surprised if either DeDuno or DeVries has a better season then him next year. I have zero trust in them to produce over a full season, and think they are best served as org depth who can come up and not kill you if a pitcher goes on the DL for a few weeks.

The reason I prefer Pelfrey over a guy like Marquis/Blackburn/Lannan is because I still remember a few years ago when he was a top 30 prospect....i know...i know... It's a really dumb reason to hang onto, but the idea that there is still maybe a shred of upside there intrigues me to signing him to a 1 year/2 mil contract over a a guy like Marquis and Lannan.

As long as it isn't a push... Twinsdaily/Diamondcentric wins. Good luck to you sir (unless its the Twins who give him 6 million a year, then I might be a little bummed out)

What does this have to do with anything at the topic at hand? If ANYONE could predict who was going to win the World Series year in and year out, they certainly wouldn't be working for an MLB team or ESPN, they would be sitting pretty winning millions every year gambling. Just because "pundits" have a tough time predicting who will win it all (when the baseball playoffs by and large are a HUGE crap shoot as most people acknowledge) doesn't mean their analysis of players and prospects is "bunk". These guys get paid the big bucks because they have: 1. A great track record 2. A great understanding of the game. So pardon me if I(and 99% of people) take Keith Law's thoughts a little more seriously then someone who simply states "Terry Ryan sucks" on a message board.