cHawk

They only way they would’ve gotten Brantley is if they outbid Houston (2yr/$32M). For a depth piece, that’s absurdly overpriced. As a starter, it would still be blocking a corner OF spot, the spot where the farm is loaded the most by far. Kirilloff was going to be started in LF that year, they weren’t going to block him with Brantley on a 2-year deal. But mainly, they were never going to get Brantley away from Houston. Pretty much all of those things can be said for Rosario. The Twins had to pay him $10M if they wanted to keep him, which is pretty overpriced for a player of his skillset. As for the backup CF, I want to hear some of the candidates you had in mind.

So, 2021. A an unexpectedly bad season where many are calling for heads. If any of you watch SKOR North, you’ll be familiar with the concept of a pie chart of blame. That’s what I’m going to do. So, basically, here’s mine: Falvey and Levine: 35% Pretty much every FA Pitching Addition from this past offseason has went Now, I made a thread a while back asking whether or not it was a misevaluation by the FO or they couldn’t have helped them all blowing up. Maybe it was all bad luck, but I believe it was a misevaluation on their part. The staff as a whole has been terrible. And when that’s the case, you look to the guys who put it together. And if you’re wondering why Falvey and Levine aren’t getting a lionsshare of the pie chart, well, you’ll see soon. Rocco Baldelli: 10% This will probably shock many. I’ve definitely been scratching my head at many of Baldelli’s decisions this year. The reason I only give him so little is because of one thing: I don’t think his management had that much impact on the games. As bad as his pitching management has looked, there’s been more situations where he was simply dealt a bad hand. Simply put, this pitching staff would make any manager look really bad. He didn’t put the pitching staff together. Injuries: 35% Donaldson hurt immediately, Buxton getting hurt multiple times. Kepler getting COVID, Kiriloff getting hurt, injuries to the catching tandem. Digging into your EIGHTH outfielder option in ****ing May. And that’s just the position players side of things. Maeda getting injured, Pineda getting injured. Injuries to Duran and Balazovic and other top prospects. Injuries to key players will always hurt a team. The Twins have had loads of them. They have definitely been a characteristic of the season blowing up early. Coaches and Players: 10% I’ve said this before. This team has not looked like a well-coached baseball team. Specifically, this team has had many mental mistakes and brain farts cost them games. Arraez/Blankenhorn in the 13-12 loss to the A’s. Celestino making the losing drop at KC. Donaldson dropping the easy throw against the A’s at home. The Twins are Bottom 5 in every meaningful fielding stat. (FP, Errors) I’m not calling for any changes to the coaching staff, but I think a lot of this is connected to the coaching staff. Andrelton Simmons: 10% Why does Simmons get his own spot in this pie chart? Well, it’s simple. He refused the vaccine and was the first one to test positive, causing an early COVID outbreak, which definitely tanked the season to some degree. So, that’s my opinion. What’s yours? Please share your opinion down below, or Frogo will be in your bed tonight:

Elaborate please.

I never did. It literally says OPINION on the front of the title. I never said people aren’t allowed to have their opinions.

They completely beat themselves. They should’ve beaten the Bengals but they didn’t. If they play like this against Arizona they are getting rolled.

They need a stop here.

10 Penalties in 1 half? That’s an indictment of this team’s coaching. They better step it up.

Warning: Most of this is opinionated I don’t think anyone within the organization has taken more heat than Derek Falvey and Thad Levine. We’ve seen the, “These guys have no clue what they’re doing,” for the past couple of months. And I understand that frustration to some degree. I find it frustrating that the pitching pipeline hasn’t produced yet. I find it frustrating that they went from one of the best (no, not better, best) pitching teams in the league to the worst in the span of one year. But you know what I find frustrating most of all? All of those regular season results and no playoff wins. Yet, I still cannot get on the same page with all those calling for them to be fired. I’m going to run through some of the most common arguments I see. *They have absolutely no idea what they’re doing, fire them* I think this argument is more people being emotional than using actual reasoning. It’s a disappointing year, yes. But I don’t see why you need to throw out 2019 and 2020. Prior to 2021, they have had a .549 winning percentage. (Multiply that by 162 and you’ll get an average of about 89 wins). The pitching staff had gotten better and better each year since 2019. Prior to Falvine’s arrival in 2016, the pitching staff ranked 29th in ERA, 28th in WHIP, 2nd MOST HR against. In 2019, it ranked 9th in ERA, 17th in WHIP, and 12th LEAST HR against. And in 2020, 4th in ERA, 4th in WHIP, and fewer HR against than ANY OTHER TEAM. To me, in terms whether or not Falvine can compose a competent pitching staff, the evidence for ‘yes’ outweighs the evidence for ‘no’ despite the disappointment of 2021. *They were gifted a loaded farm system and utterly squandered it* So this kind of depends on how you look at it. While they did have a Top 10 Farm System overall…there was almost no pitching in it. You had your Keplers and your Polancos and your Kirilloffs and your Sanós and, of course, Byron Buxton. What you didn’t have was much of any good pitching prospects in your system. That’s going to translate to what you see today. A lot of major league offensive talent but little to no major league pitching talent coming from that system. So, it’s not Falvine’s fault that they inherited a team where the bats showed promise but the pitching situation was terrible. And also, if that squad had so much promise, why were they literally the worst team in Twins history? It’s not like that team was smothered in injuries like the 2021 squad, they were a flat-out terrible baseball team through and through. *We aren’t seeing pitching pipeline producing yet* This is a fair argument. Probably the most fair one I see. And if this argument still stands in 2022, then I can start getting on board with this ‘Fire Falvine’ stuff. But, simply put, it’s too early to come to a conclusion about this. Remember that they completely lost a year of development in 2020. This is their fourth year of development, which is when you usually see your pipeline start to produce. We’ve seen Ober and a little bit of Joe Ryan. There is more to come. While only two pitchers is underwhelming, it’s not nothing. Also, guys like Duran and Balazovic have been injured this year too, which will also slow down their development. Do I love the work that the Falvine has done? By no means. I’ve questioned them plenty (if you’ve read some of my other threads). I just don’t think that firing them would be a smart move from an organizational standpoint or a technical standpoint. NOTE: The title says ‘for now’ for a reason. If we don’t see some results from the pitching pipeline next year, then yes, they should be canned.

Agree with Dobnak but Ober? Ober pretty clearly a lot better than Dobnak.

The answer is nobody. You don’t give up on your FO after one bad season. I think it’s silly this is even a conversation right now.

The only way you can really hold them accountable is firing them. Either that or they stay around.

Not sure I’d call him mediocre. Actually, I have him right here.

Good stuff.

It was a 3-base error by Verdugo and a 1-base error by the 2B. Guess it depends how you look at it.

Ober looks like a legitimately talented pitcher, unlike the three you mentioned.

Ober is looking quite a bit better than expected. I’m pleasantly surprised.

Go be a fair weather fan elsewhere. And no offense, but I don’t think anyone on here wants to read these types of comments.

Nelson Cruz hit a “little league” inside the park HR with the sacks loaded, cutting the Red Sox 7-1 lead down significantly.

Actually, if you look at his numbers, he’s been pretty bad.

About 8 Months Ago on this day, the Twins FO finally started signing a bunch of pitchers to cheap, one-year deals: Hansel Robles: $2M J.A. Happ: $8M Alex Colóme: $6M Matt Shoemaker: $2M Combine that with many waiver wire claims such as Derek Law, Ian Hamilton, Luke Farrell, and *barf* Brandon Waddell. Almost every single one of these acquisitions have blown up in the faces of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine. The question is, “Why?” I’m not going to evaluate every single pitcher they signed like I did Colóme. I can do that on my own time. Mostly, I want to hear what you think.

I think, at this point, we’d all much rather see Ryan or Duran in the rotation than Dobnak.