jokin

Since we were going with more "kids", there were some of us that suggested that the Twins sign Grady Sizemore a few months ago. He's starting for the Sox in CF and is making $750,000. That 31 year old "kid" would make our OF look a lot better than having both of those 2 "greybeards" out there (and more youthful!).

It might be interesting to attempt to add a "say-so" Spring Training curve for the Twins Manager. In actuality, Gardy expressed public discontent that he had had no say-so in the first round of cuts when Meyer and Buxton were sent down, meanwhile implying that his opinion would have more weight heading into this week. Since guys like Meyer and Buxton carry severe implicatiions regarding the starting their service clocks, it's logical that Gardy would have more sway when choosing "good clubhouse" veterans over marginal guys later in the process. I stated back before ST that I expected the Twins would try to sneak Diamond and Parmelee through waivers and that Kubel and Bartlett were going to make the club- Gardy was firmly supportive of the latter 2 throughout the process, and Gibson's performance just forced his hand. But he's also been Florimon's biggest backer, as well, meaning there still isn't a real rationale for having Bartlett around, despite cutting Presley (didn't see that one coming). (Did Arcia preserve his spot with his better play this week?) Conclusion: there's a ML move coming AND/OR Florimon is going on the DL.

It might be interesting to attempt to add a "say-so" Spring Training curve for the Twins Manager. In actuality, Gardy expressed public discontent that he had had no say-so in the first round of cuts when Meyer and Buxton were sent down, meanwhile implying that his opinion would have more weight heading into this week. Since guys like Meyer and Buxton carry severe implicatiions regarding the starting their service clocks, it's logical that Gardy would have more sway when choosing "good clubhouse" veterans over marginal guys later in the process. I stated back before ST that I expected the Twins would try to sneak Diamond and Parmelee through waivers and that Kubel and Bartlett were going to make the club- Gardy was firmly supportive of the latter 2 throughout the process, and Gibson's performance just forced his hand. But he's also been Florimon's biggest backer, as well, meaning there still isn't a real rationale for having Bartlett around, despite cutting Presley. (Did Arcia preserve his spot with his better play this week?) Conclusion: there's a ML move coming AND/OR Florimon is going on the DL.

I wasn't comparing Duece to Diamond (Diamond should be SP depth, IMO), just pointing out that it was a checkered season for Duensing, and the bloom was off the rose for his dominance against LHB, as his numbers against LHB were clearly not "lights out", the numbers show he was actually pretty hittable against them. And Duensing's Inherited Runners Scored rate soared to 32% from the previous 3-year average of 15% Not saying he's toast, just pointing out there are a few chinks in his armor going into this season. Incidentally, the 1st Half/2nd Half Duece comparison was a little misleading also. It wasn't really a tale of two Duensings, but more like the Tale of Jekyll and Hyde Duensing: good in April, June and August (August was awesome, 0.00 ERA) and alternately, just plain awful in May, July and September: http://minorleaguecentral.com/player?pid=488846&split=2013

I feel a bit like a ping pong ball, but THIS, all of this. It would be nice, especially until Meyer passes the arb date and proves his mettle in AAA, that the Twins have Diamond at the ready, as one of the first two depth options in the first month and a half. As stated before, I hope that Meyer forces the issue by some time in May and moves up to the first SP option. Johnson, Gilmartin, et al, certainly appear to be upgraded SP options over "PJ, Cole and the Funky Bunch", but the 9-12 depth chart SPs (if Diamond re-signs- he would be my "7B", as I'm counting on Deduno and Meyer to be #6 and #7) are no where near slam dunks if called upon. (Given the offseason love that he received from TR, and the lack of a LHSP, I get the sneaking suspicion that Johnson might leapfrog everyone else on this list, including Deduno- but of course, I hope the Twins are well aware that if Deduno starts, they don't need a LHSP, as Deduno is the #3 ranked SP against LHB for 2012-13 and was #5 against LHB in 2013: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=y&type=0&season=2013&month=13&season1=2012&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0)

So, IYO, is the loss of velocity evidence that Worley still isn't healthy?

In this case, I concur with Gleeman on Ibarra, Ibarra had a really strong scoreless streak going in New Britain last summer- the only sign of dominance at any point in his career, but he doesn't even have a great split, so anything they get from him will be a bonus and hopefully at least a decent placeholder, I would hope they could trade him at a high point as part of a package- which is why they should be shopping around more in Rule 5, FA and waiver-claiming situations in search of live arms, especially lefties.

Gleeman is wrong as often as he is right, but thanks just the same for your own voice of reason, I put much more stock in how well you properly parse out this situation mathematically.

Like I said, no "hitters" in this list, despite Terry Ryan stating that upgrading the offense was a prime objective.

2:14 and 2:39. Nice, crisp baseball games....me like.

This. C'mon people, this is progress.

Disturbing signs of decline for Duensing against LHBs last year? (Scroll all the way to the right hand side): [TABLE=class: rgMasterTable, width: 100%] [TH=class: rgHeader]Season [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader]Handedness [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]IP [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]ERA [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]TBF [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]H [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]2B [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]3B [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]R [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]ER [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]HR [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]BB [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]IBB [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]HBP [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]SO [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]AVG [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]OBP [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]SLG [/TH] [TH=class: rgHeader, align: right]wOBA [/TH] [TR=class: rgRow] [TD=class: grid_line_regular]2013 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular]vs L [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]30.1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]- - - [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]132 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]37 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]6 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]10 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]10 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]3 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]7 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]36 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].298 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].344 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].443 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].341 [/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: rgAltRow] [TD=class: grid_line_regular]2013 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular]vs R [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]30.2 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]- - - [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]136 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]31 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]5 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]2 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]18 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]17 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]15 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]3 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]1 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right]20 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].258 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].348 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].364 [/TD] [TD=class: grid_line_regular, align: right].311 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

Parker, I'm wondering if you were on hand to hear what was apparently the followup to the above quote: Breaking out the 2013 tired Terry Ryan meme, once again after the fact? I don't recall much or any reporting of the Twins seriously in on any hitters ("out of our price range" was pretty much how the tweeted attributions would go), despite Ryan's public pronouncements late last year that they were, in fact, going to address the hitting dearth during this offseason.

How common was that "common refrain", really? "perfecly reasonable"? Certainly not from me and the large chorus of doubters who expressed their discontent in the previous offseason and ST. Consider this counter-perfectly-reasonable-evidence, presented a year ago: -Most of us were actually down on the Correia signing- he was the upside surprise to most everyone- the "pretty good pitcher" that Ryan had promised he'd deliver and then he produced pretty predictable #5-level SP numbers, whoopee! -Most of us questioned what Worley brought to the Twins, what with his injury, down year in 2012 vs 2011 and showing up to ST overweight. -Most of us were aware that Deduno was a "found money" journeyman pitcher only, certainly not one to count on over a season, as he'd never done it before, and likely never will. -Most of us wanted Gibson, on an innings limitation and a speculative contributor as a rookie and coming off of TJ, called up right after his May arb date, not so much expecting he'd rock the baseball world, but that that is what a rebuilding team with woeful pitching depth should be doing- getting their former #1 pick and next great hope, Gibson, some major league experience once he proved healthy. -Most of us expected regression from Diamond, but I didn't hear anyone say we had a "nice, deep starting rotation!" to pick up his regresson slack. Unless they were drunk when they wrote it. -Rather than suggesting that Pelfrey could put up past numbers with the Mets, most of us questioned how the Twins could possibly have considered Pelfrey for the opening day rotation, attempting to do something completely unprecedented. If they had signed another discount arm like Bruce Chen, they could have stashed Pelfrey first in Ext. ST and then some minor league time to properly rehab instead of getting free service time from the Twins- It was a bizarre notion, at best, Pelfrey himself has admitted that it was a huge mistake to come back so soon- but he was quite effective for the first 2 months after his demotion in June. - Virtually all of us questioned how guys like Hernandez, Walters, Hendriks, Blackburn, DeVries, et al, were actually considered as legitimate SP depth- and the Twins passed on waiver wire guys for free- like Todd Redmond. As you said, we're not that far apart on the belated upgrade in 2014, but the team's rotation is far removed from last year's Rotation flim-flam, it's not realistic to compare the expectations in ST in each year as being similar. Obviously, my projection of improving to slightly below league average was for demonstration purposes only- something to shoot for, projecting what each player could, only slightly optimistically, achieve when staying healthy and not having a complete performance collapse like many of the arms did in 2013. I would argue that based on the durable track records for some, and others being in the normally much-better and healthier 2nd year after TJ, that this group of arms is much less likely to sustain an instance of utter collapse- but it certainly could happen. Only now, they have at least 2 arms in Deduno and Meyer (and possibly Diamond) at the ready, who project far better than last year's alleged "depth", to be able to pick up the slack for someone that goes on the DL for 15-60 days. And again, talking about the luck factor finally favoring the Twins again, it is certainly within the realm of possibility given the overall upgrade in quality, that the Twins get a career-year performance like Diamond's in 2012, from someone on this staff- which could also bolster the overall numbers should one of the others perform below expectations. And finally, the #7-10 guys in the depth chart for the first time in my memory, don't appear to be holding on to their baseball dreams by a frayed thread.

All of their top pitching prospects except Meyer are many years away from being established major leaguers. Gibson seems to have recovered from TJ and capable of contributing in the next 3 years. Is there anyone else?

Double that Concurrence, but instead of just a "review" that ends up inevitably continuing the sweeping of mistakes out of town when no one is noticing, how about an ad hoc Internal Accountability Review Board that can get to the bottom of how bungled this trade ended up, and make the necessary changes in procedures and personnel, as needed. I am stunned how so many here are just willing to say, "oh well, nothing to see here, let's move on..." Brooks Raley isn't good enough for the Cubs, but offers more hope to this club (and a roster spot) than a proven major league starter? My goodness, look around baseball, is there ANY other team remotely close to this situation, ie, a team whose 2013 Opening Day SP, who started 3 of the first 10 games that year, was just traded away for essentially a few buckets of balls?

I think I saw Vasquez and Raley with their hands up......

Since I brought up the topic, FWIW, yes, Mijares was brought up as an example of ex-Twins and the FO appreciation for the familiarity factor with their culture, as someone who could possibly return to the Twins on the cheap, with a fighting chance to be able to re-find his mojo. But actually, I keep a close eye on the AL East, particularly the Red Sox, Rays and Blue Jays, who either have an eye for pitching talent and/or love to stockpile surplus arms. It's why I was disappointed that the Twins didn't more aggresively pursue Chris Capuano, who signed with the Red Sox for a relative bargain. And I also previously suggested the Twins consider Brayan Villareal on a no-risk minor league deal, when the Sox put him on waivers a month or so ago, he's one year removed from a dominant year, is only 26, and throws up to 100 MPH. The Sox also have another guy I hope they're keeping an eye on in LHP, Tommy Layne, who likely will become the odd man out with the Sox. He's had a great ST, coming in on a minor-league deal, but even with Craig Breslow going on the DL, it looks like LHP Drake Britton will get the final BP spot for the Sox.

No bias against the Twins, just an overall tendency by ZIPS to lowball projections. And since they have one of the worst rosters in baseball, coming off of a lousy year, the lowball estimates kind of create a cascading effect? You're right Mike, they are close to the worst team overall in baseball, but there were significant moves made to the rotation, significant dollars added to SP relative to the overall payroll, and potentially positively consequential developments that ZIPS failed to account for both with a guy like Hughes, and from a couple returnees and rookies who offer reasonably possible significant improvements over last year, rather than the ZIPS assumption that EVERYBODY will be the same or even worse than last year or even their career averages, ie, Mike Pelfrey projected at last year's numbers, and only 118 innings pitched. Really?

Well stated. And yet another trade made at rock bottom value. There must be a corollary to James' "left for dead" theory for teams that don't manage this aspect of pitching depth very well. The Twins are having a pretty amazing knack for producing more than their 1/10 share, only to find many being re-animated at various levels of success around the league. I am sensing a slight shift in philosophy, giving up so soon on last year's opening day starter, after a much ballyhooed trade. Worely's a mess right now, to be sure, the appalling "blame it on the wind" excuse was pretty telling about where the Vanimal is at right now- but didn't it behoove the Twins to salvage whatever they could from his current state to derive more value than this, whether it be with the Twins or as a trading chip? I guess they think they can't damage their PR situation any worse by basically admitting another mistake. At this point, Trevor May really needs to come through this year in Rochester, if, by contrast, Revere stays healthy all year and puts up a 2-3 WAR season.

By your own admission, the Royals got career years from a couple of their guys. My estimate doesn't take that into account- is there a 2012 Scott Diamond year in one or two of our guys this year? (And why didn't we sign Bruce Chen when we had the chance to do so? )

I've only looked at individual players, and in most instances when the projections are laid side-by-side, ZIPS is the outlier to the downside, sometimes really out there. (Remember the low-ball Mauer projection by ZIPS, even though they knew he would be at First Base? The Phil Hughes out-of-Yankee Stadium situation also stands out as a pretty glaring omission of taking proper account of the facts on the table.)

Roster spots open for sure when Willingham and Correia are traded. While I can envision the "consistency" argument, ala Gibson, being used to keep Meyer down, justifiably through the arb date, Gardy has already publicly mentioned that he can envision Meyer in a relief role if a starting spot hasn't opened up yet. But yes, guys like Johnson and Diamond (if he's still here) would be the first call-ups before the arb date if there is an injury. The main thing is, I hope the Twins have learned from the recent past, and don't waste most of his innings in AAA if he's performing like he did in 2013 in AA and the AFL. And pitching in September seems pretty problematic if indeed he's on an innings limitation, which is why I see him getting called up much sooner rather than later.

Well-stated. For whatever mathematical set of forumulae that is claimed to be used in ZIPS, it still comes across as pretty lazy work, generally biased towards expectation of the worst possible outcomes. In a separate ZIPS rating of rookies, Meyer is projected to have the numbers I used in my scenario, 110 Innings @ 4.20 ERA.

In 2010, Kevin Correia posted his career-high xFIP right around 4.00 and his 2nd best-ever K/9 rate with the Padres, and was victimized by a near-career-low strand rate and higher BABIP. In 2012, with the Bucs, KC had his best ERA and ERA+ since 2009 with a career-best GB%. (I think that's what Terry Ryan was talking about when he said "better than his numbers indicate:p).