jokin

Stay away from any ledges in your building, Mike. I fear with these half-hearted efforts at improvement attempts, even with more than ample cash in the till and no obvious heirs apparent being blocked, there's even more "not winning anything" beyond just 2014. Dang, now I'm making myself depressed, good thing I work in a one-story building.

They may feel that way, but what have they done for me lately?

I think the rest of the owners keep that guy around, just to say: "See, it could be worse!"

Unfair to Twins fans and taxpayers, yes. And just because what Mike said was simplistic, doesn't make it essentially untrue.

The Cubs are on a 5 year rebuild, and have just finished the dumping phase and begun the accumulation phase. In the meantime, they are acquiring FA and trade candidates with flippable upside for even more prospects. The Pirates are one of the prime examples of a low payroll team that was convinced that continued losing would eventually give them enough quality draft picks to return to competitiveness. That effort largely failed and they lost a huge chunk of their fan base, even with the building of one of the best ballparks in baseball. That's why losing by design, alone, is such a dangerous strategy- you can include the Royals in that group- and they paid a heavy price. Since then, both the Pirates and the Royals niche has been acquiring veterans possibly due for bounceback or, in the case of the Royals- take a shot at competing for the pennant by acquiring Shields and other veteran pitchers. That strategy, in the case of the Pirates, was culminated in acquiring Liriano for peanuts, and has finally paid off, 20-some years after their last competitive teams. Both the Royals and Pirates are now well-positioned to stay relevant for awhile. The Astros are on the same type of long-terrm 5 year plan rebuild as the Cubs, again, first going through the process of casting off all the veterans and then rebuilding from the bottom up. They are making their first ventures back into acquiring potential-plus-value veterans this year. I'd like to take a short-cut by learning from the case studies of the Pirates and Royals, imitating their successful moves and avoiding their mistakes. I'm really tired of long-term rebuilds, especially in a new park.

Hard to refute when you provide the damning evidence, Winston.

$8M to play in this type of game for talent-acquisition is barely a rounding error. Good risk-reward ratio.

You nailed it, Mike. You trade for Castro this spring. You have 4 years of team-controlled cost, from age 26 through age 30, for a Catcher who is good both with the bat and glove, and has an Oliver WAR projection of 4.7/4.7/4.7/4.1 (not 2 or 3 WAR, as claimed by a poster). (It might cost you Kepler, but not much more, perhaps the Astros would even listen to a trade involving Pinto and a lesser prospect instead of Kepler- you still have Suzuki as a backup this year and Turner on the way soon). There is no "now what?" You have a basic building block in place at a key position for the next run. Now, you begin the search for your next building block, say SS Yunel Escobar as a possible FA, who projects at 3.0-3.5 annual WAR over the next 4 years. (No more wondering if Polanco can or can't cut it at SS). What then? The Marlins refuse to buy out Giancarlo Stanton's arb years, signing him to another one year/$6.5M last month, and it's reported that Stanton still isn't happy with the situation in Miami. Trade the necessary 2 or 3 better prospects to make this deal (it will be costly, but it shouldn't cost you Buxton or Sano), and you have 3 cost-controlled years with a 24-year old guy who is projected by Oliver to produce 4 straight years of 6.0+ WAR (with the chance to buy them out to sign him through age 30). No more wringing of hands about whether there is anybody who can play alongside Buxton when he eventually arrives. And now you have a potential top of the order reading Buxton/Mauer/Stanton/Sano. (Batting behind Mauer and in front of Sano would be the answer to Stanton's dream situation and out of his current Marlin nightmare). These are just examples- and these 3 project to add up to 15 wins, per year, over the next several seasons..... as opposed to "Waiting for Godot" for the Twins Farm to finally all get called up and produce. Even if every prospect works out perfectly on their respective timetables, it still doesn't guarantee a pennant contender any time soon while they transitions and acclimate to the big leagues. For example, the rebuild with the World Series up-and-comers taking their roster spots took 6 years in the 80s and just about as long in the late 90s, early 00s for the perennial division contenders. Getting proven major leaguers to competently plug the holes and the question mark areas can short-cut that process considerably- and in fixing these positions, you aren't spending huge amounts of money that might curtail your efforts at acquiring FAs for other areas of need

Excellent addendum. In Santana, you're not only getting a pretty steady, healthy innings eater, you're getting a guy that probably has at least 2 seasons left over the next 4 in him to perform somewhat near the level reserved for guys usually making $17 to $25M/yr.

Same with me. That's why I put a lot of trust in successful organizations when they make personnel decisions where all of the facts are sketchy, even when they don't have to do so. The Cards made a concerted effort to learn about the state of Cuban baseball and Diaz particularly- the modest outlay for acquiring the potential, but undetermined, major league ready talent that Diaz represetns, seems like exactly the type of deal that should have fit the Twins MO. (And I seem to remember that last fall the Twins were alleged to have said that the price for Diaz was too high).

Yup. Add some $$$ incentives to the above contract vesting terms and number and you can still get this thing done, Rob Antony.

Add another guy the Twins still haven't acknowledged they were pursuing in December: "Left-hander Chris Capuano told Mike Berardino of the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the Twins showed some early interest in him, but that interest seemed to dry up after the team re-signed Mike Pelfrey in December"

Too many ifs, all with a high potential to turn into whiffs. Give me the gold-plated major leaguer option every time. And as you both say, a chance to get one of the gold-platers at a discount doesn't hamstring the chances for Meyer and Gibson to blossom in to the rotation one iota.

Flawed reasoning. Money hasn't finished negotiating yet. Let's revisit this subject again at the end of the month. My guess is the game of chicken will end up like it usually does, especially with Boras involved, certain GMs and owners will blink and all three players will come out just fine- likely nicely above where the supposed current market is.

And now the Yankees see what the Cubs and Dodgers have done, and they have identified the inefficiencies in this market and have announced their intent to pay through the nose in penalties in order to effectively corner the market on the most promising talent. Another door closed for the Twins to play catch-up until the institution of an International Draft ever comes to fruition.

Hanging one's hat over and over on such a speculative hat rack is an invitation to failure- and completely misses the point of Savvy's post. If the money is available, and it clearly is, it's foolish to rest on short-term pundit-based accolades- how many championships does an "award" like that get you? The Twins should be doing what actual consistently successful teams like the Cards do; what the Cards preach as a huge priority, is building quality depth at every position and then placing their highest priority on properly developing it at an accelerated rate with the best training methods available.

The salary figures being thrown around indicate that you're in the minority (at this point, anyway, doesn't mean you won't turn out right, but as it stands now, MONEY TALKS, and indicates that those with the money are putting that money where their mouth is, and willing to foresake a high draft pick to do so, besides).

Big worry? How about over-arching worry? As long as Deduno is cost-controlled, you can throw him into the depth chart and get some sporadically spectacular results.....coupled with the full expectation of an eventual breakdown and disruption to the rotation. By contrast, Santana, less spectacularly but very reliably, has averaged 193+ IP and nearly 31 starts per year over his 8 full-time years.

Santana is definitely #3 on this list. He still would have been much better than anything currently slated for the Twins rotation. And it's quite likely that he would have had one clinker in his 3-year contract. But then again, based on their own individual career tracks as evidence, it's similarly just as likely that you would have had the one clinker year in three with both Garza and Jiminez, as well. Worth the risk, imo. And Santana has proven to be the most durable of the 3. The biggest take I get from this is the Twins taking on the mantle of a Don Quixote-esque persona. Through cold introspection and cold reality, they finally acknowledged how badly they had bungled the Rotation situation, but lacked the true vigor, mettle and guile to go all the way in completing their quest to returned legitimacy. In both the cases of Garza and Santana they did just enough to NOT get the deal done, whereas they did too much to get the deal done for the lesser targets. Of course their quests for Starting Pitching and a major league catcher were at the cost of also considering the other holes that glaringly still need filling. (Forget pursuing a legit FA MLB hitter or a high-priced SS, even going on the cheap, all they could muster was to sign 2 veteran guys who appear to be done..... over other examples of going on the cheap, ie, what looks like a successful resurrection of Grady Sizemore's career, or going the relatively inexpensive Intl. route for impact from one or more of the Cubans).

That 4-year preference conforms precisely with Berardino's source who said that Santana would be interested in the Twins offer if they guaranteed the 4th year- so the money is apparently not that far off- $11M AAV vs. $12.5M AAV. But you're probably correct, Antony is pulling back.

CBS sports, dated March 7. This same author also reported on the Orioles and Twins offers yesterday, and he also quotes Ken Rosenthal in your link. They've covered all angles of the story- short and long-term. And won't the comp pick just be around his neck again next year? "Silly argument to make?" Why didn't the Twins just keep trotting out PJ, Cole and Pedro- they could have saved $84M by doing nothng- if not to make games more entertaining and competitive to the ticket-buying fanbase?

"Majority of other reports?" Every report I've read includes both the long-term (Orioles and Twins) and one-year scenarios (Orioles, Jays, Braves) in the body of their reportage.

Maybe not his name per se, but finally having a guy coming off of an ERA+ year of 127 and with a career ERA+ of 100 would certainly be a refreshing change for the hometown faithful. The same arguments you make about Santana can be made even more strongly about Nolasco, Hughes and Pelfrey, none of them, on a name basis alone, perk up ticket sales, but it's obvous that the Twins pulled out all the stops concerning the rotation this offseason for a reason- they have been losing credibility and paying the price at the ticket window and the TV ratings with the sub-standard product they've foisted on the Twins the last 3 years.

I agree- bad reporting could be the culprit, or misdirection from the club or the agent. It's just what's currently out there. And Anthony's comments bear no resemblance to Rosenthal's. So many questions. Berardino is doing the main frontline reporting on this, he's apparently got his ironclad source on the story (agent?), here's what he said last night: "Six weeks after falling short in their pursuit of Matt Garza, the Twins are still trying to add to their starting rotation. According to a person with direct knowledge, the Twins have made an offer to free-agent right-hander Ervin Santana. That offer remained on the table as of late Sunday, the person said, but it was unclear if Santana was inclined to accept it. According to CBS Sports.com, the Twins’ offer was for three years at an undisclosed sum. However, the person with direct knowledge indicated the Twins could greatly improve their chances of landing Santana if they were to guarantee a fourth year on his contract."

Does it come down to a sense of urgency from both the owner and the marketing department to stop the bleeding at the ticket window and effect change on the current image after the 2013 of the Twins Starting Rotation from "laughingstock" to major league "legitimate"? Why else the long and public pursuit of Garza, Johan, and now Santana?