jokin

Todd Redmond was available, for free on the waiver wire, twice. If you were going to punt 2013 anyway, why not sign Redmond for the minimum....?....and then if you could flip a Correia or Pelfrey at the deadline, or if someone else inevitably faltered, you had a very capable, high-performing MiLB pitcher, with a high K/9 rate and terrific control?

Yes they can be very different: Kevin Correia 1.3 fWAR Shaun Marcum 1.3 fWAR Dan Haren 1.5 fWAR Brandon McCarthy 1.8 FWAR Scott Feldman 2.1 fWAR I'll take the higher-upside guys every time.

I think it's important to note, before Big Papi was signed, the Sox had finished 2nd in the AL East FIVE straight years. The evidently saw something in Ortiz they felt which could help provide impetus to the Sox in reaching the next level. History has proven they analyzed correctly, and not only has he been a great regular season producer, he has also proven to be a leader in post-season play (as Puckett was for the Twins, with an .898 postseason OPS). Ortiz has a career postseason OPS of .962. But Ortiz has been even more ridiculous as the stakes grew- in World Series play only, besides being a team leader as most recently indicated by his rousing speech to teammates before Game 5..... Ortiz has this astounding World Series batting line over 3 Series: .455 BA/.576 OBP/.795 SLG/.1372 OPS These numbers all rank among the highest World Series hitting numbers in the history of the game and are all #1 for any batter with more than 31 PAs. http://espn.go.com/blog/statsinfo/post/_/id/76929/big-papis-incredible-world-series-career

It was mentined previously in this thread, but bears repeating. Ortiz himself related about being a good soldier and dutifully going against his natural talent, inclination and instincts in trying to hit "The Twins Way". Once freed from these imposed strictures to play under "player's managers", first Grady Little, and then Terry Francona, Ortiz documented how he evolved from being asked to "hit like a little bitch" to being asked to hit like, and in fact, becoming "The Man" (and eventualy all-time great) for the Red Sox. The evidence indicates that the Twins learned nothing from their "Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio"-type of talent-assessment gaffe. It will be interesting to see how a looming similar situation is handled in the cases of Sano and Rosario (early indications will manifest themselves in how Arcia and Pinto are swinging come next April).

Maybe they were referring to the US Government "Keep American Beautiful" PSA of the "Crying Indian" commercial from the 70s? A lot of (not-so) subtle stereotypes packed into a 60-second message:

Uhh....What? No less a noble, Constitution-affirming body than the ACLU would take serious issue with your assertion https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/protecting-outrageous-offensive-speech : "But even truly offensive speech is protected by the First Amendment. That the very point of the First Amendment is in protecting the right of free expression to someone even as vile as Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Chuch...and whether Phelps could be held liable, encourages the suppression of unpopular speech, and is clearly at odds with the First Amendment..."

No. I don't wish to imply that another GM other than Smith could have been better>>>I think it's demonstrable that Smith was a horrible GM and it's virtually certain that there were multitudes of candidates that would have been better had the organization felt comfortable enough to step outside of their self-imposed cocoon. The outside GM hiring alone could have brought in a new leadership direction with fresh approaches to a game in the midst of drastic change, particularly after PEDs were so dramatically extracted from influencing the game. The Twins chose their usual, risk-averse approach, Groupthink spawned Smith, he was a part of the "insiders club" philosophically, who, according to the poster I responded to, apparently qualified as the top candidate the organization had to offer, and who presumably would have had other clubs beating down the doors, were he not so valuable and loyal to the organization. So he ultimately was deemd "the best", the one who internal consensus annointed to assume Ryan's role- with the power and authority associated with Ryan's role, presumably with Ryan's blessing as his personal pick for the job, but unfortunately, with demonstrably woefully less capacity and capability to handle the inside-baseball aspects of Ryan's role- leading to disaster. That disaster came about when the decision-making processes of organizational rubber had to meet the resulting personnel decisions road of reality. The almost-overnight collapse of the organizational competitiveness and no obvious Plan Bs in place to make 2011 a one-year anomaly was the result. It was clearly a collaborative effort borne of stale groupthink and poor decision-making at the top, it's not an either/or outcome as you presumed- bad GM, stale culture- one the product of the other in a never-ending loop.

How many tears would have been shed if Bill Smith had been hired away from the Twins (assuming he was one of the motivated "best people" we're talking about here). It would make for an interesting research study to go back to 2007 and find out just which alternative, extra mile, candidates for the GM job could have been hired from within instead of Smith....and how many seasoned and/or up-and-comers were possibilities for the Twins GM job in other organizations.

Thanks for the encouraging words, guys. I tend to agree that Darnell may very well get the call at some point in 2014, but it's concerning to me that his fellow Kentucky Wildcat, with admittedly less stuff, has posted consistently sterling MiLB numbers throughout his MiLB career compared to Darnell. Darnell finally put up good numbers in his 3rd year at New Britain. It's interesting to note that Seth doesn't even have Andrew Albers ranked in his top 52 prospects at mid-season, and Darnell is ranked #28. It's like a prospect is "good" merely because he's supposed to be "good", even when he isn't. He's never averaged above 5.2IP/Start and his FIP (4.92) closely correlates with his ERA (5.23). Maybe he's turned a corner in 2013, and I do like lefties, but I think I have more hope in the other 2 similar lefties, Albers and Diamond being the back-end guys for the next couple years.

Hart is the riskiest option of the three, but also holds the greatest potential reward at the lowest cost. 3rd highest ISO among available free agents for the years 2010-12. Should be available for a very reasonable short-term contract plus incentives ($6-10M/yr?). Not only could his midwestern career proximity in Milwaukee appeal to him.....and his family man/good guy/big teddy bear status play well to the fanbase in Minnesota, if he does have a good rebound physically and production-wise, he would also make an excellent trading chip at deadline.

Funny how the passive voice/aggressive voice roles in this organization operate. Jim Pohlad has publicly prnounced his embarrasment at what has taken place these last 3 years and that the route to his checkbook is shortcut-friendly, while Stay-The-Course Terry is seemingly strictly towing the 7 year long-cut route.

Wouldn't this scenario make more sense with a team having a lower first round pick or a supplemental pick.... or is there a Manaea that is going to drop to #5 in the Second Round that you are aware of? If the Twins draft some lower echelon-talent like Hunter Dozier with their #5 pick, a lot of folks around here are going to pretty disappointed.

Well let's see, there was Abreu...this isn't too hard.... How about: Kendrys Morales career .813OPS Corey Hart career .824OPS and Jame Loney was close in 2013 .776OPS

Excellent points. We really never know anything for certain about the decision-making process for these BIG DECISIONS. We can speculate that it's very likely that the man, Terry Ryan, who had essentially called all the shots for the last 13 years was working under the Halo Effect from his recent successes. He likely just threw Bill Smith's name out there and consensus was quickly built around the nominee. This was a classic case of central tendency, familiarity, and confirmation biases in favor of a clearly inferior hiring candidate, characteristic of a too-insular organization. Perhaps they thought that they needed a "marketing guy" more than a nut-and-bolts baseball guy with the pending advent of the new stadium. If that was the case, they should have spent the money on a consultant, and researched case evidence for the ramifications for a GM and successful mid-market teams in conjunction with the building of a new ballpark (Jacobs/ AT&T /Camden Yards) and then made a hire consistent with demonstrable managerial attributes that could bring about a reasonable long-term plan for success. We're still waiting for some semblance of a plan 7 years later.

I believe Mikewantswins already answered your concern:

Bravo. This succinctly bottom-lines this whole argument. IE, with a real-time example, sign or acquire a Tony Perez-type to play first and produce a .800-.850 OPS, so your HOF catcher can maximize his value- as a catcher. And then, plunk your HOF catcher in the OF/DH/3B on his "rest" days or as he ages into his 30s, further maximizing his value.

Or just as importantly, how they coach them. How many pitchers, in general, not necessarily just prospects, significantly increase their K rate after joining the Twins organization? Recent case in point, perhaps not statistcally significant, but still possibly indicative: Miguel Sulbaran moves within the same league: @ Great Lakes K*9 8.3 @ Cedar Rapids K*9 7.2 That's a 13.25% drop in K*9 rate.

How about both of them? Really, without both of them stepping up, AND a quality FA acquisition, 2014 is going to be a very long year reminiscent of the last 3.

Ryan may have said those things, but Gibson's numbers from May 8 to June 20 belie and utterly refute that notion and those comments. Hence, there was very strong evidence for why all the clamor for calling him up to staunch the bleeding on the Twins woeful SP staff. From May 3 to May 25, 3 of Gibson's 4 starts were shutouts, 2 of them complete games, the other, 8 innings. I didn't get the pitch counts during that stretch of 9 starts, but in only one of them, could he be termed "wild", with 5 BBs on June 9. Gibson's numbers over that time frame: 9 Starts 2 complete games 61 innings pitched 6.8 innings/game BB*9 2.6 H*9 6.8 K*9 7.7 WHIP 1.06 ERA 2.36 Only 1 start less than 6 innings, 5 of 9 starts, 7 innings or more.

I would strongly argue, that, notwithstanding the possibility, but not probability, of both Sano and Buxton in the opening day lineup, April 2015...... without the signing of at least one high-impact pitcher signing such as those that you suggest, the prospect of Meyer and whatever construction you can construe from the other 6 names on your list still results in a team still as likely to lose 90 games as not. I'm not writing them and their 2015 prospects off, at all, it's certainly do-able with an organization willing to go all-in. I'm just saying, with 20-20 far-sighted foresight, that there's a significant mountain to climb, and the recent past suggests the FO lacks the physical and intellectual vigor to complete the climb.

As you pointed out in the other thread, Alex Meyer is the ONLY SP prospect on the immediate horizon to fill a front-end starter role by 2015. It's difficult to envision that the Twins will be much better than "bad" without the, quite necessary, "sweeping changes". I honestly don't see how this management group gets from "here" to "there" in that time frame with what they have to work with and what they're willing to spend to make it happen. And sadly, the pathetic White Sox looked like the far superior organization in the last 2 series with the Twins. Much better pitching overall, and through their 2012-13 salary purge, multiple aquisitions of young players that appear to be ready to contribute as a part of the solution on a more accelerated time frame than the Twins. And Abreu may be just their first big off-season move in their bid to get back to relevance.

If you were a betting man, would you take the Over, or the Under, on a Darnell Twins ERA of 5.00?

Yikes. In the back of my mind I was hoping that Stewart could make his debut mid-year, 2015. But reality bites, and being that he'd still only be 20 with a very valuable arm (and a justifiably cautious organization that would seek to avoid a Strasburg/Harvey/Bundy scenario) , the very best-case scenario likely plays out that they'll undoubtedly shut him down early in an innnings-limited 2015, after a cup of coffee in AA- so optimistically, mid-season, 2016, more realistically, 2017. That's 4 seasons away, folks. Bottom line, the priority has to be to sign, draft and trade for more quality, upside, SP depth- you can't go into what has been dubbed by those with an optimistic bent, the "parade" year (2015), with only one guy in your depth chart who projects to a #1 or #2 potential. May doesn't look like he'll be anything but a back-end guy, at best. And the other short term options are worse, and the long-term options are likely farther away than Stewart. Any Wacha-clones in next year's draft?

Ahh...so now I understand why Doug Bernier, Sharon Martis and Eric Fryer got their extended call-ups.....Go Red Wings in 2014!

Among other things.....