jokin

OK, tell me then...now which of these illustrious top 100 picks is the next Johan? The only thing I see is the Twins are thinking they have been repeatedly burned by drafting "proven starters" who burned up their arms and ended up needing TJ surgery or worse and have come to the conclusion that "less is more"...

Hey! Old Nurse! Were you whistling past any graveyards when you typed this? But seriously, is there a plan afoot to draft bunches of inexpensive college potential starters with late-round picks and hope that a SP version of a Jared Burton or two emerges, ala the Twins "find-some-RPs-by-quantity-invites" spring training plan?

Based on his recent media profile article, it's inexplicable that DJ ever reached such a prominent position, let alone has kept the position. The article's supposition was that Johnson and the scouting department has merely been enduring a string of "bad luck", and conveniently avoided any mention of the "bad luck" in giving a $15Million dollar contract to a middle infielder who clearly doesn't know how to play either MI position, and, is struggling to keep above the Mendoza line at the plate...in Rochester.

It has been fun to watch, even though we are on a similar path as last year where we got into a nice little run in June, playing the "JV" part of the schedule with numerous regulars starting to hit the DL. and guys no one knew anything about contributing to a string of somewhat inexplicable wins. At least this year, this run is happening with some power production. I really like Willingham in the 3 spot there tonight. I would love to see Revere in the 9 spot when Mauer comes back, with JoJo finally taking the #2 slot on a regular basis.

Casilla has been a tease since he got here, it's amazing that the Twins stuck with him this long. However, Fangraphs suggests that the Twins have the best second-base defense in baseball, with the best range factor, double play rate and UZR, and the second place teams aren't even close. Casilla has been at second 90% of the time, with an FLD rate at third overall in baseball, despite his occasional inexplicable error, like tonight.

1) Thanks for the psychiatric eval, Dr. DL450. Where do you need me to send my health insurance info for billing? For the umpteenth time, the Twins have repeatedly demonstrated that they had no contingency plans for their now obviously-failed "master plan" for the direction of the franchise as it transitioned to the 3 Million-in-annual-attendance-new-stadium, higher-payroll-justifying, "compete with the big boys", ball club. Are they competing, reloading or rebuilding? pitch-to-contact defensive small-ball or swing for the fences Blue-Jays-style?, silly, patchwork, non-spring training AAA pitcher now starting and new waiver wire of the week castoff immediately inserted into the starting lineup, etc., etc. 2) The only fantasies in this thread are your suppositions on what the payroll "should" be. I don't know the "appropriate' payroll number, I proposed a "what-if", financially realistic payroll with the intent for the club to immediately address and repair the damage from the disastrous 2011 season; and I would request that you cite the specific quote from management stating that they were publicly intending on cutting payroll after the 2010 season. IIRC, the payroll cut announcement came near the end of the 2011 season, indicative of the club's intention to surrender being competitive for the short-to-intermediate term, paralyzing the club in place with overpaid, underperforming assets seemingly to keep fans in the seats with "name" players until they developed a new plan to dig out of the hole. There is a string of evidence in the past on what percentage of the gross revenues the club committed to put back back into the team (and there was publicly stated intent and precedent for a certain level of "overages" if the proposed salary bump could potentially put the team over the top).......Plus the promises from the club to put more % of the revenues into the team based on building the new park... 3) You must be Joe Nathan's agent or are a clairvoyant, in addition to a psychiatrist, please cite your evidence and sources for your insider info. Please cite same for Cuddy, and to a lesser extent, Kubel. The Twins publicly made a lowball offer to Cuddyer. I'm guessing they lowballed Nathan also. But thanks for helping me make my point, a team that is confident, and not paralyzed by their situation can make solid proposals to these guys and impress on them that they will remain competitive and give them solid reasons for treating 2011 as an aberration from the previous decade's continued record of success. (They proved they have a paralysis of thought by absurdly paying top-dollar to a closing pitcher Capps (probably as a PR move) when there is no need to pay little more than minimum to a closer on a losing team (if that is, in fact, how Twins management actually perceives themselves, confusion reigns). 4) Again, strong theories require strong evidence. I think you are wrong about Liriano, and Valencia/Casilla might have been intriguing enough with a club in a position of need wanting a cheap stop-gap. Without naming a lot of names, every year there are scores of players, better than the Jamey Caroll/Brandon Inge type of expendable players, available for a variety of reasons, if the price is right. I certainly wasn't suggesting that Robinson Cano or Miguel Cabrera were available. I would argue there are always players at those positions that can be had above Caroll/Inge and way below Cano/Moutsakis- remember JJ Hardy, we got him for a highly expendable player. I already posited who the FA SPs should have been to fill the void, read my entire post. I'm sure you would agree they all would have been far more successful in Twins uniforms than Marquis, Manship, Swarzack, DeVries, Duensing, et al. have demonstrated as SPs.

No, I didn't think they believed they were going to be able to contend, my argument on the other thread was just that, in that they had grossly misallocated resources. I profferred a scenario to make a quick fix to carry the team over until the next cycle of players are ready. I agree that one starter wouldn't have made a difference, but given the state of the pitching staff, and the promise made to the community, it was incumbent on the Twins to hit the pitching FA market hard, attempt to get not one, but three starters. The Twins actually did less than nothing, by acquiring Marquis, who obviously had nothing left. Jackson would have been a tough get, but you can't make a blanket statement with certainty about what Jackson would or wouldn't do, especially once Ryan and the agent get into the same room, you never know what can happen when/if/as the agent's, player's and GM's agendas converge (IE "pitcher-friendly" park, cheaper COL rate, an extra $Million or two, agent's other FAs, etc.) and he was a late signee showing there was time to negotiate.

'I would have thought it impossible to defend Duensing's performance last year, if that wasn't an exposure of one man's limitations, I'm not certain what else would be. Maholm's mediocre career .281/1.42/4.37 is statistically different enough that Maholm has been a career starter exclusively and Deunsing has apparently convinced the Twins he is only a glorified LOOGY, even on the worst team in baseball (2011) and 2nd worst (2012). And, given the sorry state of the current Twins starting staff, a staff to which Duensing no longer evidently qualifies for, Maholm's 2012 numbers would be sparkling by comparison, even with the unfavorable RHB comps.

A very thoughtful and thought-provoking post, thankyou! I immediately take exception with your first thought, the search for perfect baseball statistics is much like physicists' search for a unified nuclear theory, assigning theoretical values to subjectively-derived numbers still has a long way to evolve. And understanding some of the conclusions that are reached can be as difficult a mental exercise as understanding quantum mechanics. In your second paragraph, I would counter that booing Twins fans are expressing and channeling their displeasure with management through the iconic, "Face of the Franchise". Is there a level of disconnect there by ignorant Twins fans? Absolutely! But, Gleeman is one of many statheads that tried to find hidden value last year and continue to whistle past the burning house, not accounting for his current approach at the plate, (ie, bat speed, Joe's negative swing plane, his apparent preference for walks, his apparent unwillingness to consider alternate approaches to attack the current "book" on him, GB/FB, etc.) and the troubling production results. To your great credit, you are one who acknowledges there are reasons for concern. Regarding Molina and the concept of "cheap"...uhhhh....he's making less than 1/3 of Mauer's salary....$7Million...I think the Twins theoretically could do something productive with the excess $16 Million. His extension moves him to $15 Million, which is where he tops out for his career, still less than 2/3rds of Mauer's take, and Molina's contract ends in 2017. I wasn't necessarily talking about catchers that are having better years, but rather, catchers I'd rather have now than Mauer, with the implication left wide open regarding current age, potential, durability characteristics, power and timely hitting and fielding and leadership qualities. That made it easy to throw out 6 names I'd rather have w/o researching it. Molina, Ellis and AJ were on my quick list. Carlos Ruiz is also on it, and that was way before I became aware that he was having a career year, he & Molina are widely regarded as 2 of the 3 best defensive catchers in the game and Ruiz only makes $3.7 Million. Based on this year's admittedly outlying performance, he probably still has at least 3 years left in the tank and his career numbers put him in the middle of the pack statistically for HOF catchers. Ruiz is also universally praised by the pitchers for whom he catches for his abilities to manage a game. I know we differ greatly in the value of power to a club, give me bigger-sticks McCann, Napoli and even Wieters (who is the other top defensive catcher) over Mauer, all about the same age or younger. (These 3 also have a higher WAR since 2009 than Mauer). I'd also consider the still-relatively unproven young guys over Mauer, Montero and Posey, big upside is still there, both 25 or younger. That's up to 9, no one on the list currently makes half of Mauer's salary and I guess that's the primary reason I threw out that supposition, none of these guys will soon likely reach a salary of $13 Million (besides Molina, McCann comes the closest, he might have topped out), let alone $23 Million.

Originally Posted by CDog What if baseball IS the cure for cancer? Hmmmmm?????? "A tear drops Dave Dravecky's eye. Harmon and countless other baseball players who did not survive cancer would be very disappointed in you for you comment." On a website replete with logical fallacies, this comment has to be inducted into the Non-Sequitur Hall of Fame.

1) I'm not sure why the Twins had "no reason" to go after Jackson. If they were serious about putting the team back on the rails and making a statement that 2011 was an anomaly, this was the logical acquisition- ie, a front-end starter with an incentive-laden short-term contract. 2) Good call on the statistical clone to Maholm being Brian Duensing, it does look identical on paper. However, Duensing has only had one year primarily as a starter and last year was an unmitigated disaster (especially the L/R split), and exposed why the Twins did not and apparently do not consider him as a potential future starter. This is the ugly 2011 slash line: OBA: .299/WHIP: 1.52/ERA 5.23. Maholm has never appeared in a MLB game except as a starter, making 194 starts for the terrible Pirates and now the terrible Cubs, a "proven" starter with underwhelming numbers. Sadly, but accurately, Maholm would still have represented an upgrade to the Twin starting pitching. 3)Your suppositions in your summary paragraph are spot on and identify and clarify a set of systemic problems in the Twins organiztion, not just the Bill Smith Era. I think the answer is: "BOTH" and they are equally disastrous to a team with little margin for error in personnel evaluation.

This. Statheads at Rotoworld and FanGraphs (like Gleeman) are seemingly using a Braille-based method of analysis and/or had their cable and sat dishes shut down. Mark Twain was at his facetiously sardonic best when he said there were three kinds of untruths: lies, damned lies and statistics. Satiating stat hound's rotisserie team performances has become more important than actually getting down to the nub of a player's true worth to a team. There simply have to be flaws in the numbers or Billy Beane would have one at least one World Series in the last 15 years, right? (StormJH1 nailed it- JD Drew is demonstrably NOT a borderline HOFer, therefore, the numbers have to be flawed). Additionally, there appear to be posters here on Twins Daily that remain in denial and are unwilling to believe their own lying eyes at what they are actually observing. Don't take Souhan's word for it, he followed his usual MO, made some strong observations and surprisingly, has since equivocated on Twitter and KSTP. The usuals trashed him for the bomb-thrower he usually is, despite the fact that he, for once, actually got some aspects of the situation right. Instead, read unbiased national baseball writers and analysts for their take on the situation, every time one of those types writes at all negatively about Mauer and the Twins, they get the same treatment from the usual local suspects. I think Nick's opening statement needs to be repeated- repeatedly- the Sabre-stats are a very useful tool for analysis, they are not sacrosanct or divinely inspired, let alone the Final Word. I can honestly say as a Twins fan I want this situation to resolve itself and nothing would make me happier than Mauer reverting close to his career averages, but the move to Target Field and past history suggests against it ever happening- and I can think of at least 6 catchers just off the top of my head that would be more valuable to the team today than Mauer- and at a fraction of the price. At least Souhan got the ball rolling, we now have laid a foundation to determine ballpark figures for Mauer's pay for performance and his pay for marketing.

I agree about Maholm, I did throw him in there to avoid the appearance of cherry-picking. Still, his numbers on the miserable Cubs team, in a hitter-friendly park, are still impressive. His career slash line is OBA: .281/WHIP: 1.42/ERA: 4.37 which is still a far better career line than Marquis and 4 years younger, for only $1.25 Mil more.

This is the Twins misconception that they use as an excuse not to do a better job at researching the available FA pitchers and spending a little money and upgrading an obviously glaring need. As I pointed out in another topic, there were plenty of available FA pitchers if the Twins were willing to step up to the plate and fulfill their promise to the fans in return for having a new playground built for them. To reiterate, with the purging of the high-priced players from last season and acquisition of Willingham, Doumit and Carrol, the Twins were down to a $94 Million payroll to start this season, with the subtraction of either a Blackburn or Liriano, the Twins easily could have afforded going after some near-ace-to-decent quality starters and still had their payroll at or below the 2011 $112 Million. Marquis was a joke signing, seemingly everyone except Terry Ryan knew that to be the case. I proposed signing 3 starters with short-term contracts, keeping the risks low and buying time for the TJ-surgery arms to heal and the farm system to produce #3-5 level SPs like, hopefully Diamond. My non-Marquis-type plan was signing these three (who all signed one-year contracts with their current clubs): 1)Eric Bedard Age: 33 Team: Pitt. $4.5 Mil. OBA: .247/ WHIP: 1.35/ERA: 3.12 2)Paul Maholm Age: 29 Team: Cubs $4.25 Mil. OBA: .245/ WHIP: 1.26/ ERA: 4.62 3)Edwin Jackson Age: 28 Team: Wash. $10.958 Mil. OBA: .219/ WHIP: 1.03/ ERA: 3.17 <There are no statistical anomalies, most of these numbers are close to their career averages. >The AL average for OBA is .251/WHIP: 1.31/ERA: 4.05 >The Twins average for OBA is .285/WHIP: 1.42/ERA: 5.25 These guys were very available and a good set of negotiations could have realistically landed all three (admittedly, Jackson would have been the toughest) and, there were others that signed short-term deals that currently sport similar or even better numbers. Even if the Twins overpaid to outbid the other teams to acquire these guys, they still could have come in at a salary number at, or under the 2011 payroll.

Thanks, GA. Given that era was pretty much a lost decade for the Twins, your excellent perspectives probably sums up the level of participation and commensurate results on the field. On the flip side, did the Twins tend to more easily part with possible steroid-abusers (Naulty, Ortiz) and make no attempts in signing suspected FA abusers as an excuse to cut payroll and embrace and accept the consequences of "Piranha" batting power and Pitch-to-Contact throwing?

I was going to bite my tongue and stay quiet, but... having not read the Mitchell Report, were the findings contained therein a whitewash with regards to what level of complicity management and coaching staff were responsible for during the whole steroid era? Just the description of Naulty's year-to-year body changes and what management was "encouraging" with regards to his physical development seems obviously suspicious... the Rantz comment seems just a tad (take your pick) naive, ironic or (self)-deceptive.

Must be LEN3's lineup card....... (with 2 catchers starting for the Twins).

Your Selective Reader Bias is showing, badly, the "two-day samples" were illustrations, not proofs, the proofs are included. Mauer is definitely a "quality" hitter, but nothing like before (Ben Revere, of all people, has a higher SLG%!// Mauer is on a current pace to break the all-time single-season GIDP record); regarding his baserunning, it's fair to say he's a "good" baserunner, probably a grade below "a fine baserunner". Re Mauer's quotes, the organization itself has acknowledged the PR disaster in Mauer's quotes last year, his two-month Florida "vacation" and his apparent unwillingness to play unless he was "feeling 100%". The proof there is the Twins and Mauer have obviously come to some agreement, this season, to keep Joe "on message" to the media and a mutual commitment to keep him on the field as much as possible.

Jim Souhan has come up with the latest adjective describing Mauer's upcoming 6-year relationship with the Twins:"Suffocating"... http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/155550255.html I don't often agree with Souhan, but he does bring up some valid points in his article. In his Mauer-attribute-summation paragraph there are areas to agree and disagree over: "Mauer circa 2012 is a quality hitter. (partially agree, hasn't exactly acquitted himself the last two days, who didn't think a GIDP was coming during tonight's 9th inning rally??? GB/FB% at career worst). He's elite when it comes to getting on base. (Agree) He's a pretty good defensive catcher with an excellent arm . (Most observers would say he has slipped to just-above average defensively and his arm isn't what it once was: ZR at career low, CS% career low and at 1/2 of career average, CERA career worst, etc.) He's a fine baserunner and a smart player. (I think Souhan must have taken Memorial Day off, Joe didn't exactly distinguish himself on the bases yesterday). He's the last guy who's going to embarrass himself or his franchise with a DUI or a ridiculous quote. (Agree about his good citizen status but he filled up a dozen notebooks with ridiculous quotes last year). He's just not worth anything close to $23 million a year..." (Is there one person in TwinsLand that doesn't agee with this quote?)

I predict ESPN/BBTonight will rank Revere's ridiculous bunt hit higher on their highlight list than the Willy Walk-Off...

Bravo! on Part One! Uggghhhh on Part Deux, there's something satisfying about a homerun actually leaving the field of play. To keep the park's aesthetics, I would advocate extending the RF "overhang" out to right center. This would give the Twins another 1000 or so quality seats and reward a hitter for crushing a ball to the power alley, w/o making it a pitcher's nightmare like Yankee Stadium. One more point, bring back the trees, the numbers tell us that Twins hitters hit for higher average and more power with them in 2010, plus it gives them a CF background home field advantage combined with a more beautiful park.

That sounds an awful lot like the scenario I proposed to you on another thread... I think it's obvious now, even to Twins managment, that long-term contracts are not the way to go. As much as Greinke would fit into Gardenhire's perfect player profile in the locker room (Greinke has been diagnosed with SAD- Social Anxiety Disorder), it would be a foolish move to put even more money at risk on a long-term basis. My proposal for signing some combination of 1st, 2nd & 3rd tier proven starting arms for short-term deals is the way to go until the farm system/draft delivers on some combination of Waldrip/Gibson/Wimmers/(Appel or Gausman) and/or a key (#3-5) starter/pitching prospect(s) acquired by trade for Span/Willingham/Doumit/etc.

I think the latest relief sensation, Son of Sal, set the tone on changing speeds for the rest of the season. (The graph representing the speed of Butera's series of pitches was hilarious and reminded me of my last road trip to the Grand Tetons).

Florimon is indeed looking good. The Texas Rangers, widely regarded as the best team in baseball, also must think that Yangervis Solarte is looking good, signing him as a FA when the Twins released him. They are using him at the super-utility role (but primarily at 2B- 30 games), playing OF and 3 infield spots at their AAA PCL affiliate Red Rock. Here is Solarte's slash line there: 307/355/480/835 with a 2B RF of 4.5. When you look at that line and what the Twins retained in AAA and the major league level, it boggles the mind.

For reasons still unexplained, 2B Yangervis Solarte, who produced this line: 329/367/466/834 with a 2B RF of 4.22, was not only not promoted from New Britain last year, the Twins declined to add him to the 40-man roster and re-sign him as a 6-year MiL vet. The Twins didn't even try to sign him and at least try to get something in trade. BTW, this post isn't intended as a perfect comparison to Florimon, but it is important to point out- Solarte is ONE YEAR YOUNGER than Florimon, only 24, and would have been a great super-utility guy to replace Casilla at some point down the road.