jokin

+ 2 Brevity.... Part Deux

+1 Brevity. Soul.... Wit.

Any chance Billy Beane is looking for a new employer if they DO lose tomorrow? There might be an opening...

Yep... petty... and in my case at least, bitter. (I scream a little inside, every time I hear about the "prudent" choice of a "safe college arm"...)

I give up. Wimmers, Boyd or Harrison?

I haven't done extensive research, but how many Phil Hughes-types, circa 2013, are out there on bad contracts that might be available at steep discounts? I've mentioned Trevor Cahill as one example, who certainly would command far less than a top prospect in trade for the D-Backs to get out from under his big contract next season. Jon Niese has less upside and a smaller contract, but also a more predictable level of middling-to-possibly-very good performance potential. These are just two of many SPs placed on conditional waivers in August, presumably their current clubs are looking for indications of interest to possibly part ways and presumably are amenable and motivated enough to trading for less than a Buxton or Sano. (The Tigers acquired David Price for 1 and 1/3 years, and they only had to give up Austin Jackson, who has the exact same bWAR in the last 3 years as Denard Span, and Drew Smyly).

It seems like getting assigned to the AFL is a big deal., and even with the boatload of drafted pitching prospects, Jason Adam somewhat quietly got the nod. Any idea on where the Twins think Jason Adam ends up to start out in 2015? And in what role? He's Rule 5 eligible, so the decision to protect him presumably is in the offing

Garver- 1/15/91 soon turns 24 Navaretto- 12/29/94 soon turns 20 No doubt that Navaretto will have to do better than just a full-time, short-season spot at "Betsy" next year for him to continue being a Twins Top 40 prospect, but at this point, they are almost exactly 4 years difference in age and only 1 level developmental difference within the organization.

The thread I continue to hang on is that the Twins last offseason really made a significant effort to sign another front-end starter, well AFTER they had already done their early offseason shopping for Nolasco, Hughes and Pelfrey. If Pohlad stays true to his statement last year about not going out beyond a 4-year deal and still hope to get the phone ringing at the season ticket renewal desk, he's going to have to bite the bullet and sign a big name guy early when the FA window opens, and then pay out more in AAV. And maybe look to trade for a buy-low candidate like Trevor Cahill, while they dump Nolasco's contract back to the NL.

Except at the end of last season: If he felt that way last September 13th, and then Pohlad opened the purse strings exactly into the 2, 3 and 4 year contracts as he himself desrcribed above, I've got to think he's feeling more "embarrassment in walking the concourse", and worse, feeling more panic when he walks through his own marketing department.

So does the 4 year age difference.

Glad you asked. The Twins could have drafted Kyle Lobstein in the 2012 Rule 5 draft (or traded for him like Detroit did the same day of the draft from the Mets, the Twins chose yet another reliever in Ryan Pressly, instead, but they could have also contacted someone to draft Lobstein for them in a pre-arranged trade, as the Tigers did***). The Twins had not one, but two chances (in February and again in March of 2013) to claim Todd Redmond, for free. Both of these two aren't super-talented, but would have looked pretty good as candidates for 5th/Spot Starter status (there were some of us that said so at the time of their availability, I never understand why the Twins don't look to bolster their depth options with more of these no-risk moves. Clearly, what they're doing now isn't working, throwing Swarzak out there is an embarrassment). *** The Tigers have pretty good prospect pitching depth, three guys who they might not be able to protect in the Rule 5 are young, hard-throwing RPs, Jose Valdes, Melvin Mercedes and Angel Nesbitt.

When a team has Terry Steinbach, Kurt Suzuki and Joe Mauer available as coaching resources all offseason, and all of whom could have been made available to work with Pinto all in-season, the Twins, by their lack of emphasis on "working with him" coupled with their signing of Suzuki for two more seasons, certainly gives by all appearances the indication that Turner, and possibly Garver, are the Twins catching future. I'm thinking the Twins will look to move Pinto immediately once Turner appears close to being ready.

I haven't suggested that Molitor's resume be dismissed, in point of fact, I have suggested that he indeed is likely the Twins manager in waiting. He appears to be very sharp and is publicly well-regarded by the players he's worked with. But the fact that Milwaukee, Toronto or Seattle never saw fit to make him an offer that he couldn't refuse is certainly interesting, and makes one wonder how hot his "hot resume" actually was - the job in Milwaukee has been vacant at least 5 times since Molitor retired, and the Brewers "made up" with him by retiring his number in 1999. Don't you think, and as I alluded to, that there are major reasons that clubs harbor against the notion, as to why SO few HOF (NOT just a "few others") players go on to have any, let alone successful, managerial careers?- and that that largely accounts for the small numbers of HOFers hired, and that there is some credence to the difficulties that Ted Williams, Rod Carew, Frank Robinson and George Brett had to imparting to others of their own great talents should say something beyond just the anecdotal value. And you seemingly ignore the fact that lesser, down to even many non-major league, players generally make for most of the successful, and long-tenured managers. And regarding the criteria you mention in your second paragraph, isn't it most likely that, all other things being even, players who were coached by very successful managers and coaches- all the way from their formative years to their World Series ring, have learned and internalized valuable lessons in individual skill-building, game tactics, roster assembly, handling the pressures successfully and also the successful handling of a diverse set of personalities and skill sets to achieve the ultimate outcome?

I think you missed the point about Dougie's resume containing a National HS baseball championship, an ACC title, an Olympic Gold Medal, a World Series ring and FSL League Championship. It isn't so much what he himself did at each level, it's that he's had a baseball career in which he was trained, coached and played with, or managed, groups of individuals that achieved the highest levels in the game. That is a fairly uncommon set of successful experiences, and a chance for an injection of a different mindset and set of expectations for a group currently mired in a wholly different culture of (unsuccessful) expectations. I don't think earning respect will be a problem for Doug. Regarding Molitor, he remains a viable option, but the HOF player pedigree has been no guarantee of managerial success in the past (Ted Williams, Frank Robinson). And there are extremely few teams that hire HOF players to manage these days- part of that may be that teams are reticent at the prospect of firing a Hall of Fame player, especially if he's managing in his home town. And HOF credentials seem to not necessarily translate well to both coaching and managing. Rod Carew had 3000+ hits, 7 batting titles and a career K% of only 9.7%. Yet Carew was fired as hitting coach by the Brewers after the team finished second from the bottom in batting average, and broke the record for most strikeouts in a season, as well as becoming the first team in MLB history to have more strikeouts than hits. George Brett resigned shortly after becoming the Royals hitting coach, here was his reasoning for walking away from the game: By all reports from those that have worked with him, Molitor has been a good teacher, but Molitor may still turn out to be a better teacher than a manager. And at age 58, he also may not have the fire in the belly to put up with the managing grind. The fact of the matter is though, the best managers have tended to come from those who were lesser players. Perhaps the timing might be right for the Twins to consider promoting Molitor to the managerial chair short-term with Dougie as his second.

Ridiculous yes, but please recall it was your analogy placed in use for this discussion: And there are literally 1000s of professional players and coaches, in all of the various sports over the years, many in the Halls of Fame, who have acted out similarly, or much, much worse. The physical nature of sports inevitably involves the strategic usage by coaches of elements of physical intimidation, it's seems inevitable that that reality can sometimes get out of hand and be taken to occasionally reprehensible extremes. Lest we forget, brawling is basically inscribed in the strategic DNA of professional hockey. Legendary football coach, Woody Hayes, punched an opposing player during the Gator Bowl, and Brett Favre is just the one "bounty" killing that became public knowledge, it's a widely accepted, yet craven aspect of the game, even Favre acknowledged that fact. Bill Musselman's actions as coach led to an ugly and horrifically bloody assault on Ohio State basketball players... I myself was involved in an international college tournament, when the home team's legendary coach saw that it was going to be difficult to defeat us in the championship game, he put his worst player into the game with the sole intent to start a brawl with our best player, in order to get him ejected from the game- despite the embarrassing international incident, the legendary coach is still coaching the national team. Doug Mientkiewicz himself, was "assaulted" by Mark Buehrle with a thrown ball, as some form of physical "retributive justice" directed from White Sox management, just days after Doug had criticized that same White Sox management for the lack of security after a fan assaulted an umpire at Comerica. Some roughneck professional athletes pass away as bitter old men, like Ty Cobb, others do some soul-searching and find redemption and end up leaving their mark on the sport in a more positive light. Terry Ryan obviously feels that Doug has enough redeeming and redeemable qualities to his character, to continue on with another chance to make amends and make it right,and so far, he has done so.

+1

But it does exist, professional sports isn't the real world What is real and common in both occupational realms is that this country is the land of both opportunity and the chance for redemption. Would you prefer he be banned for life from baseball?

Not to excuse what happened, but you are aware of all of the tragedy and tumult that was going on in his life that season, right? If Terry Ryan was willing to get past the incident, I would guess that his character in the whole is greater than that one big mistake.

Well then, I disagree with your disagreement. It's helpful to try to form opinions based on as little speculation and as many facts as is possible. Through his long tenure with the Twins, I would assert that Gardy has given us many insights into all of the factors you cite, and the results speak for themselves, leaving much less to speculate about. I think it's pretty fair to proclaim that Gardy is a (veteran) "player's manager" with a number of managerial blind spots, which can work really well for a period of time with a group of established vets all on the same page with him, but also can lead to a manager becoming more of an enabler to the players, and appearing behind the curve, when things are not going really well.

For all of the positive similarities between Gardy and Mientkiewicz, I especially like the differences even more. Like: Dougie's high school team won a National Championship. His college team @ FSU won its first-ever ACC title in his junior year, with him as the leader and best player. He had the game-winning HR in the semi-finals for the US Team that won the Gold Medal at the Olympics. He was on the World Series winner that broke the Bambino jinx in Boston, coming back from seemingly impossible odds. He won the Twins first FSL title in Ft Myers, without the Twins' super-prospects on the team. The guy's been a winner at a variety of levels, playing and coaching. But I think it's going to take some friendly persuasion for him to be willing to give up the South Florida lifestyle

I would disagree with this assertion. There are a bevy of researched TD threads and articles, along with the wider universe of analytical and direct-source-quoted media pieces, that shine a spotlight on the inner workings and thought-processes of the manager and coaching staff, plus sources for statistical results that, when put together, all provide large amounts of information to base an informed opinion on whether or not to retain a manager or a coach. That, and 100+ years of baseball history and methodology on retention practices say it's likely time to move in a different direction.

Sure, there may be "reasons" why particular moves are made, but more often than not, we still say "huh" when the strategy fails, but even moreso, when after multiple games of using up his RPs haphazardly, Gardy then complained that the bullpen has been overused, and he seemingly lacked the self-awareness to understand that the overuse was largely of his own making.

In another post I acknowledged that the SP has a significant component in the total equation. But factoring in the haphazard wasting of multiple RP arms either warming up or "wasting" an appearance facing one or two batters, plus the lack of defense from playing a position player short- exemplified in the +1 run differential between ERA and FIP for the SPs, these complementary areas of roster management hasn't proven to be very strategically effective.

Add the irrational and ill-advised bullpen management over the years- often leading to needing 13- and 14- man staffs, and I think you've pretty much made the case. What else is Nick "looking" for (listening for?) here?