Oxtung

I think this is a lost season where 90 losses is a probability. As such, how most of the veterans perform is almost irrelevant to me. The big exceptions being Willingham and Perkins as I think they could have the value to bring back a significant piece for the future at the trade deadline. Mixed in with those two I think the next (or perhaps as) important players are the development of Arcia, Dozier, Gibson, Hicks etc... with the minor leaguers fitting in there as well. If Nolasco, Hughes, Pelfrey all come out and put up sub-4 ERA's our offense is still bad enough that we won't contend. If they put up 5-ish ERA's well that won't matter either. IMHO of course. A small caveat is needed here, clearly the team sucking is a big deal to season ticket holders that are looking for immediate entertainment value. I just don't happen to fit that category.

Minor nit pick, Gibson will only be 26 this whole season. I would have liked to have seen Santana signed as well but this is pretty poor logic. You are claiming that Correia is poor enough that the Twins should look to move him but that he is simultaneously valuable enough that the Jays and Orioles, two teams looking to contend this season, would be willing to trade for him? Actually it was bad signing for exactly the reason we're talking about today. It was for two seasons. We had an opportunity to add an actual above average pitcher and didn't get him. I find it hard to believe that the Twins offer didn't take into account the fact that we had 4 spots in the rotation already locked up with the fifth having plenty of competition. We'll be saying the same thing about Pelfrey next off season. The Twins are $30-50 million dollars below their potential budget. The fact that Gibson, Meyer, Worley, etc... are cheap is irrelevant. They could have signed Santana and still upgraded two positions offensively with good players.

Seth, I know that this is May's second option season and I think that might play a part in how the Twins view him, starter vs reliever. I think it could also impact who gets the first call up when a pitcher is needed. I know you found the rule about a fourth option season but I don't remember the required conditions. Could May be eligible for that?

I had forgotten you dug that information out a while back. It does change things a bit. I think he still needs to have at least 1 season that he goes 2 levels, or skips AAA altogether perhaps. If he takes a year at each A+, AA, AAA that would leave only a single season at the major league level before the Twins have to make a decision. We have seen that 1 season is often not enough to make a call on prospects. Imagine if Hicks had used up all his option years and the Twins had to make a decision on his future. That would be hard to do.

There is also no promise that your BPA guy is going to be any better than the under-slot guy. Top 5 picks bust and mid-round picks become stars all the time. Here's another way of looking at it. If you go the underslot route you have 2 good chances to hit that lottery instead of 1.

He's either going to start moving faster or never amount to much. By adding him to the 40 man roster his clock has started ticking. He can't afford to be a one level a year kind of guy anymore if the Twins want to see him in MLB. That was my argument (combined with the extreme unlikelihood that he would be drafted in the Rule 5 draft) against adding him to the 40 man this year.

Perhaps not on the 2014 season ticket sales but if Santana were to come to Minnesota and put up a sub-3.50 ERA season I think it would certainly add to the 2015 season ticket sales.

Unless the Twins have a different viewpoint on Gibson than this board has. If they saw enough last year to lose confidence in his chances to succeed and in their minds he has been passed up by Meyer, May, Darnell, Gilmartin, etc... then they should trade him for whatever they can get back before his stock plummets.

I don't think that applies in this situation. There was a team that did exactly what I'm talking about this off season, though not quite to the extreme that I was suggesting perhaps. For the life of me I can't think of who it was though.

Another option was to take on a bad contract. If the player is a good player but is just getting over paid the Twins could take that on and perhaps it would require little in return. I wouldn't have advocated for say, Fielder, even assuming we could have gotten him for his salary alone, which we couldn't have. But what about Buehrle, Dickey, Alfonso Soriano or Jimmy Rollins? How about some big risk, big reward moves like seeing what Philadelphia wants for Cliff Lee or Papelbon. They are both excellent right now but they also both have multiple big money years left and are getting very old. There are probably more out there I'm not thinking of.

This double-entendre made me laugh. I woke my room mate up. Shame on you!

Love seems a bit strong. At best that is a league average rotation. Whatever Meyer turns out to be with 4 guys that we hope will be mid-rotation starters. We'd better have one hell of an offense if we're hoping to compete.

I agree that Pelfrey was a bad decision but he is here now and there is nothing to be done about it. So let's look at this another way. Who would you rather have for the next 3 seasons? Deduno/Worley/Diamond or Santana? Keep in mind that Deduno and Santana are the same age. That's a pretty easy question for me to answer.

Who was the first? [bolding my addition]

I think more than anything last season Kepler was hurt by his BABIP, which at .254, was well below both his career and the league norm. Both his K% and his BB% were still very strong. I also expect that this season his "stats" will look better because that BABIP should bounce back up. Despite moving to a harder league I predict he will OPS somewhere in the mid-.800's.

There are a lot of ways they could use that money: 1) Be creative with contracts. Rework Mauer's deal so that he get's $50 million this season and then only $14 million/year in his last 3 seasons. Front load Nolasco's deal so that the Twins pay him $30 million this season but only owe him $6 million per year the rest of the way. Rework Perkins' deal so that you pay him a bit more this season (say an additional $4 million) but you get a second option year for 2017 at just $4 million again. 2) Offer big money short term deals for great players. Offer Ervin Santana or Matt Garza a 3 year $45 million deal. It's more than he'll get per year on a 5 year deal and he'll have an opportunity to potentially hit FA in a couple more years. The Twins also won't have the big risk of those last few years. Since the Twins won't use that money otherwise the fact that it is an "overpay" is irrelevant. 3) Go hogwild in international free-agency like the Cubs did last offseason. 4) Put that money into adding to your analytics staff. Pay an outside company/Professor to study pitchers health and how minor league arms should be treated to best prevent injuries. Use the company/professor to do a comprehensive study on which type of draftee/IFA turns into MLB pitchers, hitters, fielders, sluggers etc.... 5) Pay your minor league players better. 6) View your minor league players as assets and pay for their food and hire nutritional advisors. Pay for therapists to teach the young guys how to deal with stress and pressure and positive thinking. 7) Reduce Season ticket prices. 8) Reduce the cost of concessions at Target Field. 9) Do a big raffle at every home game where one lucky fan wins big money. Say $300,000. 10) Make a giant (and very public) donation to charity. Essentially buy good public relations. There are some ideas off the top of my head.

Interesting. Neither Colabello nor Parmelee have shown they can hit at the MLB level. Both Diamond and Worley have at least one very successful full season under their belt. Perhaps you will eventually be proven correct but at this point, if one were forced to pick, I think you have it backwards. Let me just say off the bat that I don't disagree with your timeline, but it is amazing how the "future greatness" of the Twins keeps getting pushed off into the future farther and farther. Last season it was 2015-2016 and now it's 2016-2017. I am a big human spaceflight fan and there is a saying, "A manned mission to Mars is always 30 years in the future." I'm worried the Twins years to compete will turn into a similar paradigm.

There were many people that predicted the nightmare that was Hick's 2013 season (well ok...maybe not that bad). There was no hindsight needed. It was pretty obvious that if Hick's couldn't hack it, and there were good reasons to believe he wouldn't be capable, the Twins were in serious trouble. I actually think that is why the Twins went so hard after FA's this offseason. IMO, Suzuki and Pelfrey were brought on as a direct result of the poor planning for the outfield last offseason. I do agree with you that Hick's 2013 campaign should not determine the placement of other players, though it should be a warning that ST stats mean little to nothing. This doesn't change your point at all but Gibson will be 26 this entire season.

Perhaps. It's also possible the umpires, just like hitters and pitchers, want to be the best that they can be and now that there is a tool that allows them to accurately dissect the way they call games they are trying to improve themselves regardless of public pressure. Either way it's a win.

Shocking that you like the list with 8 Twins on it better than the ones with 4-6.

I am stunned by the amount of effort and analysis that went into this. Great job by these guys. I think they've taken the critiques head on here. Good for them.

I'm excited about this new data. With a players acceleration, top speed and reaction time we will finally have some concrete numbers to work with that don't depend on a human's best guess. If a players glove to throw time (like pop to pop for catchers) is available and their velocities on their throws we can finally start to get a very clear understanding on just how valuable defense actually is. As the FanGraph's article says, we don't know how public this information will be. I sure hope it becomes publicly available. I think both the teams and the fans gain when that happens.

IMO, the problem wasn't signing (or not) Santana but rather resigning Pelfrey. I truly don't understand what the point of that was (especially for two years). He won't be here when the Twins contend next, he is another below average pitcher with little to no upside and he is taking up a rotation spot that could be used by a pitcher that will be here down the road to either gain experience or show he belongs. To me, if the question is between giving innings to Pelfrey or Gibson/Deduno/Worley/May/Meyer/Darnell/Gilmartin that is an easy choice to make. I also think 2 years from now we'll all be saying, "WTF were the Twins thinking signing Hughes to a 3 year contract?!?"

People are not commodities. People are not bought and sold and their value is not determined by a monetary means. Slavery was rightfully abolished long ago. I get paid my wage because somebody, somewhere along the way decided that my work was worth that amount. That is very different than me being worth that amount. I think this is a critical concept that needs to be understood. When you start equating someone's worth with a monetary value it dehumanizes them. That makes it easier, especially if it happens frequently, to believe that it is OK to pay them poor wages. That they are below "us regular people" and therefore deserve their lot in life. Minor League players are worth just as much as major league players. Their skills might be less but that does not mean it is OK to pay them a demeaning wage. Just because something can be done doesn't mean that it should be done or that it is right to do it. Ethics exist for a reason. They are the fabric by which our society is held together.

I think the Twins should do whatever is best for developing Pinto. If that includes starting the season at Rochester, OK. I do think however that Pinto should get at least half a season as a starting MLB catcher allowing him to gain the necessary experience. This year is a lost cause. Hopefully the Twins do what they can so next year isn't as well.