Oxtung

Minnesota's schedule coming up: 7 with Oakland, 3 with Tampa Bay, 3 with Detroit, 4 with Cleveland and 3 with the White Sox. That's 3 games with teams under .500. The Cubs have a very difficult schedule remaining as well, arguably more difficult than the Twins. 3 with Cincinnati, 7 with Pittsburgh, 3 with Atlanta, 3 with St. Louis and 4 with Milwaukee. So that is 4 games against sub-.500 teams. Milwaukee's schedule is a little easier but they still play mostly >.500 teams. 6 with St. Louis, 3 with Cincinnati, 3 with Atlanta, 4 with Cubs and 4 with Mets. So that's 8 games with teams <.500. The White Sox schedule is not quite as hard as Minnesota or the Cubs but still difficult. They have 6 games with Detroit, 6 with Cleveland, 4 with the Royals, 3 with Minnesota and 1 with Toronto. That's 4 games with teams under .500. Looking at those schedules I would say the Cubs have the hardest followed by Minnesota, the White Sox, and Milwaukee with the "easiest".

I am a little surprised that Danny Santana didn't get a call up. SS has hardly been a bastion of stellar play and Santana could either show he is ready or give the message to Florimon that he needs to improve to keep the job. Since Santana is already on the 40 man it wouldn't have taken any roster moves.

For those of you who continuously back the FO, how many times must the Twins pass on adding talent to this squad before it becomes a problem?

I still don't understand why people think we shouldn't sign him. Did signing Nishi hurt the Twins (other than the fact they let Hardy go)? 1) If he works out at SS, awesome. 2) If he works out a 2B, awesome now you've got a trade piece. 3) If he fails the Twins are out a few million dollars they won't be spending anyways. Where is the downside here?

Does anyone else think it's funny when a poster comes on strong, tosses a few insults in for good measure, but totally whiffs on an obvious point, for instance, that I wrote that post a month ago when Dozier was OPS'ing .695 and was anything but a "strength"?

If I threw an object as hard as I could with the sole intention of hitting somebody I would be arrested and charged with Assault and Battery. Unwritten rules or not there is no excuse for this behavior to exist in baseball. An opponent did something you don't like? Welcome to life. Suck it up and move on.

You are now changing the argument and I have no desire to follow along. Can we just agree that good, and sometimes even great, FA's sign with crappy teams?

As Alex said, this discussion has morphed beyond elite players to encompass any good players. While not elite, many of those players are the next rung down. Many of those players also signed onto multiple 90 loss teams. Hell Jason Werth, who had just finished 8th in MVP voting, signed with the Nationals who had just finished their 5th straight 90 loss season. I was under the impression that we couldn't sign any of the big name international free agents because the Twins are a terrible team. That's why I added Soler since he was a pretty big name when he signed. As always, if you search hard enough I'm sure you can find an excuse for every player, but at what point are the numbers overwhelming? How many players need to sign with bad teams before the excuses stop?

I used baseball-reference.com. Here are the exact pages. Correia and Jackson. The big difference is I pulled 2008-2012 seasons. How they performed in 2013 has no bearing on the discussion of their relative value when they signed in 2012.

2010 Jason Bay - Mets 2011 Jason Werth - Nationals 2012 Josh Willingham - Twins Michael Cuddyer - Colorado Mark Buerhle - Marlins Jose Reyes - Marlins Heath Bell - Marlins Jorge Soler - Cubs 2013 Edwin Jackson - Cubs Jeremy Guthrie - Royals Shane Victorino - Boston Nick Swisher - Indians Michael Bourn - Indians That brings us to 13 good players that signed multi-year contracts with >90 loss teams in the last few years. I guess I agree with Old Nurse:

2012 Mark Buehrle - Miami Marlins Jose Reyes - Miami Marlins Heath Bell - Miami Marlins 2013 Edwin Jackson - Chicago Cubs Zach Greinke says he would sign with whoever pays him the most. That's 5 of the top FA's over the last 2 seasons that either signed or said they would sign with a terrible team. The "Twins are bad and nobody will sign with us" excuse just doesn't fly.

Why is functional the goal? Why shouldn't every move be made around returning to contention?

Your premise is just not true. Edwin Jackson is a better pitcher by almost every statistic. You really don't need much more proof than their contracts but just to be clear here is the last 5 years as you suggest. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]ERA ERA+ Avg IP Edwin Jackson 4.06 105 199 Kevin Correia 4.73 81 156 [/TABLE] Edwin Jackson isn't an ace, he isn't even a #2 starter but then he isn't being paid like one either. He is the definition of a #3 starter. A guy who take the ball and give you 200 IP with an average ERA. The fact that he has not pitched well this season shouldn't diminish the fact that he is significantly better than Correia and Pelfrey historically. I would also put my faith in Jackson to be better than both again next season.

I like the Edwin Jackson signing by the Cubs. I would be happy if he were a Twin currently. I also don't have a problem with the Nishioka signing. They both were logical attempts to find a long term solution to an area of need. It is disappointing it didn't work out but that doesn't mean the signing was wrong to begin with. It's extremely easy. The over pay isn't his $4.5MM salary it's because he was signed for 2 years. Players of Correia's skill level are available every off season on 1 year deals.

KC couldn't afford to sign top of the rotation help this offseason that's why they had to trade for it. The Twins will most likely (hopefully?) be in the same position a few years from now. When a mid-market team has a young core that is "ready" it can no longer afford to sign that elite FA because it can't pay for it in the out years and still resign all of the young core. This is something that the "wait until we're ready" crowd never seems to address.

Let's look at the recent American League World Series contenders starting rotations. This is where each team ranked amongst American League teams for the regular season. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]ERA K/9 K/BB OOPS* 2012 Tigers 2 2 1 5 2011 Rangers 3 1 4 2 2010 Rangers 7 4 7 4 2009 Yankees 5 1 9 4 2008 Rays 2 4 5 5 2007 Red Sox 2 2 5 1 2006 Tigers 1 8 6 2 2005 White Sox 2 9 4 2 2004 Red Sox 3 1 2 1 2003 Yankees 3 1 1 2 Average 3 3.1 4.4 2.8 2013 Twins 15 15 15 15 [/TABLE] *OOPS= Opponents OPS. In order to make the World Series over the last 10 years a great starting pitching staff has been a requirement. They have to be able to limit opponents OPS which is perhaps derived by their strikeouts (this is certainly a debatable point). The Twins can't shoot for an "OK" rotation with a great bullpen and hope to compete for a World Series. They need front of the rotation pitchers. We hope there are a few 1-3 starters already in the system; Meyer, Berrios, Stewart, etc...; but none of those are a guarantee and most are several years from even debuting with the Twins. IMO the Twins need to acquire more high upside arms somehow. There seem to be 4 ways to do this. First, and currently easiest probably, is to draft or sign them internationally (not including Cubans) but that puts them even further away than Stewart. Second, they could be traded for, but that doesn't add talent to a system it only changes the position played. Third, the Twins could sign a Greinke or Sanchez in free agency (this could include Cubans and Japanese pitchers as well), but that seems highly unlikely with Ryan at the helm. Fourth, the Twins could attempt to sign some high upside pitchers on short term deals, this could be due to age or injury, and trade them for prospects. Mike Pelfrey doesn't fit into any of those categories. He isn't good enough to help the Twins long term nor is he good enough to bring back a front of the rotation prospect in a trade.

Whether or not your "supposed to", I appreciate it.

I would be interested in Lincecum or Josh Johnson especially. He seems like an ideal buy low bounce back candidate. I would be OK with Phil Hughes on a 3 year contract but he is going to command much more than that. He is a #4 pitcher in a championship rotation. Instead of most of the rest I would be more interested in throwing big money at a 1 year contract with the hopes of flipping at the deadline (of course eating a bunch of that salary). Kuroda, Colon and Baker are options.

Pelfrey hasn't thrown a cutter this season according to fangraphs. Yes. They are all several years younger, have a chance to improve, cost nothing, have years of control left and the Twins won't be committed to them long term. So Meyer in your scenario seems to be Moses. He will lead us to the Promised Land. Of course Moses don't mean squat when Detroit is rolling with Shiva, Muhammad, Ra and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I don't understand the logic in signing Pelfrey. The Twins have several back of the rotation options. In addition every season you can pick up a pitcher on a 1 year contract to fill that role. Why would we want to commit multiple years to him? Is anyone thinking, "Yes, we've got Corriea for a second season! OMG am I glad we signed him to a multi-year deal. Whew!" What the Twins are missing is about 3 front of the rotation arms. Even if Meyer pans out he isn't going to make us a contender by himself. He needs support. Acquire a legit front of the rotation starter, look for a potential bounce back starter (J.Johnson seems ideal candidate), try to get a older but legit starter like Kuroda or Colon, or roll with the young guys and maybe one improves. Signing another back of the rotation starter makes no sense.

I wouldn't mind Ike Davis, he seems to be an alright player and would certainly fill a hole on the roster but, like always, it would depend on the asking price. However, if this trade would cause Ryan to think he'd done enough or that there was no longer money to sign a legitimate upgrade or three then I want nothing to do with Davis. In short, if a Davis trade in anyway interferes with the acquisition of significant talent then I'll pass.

Who exactly have the Twins signed in FA that were league average players? Willingham might have been but I haven't seen many people complaining about signing him. Doumit might have been, depending how much you value defense but again I think people were mostly ok with his original signing. Pelfrey, Correia, Marquis and Carroll were all well below average when they signed. You're probably right that there is a difference between the very bottom of the barrel and what the Twins traditionally sign but let's not get confused and start calling these players average.

Here is a link directly to the article.

Just to come back to the point of the thread and to clarify my position a bit, I think the trade needed to happen and I am glad Ryan got it done. My problem with the trade is how it fits into the broader picture of the financial resources not being used to maximize this teams return to contention. Good for Justin and Liriano!

I didn't respond to your post because it had nothing to do with my point. I don't care that Ryan didn't resign Nathan, Cuddyer, Kubel, et al. I do care that he has had significant financial resources and he has chosen not to invest those towards the future. He could have signed a long term upgrade like Greinke or Sanchez. He could have signed short term bounce back contracts like Santana. He could have taken on short term contracts with upside and a potential to be flipped like Kuroda or Colon. He could have taken on a big contract of a good but over paid player like Soriano. He could have gone wild in international free agency like the Cubs thereby increasing our talent in a few years. He could have signed an international free agent like Ryu or Iwakuma. Those were all options and there are probably more I'm not thinking of. He did none of those. I have a preferred method but at this point I don't care if it is chosen. I just want him to pick one or two this off season and go for it. You can't win when you don't play.