Oxtung

Sure most other teams could, but the Twins aren't other teams and to pretend they are even in remotely the same situations is disingenuous. The Twins have the need and the money to sign a rotation upgrade. Clearly they just don't have the will. That is disappointing.

Of course we don't know of any advanced metrics that work. No team is going to come out and brag about their algorithms and given their competitors an advantage. You seem to think that these teams are hiring dozens of statisticians, some extremely highly regarded, just to look at fangraphs daily. These guys are creating their own metrics and computer models and we won't know what those are for years. If the twins wait that long to jump on board.... well they'll reap the rewards and I don't think any of us will like it.

May will not be on anyone's top 100 lists. He didn't make it on the 2013 lists and hasn't improved his stats, and presumably his stuff or reputation, by returning to AA for a second season. I think Berrios depends on how closely the evaluators look at his season. I think it's pretty clear he hit a wall or has been injured in his first full season. After throwing just 33 innings last season, plus whatever he threw in PR, he has now thrown 105 innings this year. First 61 IP- 3.25 ERA, 2.4 BB/9, 10.5 K/9, 4.4 K:BB Last 44 IP- 4.87 ERA, 4.9 BB/9, 5.9 K/9, 1.2 K:BB If they just look at his overall line I don't see how he makes it. If they look close they might decide the first half is the real Berrios and he has been injured/spent and still rank him based off of his "stuff". Rookie ball players don't make these lists unless they are highly regarded internationals like Sano or drafted high like Stewart. So it will be a couple years before anyone not named Stewart to be ranked. I think Berrios is the most likely of the fringe prospects followed by Jorge Polanco. He has had an a very good first year at full season ball following an awesome year at Elizabethton. Kepler probably still fits with this group. While he hasn't had the season we hoped his peripherals are still very good. He is striking out only 16% of the time while walking 9.6%. His babip of .261 is holding him down quite a bit. The only concern I have is his splits against left handed pitchers. Ouch.

Could you be a little more specific on what a "legit prospect" is to you? How about we shop in the Twins system to make things easier? You mentioned Single-A so (in descending order roughly) Berrios, Polanco, Kepler tier? Harrison, Walker, Goodrum tier? Madison Boer, Hudson Boyd, Tyler Grimes tier? I am not sure there is a big difference in the return people want in the "trade Morneau" discussions but I wonder if we are labeling it differently. I see the Berrios tier as "legit prospects". They are all top 10 in the Twins system probably. Harrison's tier seem to be fliers to me. Guys with big questions but also potential to be very good players if they can solve them. At this point Boer and Boyd seem to be filler for the most part, unlikely to contribute to the big league team in any meaningful manner (although I think Boyd could yet turn out to be an interesting reliever).

Can you explain this further? I don't think I understand the point your trying to make here.

Hijacking threads is not specifically mentioned in the TD comment policy. Are we to take this as an official warning and therefore an unwritten rule? Is this a general policy for all hijackings or just specific to reoccurring themes? Not trying to be a PITA just trying to clarify things a bit. -THnx

I'm not sure what your responding to in my post for the most part, perhaps you didn't understand my points. You can't simultaneously give Ryan a pass because a pitcher has been unpredictable and then ignore other pitchers unpredictable seasons in order to praise Ryan. FYI, I agree that what happened this season has no bearing on judging Ryan's actions last off season; that should have been obvious from my last post. I was not very clear with my "average" comment. I did not mean that Correia/Pelfrey were average pitchers compared to the league as a whole but instead that they were average compared to most of the FA available last off season (although I'm not sure this is accurate any more either.)

I think Pseudo stated it well. He isn't blocking anybody in the OF for the first half of 2014. He could improve next season and therefore so too would his return. Wait to trade him until next season. Unless Ryan is offered something of decent value (something top 10 in the Twins system), then go ahead and pull that trigger!

Holy Carp!!! I knew there was something special about this years pitching staff.....oh....you mean..... *sniff* *sniff* (Ox runs away to cry in private).

You can't claim that Sanchez wasn't predictable, and so Ryan gets a pass, at the same time you're claiming Correia/Pelfrey being average, while unpredictable also, makes Ryan a genius. In fact this whole line of reasoning is flawed. Unless you think Ryan has a crystal ball a player's results have no bearing on whether Ryan made the right decisions. What matters is the information Ryan had at hand at the time that he made his decisions and what he chose to do with that information. Think about it another way. You're playing blackjack at the casino. You have 16. The dealer is showing a 5. You stand because the odds are the dealer will bust. The dealer ends up with 18 and you lose. Was your decision to stand wrong? No. You couldn't have known what the dealer had/would draw. You made the best decision you could at the time with the most information possible. The fact that things did not go the way you hoped doesn't mean you made the wrong decision. The same is true for GM's. What matters is the information they have at the time they made the signing. What happens afterwards is out of his control.

I found a great stat for this. sOPS+. It measures the how OPS against a pitcher, in this case Hendriks, compares to the league average OPS against in the same split. So >100 is bad. <100 is good. This only seems to be available after full seasons so the data for 2013 isn't available and it doesn't work for careers. The data below is from 2012 for Correia and Hendriks since that is Hendriks largest sample and 2011 for Pelfrey since he didn't pitch in 2012. "Ahead" is when the pitcher is ahead in the count and "behind" is when the batter is ahead in the count. [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD][TD]0-0 1-0 2-0 3-0 0-1 1-1 2-1 3-1 0-2 1-2 2-2 3-2 Ahead Behind Hendriks 168 128 132 -11 88 209 204 174 147 99 47 132 110 140 Correia 78 64 142 NA* 68 68 135 171 257 82 144 87 115 96 Pelfrey 104 88 130 234 73 70 123 118 24 143 139 161 98 126 [/TABLE] *only pitched to 3 batters with this count. Again, the data seems to show that Hendriks is ok, not great, but ok when he is ahead in the count. He just truly gets crushed when he is behind in the count. I will say however that this all fits under the SSS warning. Everything I've found suggests his problem is not finishing batters off but rather staying ahead in the count.

You're missing the point of that section of the post. I wasn't arguing that those numbers said anything about how good a pitcher he is. I was merely showing that his "out pitch" wasn't causing his problems. That has nothing to do with how other pitchers pitch.

Kepler is eligible for the rule 5 draft this off season (you could have been arguing the Twins don't need to protect him this year though, it wasn't real clear). I wonder if his 1st base status isn't related to his shoulder as well. It's possible that it is still affecting his throwing or that they are being cautious with it. Playing 1B would certain help protect it. Cedar Rapids didn't have a 1B on the roster after Hicks was promoted so it was easy to slot Kepler in there. It wouldn't surprise me if next season he is back taking the majority of his reps at OF.

I would like to fess up and state that I was on the "Ryan will change his tune" bandwagon last year. I was making the exact same arguments drjim is making right now, at least the his arguments about how things are different now then they were in the Dome. Fool me once....

So who were you originally talking about that would sacrifice our financial flexibility in the next 2-3 years?

That is one cold hammock but I think I could manage.

Very well could be. I do find his count splits interesting. Those are pretty significant differences. Clearly he is able to do something right when he is ahead in the count.

Well ABW committed his first error today; if only he had better hands.....

He was originally drafted as a SS and flamed out. He has resurrected his career as a pitcher and that's why he's old for his league. I have no idea what his stuff is like though. Hope someone can fill us in.

Just to pick a nit, but hopefully not distract from the mood of the thread, I wonder if Morneau and Willingham would be hitting 3/4 in that lineup. I think that Arcia/Sano could be better hitters by that point and lineup better in the 3/4 spot. On the other hand that is a lot of pressure on 2 young players when there are other reasonable options available. I guess I'm just not sure what I think the Twins would do (not that that was the point of your thread). I'll just wonder back out now with the suggestion of a Corona or Summer Shandy in your hand.

Those seem to be two big assumptions to me. There is a very real risk the Twins will not have the money to sign a top tier free agent when the prospects are ready. Look at the Royals. They have an $80 million payroll and are spending $10 million on arbitration players this year. Next season they'll be at ~$90 million and still have to replace Bruce Chen (80IP) and Ervin Santana (170IP). In 3 years, when their core will be "in their prime" they could be spending $70 million on arbitration players alone. It is not at all clear that if the Twins choose to wait until their players are "in their prime" that the money will be there for a significant FA. There is also the very real risk that said FA won't exist at that specific point in time. If you have it I would love to see any data on what point of their contracts FA pitchers lose value.

The problem is bigger than just these 3 though. They are just the latest. If you look at all the pitchers he has watched go by that could have upgraded this rotation... well trends start to appear. Strong trends. How many times can one say, "not the right time" or "too much money" or "not the right player" before these just become excuses for doing nothing? 5? 10? 20? 50 players? How many years? At what point do you stop and say, alright, he clearly isn't going to make a move to help this team right now?

I have seen many people make this claim but it really doesn't seem to track with his stats. While strikeouts would be nice he has been effective when he is ahead in the count. It's when he's behind that he gets crushed. OPS by count [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [/TD] 0-1 0-2 1-2 2-2 OPS .743 .553 .482 .325 [/TABLE] On the other hand he gets absolutely crushed when he is in a hitters count: OPS by count [TABLE=class: grid, width: 500] [TD]0-0 1-0 2-0 3-0 1-1 2-1 3-1 OPS 1.150 1.317 .850 .813 1.203 1.167 1.832 [/TABLE] A few caveats on this next section. I am using Hendriks career stats to increase his sample size. He's pitched 129 innings in the majors. I am then comparing that to the 271 qualified single seasons that have occurred during his career, 2011-2013. I understand this is rife with problems and am by no means saying that if he was given enough innings to qualify he would end up ranked at the same spot. I also understand that I have not included those pitchers who didn't qualify. I am trying to provide a frame of reference to those pitchers who have "made it", trying to show where his weaknesses/strengths are and how they compare to the starters that are established. His dismal rates when behind in the count are compounded by the fact that he falls behind hitters at an alarming rate. His first pitch strike % is 56.1% which would place him 249th (these are all out of 271). When he does put the ball in the zone opponents make contact 92.1% of the time, ranking him 252nd. He could very well know he is getting crushed and be scared to throw it across the plate in an 0-0 count but this leads to even greater problems as shown above. This is supported by the fact that his overall strike % is 53.4% which is fourth highest (behind Cliff Lee 3 times FYI). It seems like he can throw strikes when he wants to. Opponents swing at 66.4% of the pitches he throws in the zone. This would rank 190th, while this is high the batters aren't swinging at every pitch he throws across the plate. Combined with his first pitch strike %, which is very bad, I would guess hitters are getting ahead, waiting for their pitch and then teeing it up. Players are only swinging at 29.5% of his offerings outside the zone ranking him 207th. Clearly he isn't fooling batters which is supported by his 5.7% swinging strike rate, placing him 263rd. TLDR To sum this up, Hendriks doesn't have swing and miss stuff. When he is able to get ahead in a count he is an effective pitcher, albeit a low strikeout back of the rotation option. Perhaps batters have to respect his full arsenal at this point and this causes weak contact. However, when he falls behind, batters are waiting for their pitch then teeing off. I would like to look at pitch selection by count if anybody knows of a place where that data is available? That might give us a better idea of why he falls behind batters then gets crushed and why he is successful when he is ahead.

drjim, you wrote that Ryan's resigning of Doumit, Burton and Perkins were a beacon pointing to Ryan's impending haul in FA. You might have listed 2 points but they were both justifying Ryan's potential future FA signings. Just to be clear here is your post: Moving on So you've ruled out the possibility that Greinke or Sanchez could be good pitchers and a cornerstone of their rotations for the next several years after 1 very good season for both of them (so far at least)?

There are no impact SS available this off season (are there ever?) and the SP looks shaky at best. The only upside arms available are Josh Johnson and Tim Lincecum both of which are pretty risky.