Oxtung

Considering that his contract is coming to an end and that the Twins have turned down his attempts to negotiate an extension 3 times I would say that it is silly to not deal Morneau.

I wouldn't buy out any of his post control years. He will already be 32 when he becomes FA eligible.

You make a good point that nothing is guaranteed in free agency (even more so since, personally, I highly doubt the Twins will make any serious moves on a top talent). You are correct that the Twins don't have to rely only on prospects but all current evidence points to them being unwilling to add high talent players via FA. Since they need more than 1 piece to be competitive, what good does trading prospects, that could potentially fill multiple holes for several years, for only 1 mid rotation pitcher do for the Twins? We win 3 extra games on a team that isn't going to be competitive anyways?

The Twins are almost exclusively counting on prospects to raise the franchise from the depths of multiple 90 loss seasons. It doesn't seem wise to then trade those prospects away for a fix at 1 position. Especially when they could acquire roughly the same caliber of pitcher via free agency for nothing but cash of which the Twins have in abundance.

I agree with all of that except the 90 loss part.

I think I don't understand what you're saying here. Are you saying you think the Twins should trade prospects now for established players and then supplement a few years from now with FA? Or perhaps you mean they could acquire Norris now and get a good pitcher in FA too thus trying to push up their contention time table a year or two?

I don't really understand why the Twins would trade for an established pitcher instead of using FA. Why give up prospects when there is plenty of money available?

I think it would take considerably more than that to move Norris given his years of control left. My guess is you're looking at a top 75-125 talent plus a another 100-200 prospect. Something like Kepler and Berrios, but that is just an uneducated guess without looking up comps so it's probably worth the paper it's written on.

I sure hope we have a list of replacement GM's ready to go then! I also really hope he doesn't trade prospects for pitchers a la the Royals since we're even farther away then they were this year.

The Cubs traded 2 top 100 prospects to get Garza from the Rays a few years ago. Today they got 1 back and he is struggling in AAA right now (although Edwards is very intriguing as well). On the other hand they also got 2 really nice seasons (out of 2.5 possible) of pitching from Garza as well. All things considered they essentially gave up a top 100 prospect for 2.5 seasons of a really nice pitcher. That's probably pretty reasonable.

I give you a direct quote where he says he would go to the highest bidder regardless of the team's competitiveness and you still can't accept it. Classic.

When are people going to stop this line of thought? Let me post a direct quote from Mr. Zachary Greinke. Free Agency isn't a Chinese buffet. You can't just pick what you like and say, "Well my rotation is all set!" People could list off players they prefer but those players have a right to chose whether to accept or not. Then there are injury concerns we, as fans, have no idea about. To pick 3 guys out and say "this is who I would add" is absurd. On the other hand there were 15 pitchers this last offseason that were average or better between 2010-2012. That isn't a guarantee that 2013 would be a good year from them but it does mean they had potential to be a good signing. Potential to help the rotation improve or, failing that, potential to be traded at the deadline for prospects. Instead we went with 2 guys with next to no potential. Even pitching about as well as he can Correia isn't assumed to be worth much. What is the point of signing that kind of pitcher? I guess I'd just like to take a moment to point out that this seasons actual results have no bearing on whether Ryan made good decisions in the offseason unless you believe he should be able to predict the future.

While you are right that his age needs to be seen with the context of his ascent through the minor leagues, he is none the less soon to be on the wrong side of 30 and all the physical failings that tends to bring with it. So while his age should not be held against him in acknowledging his dominance at AAA and his fast progression through the minor leagues it will certainly, and probably rightfully so, be held against him in the opportunities that he will receive and the length of career that he can expect. As you say, if only he had been discovered sooner.....

Has anybody not? As far as I can tell everyone that has stated an opinion on the subject believes TR is very adept at picking out very nice, cheap, bullpen pieces. As a matter of fact people have such confidence in his ability they want to trade Perkins so that Burton/Fien can be slotted into the closer role and then be flipped during the offseason or next July, at which point TR would presumably look for another nice bullpen find.

I'm not going another round with you Wise One. Horse. Dead. I stated my piece and nothing I say now is going to change your opinion. However, I would appreciate it if you would accurately represent the "detractor" opinion and not try and twist it to strengthen your argument. We have had this discussion often enough that you know full well why people wanted the Twins to spend money. I don't care if you agree with it or not, but please don't twist the argument to suit your viewpoint.

Why? It's not like they are committing to trading Morneau if they let it be known they willing to pick up some of the salary. They can still say no thanks, try again, if the return isn't what they are looking for. On the other hand if they never offer to pay some of that salary they will never know what returns are possible....

Please don't guess at other posters motivations. That is arrogant and inflammatory. I'll tell you my feelings now are the same they have been for the last 9 months. The Twins should have spent money to try to improve this ball club. Unfortunately they didn't and now we, the fans, have to deal with those consequences.

Last year Carlos Lee was traded for a top 100 prospect (3B Matt Dominguez) plus a AA starting pitcher (Rob Rasmussen). Lee was hitting .287/.336/.411 for an OPS+ of 102 at the time of the trade. Morneau is hitting .272/.330/.407 for an OPS+ of 101 currently. I think much of Morneau's value is dependent on how much, if any, of his salary the Twins are willing to pay. To say that he is worth nothing is a stretch. A Christian Guzman or Alexi Casilla type are certainly possible returns. To me six seasons of a Guzman like player is worth much more than half a season of Morneau. It's even worth more than two and half seasons since the Twins won't be competitive during those years.

Can you expand on that a bit? What did you like about it? I look at Pelfrey and see a guy that was extremely unlikely to be ready to go and be good to begin the season. He has been significantly below average for his career. His good years seem to be more about luck than anything else. He still had WHIP of 1.3xx. In his bad years he has been really bad with WHIP ranging from 1.4xx-1.7xx. So basically you have a poor pitcher coming off a significant injury. I just don't see what there is to like there.

If he has another dominating start next time out I wonder if he will get moved up to Elizabethton. While Berrios' stats from GCL last season are better they are pretty comparable to what Thorpe is doing this season. Berrios 16.2IP 2ER 7H 3BB 27K's Thorpe 16.2IP 4ER 15H 2BB 25K's Thorpe's numbers don't include today's start. Berrios was moved up to Elizabethton sometime between August 4th and 11th. Of course a promotion, especially at that level of baseball, is about more than just numbers. We obviously know nothing about the intangibles.

Jim you have many inconsistencies in your post. Also, you are misrepresenting the reasons for signing talent in the offseason. I don't care if you agree with those reasons but please don't morph them to fit your view point. You dismiss Reusse and people on this board for wanting to sign the Cubans when they haven't any personal experience on the matter, which is true. However, you then turn around and make statements like this: How do you justify your faith in Ryan when you have no personal evidence to support your claim? No, what most people wanted was for Ryan to throw a bunch of money out there to actually make this team better. To add talent when we desperately needed it and had significant financial leeway to make it happen. It's just a bonus that it would also give hope that in the future when this team is competing for championships, assuming the added talent doesn't push us over the top immediately, that Ryan would spend or make a big trade and go all in for a World Series run. You're misrepresenting here. The argument was 3-fold. First, we desperately needed pitching talent to compete. Second, we had plenty of money available to make a splash. Third, even if that splash didn't push us into contention we still had the opportunity to trade the pitcher and bring back a valuable prospect. Just like the Cubs and Brewers are set up to do. Instead Ryan scraped the barrel and we have Pelfrey and Correia, neither of which had any real upside to help the team compete, and even though Correia has been about as good as he can be, he is probably worth almost nothing on the trade market. That is what we had a problem with. There was no upside to his signings. This obviously depends on your definition of "good' but this is simply not true by almost any definition of good. I have done the research on this and would be willing to share it again if you want to know; just start a new thread and we can discuss this there so we don't drag this off topic. How you can turn making the World Series into anything other than a success is beyond me. As for this year here is the standings by run differential: 1)St. Louis +127 2)Boston +91 3)Detroit +89 4)Atlanta +79 5)Cincinnati +63 .... Cleveland +25 (next closest in the central) Twins -48 (7th worst in baseball) The fact that baseball is flukey should not distract from the fact that this is a very good team. They have an incredible lineup and their starting pitching is about as good as it gets. I can only hope that the Twins will be be in Detroit's position within the next decade. He hasn't taken any cheap shots in this article. He has just pointed out that the Twins have huge holes in their starting rotation and there are opportunities to address that need that cost nothing but money, which the Twins have in copious quantities. Signing the Cuban pitcher would in no way hamper the Twins in the future even if he flat out failed like Nishioka. Yet the Twins seem to be unwilling to spend that money. It instead ends up in the Pohlad's pockets. How does that help anyone other than the owners?

Not to drag this off topic, but Zach Greinke actually did come out, after signing with the Dodgers, and say he was going wherever the money was highest regardless of the team paying his salary. So the Twins did have a shot there depending on whether you believe the Twins could have outbid the Dodgers.

To be clear, I have no idea what their revenue actually is. You also bring up a good point about projected revenue versus actual revenue. It is entirely possible both are correct. The Twins seem to be conservative in all other areas so it wouldn't be shocking if they were conservative in their revenue projections as well. Regardless if it's $40 M, $60 M or $80M there is going to be a lot of money available for the Twins next year.

Yeah, you're also assuming the Twins only brought in $200 Million in revenue, which is not at all clear. As you know Forbes believes they brought in much more than that.

No, I was looking at the standings from July 1st.