old nurse

OK I will nitpick more. You still have not addressed what the quote says. You say " We have information from a variety of league sources that the Twins met with players, but rarely made offers." You have no proof for the statement you make following that. You suppose it to be so, so it must be that way. (Am I learning how to argue like you guys yet? It is what you tell me in rebuttal to anything I say). In stating that the Twinslikely balked at a three year contracts, how long is or was the contract for Mauer, Morneau, Span, Baker, Blackburn, Nishi, Willingham and Doumit's (considering the extension made it a total 3 year contract) In 2008, what did they give Cuddyer? Sounds like a place that gives out contracts longer than 2 years. The nock on Marcum is the reported elbow pain. How much dis the Twins spend on injured pitchers last year? Do you think Pohlad wants to spend more for a pitcher who might have elbow problems with a loss of velocity?

Considering the signings that were made I would guess that Ryan can commit to a certain dollar amount without Pohlad approval. Above needs the boss's approval. When you listen to the end of the interview referenced in Nick's article, when they asked him about signing free agent his response was "we tried, sometimes you can't give money away". Those that are so disappointed in the outcome of the off season thus far ignore that comment. With the dearth of information about negotiations it means something. He didn't say the free agents wanted too much money. He essentially said they don't want the Twin's money. It could be said that Ryan is frugal with the money and does not want to give out any more than he should. A learned habit from the Metrodome budgets. Most mid market teams are not giving out very many mistake contracts. Meche, Figgins and Wells comes to mind. Correia has to be given a chance to fail here before the negatory people can add him to the list.

Justin Upton turns down a trade to the Mariners. The city of Seattle is a great place. The team has been bad for longer than the Twins. Upton has been with Arizona through some very good years and some very bad years. There is no statement as to why he blocked the trade.

The Twins or most any team can not compete for a pitcher the Yankees want, Harang had 2 poor years in San Diego, Westbrook was never going to leave the Cardinals, If you feel insulted that I question the plausiblity and the reality of what you post, so be it. That is far different than character assassinations.

If the team could identify a soon to be free agent pitcher that is just below what that team would make a qualifying offer for and trade for them before the season started. The team might trade cheaply rather than risk losing them for nothing. The Twins make a qualifying offer and either have a decent pitcher for another year or a draft pick that could land a better prospect than the sum of what they gave up. Nolasco came to mind because Miami might be that kind of team willing to make a trade.

A fire? Pohlad in effige where the trees used to be on opening day?

Considering what Miami received for Sanchez, and to a lesser extent Buerhle and Johnson, could the Twins pull of a trade for Nolasco?

The Twins had a heck of a good run. As Janet Jackson once said "what have you done lately" If Pelfey comes back as a WAR of 3 like 08 and 10, if Gibson pitches as well as he did in the minors when health (fip around 3, fans would be ecstatic with a ml around 3.5) and if Worley pitches like he did in 2011. Diamond needs to stay about the same and Correia does his tiny bit above replacement level. Mighty big ifs, but 3 of the first 4 you might find happier fans here. Please note, If, not when. Optimism says it could happen, the last two years leads fans to believe not with the Twins luck. If Blackburn rediscovers his sinker. Nah, thats getting into fantasyland.

How about realism in a scenario? Phil Hughes 18-8 with an ERA of 4.19 . Great year wins wise. average ERA. Was he a better pitcher than the guy who went 13-12 with a 2.27 ERA? I will take the latter guy, aka Felix Hernandez

Just a scenario. You threw out a scenario like 2010. In your scenario, when I questioned you about it the hypothesis you continue to avoid. I hold you to account for a statement and you don't like it. That is talking to people badly?

Haren may have been worth the risk if they could assess why his drop in velocity occurred last year. Far too many pitcher in year 2 are injured. He is too young to be declining due to age

If they would have picked up the option on Baker, would you have complained they were spending money foolishly? If they traded a box of peanuts to pick up Haren's contract at the time would you have said that was overpriced? . Spending money is the only way to fix a short term problem, but to get someone here for purely monetary reasons you would have to blow them out of the water with an offer. Is it really wise to spend up to 10 million per year on a Blanton or McCarthy. Almost as much for a Feldman or Meyers. So you criticize the Twins for spending on Mauer. Yet you criticize the Twins for not signing pitchers when it would clearly be contracts far more than their value.

I got a note from John. If you call questioning your claim on the Twins should have signed somebody after the 2010 season an insult, so be it. You never answered the question.

I guess personal insults are not beneath military personnel.

How do you know the offers were not competitive? We know for sure they were not accepted.

What free agent pitcher was available after the 2010 season. You never answer. You wanted Brad Penny?

There were very few quality free agents so therefore there would be only a few offers. Takes two to negotiate.

It became apparent a long time ago that no first or second tier healthy free agent would sign here. Any analysis of why an optimistic start of free agency went so horribly wrong is lacking. "I blame Terry Ryan" appears to be the call of the fans. He is the GM. Nick merely continues the rant without analysis of how things come to be and others join in. What is the process for signing a player with the Twins? Were the Twins estimates as far off as the knowledgeable fans here were? How quickly did they react? Does Ryan have free reign to spend 90 million? I have a suspicion that the Pohlads have to approve of any contract over 5 million given how the offseason went. Does the process the Twins use hurt them in signing players? Nobody asks the players if the Twins contacted them. Maybe it is because they wouldn't trust the player to be honest with an answer if one were obtained at all. The journalists don't look for the factors involved, they just push the blame Ryan bandwagon. To say that the Twins are a large or mid market team is to ignore the paltry money earned from cable. As the newness of the stadium wears off, the revenue streams from it will be less.

Ryan failed to sign a significant healthy front line starter. I think most would agree on that. Where you start on something, what you think the situation is with available information you have, and what it turns out in the end is not always the same. Why the starting pitching free agent situation with the Twins came to be that way it went would have many factors. Ryan was hopeful at the start of the free agent period and expressed an optimistic statement. He made one statement in the middle of the process about not being able to give money away. There may be no simple answer that you are looking for as to what happened in between. Much more than just Ryan was involved. There never will be any proof as to the thought processes behind the decisions made as the discussions of the process and negotiations are kept internal. One statement is viable to you that he made at the start of the process in regards to signing players. The statement that Ryan made "Sometimes you can't give money away" means absolutely nothing to you. Why would you make a statement like that? Is it a statement of frustration? Is it a bald face lie? It is not a black and white statement but it clearly should reflect something happened in the process of negotiations with players and agents. I could speculate that he offered someone like Guthrie, Blanton or McCarthy more money than they got elsewhere. I hope he wasn't talking about Feldman. After that statement in regards to not being able to give away money is when they went bargain shopping. It is hard to have hope after the last two seasons. I guess I would rather have hope dashed once again than just being miserable from the start.

I believe I said your ideas have flaws, not controversy.

If Swarzak has no value then wouldn't trading Swarzak for a prospect that eventually pitches like him be trading Swarzak for nothing?

Pathology is not your forte. It is not defending the front office, it is pointing out the flaws in what you post

The evidence of the claim was based on as mentioned. I acknowledged that players can be traded at any time. Did not see that Burton or Doumit was traded. Do you supose they were signed then resigned because they are viewed ad valuable contributors to the team rather than a commodity? Ignore what you want. Be as the other poster called you.

Did you read about Mark Buehrle's happiness about going to Toronto? I have read all of your comments on this subject. I guess it boils down to I don't want to view a human being as a commodity to be bought and sold. Yes I know people are traded all of the time,and part of the game. I know people are signed and moved. I don't think it was Chicago's intent to move Maholm when they signed him. A deal is too good to pass up. Trade the guy during a career year. They then had to go out and sign a free agent to a larger contract to replace Maholm. They had to give money to Atlanta.

I view it as an honest mistake, not a repeated one. I really don't expect you to get the difference between them and why it is OK to rip on one and not the other.