old nurse

If ownership has even the smallest amount of foresight, they'll realize that nothing kills attendance faster than 90 loss teams. That doesn't mean the Pohlads won't slash payroll but it does mean that it would be the stupidest thing they could do in this situation. They spent ten years building up fan goodwill and building attendance slowly over that time period and to crush that in two years by slashing payroll and churning out bad baseball teams would be absolutely idiotic. The payroll that could be added from the revenue of the new stadium was taken up largely by the contracts of Morneau and Mauer. At that time the Morneau contract really was a no brainer considering his production. Who could foresee the knee to the brain? The Pohlads did not take the loss of value out of the team's pocket and as such the team has suffered.

As neither Johnson or Shields have long term contracts, you would only trade for them if you thought by adding them you would be contending next year. The Twins are a long way from contending unless you believe that Diamond is for real, Gibson and Baker can put in a full season., and Hendricks can be solid. You can wait out Gibson and Baker if you believe that Deduno and DeVries can hold down the spot short term. I don't think you can be that optimistic. IMO Span is the only player the Twins have that you could call established that they can trade for some pitching. In the long term, the Twins would be better off trading him to a team that has some pitching depth for a B+ pitching prospect or two. Trading for Shields or Johnson is a bandaid at best. The Twins need more than a bandaid.

It's going to take more than Span to get Shields. It shouldn't take much more and if it does, pass. Tampa Bay would get three years of Span for approximately the same money that the Twins would get Shields for two years. Outside of a great 2011, Shields is not an "ace" by any stretch of the imagination. He's good but not great. I don't know why forum posters are so high on the guy... He's basically a healthy Scott Baker that strikes out half a guy more every nine innings. So, he's Scott Baker, except significantly better than Scott Baker? Do you think other teams would be willing to give up more than Span to get Shields? Because if they would, there's no reason for the Rays to trade Shields for Span and maybe a throw-in. Shields has an option on his contract for $12 million in 2014, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that whichever team has him at that point would gladly pick that option up. Span likely won't ever earn more than $10 million in a season. Point is, starting pitching is more valuable on the market than outfielders. Considering Tampa's dreadful offense, if they were not going to trade pitching to make a playoff run they were so close to last season, why would they now? What they value Shields as would be a high value that Brock would disagree with. More than likely what the Rays want, the Twins did not have then. It would be more like Arcia and Benson with a good pitching prospect then a Span. Look at their trading history. A decent prospect with a few low A guys could get you a Johnson. I do not know if the Twins would do that kind of trade.

Seriously? Not exactly. Anybody looks great when the situations work, causation and correlation. Although a president/GM can do moves that completely screw up an organization, they do not completely fix an organization in a vacuum. Epstein did have players in hand and had the right manager, a few PEDS and he looks great. Look at the organizations that sustain good teams through the years. The Yankees have very few drafted players play for them. They keep what they view as the cream and trade for players or sign them. Atlanta and St Louis have built through developing players and trading for a few and signing an occasional free agent. The Twins won with a changing core. When they quit trading veterans for prospects, they fell apart shortly thereafter. Tampa Bay has had a run with a group of core players. We will see if their success continues as the core shifts. Ryan started with an organization with not much talent. He built the team through drafts and astute trades. He got a few veterans with a little gas left in the tank that served for a few years, he traded some for talent before they became free agents. I suspect why Hunter was not traded was because teams were wary of trading with Ryan. That leaves draft picks being better than what was offered. Why could Ryan pluck talent off other teams? I would contend good scouting. The same scouting department that could not apply the same talents at an amateur level to find great talent. That is taking a Shooter Hunt rather than a Lance Lynn selected a few picks later (cherry picked, but there would be other examples if I but looked)

+1. Yep. People who complain incessantly about "horrific" drafts haven't looked at many drafts. The Twins were mediocre, maybe even a smidge of the "bad" side of things. They drafted several prep players that are just starting to join the team in Plouffe, Parmelee, and Revere. They had Garza (ugh), Perkins, and Duensing earlier. Nothing to rave about but far from horrific. The Cubs and Astros, now those were some horrific drafts. I review the drafts pretty darn closely and I would say the Twins are bottom 5 in MLB over the last 6-8 years. Do not forget that TR and his good ole boys have been doing the scouting/drafting over that time so you cannot blame BS. If you use Plouffe, Parmelee and Revere as examples of potential prospects I would say that is worse than horrific. These 3 guys are replacement level at best and if you follow the BP or Klaw chats you will find that scouts agree that Plouffe and Parmelee will never make it in the bigs as regulars. I am not as critical as BP and Klaw on Revere because I think he can be a decent platoon or 4th OF on a competitive team. The main issue is TR and his boys have been the worst in baseball at drafting arms. TB drafts near the bottom each year and look at their farm system. Look at where they drafted their starters and you will see you don't need to have top 5 picks to get good pitching prospects. The difference with TB is they are constantly hiring fresh, young, forward thinkers who can use both their scouting eye and data to find that .0001% that distinguishes a good pitcher from the garbage the Twins always draft. The Twins desparately need a fresh prospective in the FO. What TR did in the 90's was great but the game and scouting has changed a lot since then. The Rays have solid starters. They needed every arm available for their bullpen. They did not trade any of the starters to get help for their offense when they still had a chance for the playoffs. This would suggest to me that Tampa does not think highly of what is behind their current 5 starters. Through the recent years though they have only traded two of them. They got a poor return for Garza, great return for Kasmir as he was falling apart and highly paid. The "forward thinking" staff has drafted a putrid offense. The offense they got from the Garza and Kasmir trades has been negligible. The other fact you appear not to notice is half of the current staff was drafted by La Marr, not Friedman. So perhaps you might want to reconsider your love affair with your so called great minds. Need I remind you Theo Epstein was called a great young baseball mind. He has done what for the Cubs. Andy McPhail was called a great young mind, how did he do after leaving the Twins?

You could even be more optimistic and wish for two pitchers for Parmalee and Revere or Span given the Rays desire for cheap contracts

I guess being in the Hall of Fame and winning a World Championship and being to the WS twice as a player are not good enough credentials, unlike those of Gardy, Andy (ok he won a WS), Vavry and Scotty... Coaches have to work together. Perhaps Molitor and Gardenhire are not in the same book? There are plenty people who played in championships that could not manage. It is a different skill set. Your comments in regards to age of coaches and managers to perform their jobs reflect a limitation of your ability to analyze a situation.

There is no harm in a reasonably well thought out and researched blog like you regularly provide. There is no harm in an overlong opinion piece with no factual data. Nor is there any harm encouraging a higher bar for writing..

I think that most people forgot how bad also was Terry Ryan as a GM in his first part of his first stint with the Twins. Ryan was a GM for the Twins from 1994-2006 and in 2012. During that 14 year stint the Twins Won the division 4 times finished second 1 time finished third 1 time finished fourth 4 times finished last 4 times and from those 14 seasons, the Twins have had winning records only 6. And he was fine with the contraction... and he undid what McPhail did. So tell me, as a whole is that "good" or "bad"? I guess Thyrlos forgets how bad the Twins were in 1993 with not much in the farm system. Contrasr that with how ell the Twins were doing when Ryan left.

Theree is still a whole spring of college and high school ball yet to be played. There is however they have a season inPuerto Rico yet to be played.. How will you know if Oscar Mercado is the real deal?

Your "work" needs work if you are trying to be a writer.

The Twins are not going to be able to sign a top of the rotation pitcher this year as a free agent. Right now there is not one on the market. The suspects mentioned by many of the posters are good pitchers, but not great. Not a one that has won 20 games once or 15 twice. When you look at the history of free agent pitchers it is littered with more busts than potentially great pitchers rising into stars. To invest in a star power pitcher, the Twins will have to trade for a pitcher and hope he develops into one. Do you trade a Sano, Rosario, Kepter or Buxton for that player? That is what it would take to get a pitcher capable of being a star. Look what Washington gave up to get Gonzales. The scrap heap includes players not happy with what was offered and may sign a one year deal to prove themselves.

When the spring season is over for high school and college it will be clearer who the 4th best player may be. Appel may not be that player.

What teams pick up the options of their pitchers and how ealy they are announces will set a payroll level for all teams. That will set if 9 million for Baker is too big of a reach. More than likely they will negotiate a deal that still overpays Baker. Offer to little and they have nothing. Sign him and they still might have nothing.

The Twins first goal is to put a winning team on the field. Regular season wins has shown to increase attendance. More attendance= revenue. Their first goal was a competitive team, building for the future second. If a Scott Baker continues to develop and not injured and if Liriano continues to what his potential was, the outcomes for the last two years are totally different, as would be your attitude. Did the Twins have what was needed to trade for a stud player? NO. Good players for potential prospects if they had a willing partner (the list that left as free agents), but no prospects that were far enough along to get a prime player for a few of them If doing poor moves satisfies you, there is not much to be said for you. Nishi and two stiffs for Hardy is about as poor as it gets. Doing something that sets you back is a gain in your book? As I have said in the past, the Twins lack the player that will carry the team. They have not had one since Puckett. Rarely can you trade for such player. Rarely do they become available as free agents. Without that player a thin team like any Twins team will be will not be g be great in the playoffs. Long before 2010 it was evident the Twins lacked an ace pitcher, and a catalyst on the offense needed for a championship. Winning seasons appeared to be enough for the public, see attendance figures for proof. If you foresaw the injuries and lack of development back in 2010 that have beset this team, I would not believe you. Hindsight

No, it DIDN'T work for 10 years. It worked if you were happy with them being competitive in the A.L. Central and winning the division with some regularity. It DIDN'T work if you had a desire for them to be competitive in the post-season. It's pretty clear if you look at the Twins won-loss record against various teams that in the last 6 years or so, the A. L. East got substantially stronger while the Twins stagnated in the A. L. Central. Some of that was money. Some of that was draft postion. BUT some portion of that was organizational philosophy. I'm not putting all of that on Gardenhire and his coaches. A large part also falls on the front office. But we never see any turnover there either (I do not consider Ryan replacing Smith as any kind of significant change. It is the same philosophy with a familiar face at the helm). After 2010, I was fully prepared to endure several (and that means more than 2) horrific seasons like the last 2 -- as long as I could see a plan emerging that would take the Twin to competitiveness with the entire league not just the Central Division. But I haven't seen that -- all I've seen other than the Willingham signing (which was really just a replacement for Cuddyer) was a little tinkering around the edges. Everybody knew at the end of 2010 that the Twins' starting pitching wasn't good enough to win in the playoffs. Other than a bit in this year's draft, have we seen any moves to toward improvement? NO -- not through free agent signings and not through trades. I feel like the pain of the last 2 years has been utterly wasted. The Twins had an opportunity to start re-tooling after 2010 to try to rise to a higher level of competitiveness. They played it safe -- because their mantra is simply to stay competitive enough to put butts in the stands without taking any major risks in improving the team. Well guess what? Even their "play it safe' strategy failed. And now I'm even more depressed because I don't see them ever taking enough risk to become competitive with the big dogs in the league. This organization is stuck in a pretty deep rut. So yes, now change IS necessary and not just with the field staff. There is also a stench from the stagnation in the front office. I agree with this 100% I think parts of this are so off base that I wonder if they even remembered what they were watching. Failure to win anything other than a division title with Cy Young and MVP winners speaks of the inability of the players to elevate their game in the post season. Management put them in a position to win, the players did not come through. Looking in hindsight to say they should have retooled is easy to say NOW. If Pavano stays healthy, and Baker, Liriano continued to improve with Slowey and Blackburn holding steady 2011 would have been a different story and you wouldn't be whining. Should they have traded Liriano after the 2010 season? The return would have been great. Fans wouldn't have liked it. Should have Morneau been traded in 08 rather than having a contract extension? Would have been better value. Should have they traded Hunter rather than picks? You would have said no if the Twins had drafted Lance Lynn instead of Shooter Hunt. They had to keep Hunter as Span was not ready. Easy to complain with the advantage of hindsight. 3-4 years from now you might be saying that Cuddyer for Berrios was great. The choices to sign players to long term contracts took away their ability to trade for prospects. Smith did not trade established players well. They drafted players poorly. Combine those two and you have the state of baseball the Twins are in. Free agency with a limited budget will not turn this team around. It can plug a hole, but there are too many. Your pain of the last two years is because one person did not learn how to rebuild a team and another knew he couldn't fix it overnight. When the local cheap people plunk down large enough sums of money that the Twins can have the money like the "big dogs" of the league, they will spend that way.

3/30 is not at all similar to a Willingham contract. There is a huge amount of difference between 7 million a year and 10. What the Twins would hope for is a 1.5 WAR player they sign in the to blossom into a 3.

3/30 will get you an aging pitcher that has had one or two good years. That is why Ryan will not be making any splashes in the free agent market. If most teams do not pick up the options on their pitchers then there will be plenty of pitchers who will do a one year contract. The market will be clearer once the season ends.

uhhhh....yes! He makes $660k a year, and 54 isn't exactly young. In addition it wouldn't shock me if he stuck around the organization as an adviser or some role as well. In regards to 54 not being exactly young, the policy of this board does not allow me to tell you what I think of your opinion.

Revolted??? Destroyed Young players? Who developed the championship players from the minor league teams? Suddenly Kelly changes how he treats people? You are free to have an opinion but what player failed under Kelly and went on to be anything more than a role player? Hawkins, Trombley, Knoblach, and Hunter destroyed? Yah, right. Todd Walker, could not play defense and traded. He did not produce. Willie Banks did not make it because of his own skills. Garces ate his way out of the league. McCarty couldn't catch up to a fastball. Remember the lows of the player's themselves.

On a recent post I mentioned a Gardenhire fault called a doghouse. Slama is in it. Therefore unless he is lights out awesome, he will be elsewhere. Quickly, as I have to get back to work, The Twins may sign one legit starter and probably a reclaimation project. To want two is reasonable. To get two is another. A Pino/Lawton type of player for a short term starter is more like what they will do

More problematic in the article by Makey is the lack of discipline creeping in and being tolerated. Is Liddle tired of the rat race or being a scapegoat for what he has no control over? Does a coach make that much money they can retire young? Liddle might not like some of what he sees and is loyal to the staff so to preserve an image calls it retirement. John Bonnes article described the lack of clutch hitting. That is not his area. He doesn't work with the pitchers. There is something that does not add up.

---The Mets deserve some credit for picking him up. But they did not insert him as one of their starters coming out of the gate in 2010. They signed him to a minor league contract in January, and he started the year in AAA. I'm happy to see RA have the year he's having. He's obviously had some real personal demons to deal with along the way. I'm not sure how much you can fault the Twins any more than you can fault the 28 other major league teams that passed on him. It's not like there was a rush to sign this guy when he went on the market. And I doubt the Mets even thought he'd do as well as he has. He was a journeyman in his mid-30's when the Twins decided not to bring him back. I don't recall a groundswell of support for doing otherwise, and certainly not anyone claiming that if we just waited a few more years, we'd have a Cy Young contender on our hands. Dickey started the year in AAA because of money previously committed to John Maine ($3.3M), but especially to Oliver Perez ($12M). Dickey started out of the gates in AAA with a series of dominating performances, by far producing the best MiL numbers in his career. As Perez and Maine self-destructed, Dickey first started for the Mets on May 19 and ended up with the third-most innings on the staff (174), the best ERA (2.84- better than Johan) and only 1/100 higher WHIP than Johan (1.18). As I stated in my previous post: "I'm not sure what the Twins were thinking back in 09 when they cut Dickey. Likely what most everybody else in baseball didn't see, as well. Give the Mets credit for understanding the evolution of a knuckleballer learning on the job." The Mets saw something that the other clubs didn't. For one thing, as there is little strain on a pitching arm from tossing knucklers, age is irrelevant to consideration of potential value. Mastering the knucker requires years of practice and great patience from the club that has his rights. It's fairly obvious that through a combination of Dickey's pitching maturation and possibly some credit to the Mets coaching staff- along with their willingness to show confidence in him, they found themselves a great bargain. The majors are not filled with many knuckleballers. The Twins gave him a year. His statistics were not great. Nor were they much different than at any other stop he made since he went to the knuckler. It would be likely that someone with the Mets taught him something. Is it the control of the knuckleball that improved or is it they improved his other pitches so they did not get pounded. Did he change his approach how he pitched? To say it is is maturation of the knuckler is an assumption you are making without bassis. Look back at the careers of the Niekros. They went to the knuckler without a 4-5 year period on the fringe. Wakefield did not even start out as a pitcher and made the transition within a few years from low minors to the majors. Not the

I am somewhat surprised (and disappointed) that one of the number crunchers here has not identified some pitcher the Twins could go after that underperformed in 2011. Surely there is a SP like Pavano circa 2009 the Twins could go after. That is their MO. They would trade a low level prospect drafted high for someone like that Escobar of Toronto does not fit the profile of how the Twins do business. If the Yankees needed an infielder, he would fit in there.

Your logic "If you think your squad has a chance, then you need a closer, not a pen of questions" is solid, but the choice of Capps was obviously incorrect. The Twins could have had a similar bullpen arm AND the pick. Here are the 'closers' signed in 2012, their salaries (mil), and finally their 2012 WAR (FG): 1 YR Deals: Matt Capps, 6, -0.1 Jonathan Broxton, 4, 1.3 Ryan Madson, 6, 0 Francisco Cordero, 4.5, -0.8 Octavio Dotel, 3, 1.5 Brad Lidge, 1, -0.2 Jon Rauch, 3.5, 0.4 Fernando Rodney, 1.75, 2.2 Francisco Rodriguez, 8, 0.3 Multi-YR Deals: Heath Bell, 6, 0.4 Frank Francisco, 5.5, 0.1 Joe Nathan, 7, 1.7 Jonathan Papelbon, 11, 1.4 The Twins weren't eveer going to go multi-year on a 'closer', so looking only at that first group, the Twins could have had better production from nearly all of that group AND received a draft pick AND paid less is nearly every case. This is why their logical was flawed for signing Capps. Those that signed a one year deal, what was their WAR the previous season? You would be basing your decision on what they have done and anticipate continuation. When used as a closer, what was Capps WAR when healthy? He wasn't this year. Player, '12 Salary, '12 WAR, '11 WAR 1 YR Deals: Matt Capps, 6, -0.1, -0.4 Jonathan Broxton, 4, 1.3, -0.3 Ryan Madson, 6, 0, 1.7 Francisco Cordero, 4.5, -0.8, 0.1 Octavio Dotel, 3, 1.5, 0.9 Brad Lidge, 1, -0.2, 0.3 Jon Rauch, 3.5, 0.4, -0.6 Fernando Rodney, 1.75, 2.2, -0.2 Francisco Rodriguez, 8, 0.3, 1.4 So, in order of 2011 WAR, the Twins chose the 2nd worst player and paid him the 2nd most money AND sacrificed a draft pick. Capps cumulative WAR for the Twins over the 2+ years, is 0.1 (0.6,-0.4,-0.1) for which he has 'earned' around 13 mil. Capps value was clear to nearly everyone (except BS & apparently old nurse) when the Twins acquired him: a good setup man as long as he's cost controlled that was labeled a 'closer' by virtue of being the best bullpen arm on a couple bad teams. You can spin the trade by saying you undervalue Ramos considerably, but there is no way you can spin last year's signing and forfeiture of the 'free' draft pick. WTF did I ever say that was spin? You are the one using a single stastic. First off, can you even tell what the p value of the rating is so one could tell if .4 difference betweens players really means diddly. The second fatal flaw is your assumption that the Twins did not contact any of the other pitchers. Like it or not Capps is what they could get for a reliever in 2010. The cost was a potentially good catcher. Clearly Rauch was not the answer. With Nathan making it clear he wasn't going to come back you have to make your best guess. Capps WAR as listed in 2011 when he was used as a closer was 1.2. 1.2 looks good by your list. Who or what would sign with the Twins and could perform well in their park.