SwainZag

How can you be so certain he is ready? Was it the .236 he hit with shaky defense a year ago? He hasn't played now in a full season, saying he is ready seems like quite the assumption, especially when you have a 4 WAR player who just had his best season playing 3B.

Willingham came in and put up a 3.2 WAR and an OPS+ of 143. He was an excellent signing for the 2012 team. He probably should have been traded and not extended, but that doesn't stop the fact that he was a quality FA signing and he did produce. Ricky is 1/4 of the way through his 4 year deal. You can't clamor for the Twins to spend money, sign an SP to a 4 year, $48 million dollar deal....and then berate them when he has the worse season of his career. That's the risk you take when signing free agents. Kurt Suzuki, a free agent signing. A quality free agent signing. 2.2 WAR and a fairly team friendly extension. You can't take that away from the team because they didn't trade him. He is still a quality free agent signing. Teams that have as many holes as the Twins do don't go out and signing big name free agents every year. It just doesn't work that way. Hendricks and Wimmers where never anywhere close to be as highly touted as May and Meyer alone. That doesn't include Berrios or a half a dozen other prospects in the Twins system. They are no good comparisons. I'll give you Aaron Hicks, even though I think the Twins screwed up big time with him trying to count on him when he wasn't even close to be ready for the majors. Of course not all prospects will work out, but calling them all just magic beans isn't correct either. Your statement makes it sound like 1 in every 1000 highly rated prospect works out. I would argue that Top 100 prospects end up working out a higher percentage than paying older veterans to 4-5 year deals. Just like you can't "wait for the fairy tale" of prospects maturing, you just can't throw money at free agents and just expect a great team. You used an example yourself: Ricky Nolasco.

This was written pretty early last season but I a really good read on Dozier's elite base running skills: http://www.fangraphs.com/community/all-your-bases-are-belong-to-brian-dozier/

Which Joe was the real Joe? Pre-2014 injury or post 2014 injury? I want to hope that after he came off the DL and hit .289/.398/.408/.805 is the Mauer we see next year and not before the all star break Mauer that struggled. I will say I think Joe is far from done. The kind of hitter he is which is high contact + good eye are the ones that stick around the longest, though I'd be lying if I said the increasing K/rate didn't bother me.

I'm hoping he gets a 4 year deal and they buy out his arbitration to be honest with ya. It would sign him through his 31 year old year, wouldn't have to deal with arbitration and would probably make for just as good trade chip down the road.

Didn't the Twins take Burdi with the pick they would have lost?

I think when most team's decide they are going to rebuild, it isn't coming off a division title. I will say there are probably very little people who will point to the off season after 2010 and say.....well great run guys, let's rebuild this thing. The 2011 team had a $112.7M payroll. I could go into how everyone regressed and only 3 regulars played in 100+ games or how Mauer and Morneau both missed more than half the season or how the bad Liriano showed up and Pavano aged quickly. Nishi was a bust. Nathan wasn't the same coming off of injury and Baker would only start 21 games. 2011 was a complete disaster in every way. So much hope...turned to rubble. High payroll, terrible results, a bad farm club. Not a great starting point 2012 going forward. You cite they have signed 1 solid free agent. How about Josh Willingham? Kurt Susuki? Ricky Nolasco? What players have they lost in the last 3 seasons for nothing? You can go back to Gomez and Hardy, everyone will agree those were mistakes, everyone will admit it. Every player you listed was a 2013 player. Instead of adding them they added Phil Hughes, Ricky Nolasco and Kurt Susuki. 2 of 3 of those were excellent signings. Was it a mistake not to grab an OF? Probably. Comparing waiting for prospects to bloom as "magic beans into a beanstalk" is pretty laughable. I think the fact that people think the position they were in after the 2011 season should be some magical turn around in 1-2 seasons back into a contender is funny to me. They put themselves into that position, but a lot things along they way didn't bounce their way for us to get to this point.

Iwakuma is interesting. Very good season last year. He will be 34 on opening day and has a $7M option for 2015. While he would be a very nice in our rotation, do you believe he would be anything more than a 1 year rental? If the M's did execute his option and trade him, would the Twins be willing to give a guy who will be 35 opening day 2016 a 3-4 year deal?

I think it's a stretch to say he is done improving, he has 41 big league starts and just a shade over 200 innings pitched. If he stagnates next year and doesn't improve, yes those numbers would be a for a 3, I'll agree to that.

Fair enough and you make a good Pelfrey point. You can never predict health either. That being said I would be extremely dissapointed if we have to watch May and Meyer dominate AAA next year because a few free agents were brought in and get the nod.

I think we speculate future rosters 6+ months all the time. And I said nothing about those 5 staying healthy all year long, you cannot plan for that at all. That's why you have AAA arms to fill slots, which the Twins do have a lot of future hopefuls. On the other hand, signing free agents and pushing your young starters back to AAA to wait upon injuries doesn't seem like a good strategy. If the team has decided that they think May/Meyer need more AAA time already......then sure why not, go sign another starter. So the problems for the club last year were Gibson being the #2 starter? His 2.5 WAR, 3.80 FIP and 3.99 xFIP said otherwise. If he doesn't improve upon this year....sure he might be a solid #3 the problems fell much more who were 3-5 in the rotation rather than him being the club's 2nd best starter.

Why's that? Say all you want about Nolasco, but Gibson was our No. 2 last year. He improved across the board in his sophomore season. His HR/9 cut in half from 1.2 to 0.6, his BB/9 from 3.5 to 2.9 and his K/9 from 5.1 to 5.4. Meanwhile his ERA dropped from 6.53 to 4.47 and his FIP from 5.17 to 3.80. I know it's not a for sure thing to see him improve once again but it wouldn't surprise me. He was far better in the first 4 months of the season than the last 2....but he was throwing more innings than ever before going from 28.1 in 2012 coming of TJ, 152.2 last year and 179.1 this year. His arm very well could still be coming around from the 2012 surgery. Maybe I have more confidence in Gibson than some?

I agree very much so. Bourjos could also probably be had on a small, short term contract which is easily displaced when Buxton shows he is ready. With the way the Twins offense scored runs this year, especially in the August/Sept months, they could probably sacrifice a little to have a light hitting CF if they play defense like Bourjos.

I just wanted to comment on this. I went to college with a young lady who got her degree in journalism and went on to be a Fox girl in a different market for a few years before moving on to a job as a reporter and just recently become an anchor. Is she good looking? Yes, and that was her first job out of college. On the other hand, a guy I graduated with in a similiar situation also in journalism got a job with a newspaper basically as a gopher before making his way as a reporter some 7-8 years later. You can either chastise the girls for being good looking and taking a position as a "Fox girl" or look at it as getting their foot in the door for a better position. I know nothing of the background of the current FSN girls, and it might not apply to them, but everyone's situation is probably different.

Sure 22nd still "wouldn't be good enough" but that also includes 23 starts from Correia, 11 from Pino, 8 from Deduno, 5 from Millone, and 11 from Swarzak/Johnson/Darnell. That is realistically 2 starters worth of starts. There's a good chance that none of these guys might never start a game for a Twins ever again. What it does include is a very good year from Hughes, a good improvement in his 2nd year in Gibson, a bad year that resulted in injury for Nolasco and only 9 starts from May. It depends on a lot on Meyer IMO. He looked ready in AAA. If he looks good in ST, the Twins could roll out the season with a rotation of: Hughes Gibson Nolasco May Meyer Any FA brought in either blocks Meyer to AAA or to the bigs as a reliever. I'm not opposed to using Meyer as a reliever, but that probably means they have given up on his a starter.....which I think it's way too early to do.

Gore also was never a big prospect, hasn't hit above .250 since Rookie ball and is on the Royals specifically for defense and his pinch running abilities. He has played in 13 games with Kansas City and has two official plate appearances, zero hits but has stolen 8 bases. He isn't a future cornerstone for the franchise, he is a role player. There's a huge difference between him and Buxton.

I don't think anyone here thinks that a rebuild absolutely has to take being bad for multiple years, but at the place this franchise was after the 2011 season, I don't see how that team bounces back any quicker. I think many teams have proved that tossing money at free agents isn't how you build a sustained winner. This goes back to a point that has been beaten into ground that the drafting failures of the Twins between 2005-2009. Missed 1st round picks, not many gems found in later rounds, etc left the team lacking at the upper levels for young talent. I think there are just as many people who think you can instantly rebuild a winner than there are people who think it takes a few years to rebuild. I for one like the way they are rebuilding. You could argue that the Twins could have spent an extra 15M per year for the last 3 years and had 5-8 more wins. It would leave us with 3 straight 80+ loss seasons without the the high draft picks. A team who still lost more than they won, fans still bitching and the quality of draft prospects not as good.

Going even further: Nolasco FIP: 4.30 Hughes: 2.65 Gibson: 3.80 Pelfrey: 7.57 May: 4.77 (ERA of 7.88) You can talk about having the 28th-30th team in ERA all you want, but when every starter has AT LEAST a FIP of 1/2 run below their ERA addition to the OF defense would just as much difference as adding a starter. (Not that Tomas is the answer based on his defensive metrics, but in general)

I don't see how this trade makes sense for the Twins. Bautista turns 34 in 2 weeks and while he is still a productive player at his age, he has 2 years left on his deal both $14M. He is likely gone in 2 seasons. Meanwhile you are trading 27 year old Dozier, who is coming off his best season and is controlled for 4 more seasons and 23 year old Arcia, who while he isn't a + defender, I think we have only seen a glimpse of the hitter he can be. IMO this type of trade would be a step back for a team in the current situation the Twins are in.

I wasn't saying he wasn't productive. It was more aimed at your comment that Walker will hit .320 in AA next season, which I'm sure everyone would be ecstatic about it, it just seems like quite the prediction.

Didn't he hit under .250 in A ball this year?

What's your definition of failing? Never pitching in the majors? Not being aces? What if one ends up as a solid 3 and the other an above average MR? They traded Span for a former 1st round pick with high upside and got more for Revere than I think most of us ever thought they could. What are you going to tell the scouting? Hey those trades we made 5 years ago....bad deals man.

I'm sure Pohlad also didn't expect everyone to be injured in 2011 essentially forcing a rebuild. I do not understand this outrage so many people have over an arbitrary payroll number. If the team isn't good, an extra 10M in payroll isn't magically going to turn it around and produce 20 more wins.

I think it's really a question if you would rather trade prospects for someone younger and cheaper or take the risk and give a 30+ year old a 6-7 year contract.

Guys that have made it the majors have a much higher success rate than guys in A ball, sure. But when you are looking at a list that puts much more emphasis and higher rankings on guys that have made it to the majors, the Twins are obviously going to be lower. Most of their highly touted prospects are between the ages of 18 and 23 and have been in the system for 4 years or less. I know it's fun to go look a player who is 23 and in the majors and bash the Twins front office, but honestly guys mature and develop and different speeds.