TheLeviathan

I like most of your post, but this goes a bit farther than I'm comfortable with. This is still a very good team without those big signings, but they haven't even fully unleashed their payroll possibilities yet. Right now they're where they are mostly from savvy GM work. The money is going to be the factor that keeps them in this conversation far longer than a team like the Indians.

Payroll should not be an excuse. It's also a significant advantage. Those are not mutually exclusive.

Leaving pitches up, making errors, or having defensive gaffes are not a direct reflection of talent. Sometimes the bad luck is that otherwise reliable players had that happen and the resulting damage is heightened in the playoffs. Call that whatever you want, but talent doesn't determine that either way. That sort of randomness is why the playoffs are a crapshoot.

Just a few relevant Fangraphs articles.

1) Most people believed the 2015 Cardinals were the best team. What happened to them? Go back and look at the teams with the best records and see what happened to them in the playoffs. This is what happens over a small sample size. The better team routinely gets beaten. Hell, how many play-in teams in just the last few years have made WS runs? So, c'mon, that argument is nonsense. 2) Of course the Cubs would beat a little league team. One of them isn't filled with professional baseball players. Again. C'mon. 3) 1, 5, or 7 game series after a 162 game season are the definition of a small sample size. Small sample sizes are not nearly as good a measure of quality as a larger sample. To deny that small sample size terrorizes better teams in the playoffs is to deny a simple reality about statistics. You are welcome to do so, but you're wrong if you do. This is, in no way, arguing the Twins were a better or worse team. That'd have to be a year by year thing. The argument that the playoffs do anything other than show "this team lucked and skilled their way over a ridiculously small sample to a title" is nonsense. The playoffs are purely for entertainment. The regular season always give us the best measurement of who the best team is. What happens in the playoffs is just crazy *@%$ you hope you come out on the right side of. Can you try and have a roster that gives you better odds of surviving all that crazy *@%$? Sure. You'll still fall victim. No matter how you construct your build. No matter how much more superior you are to your opponent. No matter how well you manage. You will still fall victim. Often. More often than you'd like. That's what small samples do, they lie. The outcomes frequently lie about who is better.

Calling it a crapshoot means the outcome is uncertain no matter what you think you see beforehand. I I could go back and pick out 5 game stretches and argue the Twins deserved to be a 100 win team. Would that be a valid way of determining their talent or ability? No? Then why is it ever? Small samples are prone to wild swings of luck and demonstrations of play that exceed or slump relative to expectations. We have playoffs for atmosphere, entertainment, and a variety of other reasons. It does absolutely nothing for determining the league's best team beyond ceremony. The 162 game season already pretty much told us who the best team was and that team doesn't win the playoffs with much regularity. So yeah, it's a crapshoot.

Why can't there be elements of the Cubs build we emulate and some we can't? The truth is, we won't ever be dropping multiple giant contracts on guys like Lester and Heyward and still afford guys like Zobrist, Chapman, etc. That's just reality. We can't emulate that. Arguing or denying that just looks silly. What we can do is be smart about investing in upside here in the early years. Try to find bullpen arms or other avenues to give available spots we have to guys that can build value and be traded. We can make smart trades like Rizzo and Arrieta. Some of that is luck, but you can make your own luck by targeting upside. We can also focus on drafting hitters with high picks because they have more reliable profiles. We can focus on defense. We can know when to sell like the Cubs did with Smarj and others. (Like we currently have with Dozier and Santana that some of you seem hell bent on ignoring) So, take some of the good ideas we can replicate and be creative to fill in the rest.

Did you watch any of those games? Because is there weren't nearly a dozen times you were flabbergasted by amazing strokes of bad luck, I don't know if we watched the same games. The other half of those terrible records was a psychological component. But to cut past all this, if you don't think isolated 5 or 7 games samples aren't the definition of small sample size, you just frankly don't believe in small sample size. And you should. That's a thing. Like, an important fact about looking at statistics. So...you're just plain off base. (No Punto Puns intended there)

I don't think the point was to dog Santana. The point was you can't just say "have a couple great pitchers and you're good". Baseball playoffs are basically small sample size terrorism. You can try to plan and have the best talent available to give yourself the best shot, but the small sample will always be there to humble you. I think the point is, you can call it a crapshoot (totally uncertain) and still prepare the best you can. But no matter how good Johan pitches he can still go 1-3 over a small sample and have his team lose most of those games.

The DT whose name I can't remember is a better pro prospect IMO.

The TV deals need to be shared. Let's start there.

You can do both. We have money to use and we need more talent. Investing money and innings into a guy that wants to prove he can close is a low risk, high reward proposition. You invest those innings and dollars, reap the rewards in July, and then give the last two months of the season to the young guy who has pitched the best so far in the season as the closer. Good rebuilding teams look for ways to use open roles they have to create more value than they invest.

For July 31st. That's the reason to do it. Give somebody who has always wanted to close a chance and see if you can't spin that into a windfall at the deadline.

Yup, let the kid hit. If Mauer or Park has more at-bats than him next year, it's a mistake. (Barring Vargas having an OPS below .600, if it's above that, there is no excuse for him to get less at-bats than either of them)

Trade Dozier, play him at 2B. /thread

What would you put as a playing time percentage? 70/30 Vargas?

This I can totally get behind. We shouldn't be the same team next year, but we should be looking to acquire pitching like that. AA and AAA talents or guys ready to make the jump. That's where we're going to find assets this offseason.

Speaking of first base, I am eagerly awaiting our bi-annual tradition of celebrating Mauer's health! We're probably 5 months away from that "Mauer feels like he's 19 again!" newspaper article and about 11 months from the "Mauer: I used a walker in the hallways between games but kept playing like a trooper" follow-up. Play Vargas.

Plus, the kid worked hard and earned more opportunity. I hope that gets rewarded.

The conclusion to draw is to give him lots of at-bats next year and see what we have.

Continuing to be that bad for another 5 years. The goal is to actually win and be competitive right? Not just be slightly less putrid. At least, I hope that's the goal. Losing 90 games next year doesn't make me feel good. I want to win 90 by 2018 and we don't do that by holding on to tradeable assets out of delusion. If this offseason of 2014 and you could land an Ervin Santana and another arm - you might be able to persuade me. But there is no Ervin Santana. There is no depth. You're going to overpay for anything you acquire. Not just in money but in trades. Look at things for what they are, there is only one reasonable path here.

I don't like it either. But doubling down on a bad thing only makes it worse.

If Trevor Plouffe is on this team next year I may strongly consider auctioning my fandom to some other, more deserving team.

See, I think the much more relevant question is, if the young core is good enough to compete next year, how did we manage a historic number of losses? How can a team so ready to compete next year look so ridiculously unready this year? Like it or not, the time for these core guys to develop has to happen regardless. If they do develop, we should be building the most sustainable long term effort to win with them possible. If they don't develop, we're probably screwed regardless. But I'd argue we're EXTRA screwed if we hang on to valuable assets now in some deluded attempt at contention. So, again, what is the highest percentage play for the most long term gain? It ain't riding this 100+ loss team hard hoping you pull a miracle and compete next year. The odds of flipping our record by 20+ games is incredibly low. So why gamble on that? You're gambling the value of Dozier and Santana and other moves on that hope? Why even consider that a reasonable course of action?

I should clarify. I don't like them as in "I think they'll be good", more in the sense of "I like the idea of giving them a chance to sink or swim as a part of the long-term plan". Provided we get them some defensive help. And stop playing infielders in the outfield.