TheLeviathan

No, you have inductive reasoning in yours. Same as everyone else.

No, it won't. As snepp and Puck already pointed out very nicely. Plus....you said Diamond/Worley/Gibson/Hendricks....sounds like their is still a fifth spot there to me! (Plus, injuries happen and two of those four just recently had significant injuries) The difference is that there will be more buyers and we already have seen how the Twins wilt when the negotiations get tough. Right now they have a chance while other teams have relaxed to swoop in and take a gamble. I never had high hopes for next year either, but Marcum is young enough to be helpful for more than just next year. He, unlike the guys they signed this year, represents more than a stopgap.

I'm not sure if snepp ever found the quotes, but the Pohlads run the Twins like any other business - they operate on a yearly basis. Thus, they don't carryover budget room to the next year or the year after. So, again - this is money that WILL be pocketed. Not put towards the team in any meaningful way. Seems to me you have been conditioned to accept such things.

Yes, Marcum comes with serious risks. However - A) He's not blocking any AAA starters. Gibson, Worley, and Hendricks still have a spot. Essentially, he replaces someone we shouldn't give a rip about anyway. He's been a very good starter. C) The payroll is going to continue to drop next year, so it's not stressing our ability to retain or obtain anyone If this team isn't willing to take some risks like this one at a position of desperate need when it has payroll flexibility, that is a very worrisome future trend. And not one that any fan should abide while they pay above average ticket prices.

Hey! You get it! I made that argument to show you EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! And you're criticizing others out of one side of your mouth while you do the same damn thing out of the other side! If the Twins were sitting at 95M and signing Marcum would stress their budget, I wouldn't recommend it. But they cut their payroll by 25-30% and are in grave need of arms. I don't care if his arm is half-attached - he's been a worthy #2 pitcher in a rotation at times, definitely a #3 - he's worth the gamble. With this much budget room (and more coming on the near horizon) there is ZERO reason not to gamble. Best case scenario he stays healthy and adds a very good arm to our rotation. Worst case scenario it eats half the money the Pohalds pocket anyway.

There is no reason they can't sink some of that excess cost into more riskier investments that might pay off long term. There is no longer the option to spend at will in the international or amatuer ranks, so basically this money is being pocketed. As paying customers - we damn sure can bitch about money being pocketed after some explicit promises about changing the team's outlook. Shaun Marcum at 3 years cripples NOTHING. There is no reason not to do this. There is no backload of AAA pitchers he is getting in the way of. Hell, all he does is guarantee Blackburn doesn't make the rotation our of ST. I fail to see the downside.

I love how you nitpick this stuff. Are you being paid by the Twins to troll this crap? We have information from a variety of league sources that the Twins met with players, but rarely made offers. That tells me they heard what was wanted (likely, 3 years or more) and balked on even offering a contract. These guys that spurned us were probably the likes of Blanton, if even that. The point is, you have LESS information to make your assumption than the claims you have been railing against on the board! Here is the far more likely scenario: This team wanted to sign players to deals that were more than 1 year but less than 3, thus hamstringing themselves to a limited number of free agents, thus landing them in the boat that is Kevin Correia. If this wasn't the case - we'd be signing Marcum right now. Shaun Marcum is the massive trump card that debunks every inane post you insist on.

So rather than criticize mistakes as they are obviously happening, we should wait several years until they build on top of each other again and again before we voice our displeasure? Exactly when does one reach this threshold for criticism in this rather insane view of yours?

..........

You know what blind belief achieves? Nothing. Valid criticism born out of caring about a team can at least spur a team to make changes to the way it operates

You complain about being insulted, but quite frankly, you're either trolling or being incredibly dense intentionally. You have littered this board with criticisms akin to "well how do you know they didn't offer to anyone?" and then in this thread and the Mackey thread you take remarks by Ryan and some kind of vague "analysis" and posit that the Twins really did make offers and were rejected. You are doing the same thing you have been peppering other posts with for days! Every post is some pathetic reach for a defense that isn't even remotely rational. Again, Nick is 100% right. He's not bashing Terry Ryan as a GM. He's not calling the entire offseason a disaster. He's not calling for Ryan's head. He's not saying they should have spent 100M on Jackson. He's saying what I've been saying for days: Ryan made explicit promises of what he'd do. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes - he unequivocally failed to meet those promises. His feet deserved to be held to the fire on that. It's not that hard. I don't see how there is any room for any rational person to disagree with that. Personally, I'd like an answer though. Because as a paying customer, I want to know why payroll was slashed and all this competitive in 2013 talk was scrapped. My gut tells me that Terry believed, quite naively and idiotically, that he could get pitchers to sign here for less than 4 years. And balked when they said their expectations. I don't know for sure and there could be many other explanations, but as fans that care - we damn sure can grill him for answers on it. Your inane defense attempts are just annoying and seem like an incessant need to troll.

I fail to see how there is a flaw in that, it's using his words and comparing them to the results and finding plenty of room for criticism.

If it's anything like your "evidence" my flaws can rest easy. I don't think mine is a controversial position at all. I'm not bad-mouthing Ryan's abilities or calling for his head. I'm not calling the offseason a failure. I'm merely suggesting that what Ryan said pre-offseason is not merely fodder for naive souls who wish to believe the best. Many die-hard Twins fans believed his words were a genuine attempt to communicate expectations. His feet should be held to that fire, whatever reason there may be for the failure to live up to them.

Wait...what? You have ZERO evidence of their intent. Your "evidence" (loose at best to call it that) is more about their decision to deal him. And then you're just connecting dots you think are logical, but are really no evidence at all. They certainly are no different than someone saying "We said we'd do this......we didn't do it....we did this instead....therefore we were never in on any of the big FAs" The argument is the EXACT SAME. Your normally sane, balanced takes are taking a real hit with this near pathological need to defend the FO no matter what. I don't doubt that they were resigned because they were valuable. But I also have no doubt that every short-term deal is negotiated with full knowledge on both sides of the table that a trade is significantly more likely because of the contract length. Again, this isn't that radical or difficult.

I'm not calling for his head. Just accountability to what he said.

That sounds an awful lot like you're making a claim based on something you know nothing about. Hasn't that been your go-to about Ryan? Hell, you just made that argument two posts ago. Teams sign players with full knowledge they can trade them, especially short term deals. Players know it too. Burton is a good example - we signed him to a cheap deal, hoped he would have success and knew we could resign him, trade him, or at worst have one year of better bullpen success. All those options are on the table anytime there is a NTC.

Hence the criticism.

No, it's not. It's a perfectly good idea to sign players to a deal in hopes that they outperform it and generate trade value. If you don't deal them, you can always keep them ala Burton. This concept is ridiculously simple, I don't understand how you can't grasp it. Well, had I claimed any such thing you might have a point. Perhaps Ryan shouldn't have made such explicit remarks before he had a clue what his contacts would yield. However good a try he gave it this offseason, results matter. Especially given the current payroll.

You realize there are ways to sell hope other than how Ryan attempted to right? Ryan is a smart man and a good GM, he didn't have to be as direct about they would do unless he had every intention of making that happen, regardless of cost. Rather than be direct, for instance, about upgrading the rotation or the bullpen being his second biggest priority - he could have sold us vague nuggets about augmenting the roster in more general terms. But to be that direct about what he'd do and then miserably fail to do so while 20+ million sits unspent from last year? Yeah, that's on him. His specificity is why he is accountable and people have good reason to be mad. You missed the analogy completely, in fact, you're playing it out yourself. He said something and you are re-interpreting it to soften criticism on Ryan, but most would agree - the marquee is what it is. His words stand for themselves, stretching to "read between the lines" is little more than a disingenuous spin-job.

I'm sorry, but you haven't been a realist on any subject in at least a week. You've been pulling some, at times, pretty silly gymnastics to defend the team. I'm not a Ryan hater and I'm actually a mild fan of the offseason thus far......but there is no question that fans have reason to be frustrated. If you don't like hearing it, don't open the threads. The GM didn't back up his rhetoric....what the hell do you expect people to do? Shrug sheepishly? People care and sometimes caring comes with frustration. My real worry is that Ryan believes he DID back up his rhetoric. If that's true, all this talk of the potential of Ryan with a larger budget is going to be a massive disappointment.

It's ok to be comfortable with being mislead, but it's also ok to be pissed at being mislead. If I see a sign that says "Giant Flat Screen TV's - $500 with payment plan. No money down" and I walk in and the deal is actually "Giant Flat Screen TVs - $500 payment plan? No! Money down!" I get to be pissed. (Couldn't resist a Simpson homage there) The recent cheerleading squad is pretty quiet in this thread not surprisingly. But with false advertising about what next season promised and confirmation of that now, it's perfectly fair for people to feel lied to. Hell, for many it was their money that was being fleeced with those lies. Personally, 2015 was the place to build for anyway. But if Ryan believes the point is to play meaningful games in September of 2013 I'm not sure he accomplished that. Arguably this team is structurally LESS reliable to be playing meaningful games than last year. (lots of regression candidates, awful defense, two key cogs in the offense gone, menial FA acquisitions to replace) The only thing meaningful about next September will be the call-ups in our everyday lineup.

I think we'll see a lot of Mastro-Carroll at the top of our lineup. And we pray like all hell that Hicks is ready June 1.

I haven't made any such claims either, you just tried to make this into an "everyone can see....blah blah" and I pointed out that, in fact, it hasn't been that way in this thread. In fact, more than a few people are calling you out for the same thing, you're just getting particularly defensive about it with me. Which is fine, but I've made my point more than a few times pretty clearly. If you don't accept that, I can't say it any more clearly.

I'm starting to wonder if Harden/Pressly/Roenicke is what Ryan had in mind. And if the likes of Correia and Pelfrey were exactly what he meant by major changes to the starting rotation. Perhaps the problem is we interpreted the rhetoric the way an average mlb fan should and Ryan's version of that that entails is very, very different. Just a disconcerting notion I'm starting to buy into these days.

Bit disappointing that Ryan called this his second highest priority and has done.....um....what exactly? That isn't to bash Ryan, just a bit strange considering there are and were options.