Nick Nelson

Sounds like he'll sign with Boston for around 2/26, and according to Doogie the Twins didn't make an offer. Who knows if kicking in a few extra mil would've been enough to entice Dempster, but would you have made a 2/30 bid if you were Terry Ryan? Keep in mind that Morneau's expected departure takes $14M off the books for next year.

I don't see the value in relying on precedent in an unprecedented situation. He's never had this kind of money to spend in an offseason. I admit that I underestimated the costs of free agent pitching, like most people, but I still don't think it was ever unrealistic to expect $20-25 million to buy you a better pitcher than Baker, Feldman or Correia. Nah, that's a cop-out. If you're going to throw around these claims you better be able to back them up. Are you talking about when I said of the Feldman signing: "The total seems somewhat extreme, at least from the perspective of an organization with less money to throw around than the Cubs, but perhaps only by the preset standards we entered this offseason with"? Or when I said of the Baker signing: "Baker is a very good pitcher when healthy, but he's eclipsed 175 innings only once in his career and guaranteeing him $5.5 million in his first season back from major elbow surgery – despite a saturated pitching market – seems crazy to me" (emphasis added)? I'm sorry, but neither of the articles you're referring to strike me as soapboxing nor attacking people with opposing viewpoints, and if I was doing that in the forum I don't remember it. Instead, this seems like yet another instance of you mischaracterizing or exaggerating another person's position to belittle them in hindsight. It's bad form. It's way too early to be calling anyone "wrong" about any of this. Once again: Kevin Correia signing a hideous contract does not make Baker's contract or Feldman's contract any more attractive. I still wouldn't have liked either of them for the Twins. Their contracts are relatively better than Correia's though. You win that point.

I do trust Terry Ryan. I trust his long-term vision. I trust his honesty. I trust his ability to pluck quality players out of other organizations. But he's not flawless and his ability to sign quality free agent pitchers is clearly a major weakness. Maybe it's a money thing tied to the organization's fiscal philosophies but signing Corriea to a two-year deal in December is strange from any perspective. I thought perhaps he'd learned a lesson from the Jason Marquis fiasco (not to mention Livan Hernandez, Sidney Ponson, Ramon Ortiz, etc) but apparently not. Nevertheless, there are worse flaws that a GM could have, especially for a franchise such as this one that will never rely on free agency to build a rotation. Could you please find an example of me harshly criticizing "anyone with the opposite opinion" and "soapboxing" on Baker/Feldman? I recall stating my opinion on the matter, as is the norm on a message board. I don't recall being as dramatic about it as you make it sound.

Actually, 6 IP/ER would earn a Quality Start. I actually kind of like the stat as long as it's not taken too seriously.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1251-Is-Lame-Duck-Gardy-Good-as-Gone

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2873[/ATTACH]For the first time in his tenure as manager, Ron Gardenhire will enter the 2013 season without a contract extension in place that carries him beyond the coming year. Lacking job security, Gardenhire spoke openly last week about the possibility of moving on. "If I don't make it through this year, I'll be OK," Gardenhire told reporters during the Winter Meetings. "I've had a great opportunity here, I love the Minnesota Twins, I love where I'm at and hopefully I stay there for the rest of my career, however long that may be. We all know what happens in this game -- you're held accountable and I'm held accountable. I'm not worried about a contract extension. That's not up to me." For his part, Terry Ryan has tried to steer the microscope away from Gardy, stating that responsibility for the product on the field falls more onto his shoulders than the manager's. Still, one can't ignore the realities of a disenchanted fan base that will grow all the more irate if forced to sit through another non-competitive season in this young ballpark, and it's obvious that Gardenhire is ahead of Ryan on the chopping block. If the Twins are truly prepared to evaluate the long-time skipper based on the upcoming season and make a change if things don't improve significantly – a respectable stance given that the club has sunken to the bottom of the American League under his watch – it's starting to look like they might be setting him up for failure. I want to believe Ryan's claims that the team isn't ready to punt in 2013, but players like Kevin Correia won't help much and with the Royals emphatically making their push by acquiring a legit ace in James Shields, the division gets that much tougher. Ryan has balked at the market for legitimate free agents and his recent trades of Denard Span and Ben Revere for young pitching, along with statements that he's willing to listen on Josh Willingham and Justin Morneau, suggest that the true aim is to field a contending club in 2014 at the earliest. That's dandy for the long-term health of the franchise, but it's not so dandy for the manager whose job is on the line in the short-term. If Gardenhire enters the 2013 campaign with a roster that closely resembles this year's -- plus a few mediocre starting pitchers and minus a couple quality outfielders -- it'd be tough to expect much improvement in the W/L column. And another 90-loss season would almost certainly spell the end for Gardy, right? Even if the Twins are internally committed to a rebuild, managers just don't survive three consecutive last-place finishes often. In his live chat here at Twins Daily last week, ESPN 1500's well-connected Doogie Wolfson said he's been getting the sense that the team is prepared to go through another down year and then make a managerial switch. He brought up Paul Molitor's name, which would help explain Gardenhire's reluctance to add Molitor to the staff this season. All in all, it seems like a raw deal for Gardy. Barring an unforeseen spending spree to add immediate impact talent, the manager will need to pull off the improbable by making this rebuilding roster competitive or quite possibly lose his job. It's no wonder he grumpily complained to reporters during the Winter Meetings that the front office was "trading my whole damn team." Even if he believes that these moves are for the betterment of the franchise in the long haul, they do him very little good.

I didn't realize the Twins' two free agent pitching options were Kevin Correia and Scott Baker.

There were (and are) pitchers out there who would have a far more legitimate chance to bolster this rotation and would probably fall under the Twins' supposed budget constraints. It was not unrealistic to think that Ryan – given unprecedented payroll flexibility – might find a way to land one or two of those guys. In the 2011 offseason many people were pulling the wool over their eyes when it came to moves like swapping Hardy for Nishioka and re-signing Pavano and Capps, blindly trusting in an organization that had enjoyed a decade of nearly uninterrupted success. This is quite different. I've made clear that I think this is a horrible signing. I'm just disappointed, and honestly expected better from TR given how much he has talked about his determination to bring in quality starting pitching. Also, yes, Baker's contract is vastly preferable to Correia's. That doesn't make it a good investment. I don't know why you're acting like this signing is some sort of proof that it was.

Center field is probably the team's best hope for a high-caliber defender, and it looks like the options there are a rookie or a guy who's played 5 MLB games in CF.

Therein lies the problem. The Twins might not have one stand-out defender on the field this year, having just dealt away their two best gloves.

You neglect to mention that Dozier wasn't promoted directly from Double-A to the majors. He spent some time in Rochester at the outset of last year, and was called up pretty quickly despite underwhelming numbers. Personally, I just don't think Dozier is a major-league talent; I don't know that his struggles have anything to do with the way he was handled. I'm going off various scouting reports and Terry Ryan himself, who said he felt any of the three (Mastro/Hicks/Benson) are ready to play in the majors defensively. Hicks has great speed and a tremendous arm, and from what I've heard his instincts are solid. I would not promote Arcia. He's played less than 70 games in Double-A, he's still 21 and there's no clear opening for him. Makes more sense to plan his arrival around Morneau's departure. But if you get Hicks up at the start of the season, by the time Arcia joins the roster hopefully Hicks has adjusted a bit and you're not dealing with two fresh rookies learning the ropes in the outfield simultaneously.

I think most of us were hoping for – rather than expecting – good moves to be made that would set this club on the right course short-term. Is that so unreasonable? Ryan's made some good trades and made some good FA signings last year, but for whatever reason he simply cannot make it happen with decent free agent pitchers. Even with money to burn. But yes, your pessimistic outlook has proven fitting at this point. Looks like they'll be pretty bad next year. You must be very happy. Why? If you're going to sign a free agent, why not make it count? Dempster probably won't be a great value over the life of the contract but at least he is good. The Twins can afford to sign someone like that. And of course, there were plenty of guys out there other than Dempster. Maybe there are more moves left to come but that still wouldn't excuse this one.

Whatever budget Terry Ryan is working with, he just committed $5 million of it toward a bad player for the next two years. I don't see any positive way to frame this.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1245-Correia-Signing-is-a-Sad-Thing

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2849[/ATTACH]Terry Ryan has seemed exasperated when discussing his efforts on the free agent market this offseason. In an interview on MLB Network shortly after the Ben Revere trade took place, the Twins' general manager reacted incredulously to Ken Rosenthal's suggestion that it might behoove him to get on his horse and sign a pitcher. "We've tried," Ryan chuckled. "Sometimes you just can't give your money away." Well, Terry, you have finally managed to accomplish that much. The pitching-starved Twins finally made their first foray into the free agent market on Monday night, inking right-hander Kevin Correia to a two-year, $10 million deal. Here's what we had to say about Correia in the Offseason Handbook: The final parenthetical sums it up nicely. We predicted he'd land a one-year, $2.5 million contract – similar to what Jason Marquis got last year – and that's probably around where the Twins started. But in this inflated market, there is apparently no such thing as a one-year deal. Not even for a 32-year-old who has only once topped 171 innings, has one of the worst strikeout rates in baseball, and hasn't posted an ERA+ above 100 since 2007. Correia was a fourth-round pick out of college who reached the majors quickly and had some early success. But as he's aged, the quality of his stuff has diminished. When he was 26, he struck out 18.3 percent of the batters he faced. Last year, 12.2 percent. As the Handbook blurb mentions, he was bumped from the Pirates rotation midway through this past season. And he gets $10 million. This is depressing because it means one of two things. Either that Ryan actually believes a player with these attributes is worth jumping on when there are plenty of other names on the board, or that he is having so little luck attracting free agents of any caliber that he felt the need to lock up the first offer that someone – anyone – finally accepted. The GM may have feared that if he didn't act on an opportunity, he might be left with nothing. Then again, nothing probably would have been preferable to Correia. He's been a bad pitcher in the National League over the past three years and he's aging into his mid-30s. It's not clear that he's a significantly better option than Liam Hendriks or Sam Deduno, particularly if you're building toward a future contender. And he gets $10 million. This is one of the most outrageous contracts in an offseason that's been full of them. It's too bad the Twins had to be the ones to sign it. They'd have been better off adding that $10 million on top of an offer to a pitcher who could actually make a difference. Maybe not even that would be enough to entice a legitimate starter to join this club. If that's the case, then the 2013 Twins truly are hopeless.

Every player is a different case. Benson had major strike zone control issues that made him a more questionable bet than Hicks to acclimate quickly to the majors. Dozier is a bad example, because he was never a top prospect -- arguably not even a very good prospect. You mention that the Twins haven't had success calling guys up directly from Double-A, but really they haven't had much success recently calling up players from anywhere. They just haven't developed a lot of good hitters lately. Guys are generally going to take a while to adjust to big-league competition regardless of which level they come from (see Plouffe, who had played 3 years in Triple-A and still struggled mightily as a rook). But the best way to learn to hit major-league pitching is to face major-league pitching. As much as people crap on the team's decision to bring Parmelee up directly from Double-A, who's to say his immense success at Rochester wasn't related to that experience? Either you hack it in the bigs, or you figure out what you need to work on, and that -- to me -- is the purpose of Triple-A.

Based on what? You're being awfully specific and authoritative about what is clearly a complete guess. If the Twins play Hicks up in the media as a spectacular athlete and one of their best prospects, who was basically the reason they felt comfortable trading both Span and Revere (which is all true), I don't think they'd have a hard time building excitement around him. No casual fans knew who Gomez was when the team acquired him and he became extremely popular in '08 despite posting lousy numbers. People like coming out to the park and watching young, athletic players with legitimate promise. This comparison is just... wow. You realize that Hicks was rated as a top 20 prospect in baseball a couple years ago, right?

I'm surprised how many fans have inherited this mindset that keeping a non-elite prospect in the minors for a couple months to delay his free agency is a huge deal. Are we in Tampa Bay? Gotta believe a lot of people singing that tune will feel differently if we're in May and Hicks is doing his usual high-OBP thing at Rochester while Mastroianni struggles and the Twins lack a competent leadoff option. Even in a rebuilding year, you still try to win games. Hicks might be a little raw yet, but the way he flourished through the extremely difficult A-to-AA transition suggests to me that he's up for the challenge. If he struggles you can always send him down and preserve the arb clock. He had a top-5 OPS in the Eastern League as one of the younger players, and he played excellent defense in center field. I think your standard for greatness must be pretty high. Well, Gomez. Revere. Going back further, Hunter was called up at a young age with little seasoning in the high minors. You can call the Twins conserative with promotions, but when it comes to toolsy outfielders that has hardly been the case.

I don't know why anyone would think Capuano is attainable for next to nothing. He's coming off a good, 200 IP season and he's got a very reasonable 2-year deal. That has value in this market. Even if they're looking to shed his contract, they'll find someone who's willing to give up something of value for it. Perkins is ridiculous though.

But it's also about putting an appealing product on the field. Even if the Twins aren't going all-out to win in 2013, they need to give the fans something to come out to the ballpark for. Watching Hicks develop on the big-league stage would be fun perk and would help mitigate the losses of a couple fan favorites. Of course, this ranks behind Hicks' development in importance, so if they truly believe he'll be overwhelmed or set back by the MLB challenge, go ahead and start him in Triple-A. Of course, as twinsnorth notes, if Hicks pans out the Twins can (and probably will) give him a contract extension that buys out a couple years of a free agency. So I really don't think it should be a major factor. They have enough money now that potential contract situations six years down the line shouldn't affect their present decision-making. Agreed. They need to enter ST with a plan in place that will only be altered by drastic changes during spring (injury or completely abysmal performances). I hate the idea of an open comp in Ft. Myers where the best performer in 80 AB gets the job.

IMO, Joe Benson needs more than a good spring to earn a chance at starting in the majors. He looked horrible during his first MLB stint and couldn't hit anywhere last year even when healthy. There were serious question marks about his plate approach even before 2012, so I personally don't think he should even be in the conversation at this point. Maybe after a few good months in Rochester. For me, the choices come down to Mastroianni, Hicks or outside stopgap. Choosing Mastro would require them to find another fourth OF who can play center. If the org truly believes it will be more beneficial for Hicks' development to get a few months in Triple-A before tasting the majors, so be it, but I'd hope that's the only factor in their evaluation. I don't believe the contract stuff should have much bearing.