Otto von Ballpark

Got it. FWIW, Buxton wasn't sent down promptly either (although maybe he should have been ) -- he got injured after 2 weeks, then did a rehab stint at AAA, and was only optioned for like a week after that rehab stint. Didn't burn an option year in 2015.

Would you still consider Romero in relief? Or has that ship sailed too?

This isn't to get into a great debate about Duffey specifically, but it is a general illustration of how the widely acknowledged RP problem is related to the SP problem. And moreover, on the frequent defense of "the new FO needed a year to evaluate" -- really? In regards to the MLB roster? Duffey, for example, was not some great unknown. Our new FO wasn't new to the sport of baseball. Not to say cut him, but it should be expected that the new FO could reasonably forecast his future without needing to reserve spots for him on both the SP and RP depth charts that are meaningful to our contention status.

Not the handful of spring starts alone -- but BOTH pulling double duty as starter depth and supposedly one of our top relievers. That was the clear early result of the FO's plan, whether they intended it or not. If they weren't committed to him as a starter -- they should have moved him down that chart over the winter. If they weren't committed to him as a reliever -- they should have added something better than Belisle and Breslow. If they weren't committed to him in either role quite yet, they could have added a SP and a RP. Still would have had plenty of opportunity to experiment/evaluate him this season, without handicapping the team.

I hope it's not the "we're selling, but if the veteran doesn't have value we'll let him play out the string" strategy. Biding time for Santiago, maybe? We've given Colon 3 starts, and I hope we didn't promise him any beyond July 31. Not a whole lot of alternatives, though, unless we dip down to AA again.

Well, this FO gave him a bunch of starts in spring training, then apparently made him the centerpiece of our 2017 bullpen plan. Seemed like an overkill investment of evaluation for a 2016 suspect, but you tell me.

They didn't need a starter until Saturday, and Gibson would be eligible to return Friday. And if Gee is up in the emergency pitcher role -- do we really need that guy anymore? Don't we have moderately better uses of the roster spot by now? Weren't we meaning to get a look at Turley in a bullpen role at some point?

But Rule 5 is a far more expensive test drive for another team. For a guy like Slegers, almost prohibitively so.

For that matter, one of our primary starters in spring training (Duffey) has apparently been off-limits for starting during the regular season. Even after the injuries to May, Hughes, and Santiago. Now, whether that is evidence of a SP problem, or a carryover from the RP problem, the effect is pretty much the same. (Although the two look intertwined to me.) The team brought back pretty much all the exact same pitching suspects from 2016, and too few of them had much reason to expect improvement. The situation screamed for some outside help (not unlike the FO situation itself, frankly). And some such help was available at modest cost. Instead we got the bare minimum: a FA catcher and a couple warm bodies for the pen. It was pretty much the pitching staff equivalent of hiring Rob Antony as full-time GM -- it could get better on its own, probably can't get much worse, but really? That's all you got to offer? You don't have any names in your rolodex better than Craig Breslow and Nick Tepesch?

You tell them no? If Rob Antony suggested we try to talk Jason Bartlett out of retirement again, I would hope any executive -- no matter how new to the organization -- would overrule him too. If you can't tell the difference between ceiling and floor (which is the only way to equate Thorpe with the guys the Braves dealt for Garcia), then you probably aren't long for the job anyway. In any case, trading for Garcia was just one example. If they weren't comfortable with that or couldn't come to an agreement with St Louis, there was a whole offseason to negotiate with the FA list I posted above instead.

I don't know what you mean by "he'll have to be added to the 40-man next year anyway", but Slegers will not be eligible for minor league free agency until after 2019.

Did you see my list of FA SP above? Forecasting contention in the offseason isn't a binary proposition, 0 or 1. There are degrees. There are a variety of moves we could have made to improve our chances for 2017 without sacrificing the future. (And if we failed to contend, they could have potentially improved our future by giving us an asset to flip like Garcia.)

Arcia wasn't technically an "early add" -- he was added in November 2011 to protect him from that year's Rule 5 draft. (Although his selection would have perhaps been unlikely that year.)

Here are the biggest SP FA contracts from last winter, everybody who got a $8 mil or better guarantee: Rich Hill, 17 GS, 125 ERA+ Ivan Nova, 21 GS, 113 ERA+ Edinson Volquez, 17 GS, 97 ERA+ Jason Hammel, 21 GS, 96 ERA+ Charlie Morton, 15 GS, 105 ERA+ Bartolo Colon Andrew Cashner, 17 GS, 133 ERA+ R.A. Dickey, 21 GS, 105 ERA+ I don't know how we are defining "legit" but the market seemed to correctly peg guys who could help in 2017.

Agreed, although look at it this way: how would you feel if the Twins grabbed a Burdi from someone else in Rule 5? But I agree with the others too, that there shouldn't be much of a meaningful crunch.

None of this was unforeseeable. May was hurt and scuffling in the pen all of 2016, Gibson had struggled, and Santiago had struggled. Plus Hughes, and that rotation plan needed more mitigation than just Berrios and Mejia.

Re: Garcia, we're not talking about the top minor league assets here. They probably knew as much about most of those guys 8 months ago as they do today. And okay, if they weren't ready to commit player assets, there were FA too. Nothing exciting, but exactly the cheap investments that can potentially mitigate problems in rotations like that of the 2016 Twins, or even turn into deadline assets. I didn't have any illusions of World Series trophies -- but doing nothing after 2016 was an odd approach, to me.

No one claims that it would have been a guarantee to result in a decent pitching staff. But that doesn't mean the correct course of action is to do nothing, especially when the costs of some actions are relatively low. And there is nothing "hindsight bias" about doubting the strategy to rely on Gibson, Hughes, Santiago, and May as much they did for 2017, not to mention the bullpen. Or we can forget about ever discussing baseball on the Internet again.

It's not specific advocacy, it's an example of how meaningful rotation reinforcements weren't so unattainable last winter, as often claimed around here. Look at the 2017 rotation. The two prospects -- Berrios and Mejia -- improved/advanced, but otherwise it was almost a perfect repeat of 2016, and mostly not in a good way.

On #3, see my reply to Markos above. Unless they were closer than we thought to accepting De Leon staight up, that was never a meaningful possibility. And cheaply renting Garcia wouldn't preclude that. On #1, we're not talking about evaluating scouts and systems and the full minor leagues. We are talking about a handful of MLB pitchers who Falvey and Levine should have been plenty familiar with. Gibson was terrible in 2016, Santiago was terrible with the Twins in 2016, Hughes was terrible and very seriously injured in 2016, and May was both shaky and hurt in a bullpen role the past season. And they didn't have to give up on any of them, just get another arm to stretch our resources to cover the inevitable gaps. If they can't balance that basic consideration with the other duties and responsibilities of being a GM, then I would seriously question not just their baseball judgement, but their basic fitness for the job.

That's not much of a defense. There was never much demand for Dozier. Counting on that return would be akin to expecting top prospects in trade for Ervin Santana. I'm going to give the FO some credit and assume that while they kept a dialogue open with the Dodgers, they weren't counting on that outcome, especially not into January. If they were, then we might be in more trouble than I thought. Plus, had they acquired Garcia first and then another pitcher later, they could have pivoted on Garcia too. Or Santiago, whose contract wasn't fully guaranteed, etc. (FWIW, Cahill signed late as well.)

There is no DL in the offseason, so there are only 40 spots until late March. At that point the Twins could move Burdi the 60-day, which could come in handy if they roster a minor league contract guy at the same time. You might be onto something about the Braves and Burdi in Rule 5 -- they drafted an injured guy before. Although maybe the scuttled trade was the Twins trying to discourage other teams from drafting him -- teams don't get medical info on players before the Rule 5 draft, so health rumors can have an impact.

I don't know. The parameters of that trade were very much up in the air. Could be the Twins wanted the Braves to eat salary at that point. Or they were feeling out whether the Twins were going to leave Burdi unprotected...

Problem is, if you bring him up, you can't take him off the 40-man without losing him. It is a lot easier to waiver claim a guy rather than Rule 5 him.

While I see nothing wrong with these trades in a vacuum, and actually see some things to like, I share John's and Chief's concern about the context. People excuse the Kintzler deal because we've fallen back in the race over the last week and he's a FA in 2 months -- but if we had invested in a real reliever last offseason, as was blindingly obvious to everyone, it is quite possible that we wouldn't have fallen this far back in the race. And many consider the Garcia sequence to be especially good deals, and I admire the nimble pivot in a way, but wouldn't it have been better to get Garcia last winter? Then we could have had the benefits of his pitching for 4 months, plus the potential for getting Littell if we had still been out of the race today. Given how their performance and/or health in 2016, it was pretty inexcusable that we were asked to rely on Santiago, Gibson, Hughes, and even May to the extent that we have in the 2017 rotation. And please don't hold the encouraging seasons of Berrios and Mejia as hostage here -- there was plenty of room for a skilled front office to shorten the leashes of the suspect vets over the untested/improving youth. Not to mention the starts we've flushed with Turley, Jorge, etc. Yes, we came off a 103 loss season, although many considered it more like a 70 win season with a bonehead decision (Sano to RF) plus some bad luck. Even so, a 103 loss season is not an excuse to rely on all of the same rotation and bullpen suspects for yet another season. And while a new FO will have adjustment/evaluation periods in certain situations and levels, these areas of weakness on the MLB roster don't seem to have warranted complete inactivity. It shouldn't have required a veteran front office to add Holland instead of Breslow and Haley, or to add Garcia in anticipation of continued problems from Hughes, Gibson, Santiago, and May. While I suppose there wasn't much else to do by the time we got to July 31, and the day in isolation went pretty well for us, it highlights a lot of the concerns we've had about the front office for the months leading up to that day. Far bigger than yesterday's trade "successes" will be the upcoming offseason, when action will be required and the suspect excuses of 103 losses / new FO will no longer be applicable (if they ever were).