cmathewson

It all hinges on the quality of the player they make a deal with. I was not fond of the Revere deal because they passed up better talent just to save money. If McGuire is a number 4 talent, (in this draft where there might be, say, 10 of those guys), do it.

I think it is as much about the pitchers they have as anything. If Correia, Pelfrey and Worley try to strike guys out, they end up in a lot of long at bats and don't get deep into games. As far as I know, they never encouraged Santana to pitch to contact. But they haven't ever replaced his dominance in the rotation. It's not about velocity as mush as having that out pitch, like Burton's change or Perkins' slider. It'll be interesting to see how their K rates change when they have Gibson, May and Meyer in the rotation. I suspect they'll be closer to the middle of the pack, if not above, with better arms in the rotation.

I for one have consistently said I'm all for signing free agents. But it makes no sense to throw your money at guys just because you have the money. If there aren't free agents who are likely to be significantly better than your in-house options, I see no reason to sign them. And I'm willing to reduce the margin on "significantly" to 5% whatever relevant measure you give me (OPS+, ERA+, etc.). But if we're within that margin, I would prefer to give the in-house option the chance. There are two reasons for this: 1. The in-house option typically has higher upside, being younger and less experienced. 2. Bad contracts can act like an albatross around your neck. E.g., Nick Blackurn. I don't think my opinion is that different from the Twins'. Notice neither reason was about saving money. It's about risks and rewards where the reward is a better chance to win.

Tisk tisk. I certainly didn't say that. To the contrary, I said I'm no scout, so I am painfully aware of my own limitations in evaluating how free agent pitchers will do. It's easy enough to look at the numbers and ZIPS and James and others (based solely on the numbers), and say that Correia was not likely to be even close to average. That's easy. Contrary to what some people think I do look at those numbers. But any monkey with a keyboard can cite that stuff. Around here, lots of people seem to think doing simple Internet research qualifies them to make these kinds of predictions, which are the hardest GM's make in a year. But I don't have access to the other data that both Ryan and Antony referred to when they defended the Correia signing. I trust they did their due diligence. We'll see at the end of the year how they did. Anyway, I agree we are at an impasse. Have a nice day.

OK, well I personally don't think that's a good strategy. I'm for spending whatever it takes to win, but I don't think spending indiscriminately or to some arbitrary budget number is the best strategy. If you sign expensive guys, you expect to give them every opportunity to earn their money. What if they don't? If he doesn't perform, your only option is to DFA him. That is a bitter pill for most people to swallow. It's the kind of thing that gets GMs fired. so hey keep him as long as they can hoping he'll turn it around. Meanwhile, the team finds itself behind every time he starts. To give you just one of the dozens of examples I can think of off the top of my head, on our own team, we have suffered through Nick Blakcburn largely because we locked him up to a large contract. If Smith hadn't signed him to that deal, he would have likely been in the minors two years earlier. Instead, he was giving up runs and keeping other guys from getting opportunities who might have done better (internally or externally sourced). That's essentially what you do when you sign a bad free agent. So the risk aversion is real. But it's not all about spending the owners' money. It's about the risk of losing because you signed the wrong guy. Ryan said several times in the offseason he wasn't fond of many of the free agents. His prescience has panned out with 20% of the season done.

Show your work.

I don't see this as an indictment of my claim. This past year was one of the worst years I've ever seen for free agent pitchers. The year before and the next year look closer to average, or a little above. Adding a year to your sample does nothing to improve your results if they are vastly different years.

GMs don't have to be clairvoyant. But they do have to do a lot more research than fans are even remotely able to do. They look at medical reports. They look at scouting reports. They look at character-related reports. And they look at numbers. We just look at numbers. Numbers don't tell the whole story. And they still make mistakes. Heaven knows the Twins have a mixed track record on signing free agents. But I don't think they are alone. It is in many ways more difficult to project free agents than players within your system because the teams that have them restrict access to all the information. Nobody shows their cards in these games. You can, in effect, count cards by piecing other information together. But you still have a large element of risk, based on incomplete information.

Well, you must have changed your mind. I seem to recall a conversation about how overrated and overpaid Greinke is. So we should spend all the money we have no matter what? And if the high-buck free agents don't sign with us (for whatever reason), we should go out and get free agents and keep all our in-house options on the farm? What if we think our in-house options are better than the free agents? Perhaps they're about the same now, but we think they will be better for years to come, unless we stunt their development by keeping them in AAA past their prime? If so, it seems like signing free agents just to spend the money we have actually could hurt the team's chances to win. I'm just trying to come up with a reason why an intelligent person would choose to not spend money when told he had to use it or lose it. Seems at least plausible it's because he thinks he is helping his team win by refusing to sign a bunch of veterans rather than develop his young players.

Sure. You can choose to spend your money on the crappy pitchers you know are available vs. saving your money for the decent pitchers who probably will be available. There's no certainty in any of this. It's all playing odds.

FWIW, several Twins officials have said he is on the fast track, as is Sano. The last time I heard this much noise about a prospect being on the fast track, it was Joe Mauer, who reached the majors at 21. But he was a catcher, so, presumably, he needed more time to learn his craft. I could see both Buxton and Sano up before they reach their 21st birthday. Not sure either will be be on the Trout or Upton time line. I sort of doubt it.

Put me down for drafting the best player available and paying the man. I happen to like Minaea followed by Stewart. I'm pretty sure one or the other will be available.

Age, innings history, injury history. Very few of them had pitched significant innings in the past few years (e.g. McCarthy). Several of them had significant recent unresolved injury histories (e.g. Marcum).

See the thread on pitchers we didn't sign. All but three (Dempster, Villenueva, Correia) of the available free agents who had a chance to be average or above regressed to replacement level or below, at least so far.

No. But enough do that teams are somewhat cautious and pay attention to the signs of regression. This crop seemed particularly prone to regression. I never said that. Of course signing good pitchers matters. There just weren't many good pitchers to be had this past offseason. What I said was they were all likely to be below average, and I'm not so arrogant to think I can look at a spread sheet and project which ones would be marginally better than which. I don't think they should punt the season. I just don't think they can expect to contend when they have five regulars without a full year of major league experience at their positions. So you hope for the best and plan for the worst. And you spend most of the year developing guys. If they exceed expectations, great. But it's just not reasonable to expect it. Also this: If the five guys you hope to develop pan out (unlikely), you go more aggressively into free agency after this year, when there are many more guys on the market who have a chance to be more than a marginal upgrade over your inhouse guys (Deduno, De Vries, Hendriks, Gibson). Most of what I've said above is as much about the free agent market this past offseason as anything. I really hoped the Twins would get some mythical front-line pitcher with all the money they have lying around. The reality was, that guy didn't exist. The closest was Sanchez, and $5/85 or 6/$96 is 30% more than he's worth in a normal year, imho.

Makes sense, but you said yourself neither Greinke nor Sanchez was money well spent. I can understand opening up the purse strings if you have four or five guys like that on the market so the demand doesn't drive their price through the stratosphere. But not when the only front-line starters are really #2 starters, but they're going to get #1 money because there are no #1s on the market and there are only 2 #2s. Next offseason the market looks much more promising. Maybe that's when you open the purse strings a bit more. Or is that not important? Do you overspend on purpose because you can? If so, are you prepared to pass on the better talent in the following offseason because you don't have as much flexibility?

It was actually 5/$85 because he has a $5 million buyout on his sixth year option. If they choose to pick up that option, it's 6/$96.

I never said you shouldn't sign good free agents. I loved the Willingham signing, for example. I just don't think you rely on them to build your club. You build your club primarily through drafting, international signing and development. You use acquisitions and free agents to fill gaps. Sanchez was a huge gamble by the Tigers. I liked him going into the offseason, but he quickly got way too rich for my blood because he was the only guy besides Greinke who could anchor a rotation, and every team in baseball needs one of those guys. So he is way overpriced. The Tigers will be lucky to get his value out of him over five years. If you try to rely on free agents too much, there is more risk because you are not in control of signings, the player and agents are. If you build your farm system right, free agents are a last resort. The only reason why the Twins had to rely on them this year is our farm system let the team down. That trend is reversing itself, but it takes time. If you want instant gratification, follow NASCAR. 10 years ago, Detroit was horrible. The Twins were like 45-10 against them the first five years of last decade. Fortunately for them, they used their favorable draft position to get players like Justin Verlander, Curtis Granderson, and others. Then they parleyed this strong system into a contender. They would never have become a contender without a strong system. Same with Kansas City. Once they had a contender, the owner decided to spend his personal fortune on a championship. We can't expect the Pohlads to do that. If you want that, stop being a Twins fan, 'cause it ain't gonna happen.

I wouldn't call it a miss quite yet, considering that the Tigers are on the hook for $85 million. If he blows out his elbow in the next couple of years, it will certainly be a miss for the Tigers. All those who say it's too early to judge Correia can say the same thing X 8 for Sanchez. Is Sanchez likely to be better than Correia? Of course. But you have to balance risks against rewards.

At this point, he'd need to have an ERA+ of 40 for the rest of the season in order to achieve a 60 for the year. His current ERA+ is 131 after 7 starts, or 20% of his starts for the year. Considering that his career ERA+ is 89, a 40 seems highly unlikely.

I'm pretty sure the CBA slotting system prevents this. Sorry, bad rumor. Move along. Nothing to see.

Perhaps I'm spoiled. But the point of PBP is to give the fan a sense of the game. Not just what happened, but how it happened. He nonchalants so many great moments that I only learn about on the news, it's pitiful. And he developed bad habits from Gordon that I don't think he'll ever shake, like telling stories without giving the count or score. It was a good story. But I'd rather hear the PBP. Let Provus do that and keep Gladden to the color.

Great slippery slope there. The odds are pretty low that any of the guys basically discarded by their teams were going to be "above average". The odds were pretty good that some of them would be serviceable: give us 175-200 innings with an era in the mid 4's. If a team did its homework, it could find a couple of guys to do that. If you want above-average pitchers, you have to either develop them or acquire them before they have any major league experience. That's what the Twins did. The acquired front-of-the-rotation arms (Meyer, May) to complement their in-house guys (Gibson, Berrios). The ultimate goal is to build a rotation that can win a World Series. Until those guys are ready, they got a few guys who can eat innings, and keep us in enough games to be respectable. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

You wouldn't. That's where the evaluations of the odds of being a useful players differ between the Twins and the pundits on this site. Let's take two examples: Player A = Brandon McCarthy (2 yrs/$15.5M) Player B = Kevin Correia (2 yrs/$10M) I believed that Player A had a 40% chance of being a useful player. I believed that Player B had a 25% chance of being a useful player. According to published reports (LENII), the Twins thought the opposite. To me, the odds were close enough that it wasn't worth getting too worked up about, especially since I didn't have access to a lot of information, like medical reports. According to LENIII, the Twins, they liked Correia's track record with innings vs. McCarthy's I'm sure money was a consideration. Was it the primary consideration? I doubt it.

I doubt he's ready. The last time he started, he was in single A and it didn't go well. He's basically a two-pitch pitcher because his change is nothing special.