bird

I think it's a bit early to draw conclusions and declare that the organization has built a special capacity with respect to pitching development. However, we might be seeing a few big picture hints about their beliefs, philosophy, and strategy. Some sort of random things: 1) They have continued the trend of aggressively adding coaches from the college ranks who have been groomed in the new sciences. 2) In the 2019 draft, they selected and signed 15+ college pitchers, virtually two-thirds of their choices. A plausible theory? A belief that development is more cerebral than we've traditionally thought it was, and they want good students learning, not just experiencing, and they want them taught by teachers, not just coaches. It's possible they have an even stronger conviction about the power of best practices in this area than we know. 3) The Twins have historically been, IMO, much better than average at identifying talent, but when it comes to pitching, not so hot at converting talent into skills. Lots of examples of later round talent, maybe at times despite not benefitting from the best development plan, that emerged anyway: Hildenberger, Rogers, Duffey, Stashak from the draft, Smeltzer, Harper, Dobnak, Littell from elsewhere. 4) And maybe now, Duffey, Rogers, Stashak, Dobnak, Littell, all of whom produced at high levels in 2019, represent the first hints that this organization really IS on the forefront. None of these guys was ever highly regarded. Rogers was the 340th player taken in his draft class. Dobnak was the only independent league acquisition who stepped on a postseason field. Not proof of anything, but a possible sign. I hope Parker Hageman continues to share things as he has in the past. I don't understand much of it, but it's still enlightening. Caveat: it unnerves me a bit to read all the "Wes Johnson's magic" comments. These are billion dollar enterprises. Most are no longer run like hobbies. Most clubs won't fall very far behind on these new frontiers, IMO.

You wrote this in 2015, right?

Mike, I hope I'm not the only one who noticed your deep concern about the organization saving money. HAHAHAHA!

And Castro fell off a cliff offensively over the final months. My eyeballs weren't all that impressed with his defense either. I wonder if that entered into the FO's thinking at all.

Are you claiming the same heat grate you always do?

Good point. I want two more starters from the outside. Dobnak may be the real deal, let's hope so, and he won't make me nervous being plugged in for Pineda to start the year, or as the first injury replacement. They'll need most of the starters at AAA at some point during the season. I think they have the makings of a decent, but not great 6-10 in AAA with Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, Poppen, and Graterol, probably in that order at present. The AA group looks decent too: Duran, Jax, Colina, Wells, Balazovic, Ober, Sands, and Enlow. I want them to make these prospects feel that life is unfair. Temporarily.

I'm getting a different vibe, one of general positivity about both moves, and more of a hopeful vibe from most about the chances we'll see at least one more exciting addition. Personally, for no good reason, I want Ryu and Alex Wood to sign with the Twins. Well, Strasburg and MadBum really...

"Santa has that good downward plane" -- Bert Blyleven

Yeah, the FA situation is looking grim. Our pal Mike Sixel may have been right in his concern about rebuilding the rotation for 2020, we'll see.

Not signing Wheeler is a failure. A lost battle in the war. We agree then that the phrase "try hard" should be eliminated from the TD vocabulary. I don't recall defining effort, just have disdain for false, overly harsh, and unfair negative portrayals, of anyone. I accept that you choose to focus exclusively on results. Like 101 wins, right? Some of us get enjoyment from theorizing about the decision processes as well. So spare me the "only thing that matters is results", and please refrain from implying that, if a guy like me wants to theorize about what might have been the factors involved in, for example, the Wheeler negotiations, that it's post mortem rationalization on my part. There's a difference between seeking an understanding, having a high tolerance for mistakes, and making excuses. You want to say Falvey failed because he failed to close the deal with Wheeler. I have no objection to that, my friend. I agree in fact. One can acknowledge a failure without being critical. I think we have a friendly disagreement about how much criticism is warranted in the Wheeler case, and as we know, we'll find other similar opportunities in the future,

Tyler Duffey says hi too. Both mid-round draft choices who struggled mightily. Maybe he goes the way of Matt Magill. Maybe he goes the way of Tyler Duffey. He's exactly the kind of chance good clubs take if they have any conviction and confidence in scouting and development.

My two least favorite whiney phrases: "doing nothing" and "not trying hard". Such nonsense! If you want to live in a myopic fantasy where the FO has "done nothing" and isn't really "trying hard"? That's on you. Ignore the fact that by doing nothing the team became THE organization to raid for management and coaching talent. Thank God Falvey said no thanks to Boston. Ignore that by doing nothing they ranked #4 in SI's power rankings, won 101 games, kept a top farm system intact, and, unlike teams like Boston, had the ability ("financial flexibility") and the will to be in the hunt to the end for Wheeler, albeit, according to you, without trying hard. Do we know anyone who expected them to win 100 games? We all want a big win here in FA, and that includes Falvine. Winning these bidding auctions is hard! If I have a criticism of Falvey, it's that MAYBE he's guilty of thinking it would be easier than it is to execute an off-season strategy of adding "impact pitching", their stated goal. Wheeler just wasn't the guy. Let's see what Falvey does next. It's his first rodeo of going after impact pitching in an off-season. There's a chance he miscalculates, but it won't be because he does nothing or doesn't try. If he fails, criticize the guy for the right reason. If you want to criticize him in advance, great, but expect guys like me to call you on it. In a friendly, respectful, but personal way. And recognize that you can count on two hands the examples where they got outbid by the "big boys" for a player who worked out, and you need a friggin' super computer to track the number of FA signings for where, given our revenues, we dodged a bullet that would have set the team back a couple spots in the standings for a couple of years at least. BTW, I'll sit through a season of 101 wins with a story like Randy Dobnak or Delvin Smeltzer every time! Just not both stories in one season please.

I feel your pain, pal. I cried into my morning Wheaties in 1965 because of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Calvin Griffith was so cheap we had to settle for Jim Friggin' Kaat.

Let's get you prepared to do even MORE lamenting: MLB TradeRumors projected MadBum to fetch $72M in a frothy market, and now the tweets are swirling around that stupid money will find him for something over $100M. So yeah, I gotta hunch Falvey has a lower number on the spreadsheet by MadBum's name and will look elsewhere. Not an excuse or a criticism here. I defer to others for that.

Chief, they didn't fail to address the pitching. They were outbid for one free agent, and one who was the beneficiary of the most interest of any free agent in the market. In the end, they will deserve criticism if they fail to address pitching. But not for missing out on Wheeler. Fairness requires consideration of the circumstances. Consideration and excusing are not the same thing. Let's talk in mid-February and hope we're happy campers. I do understand the skepticism. Honest.

Wheeler chose Philly. That's where my daughter lives. Her fiance commutes an hour each day to work in New Jersey, where Wheeler's wife's family lives. You can decide to believe money was the only factor Wheeler considered. You can decide that the Twins should have stunned him with an offer Wheeler could not refuse. You can decide location had nothing to do with his decision. Evidence suggests NYY, TEX, NYM were out of the running before the Twins, who were apparently eliminated about the same time as CWS were. CIN missed out too. You can decide the Twins were low bidders. You can decide they were cheap and low-balled Wheeler just to create the false appearance that they tried. I'm looking forward to hearing all of these criticisms.

IMO, this is simply a false argument. It's fair to say that most athletes, in most sports, are conditioned to take the most money almost regardless of location, but it's naive to think money is the ONLY factor. Players take less money to go to a more highly preferred destination all the time. If all they cared about was the money, why would no-trade clauses even exist? Agents drive the process of course, so they're motivated to steer athletes to the most cash and to use the tactic of "you deserve more than X player", but players and their families think about other things. Hamels signed a one year deal. Why? His choice. He has said he wants a year at a time because he doesn't want the guilt of underperforming should another injury come along. He was projected by MLBTradeRumors to be in line for 2/42 IIRC. The Twins do not use geography as an excuse, thankfully, and most of us don't either. But the point is, it's crazier to think these decisions are simple and only come down to money. If it did, even for Wheeler, he would have looked at his caller ID and ignored the phone when Baldelli called him. As an aside, I guess it's too bad Martin Perez picked up the phone and then took a low bid from the Twins.

Irrelevant to your earlier comment, which was I assume an understandable cocktail of sarcasm, frustration, snark, and belief, and not necessarily meant to be factual. I'm not defending Falvey because it's silly to either defend or criticize something that's in the future. They said they're pursuing impact pitching. We might be justified in criticizing them some time in the future for failing to execute. But I think it's entirely uncharitable to castigate them as "low bid again" villains, and that's kind of how you portrayed things based on the Wheeler tweets. A bit unfair, I say. Thad made a rather matter-of-fact comment, not some bold proclamation. He was pretty restrained, I thought, and maybe we should return that favor. I'm gonna wait before heating up the tar.

With all due respect, Van, I think you'd be more accurate if you said that 27 out of 30 teams have offered Wheeler less that the Twins.

This is the first off-season, under Falvey, in which the team has publicly declared that it intends to pursue "impact pitching". This, despite the fact that they had been finalists for Darvish (some want to think differently about this, I know). I fully expect, that if they lose out on this one guy, we'll have a Darvish deja vu, lots of lamenting, before the fact, that the cheap Twins, who don't care about winning, only about money, yada yada yada. It's likely that a few of the same folks who held the view that they didn't spend big enough last winter will hold the same view now. Ignoring the fact that the team went from 78 to 101 wins without Darvish. Ignoring the fact that they explained the different in their own perception between prying the window open in 2019 and feeling a breeze here in 2020. They stand a good chance of being outbid for Wheeler. Some team is likely to give the guy stupid money. I get it that some people want Falvey to be the stupid one. Interestingly, every one of the teams mentioned has had a WS drought of at least a decade, the exceptions being NYM (2015) and TEX (2011). So, if what you're saying is true, and that all those teams have blown up their budget on stud free agents except the Twins, then why aren't those teams all sporting a 101 win record in 2019 or better? I'm gonna give Falvey the benefit of the doubt. He's as entitled to that as we are to a winning bid for Wheeler. He said they'd pursue impact pitching and he's true to that promise just by virtue of the fact that the Twins are clearly in the conversation here. Let's let it all play out.

If you hop on out to any one of a half dozen fan sites for other teams who are or have been in contention for Wheeler, you can practically find your sentences uttered verbatim by fans from those cities. I saw a poster deride the Wilpons for being cheap. I see some CWS fans despairing at not being mentioned exclusively as the top bidder. After all, a couple of the CWS beat writers have been very adamant that Wheeler, specifically, is THE priority for their team. I've seen various tweets listing I believe 7 clubs as being "engaged": NYM, NYY, MIN, CIN, CWS, PHI, TEX. Six of these clubs will "lose out" in the bidding. I'm willing to bet my entire net worth that, at the end of the ordeal, I can find a fan comment from each and every one of the "losers" that calls out the ownership for being cheap, and calls out the FO for putting in an insincere "token" bid. In fact, I've already got three checked off, and the guy hasn't signed a contract. Amusing stuff.

Good trend. Let's get the Saint Paul Saints to change their name to the Saint Paul Zebra Mussels. Cedar Rapids Kernels become the Flying Carp.

Wish you people would quit being so snarky about Tampa Bay. They didn't do all that poorly, you know.

Bringing Castro back would seem to be a good idea to me, even at 2/$12M. Turtle as injury insurance for 2020. Castro could be pushed out in mid-2021 for an emerging Jeffers, or a surging Rortvedt. Interesting to me: FanGraphs appears to have "overlooked" Rortvedt. Last time I looked, I don't believe he even made the top 50 cut on their list and was maybe a 35+ FV prospect in their eyes. In contrast, Jeffers was at #7 on their list, so anything but overlooked!

It's November, not March, my friend, so let's give them some time here. You're being a bit uncharitable. While most of us agree that the Pressly trade created a glaring hole and therefore was ill-advised, even THAT trade may eventually turn out okay for the Twins. Escobar may very well have been dismayed, like Dozier seemed to be, by what he perceived (rightly in HIS case) to be an unenthusiastic attempt to re-sign him. In Dozier's case, I'm sorry, but that was a fabulous decision to pass on him. We spent less to get MUCH more in the way of production AND we got Raley and Smeltzer, whose 0.7 WAR was the equal of what bench player Dozier generated for WSN. I personally LOVED the Dozier trade. Many of us didn't really like the Escobar trade, although the final hour acquisition of Marwin softened the blow, and now Alcala and Celestino are at least valuable enough to warrant 40-man spots. The jury is still out, too early to call that one a fleecing. The off-season isn't over, and I recall a few rants like yours a year ago too, before we had any inkling that they'd assemble a staff and a roster that would bring us 101 wins and a division title.