bird

Yeah, but arithmetic is REALLY hard.

This all sounds like a good idea. Until you start naming names. Pray tell, who are all these AAA live arms I'm hearing about?

I always have problems with declarations that a trade is good or bad. But at the time I did think it was unlikely to be enough, soon enough, to earn us a wild card. Still do.

Thanks for the lookback Seth. I remember feeling "realistic" about our chances back then. That team had its flaws. And I've been feeling realistic about our chances this year for the same reason. I can't quite picture Plouffe, Dozier, and Mauer putting the team on their back, I'm skeptical that Buxton, Sano, and Rosario will step into the spotlight, although after last night-My Lord. But whatever happens, it's already been a better ride than we thought possible, and it could be, just maybe, one of those seasons you remember like 2009.

Please explain the joke to Dave. My phone's broken.

Is your phone broken?

Good point. I take it a step further, because as I've pointed out enough to get a warning for it, there are five dozen employees in scouting and development, and no major player decision is made in a vacuum. Which means that the Nishioki call for example was a collective boo-boo. That said, all organizations have their bad moves, even the better ones like the Twins. I find humor in all the tarring and feathering that goes on at TD over some of the less impactful decisions.

The Pelotero documentary and Wetmore's piece should be required reading for anyone who wants to claim any of these things: 1. Smith deserves no credit (has this been anyone's claim?) 2. Smith deserves most of the credit. (Guerrero, Radcliff, and Jim Pohlad all deserve more if you trust the veracity of those sources). 3. Ryan had nothing to do with Sano's signing. On the last point, please read this quote from Rob Plummer, Sano's agent before disputing the point: "A major reason that Miguel Sano signed with the Twins is because of my trust in Mike Radcliff and Terry Ryan." This subject has been a sore point for me, but not because Smith is getting too much or too little credit. It's because so many people choose to ignore how important other people are in the process and have such a distorted idea about the roles and contributions of both Ryan and Smith, let alone Jim Pohlad, Mike Radcliff, Fred Guerrero, Howard Norstetter, and others. As for believing that Sano would not have signed under Ryan, it's understandable, given Ryan's historic and frustrating non-aggressiveness, but that doesn't make such conjecture informed or even that reasonable. But again, I understand why people might choose to believe this. I personally believe other forces were strong enough to assure that the GM climb on board, not the least of which was Jim Pohlad's long-time determination to be competitive in international markets. So, I give credit where credit is due. To Smith, primarily because, along with Jim Pohlad and Andy MacPhail in those days, he was finally able to help influence the old man to increase the international budget. And not because of the false narrative that he practically single-handedly pushed for the approval and then shrewdly negotiated the Sano contract when Terry Ryan would have shriveled up and sunk into a corner and blown it. And I give Ryan credit, because others with no reason to be untruthful give him credit for creating and nurturing a culture of honesty and trust where it is often not found. Mike Radcliff: "Rob Plummer was working with many different teams to get them to make a financial commitment to sign Sano, and he had belief and trust in us being who we are." Terry Ryan: "Fred Guerrero is a good person and well-respected in Latin America. I think it's one of those situations where they had faith that what we said we were going to back up. Fred and Radcliff and Billy...stayed with it, stayed with the agent, stayed with the kid." Like him or not, Ryan is greatly responsible for the loyal and forthright culture that so influenced Sano's decision.

Also, a tear-down strategy requires something of value to tear down. Doubtful that Ryan would've done it anyway, but there just weren't a lot of valuable veterans to trade. And Ryan's FA pieces are a desperate attempt to bridge the long painful time period between being horrible and regaining relevance. It's unfortunate the market demanded long-term contracts for any pitcher who stands a chance at being a mid rotation starter or better. But the alternative was...um...you got me.

For 24 games or so?

I noticed that two of the starting pitchers on the list are now Tigers, courtesy of the Price and Cespedes trades. Fullmer and Boyd are both at AA now. Gardy, you turnaround genius, you!

What Ryan said about Berrios was both sensible and innocuous if we don't try to read something into it that's not there. He mentioned the workload first, and secondly his physical stature as reasons to take precautions with Berrios. Nothing wrong with that, is there? He was getting reports all the time from Berrios's minor league managers, and he's seen him firsthand as well. Shutting Berrios down doesn't indicate some kind of bias against pitchers of a certain height, and in fact, there are many prospects of smaller stature, like Berrios and Pino's, in the system, and they're not being babied or treated differently than the other pitchers. One only needs to look at Sickle's recent article singling out four MILB pitchers who flew under the radar this year to find his first pick was Mat Batts, a smaller guy who threw a lot of innings and went deep in a lot of games at two levels. So, the precaution is about guys wearing down. Physical stature is not a determinant in shutting a guy down, but it's a possible partial cause of getting worn down.

Lewis Thorpe.

Cleveland worries me.

And usually conjecture is based on the conjecturer's point of view and biases. Information takes a back seat on this topic. We're dealing with uninformed speculation here. We agree on that.

What you describe as "splitting hairs" involves material facts that you are certainly at liberty to be disdainful about, but please, let's not go where you just went. It's absolutely reasonable to think that Ryan may not have signed Sano. But it's not "beyond obnoxious" to present the possibility that he would have been almost irrelevant, or that Smith was, or even that he would also have signed him.

I miss Garett Jones. We sure could use a DH type.

I'm afraid that this would not only be off topic but a fruitless exercise, one that gets a workout ad nauseum in about every third thread, my friend.

And it's perfectly reasonable to think that assumption is faulty.

Yes, and I like giving credit to Smith too. I just find that there's such a nebulous connection to fact and context when we discuss attribution and subsequent credit and discredit on this topic. Lots of commenters have credited Smith for things that can truly be attributed to him, including you and me.

This is true and important. Likewise, the GM does not run the international scouting and signing process. The GM manages all of this stuff. Five dozen people are employed in scouting and development. The scouts most responsible for Kepler, Sano, and Polanco, scouts who worked under Ryan long before Smith was inserted into the role, should probably get much of the credit.

What's not a coincidence to me is how disconnected from context and facts we can get when we discuss this issue. Let's at least argue some facts first. This may render it moot to blame or defend a guy who I can effectively argue is close to irrelevant in how all these signings went down. Historically, the Twins ownership has set a separate budget (a rough one) each year for international signings, although this process changed with the new rules obviously. As is the Twins Way, they never felt like we as fans deserved to be privy to these conversations or these budget amounts. When Sano was signed, we can speculate, without really knowing, whether his expenditure fell outside of the established budget or not. But more importantly as it relates to the assertion of the thread, we have no idea what kind of conversations took place, who pushed to spend it, who didn't, and who wouldn't have. Any opinions being expressed about that are pure speculation. And understandably, it's going to be popular to speculate in such a way as to shed Ryan in a disfavorable way, right? Howard Norsetter had ten times more to do with Kepler's signing than Smith. Trying to pin something on Ryan based on the signing of Polanco and Kepler, as convenient as it is if your goal is to add a demerit to Ryan's long list of them, is a complete disconnect. If we're going to beat that drum, we first have to make a connection between the actual role of the GM and the signing itself.

People can live in denial about it , but there is no question in my mind that Sano would be entertaining us had Smith never spent a day as the GM. To convince me otherwise, the following evidence would need to be presented: 1. Sano would never have been signed without the relationship having been built first with Sano's handlers. At any time during this relationship-building process, did Smith play even a minor role? I believe Smith would never have had a role at all without the work of the scout (Guererro?), a guy that never reported to Smith. 2. The decision to meet the contract demands let alone compete for Sano's services was not made by Smith, at least not in a vacuum. Smith deserves plenty of credit for influencing the decision to expand the international budget, as do a number of others. Can anyone provide evidence that Smith was even one of the more important influencers in this decision to increase international spending, let alone the only one? 3. The early contract negotiations with Sano's people were spearheaded by the international scout with the relationship, not by Smith. This was a $3.4M decision. Can anyone demonstrate to us that Smith was the key driver? Are you willing to argue that the final decision to cut the check was made by someone other than Pohlad? Give Smith some credit if you will, but in my opinion you're engaging in faulty albeit popular speculation when you declare that Ryan would have screwed up the deal or that Smith pulled the trigger where the next guy wouldn't have. You're dissing Ryan with no proof, are you not? I'm inclined to thank a bunch of people for playing roles, especially the Pittsburgh scout, but also Jim Pohlad, Ryan for his role in building and managing the whole scouting infrastructure, Smith, and nameless others.

This is terrific logic. If you drove sober and got where you intended to go, you made a good decision.

Yeah. Because eggs.