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Let me clarify on the Tigers. It's not just the fact that maybe a couple players will be unproductive at the end of a contract. The main obstacle for them will be replacing those players, filling many holes at once, not one or two, at a time when their farm system is pretty barren and they still have a few huge contract obligations. To me, the major difference in approaches is that, when the Twins hit bottom in terms of the farm system, it was a close-to-average average talent pool, and three years later, it's now one of the best, and maybe as loaded with talent as any time in franchise history. By contrast, the Tiger's system has now hit bottom, and it IS truly horrid. The Twins refused to trade away prospects in an attempt to avoid its 4-year losing streak, even though they had assets to trade. And they refused to delve into the deep end of the FA pool, rightly in my opinion. In contrast, the Tigers used FA and their prospect pipeline in trades to go all in. The Tigers now find themselves caught between a rock and hard place. They don't have prospects to trade themselves out of a likely decline, or to bolster the roster. Buck Farmer and Robbie Ray are poor alternatives to Scherzer. They'll probably overpay for Melky and make a couple of additional moves like that out of desperation, and maybe, just maybe, buy themselves one more division title or wild card one-and-done in 2015, But if, as happens more often than not, two starters go down, they start to look like, God forbid, the Sox and the Twins, except old, out of "financial flexibility", and pathetically low on prospects, with many holes to fill, not one or two. Teams can, or at least used to be able to buy a championship when they were in mid-cycle talent-wise, like the Tigers did, using FA and prospects via trades. But the time comes when the bill has to be paid. To build a sustainable level of on-field excellence requires a vast majority of your talent to be home-grown, and even then teams have to get lucky and avoid mistakes that set it back. You know, like Capps for Ramos and Hardy for Hoey. Oh, and let's be clear about the fact that this current off-season is only the third off-season of the rebuild effort. People keep trying to throw out these five and six year numbers.

That's why I labeled the outfield as possibly a relative weakness when compared with the strength in the system regarding starters, relievers, and infielders in particular. But you're right, there are certainly a lot of exciting OF prospects too.

There are way too many variables here to draw valid conclusions about what one organization would do compared to another. Every pitching prospect needs to be regarded uniquely. For example, Meyer was injured, and Ventura was a more highly-rated prospect. Ventura was ready in 2014. Meyer would have had his head handed to him, if you ask me. Maybe the Twins are slightly more deliberate in advancing prospects, but it's hardly a pattern that allows one to conclude something about one organization's success compared to another, IMO.

The other element of luck was he stayed healthy. Therefore, good decision, good outcome. I would contend that Nolasco was a reasonable decision with a bad first-year outcome. I'm not sure what the odds are, but taking a shot every year on a bounce-back guy with a front-of-the-rotation upside appeals to me if you score big every third year. Now, if only one in ten of these guys pans out...

Had Hughes stunk up the joint, would it have been a product of BAD luck? Is it ALWAYS a matter of luck, and if not, then who are "the ones" skilled at removing luck from the equation and "hitting" on the next Hughes?

Thanks once again, Seth. You're right, looking at the stats for the Dominican and GCL prospects tells us very little, but I suspect the outfield might be an area of relative weakness in the system.

And if you have a fair sense of the history of success prospects given a B- or better grade by Sickles have, you are even more encouraged. In addition, the Twins have 11 players at C+, and many include comments from Sickles like "borderline B-" or HIGH CEILING ALERT, or SLEEPER ALERT. I gotta tell ya, I've been watching this stuff since the 60's, and I've never seen anything remotely like this as far as both top-end talent and depth. Not even close to this, frankly.

In a later ranking, and still validates the point being made. And Mayo I don't believe had him in his top 25 prior to that. That doesn't reflect poorly on Mayo to me. It just means that there's a lot of good talent at the top of the system, for one, and that the minor league stats aren't always that reliable as an indicator, which is why I so appreciate the work of Seth and others, and especially the mainstream guys like Sickles, who rely on scouting reports to at least some extent. I remember Seth saying that he'd heard that the Twins "really like" Santana, and this was at a time when his stats weren't exactly sterling.

We'd hear few complaints if they chased one of the big three in FA, but it's not likely. I think the key thing is "years" rather than "dollars." Even the Yankees are saying they don't have the financial appetite for those guys after having made a half-billion in commitments last year despite previously being saddled with the bad contracts of ARod, Sabbathia, Texeira and others. I for one will excuse the Twins from committing to a five year contract with Lester, as long as they make a good faith effort to sign or trade for at least one guy who could potentially right himself and become a front line starter if the stars align like they did with Hughes.

The thing I like best about May is that there are six other pitching prospects that Sickles deems worthy of the same or better letter grade as May. And most of the 7 of them are a year or two away.

That might be the case, but if anything, Sickles has a rep of being a fairly tough grader. He gave Zack Jones a C grade and Jake Reed a C+, for example. But still, having 45 prospects worthy of a C grade or better shows depth, and very few systems are going to have a dozen prospects grading out at B- and better, especially after a year of graduating several prospects.

Ah, the annual "there are no payroll limits" interpretation. Of COURSE there are limitations. We ought to do a poll here: "exactly what number will you accept as a reasonable limitation on payroll spending for a given season?" Personally, I have a number, and yes, it's totally arbitrary. It's $125M. And it's both reasonable to me that the Twins don't spend more and reasonable to me to spend less when spending more is unlikely to produce meaningful results or would compromise the future via bad contracts.

Yes, and add to that what spycake expresses well, which is Ryan's almost phobic avoidance of anything resembling a bidding war. Another hint of that changing is more frequent comments from Ryan along the lines of "we may have to overpay." Although I'm not sure Ryan wouldn't rather be fired than to be a fool in a bidding contest.

This isn't exactly what we've always been told. We've gotten many mixed messages over the years. And it's the mixed messages we've received, from ownership, from the front office, and from members of the media that have caused the confusion and cause much of the fact-twisted and emotional commentary from fans. But I'll partially agree: this is now, finally and unquestionably, on Ryan's shoulders. At Molitor's presser, I saw two comments from Jim Pohlad that I felt were almost watershed-like. Both were related to the final question of the day, regarding payroll. The first was Pohlad making eye contact with St. Peter and suggesting perhaps he'd like another crack at the question. I took this as an admonishment of St. Peter's butcher job on the subject earlier. The second was his comment bluntly objecting to Ryan's characterization of "using the resources that are made available." In my opinion, Pohlad's sending a clear message. I'm guessing he's not pleased with those two right now, and I'm confident in saying he's very tired of how this whole Twins saga has tarnished the reputations of three generations of his family. Not that he's guilt-free, mind you.

Danny Santana was not ranked higher than #14 at the beginning of 2014 by anyone other than BA from what I can find. No one ranked Vargas better than #16. They were ranked behind Pinto, Harrison, Kepler, Rosario, and Walker primarily because of numbers, not on the basis of in-depth observation. This is not a criticism. My point is that our opinions about these prospects are going to be volatile because we rely so much on statistics, that's all.

It's probably in the eyes of the beholder. But I'll contend that the consensus, good and bad, on a given player is more volatile with us fans than with the scouts, understandably, because we can only base our appraisals on the numbers. Gibson and Parmelee are examples that stick out in my memory. Gibson lit it up out of the blocks, and we got plenty of comments in threads about him being a #1-2 starter. An injury and pedestrian numbers changed the consensus to back-end starter for awhile there. And Parmelee's stock has been a roller coaster here on TD based on his most recent numbers. The consensus opinion from the scouts on Buxton is, I'll contend, more glowing than that of the majority of us on TD. I'm basing that on many of the comments, and particularly on comments about his trade value.

I'm making a distinction here and talking strictly about fans like us, whose exposure is limited almost exclusively to stats and who lack a trained eye. Buxton in particular still gets great scouting reports because the scouts are seeing his incredible physical talent, but it feels like there has been a little less overall enthusiasm here on TD, at least to me. I think this is to be expected, and I think we do it a lot. For example, I believe Danny Santana was under-estimated by fans here. We saw so-so stats, but weren't as aware of the fact that his athleticism is off the charts and his makeup is conducive from all indications to being coached up. Pinto, on the other hand, may have been and might still be overrated for the same reasons: good numbers but physical skills that don't quite match it.

I'm often critical of Mauer myself here in my reading chair. Yes, I'll admit it. I wonder if he lacks the kind of competitive make-up I've come to admire in exceptional athletes. But I also find the constant injury-related stuff, and the complaints about his on-field demeanor, to be somewhat misplaced. Here's my biggest complaint, and it may be partly in my head: it seems like, when Mauer comes up with runners on, he approaches the at bat exactly the way he'd approach one with two outs and no one on. He appears to me to be just as happy coaxing a walk to load the bases as he might be driving a ball to the gap. Likewise, It doesn't appear that he's willing to or capable of adjusting his approach against a RHP throwing a straight 87MPH FB than against a power pitcher. I mean, why can't a guy with his obvious talent adjust more and jerk a few? Is this my imagination? How come I feel like this question should have been asked by writers? Even a mean-spirited, snarky guy like Souhan? Instead, we put up with the lazy and prickly pablum like Souhan just served up.

Our tendency is to overrate our own prospects. I'm wondering if we haven't trended toward underrating Buxton, and also Sano, in large part because we haven't had the luxury of salivating over their box scores.

I just cringed.

[Heard over the din at his favorite watering hole in Chicago] "Hey Joe, there's a Terry Ryan on the phone for you." Joe: " A what? Hey, bartender, another beer and chaser here. Tell Jerry I can't talk right now, but I'll have my people call his people some time."

The futility of the last four years is not a product of a failed strategy. It's in part the price paid for some poor execution, some mistakes, and some bad luck, but it's also a by-product of a patient and reasonable rebuild strategy, in my opinion. We need to view the results from a decade ago in context, recognizing that the Twins have in fact adapted (maybe not well or quickly for sure) to changes in the financial picture, starting with revenue-sharing, TV contracts (yes, I know about the latest one) and stadium revenues. I just don't think one can lump the futility of the 90's in with these last four years. I'm of course an optimist and therefore expect to see some moves we may not have seen before. And I get the frustration, and the argument, for augmenting the pipeline to a greater extent than they've done. I was critical of Ryan's off-season moves the year before the first 90-loss season and also two years later. But I always seem to get back to the question of whether, with a $125M budget in each of the past three years since the rebuild began, any GM in baseball could've pieced together a division winner, and if so, what kind of mess would there be heading into 2015 in terms of bad contracts and serious financial constraints. I think the last part of it, the emotionally-charged topic of the perceived obligations of ownership, is one you and I are likely to continue to respectfully disagree about. I vote on that subject with my wallet and have an admittedly unorthodox take on the subject. Best for me not to go there, Chief.

MLB ranked Rainis Silva as our 23rd best prospect, Turner #16.

This delay in naming a manager has already resulted in a -3.6 rWAR unit of win thingies.

Not sure what history you're looking at, nick. The problem, going back a half-dozen years or so, has been that there have been very few real prospects to challenge those iffy ones.