bird

Glad you revised your statement to admit to last year's efforts which resulted in Hughes and Nolasco. I will just assume your view is that efforts in previous years were so unsatisfactory as to not count. For example, signing Willingham and Correia and Pelfrey and others doesn't count because it was not adequate in your view (shared by many of course). As for Cubans, they didn't sign any, unlike half the clubs, but they scouted them. So, unless you contend they didn't do so in earnest, you are wrong in saying they ignored that option, and could perhaps understand how one could take a charitable view that they simply weren't willing to pay those bidded-up prices, rightly or wrongly. Detroit's fans stand a chance at being frustrated for a long time. Because their strategy results in a depleted farm system and an intractable set of financial obligations extending for long after any success, it's an unsustainable strategy, which you say you prefer? No thanks, mike. It's a stupid strategy. Once their remaining aging vets spit the bit, they could easily go 6-8 years between division titles, because their prospect pipeline is the very worst in all of baseball. At least the Twins are making a smart bet. The fans will return. Granted, they have to execute, and they have been executing the strategy well lately. And no good strategy takes 29 years, even a poorly executed one, so I don't get your constant reference to that 29 years thing. You DO know that KC didn't follow their strategy for 29 years, right?

Of course it doesn't, mike. Which is why they HAVE signed good players and will continue to sign them, but just not in a way that will probably ever satisfy you. They'll never spend enough. For example, spending for Hughes and Nolasco last year wasn't good enough, right? The players will never be good enough. For example, Nolasco isn't good enough, right? If the Twins did it YOUR way, mike, they'd be in deep doo-doo already, because, in spite of fan protestations, and like almost EVERY club, they'll eventually be financially constrained. Read the Cleveland blogs. The fans are up in arms about their $75 payroll budget. Read Detroit's. They're discussing how the Tigers can possibly extract themselves from a massive mess. You see, they have commitments of over $140M WITHOUT Scherzer and Hunter and Martinez. They can't really afford an outside solution without continuing to pee away cash. Their farm system options? Robbie Ray and Buck Farmer. Look 'em up. The Twins have SEVERAL pitching prospects at AAA alone better than those guys! KC is losing Shields, and they have budget constraints that aggravate their fans too. Fortunately for them, unlike Detroit, they have a decent prospect pipeline. It's a balancing act for EVERY club. The ones going about it with an emphasis on home-grown talent are in better shape moving forward. Because it's the only sustainable and affordable strategy now. My gripe with you, mike, is your posts like this, where you suggest they might consider "signing good players now" as if this is a completely foreign concept to them.

I can't help myself from agreeing with this, but I absolutely detest the use of the word "cheap", because I think it way oversimplifies the organization's historic point of view and approach, like the approach or not. At times I wish they were more secretive, not less, frankly. There's an article in the Detroit Free Press by Henning that I saw referenced on Twitter yesterday about the absolute mess Dombrowski is in regarding their intractable obligations. Pressed on the issue, Dombrowski is quoted as saying "we don't discuss payroll". And in Cleveland, fans are up in arms about their $75M payroll budget. Now watch the KC fireworks begin. No team spends enough to satisfy their fans it seems. Detroit spent $179M and look what the fans got? If they had just spent a little more... My point is, we can get all whipped up about missing out on Maddon, and we'll probably never have even an inkling of all the conversations among league GM's, agents , etc behind the scenes, nuances that would paint the accurate picture as to why the Twins may have acted as they did, whatever actions those were. But to describe the reason for Maddon going elsewhere as simply and strictly a function of the Twins being perceived as cheap rings hollow. Maybe they think Maddon has become an egotistical blowhard and isn't a better option than any of a dozen other choices, who knows. But, hey, they brought the cheap label on themselves by being stupid and sloppy with their communication about these things and by oftentimes being...frugal...without articulating why their perception of value doesn't match the fans'.

Pure speculation, but I find myself wondering if Molitor's "third interview" was to let him know he came in second and if Pohlad's trip out to the east coast was to seal the deal with Lovullo and his agent. I'd be perfectly happy with that.

It would be tough to argue that a lot of the injuries could have been predicted or prevented, although I suppose one could find anecdotal cases about pre-existing injury histories and make a rather flimsy case. I've wondered about this myself as it relates to the rigorous examination of medical records, which you have to assume are submitted to every club in a standardized way. And I have this vague recollection that the Twins went through a review process pertaining to this, but may be mistaken here.

I'm much more fearful he gets compared to Gardy.

Uh, the Twins sign free agents, and trade for veterans. I was responding to your original point, which was that the Twins ignore other options like cubans. It appears you want to discuss their lack of execution now. I'll simply point out that yes, they've signed bad players and they've wasted roster spots and money on them. That's not unique to this franchise, is it? To balance that out, I'd point out that they've signed good players and used money and roster spots productively. Back to the original topic, which was about how injuries, something out of a GM's control, have affected the timetable. I'm personally satisfied with the degree to which they've paid attention to other options, including Cubans. You are mistaken in saying they have ignored even the Cuban market, BTW. I agree with Nick. Had the Twins made the level of expenditures on free agents that would have satisfied all but one person here on TD , I'm not sure they'd have an appreciably shorter timetable to a division title, but I'm absolutely positive that they would lack future finanical flexibility to retain our future budding stars. Now, we can talk turkey about filling the last couple of holes via other options rather than waiting for, say, Thorpe, Stewart, and Jorge. But the two things that allow that conversation to be meaningful are that 1) we've got most of the holes projected as filled now, and 2) the timing is more conducive to perhaps signing or trading for just the right missing piece.

But isn't it quite fair to say that Maddon appeared to have only mild interest if any at all, for whatever unknown reasons? We heard that Maddon's people initiated contact with several organizations. We heard that the only organization with an opening was not one of those contacted. To me, this speaks volumes about his level of interest, and we can debate the reasons for this ad nauseum.

Two words, jay: P R Leave it to the Twins to turn an opportunity into a problem when it comes to public relations. They're unstoppable.

Absolutely. Jim Pohlad and his people need to get some PR advice. Badly. How simple would it have been to spin this right off the face of the earth? "Listen, we made a call to his agent to inquire as to his interest. He had failed to call us, and was apparently focused on other opportunities." And I agree that the Twin's reputation as an organization that detests bidding wars preceded all of this.

I gotta hand it to you, mike, that's an impressive segue from being snake-bitten to "ignoring" other options like cubans. The delay in seeing Sano and Buxton has hurt because they aren't just your run-of-the-mill prospects. They hold the promise of being the type that DOES only come around once a decade for an organization. And we've had so many injuries to pitching prospects who've been ranked as top 25 guys: Wimmers, Chargois, Bard, Rosario, Romero, Williams, Melotakis, and Gibson. Thankfully, the system is so deep that we've had the edge taken off of these injuries by Arcia, Santana, Vargas, Pinto, and Hicks, and Polanco and Rosario are close. Mike, I'm not sure Chicago has three prospects in their entire system with more upside than these 7 guys, and they surely don't have any to match up with Sano and Buxton. So naturally, it made sense for the Sox to take a huge risk on Abreu, who helped them leapfrog the Twins into 4th place in the division. Rather than focusing on how snakebite the Twins have been, I'm celebrating the fact that, even with all those TJ's, we have 3 pitchers ranked among the top 40 prospects in all of baseball in Meyer, Berrios, and Stewart, and that we have so many young prospects in addition to the injured ones, some of whom will NOT fail, on the cusp: guys like Burdi, Reed, Tonkin, Jones, May, Meyer, and Berrios. Contrary to your statement, mike, the Twins have not ignored other options. Wasn't Hughes another option? It might be hard to accept, but maybe they just reject your idea that overpaying (by their definition of the term) is prudent for the likes of Puig and Abreu, particularly at this stage of the rebuild. Maybe they really believe, like our idolized Cards, that going the FA route is something you do as an absolute last resort if you plan to sustain your level of success. And if filling your roster is going to take you decades, THEN you have a legitimate gripe about your GM.

Guess we'll have to move him to first base.

Meyer and May will 'cause they fit the payroll

Have other organizations lost as many very promising prospects to TJ? It sure feels like we've had very bad luck in that regard: 1. Melotakis, ranked as high as #9 (LaVelle) 2. Chargois, ranked as high as #13 3. Luke Bard, once ranked #11 by one service 4.Fernando Romero, ranked as high as #18 5. Randy Rosario, top 25 by some 6. Corey Williams, top 25 a couple years back 7. Alex Wimmers, same thing 8. Kyle Gibson, back in action. Who am I missing? Doesn't this seem like a lot of high-ceiling prospects to lose to TJ?

I'm so sorry you were offended. I want you to read what I wrote again please. I did not label you a casual fan or anything else. Also, understand I was picturing Ryan's reaction to such a letter, not mouthing my own sentiments, which have been articulated in TD enough. And yes, I meant to portray Ryan's thoughts as being above the casual fan's. If you read the snippet of his interview with Parker Hageman about payroll, you'll see why I would portray him as.....impatient, shall we say...with questions from us more rabid fans. As for your advice to him, to be honest, your lack of specific suggestions weakened things for me personally. Again, I'm sorry you were offended. It was not my intent whatsoever.

Good one.

I'm picturing Ryan opening and speed-reading this letter. He's days away from handing over the reigns to a clubhouse manager who will walk into a dream scenario. He's fresh off his annual meeting in Fort Myers with his staff of many dozens. He heard that the farm system had its best results in decades in terms of the number of elite prospects matching or exceeding expectations regarding their development. This despite his two ultra-elite prospects sidelined and a half-dozen top 25 prospects due back from TJ in the next year or so. And he knows the letter writer is perhaps not fully aware that the farm system has been producing at a far better than average rate since before those Twins Daily founders started their blog for guys like this writer. He knows he has one of the better scouting and development organizations in baseball, and he's getting another elite prospect from a pitching-rich draft in June. So, the letter hits the recycling pile and he gets back to work. He feels better this year. He has fewer holes to fill and a few answers in place, and he's nothing if not patient. He knows the always-important casual fan will be back as soon as they see a little more evidence that the product is good and he's entirely confident the wins will start coming. No need for a splash just to make a splash here, just a need to execute the plan.

None of those making a prediction that May or Meyer would outperform any one of these three out of the blocks in 2014 would have been employed by the Twins.

I'm "guilty" for having labelled Hughes a #2-3 versus a #1-2. But it was within the context of assessing what we have for a rotation right now leading into 2015. We've had a few too many instances lately where perhaps our boys have overestimated what they had. I'm hoping Ryan is taking stock of this. Hughes may turn into a consistent #1-2 guy. I hope so, because it will be so much fun reading the comments, one right after another, effusive in praise for that brilliant FA acquisition by Ryan.

I wouldn't imagine you're suggesting that the April team with the winning record, the team with Colabello, Bartlett, Kubel, Correia, Willingham, Florimon, and Deduno was better in any other way besides its SSS record and it's "experience". SwainZag's point, I think, is well-made, in saying a 40% roster turnover from the beginning of the season represents improvement, and I like the fact that she's still lobbying for a couple of key moves by Ryan this off-season.

Dman, they can find out what they have and leave room for every single one of the prospects you just named and STILL attempt to pull off another Hughes-type move and sign a 2-way corner OF for 2015. If things get crowded in 2016, great, trade from surplus.

We all love the K's. But let's not rely on this one example, Meyer, to perpetuate the "preference for soft-tossing pitchers" thing and to dredge up known history, which is that we've lacked pitching talent in the upper minors. You and I were not privy to the discussions, let alone the circumstances involved in the decision(s) to keep Meyer at AAA. There were very competent coaches and trainers watching every pitch Meyer threw. What makes you think they made the wrong call? But it most certainly wasn't because they have this irrational jones for soft-tossing AAAA starters. Talent has been slowly bubbling up through the minors. It hadn't reached AAA yet in 2015, and therefore we saw the likes of Pino and Johnson. Exactly what should we have done to avoid using those AAAA guys in 2013 and 2014, aside from making our own declaration that Meyer was ready to go? Next year will be the FIRST year where we will have young "bona fide" prospects to choose from, guys like Meyer, May, Berrios, Duffey, Gilmartin, Darnell, Wheeler, Rogers, etc. You might be right that not calling Meyer up was a mistake on the part of the development staff, but if it wasn't, then the right guys got called up to make the necessary starts.

Service time seems to be the deciding factor over who can help out the club? I'm not aware of a single case that affirms this statement. I suppose we could find some anecdotal cases that might suggest service time was a FACTOR. How did you reach this conclusion? Burdi may be up in 2015, certainly not in "a few years", and service time won't even enter into the Twin's thoughts about the timing, if you ask me.

nick, I think the flaw in this is an underlying belief that the Twins were just as clueless as we were regarding the stage of development and readiness of these guys. I disagree that they were not auditioned for starting spots because of "depth". I doubt you could've found a close observer that thought May or Meyer were likely to outperform Nolasco out of the shoots last spring.

Agreed. I can't remember a season that we didn't have at least three staters go down for extended periods.