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bird

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Everything posted by bird

  1. bird
    There should be a law against playing the Trout card.
  2. bird
    Probably not, but I think if you consistently executed a strategy of drafting and developing more sure-fire bats with your first pick instead of taking a long shot on a pitcher who has a much better chance of injury than ace designation (remember, there may not be three true future aces in any draft), then you eventually would theoretically have the luxury of trading from surplus, similarly to how Falvey has viewed Dozier and Polanco as "redundant".
  3. bird
    While I agree with this strategy, we know the trade part wasn't likely to be executed well under Ryan, which may or may not have something to do with taking Jay instead of a college bat. Let's hope Falvey brings a little of that Cleveland magic with him.
  4. bird
    Among the players selected in the 1st round after #22, who would you prefer they would have selected?
  5. bird
    This is a poor analogy IMO. Gibson fell from consideration as a top 10 pick, all the way down to #22. It can easily be argued that it was not only a fairly safe pick at that slot, but a great pick. And in retrospect, it has proven to be perhaps the best pick among all picks in the second half of that draft. Find me another starting pitcher from the 2009 draft not named Strasberg or Leake (neither available to the Twins at #22) that was a less cute choice.
  6. bird
    That was my concern too. I liked the idea of a surer thing for a number of reasons. The injury risk with pitchers in general topping the list. But that doesn't mean it wasn't a good gamble to take. We'll soon see.
  7. bird
    Almost everyone on TD knew May wasn't going to get a fair shot last year by the time spring training rolled around. After Ryan failed to add sufficient BP help, it was painfully obvious that May represented one of the best options for addressing this area of weakness. Some of us begrudgingly saw it as the right move under the circumstances. And we know Duffey won't get a legitimate shot at the rotation THIS year and might be one of the more viable bullpen options. I'm guessing most of us believe May will in fact get a legitimate shot at a rotation spot this year. Why wouldn't we? The circumstances are different. ANd yet, wouldn't it surprise you to hear the GM say Duffey doesn't stand a chance at earning a spot? Why would a GM turn that card over with the fans?
  8. bird
    I'm not commenting about fans' patience at all. The question I have is, if you were the GM, hired at the same time as Falvey, what move(s) would you have made to improve the starting rotation in 2017? Other than giving Trevor May a legitimate shot at a spot, which the GM has done. And even if, as the GM, you had decided to ignore adding a lot of talent in 2017 and to abandon the goal of improving the record in 2017 through outside means besides Castro, what moves would you have tried to make this off-season to improve in 2018 and beyond, besides the one Falvey apparently worked hard to accomplish (Dozier) without success? We're talking in this thread about the prospects of an improved record in 2017, and how moves by Falvey this off-season could possible be made or maybe should have been made. And how internal improvements might impact the record in 2017. There's decent consensus that a FA BP arm or three would be kind of a no-brainer, and a consensus that to-date Falvey hasn't adequately addressed the BP. You'd agree that a majority believe a straight-up trade of Dozier for JDL would have been ill-advised?
  9. bird
    I guess I wouldn't necessarily take exception to this belief, especially if you limited it to starters. Fixing the problem is another matter. I don't have any clever ideas about that, and frankly, I haven't really been exposed to any on TD, especially this off-season. The thing I find least digestible is that, even if every single starter performed in accordance to the more optimistic expectations out there for them, the current staff would probably be pretty much "average". Again, I don't know how a GM fixes this problem entirely in one or two off-seasons.
  10. bird
    For dozens of reasons other than a belief that you've isolated the issue by declaring there to be a dearth of talent.
  11. bird
    I think it's fair to say this. They've also said they haven't set the roster yet. I'm hoping for a bullpen move. I keep reading statements that the Twins are the "worst team" in baseball. Talent-wise, I don't buy this. Apparently, neither do the Twins. There are realistic and advisable things a GM can do to improve talent in an effort to improve the record. There are ill-advised and/or unrealistic ideas presented on TD all the time, like trading Dozier for players that were not ever going to be packaged in a trade for him (unrealistic) or for DeLeon straight up (ill-advised). If Falvey does nothing to change the BP roster, I'll be critical of that non-move. I agree with Nick. A slightly better BP via addition would help, as will Castro. After that, I personally attributed a lot of the underperformance to Molitor's subpar managing, some very key performance disappointments, some caused by injury, others not so explainable, and some bad luck. I for one am happy that Falvey believes the talent is vastly better than last year's record.
  12. bird
    And still, no one's double-parked.
  13. bird
    Very good point to bring up. The greed involved in MLB takes so much of the luster away for me. The fans screaming for their team to shell out tens of millions for a single player. The filthy-rich agents and players, who often appear less appreciative than we'd like. And of course, the never-satiated organizations. I don't have a clue what the annual operating costs of the facility will be, but probably not that much more than the cumulative salaries of the Dominican-born players in the Twins system. What would be really gratifying in my view would be a high-profile, MLB player-led effort to improve conditions in the DR, one that includes bona fide efforts on their part, with the help of their agencies, to fund-raise, not just cut an occasional check. After all, they represent about what, 20% of team rosters? They'd ake a difference awareness-wise for sure.
  14. bird
    It's somewhat ironic that Andy MacPhail is touting this major accomplishment on behalf of the Phillies. He was successful way back when (with a great deal of help from Billy Smith and the support and influence of Jim Pohlad) in finally convincing Carl Pohlad to open the pursestrings to establish a competitive budget devoted to building the international infrastructure. This new facility is the culmination of efforts that started a long time ago, and should put a seed of doubt in anyone's mind who is convinced that the Twins lack a commitment regarding building via IFA. This new facility should have a more noticeable impact than perhaps a lot of the other critical components of their buildup of capacity (scouting personnel and relationship-building in the DR most importantly).
  15. bird
    What team doesn't sign guys like these? If what you mean here is that this season will be a quasi-Ryan season because virtually all teams do certain things every single year-you know, like bringing in a few long shots to camp-and the new regime is going to do what all teams do, then I agree. Nothing new.
  16. bird
    It's not about adding veterans. Veterans can be crappy leaders and younger players can step into the breach and provide leadership. Your chances of being a useful role model improve rather dramatically when you can supplement your natural leadership instincts with a credible record of achievement. I would guess that if Chargois or someone had stepped into the high-stress role with consistent success they wouldn't be trying to fill a leadership void so urgently.
  17. bird
    No, but the site was a backyard BBQ at Andy and Lark MacPhail's home. On lawn chairs. A lot of the discussion I participated in centered on their (Jim and Andy's) belief that this costly long-term investment, despite the fact that there may not be results for more than a decade, was essential to the team's future. Keep in mind what the nature of the DR marketplace has been historically. The pipeline back then was controlled by a very few influencers. It took more than throwing a scout down there with a notebook and a checkbook. Things were improving for the Twins every year, albeit slowly as relationships were established and the first academy came to be. I'd categorically disagree with a description that international efforts have been languishing. They're still making aggressive moves there, as evidenced by the new joint facility in the DR. Based on a number of things, it's relevant to consider the possibility that the Twins actually have their act together to a much greater extent than what might be the consensus thought on the subject. Maybe moreso than a majority of the teams in MLB. Ramon Ortiz's thing is essentially irrelevant to the Twin's evolving story in the DR. That was just a FA event.
  18. bird
    This is total nonsense. I can give you ten reasons the Twins have lost 90 games in those seasons, back each reason up with solid logic and facts, and none of them would have a thing to do with the Twins doing a "bad job" of drafting.
  19. bird
    That they got a late jump in the DR is very true. Andy MacPhail, Billy Smith, and Jim Pohlad were beating on Carl Pohlad for years to approve a huge budget increase that would allow them to build the necessary infrastructure (scouts, facilities, relationships). MacPhail once told me it would take ten years for this investment to bear fruit. If we examine things carefully, we can see that we're just starting to see results that compare favorably to other organizations if we exclude the one-off Moncada-type events and focus on the traditional pipeline. When it comes to the IFA situation, the new regime is stepping into a pretty good situation.
  20. bird
    Nice thinking. The failure to acknowledge the impact of the draft order on results has consistently caused people to throw out faulty conclusions about who's any good at this drafting stuff and who isn't. Personally, I believe success is much more dramatically skewed by draft order than would be adjusted for by this formula. All teams, I think, have improved at doing their homework on 1st round selections. Still, there's a huge advantage to drafting early, with about 75% of top 10 selections making it, and most with massive impact on that team's WaR numbers, whereas the middle third has a success rate closer to 50% and the final third of first-rounders is closer to 25%. The actual historical numbers are probably not of great value because of the fluidity of things, but the point I'm trying to make is that the "skill" of an organization which has consistently drafted early during this period should be discounted meaningfully, and vice versa for organizations consistently drafting towards the end of the first round.
  21. bird
    I would say that this has very little relevance as an explanation or a desription. In realistically and fairly describing the nuanced progression of the talent pipeline, one has to start with an acknowledgement about what has to happen for a draft pipeline to produce a winning team. That starts with the fact that teams need opportunities to draft the occasional generational talent. Obviously, some of these guys are players that all teams missed on and that some team was fortunate enough, with a modicum of scouting acumen sprinkled in, to nab in a later round. Even Kirby Puckett fits into this category. The Twins have two players who have been accorded the status of possibly being generational talents, Sano and Buxton. The jury hasn't reached a verdict on them. Again, the Twin's problem has not been about the acquisition of prospective talent nearly as much as it has been about failing to manage and trade player assets as well as, say, the Chicago Cubs. So, if Sano and Buxton pan out as generational talents and a couple of others also emerge, AND if the new regime moves players like Dozier (a great example of superb drafting) along adroitly, the pipeline we're seeing today is actually quite promising, all things considered.
  22. bird
    Well said.
  23. bird
    Rebuilding connotes having nothing there. They rightfully acknowledge that we have talent to build around, so maybe the empty word here is "rebuilding."
  24. bird
    If I had a $20 bill for every time Bert said a pitcher "left the ball up" when in fact the pitcher did NOT actually leave the ball anywhere in the upper half of the strike zone when giving up another bomb, I would buy everyone on TD their very own copy of the next TD Prospect Handbook. Lazy and feckless. Both of them.
  25. bird
    Yeah, I think it probably speaks to their ability to discover and develop talent. WIthout examining it in more detail, one would wonder if they didn't let some serious talent get away. In my quick glance through American League rosters, only Seattle has more forme players occupying spots on someone else's 40-man. At least Texas has stayed competitive, so maybe their track record on trades of these players isn't so bad, I don't know. It's just one thing I'd check out if I were hiring from within their org.
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