bird

Ryan did not leave the job a month ago. And it was a question. It was a question he was asked today, and he answered on it the spot. He didn't ponder the question for a month, did he? Amazing what people can fault others for....

Yeah, this is why I take no stock in the statement. Owners give GM's and managers votes of confidence all the time, and for very good reasons. No doubt Pohlad would like to honor Paulie's contract. No doubt he agonized prior to firing Ryan. Let's not get too up in arms about what he says to the media when asked these types of questions. Same with the "media guide" comment. If the Pohads were more keenly concerned about their personal image, they'd get training from a PR guru, who would have instructed Jimmy to say, "there will be a process" instead of "well, I read through all the media guides." And, when the outside search firm recommends a process, the Molitor thing will be a non-issue IMO. I'm not worried about potential candidates being scared off by this whatsoever.

Yeah, for sure, you know, unless they round up everyone that was hired under Terry Ryan and fire all of them.

Huh? From Radcliffe's single quote, how does anyone derive anything even remotely connected to an absurd allegation that the Twins, for two decades now, are guilty of espousing rhetoric that sounds like, "well, we've been bad, but other teams have been bad too" ?!? There's just something very distasteful to me about taking one quote, in this case from Radcliffe, and (disingenuously perhaps?) trying to convert it into evidence that the Twins have been throwing out a bunch of rhetoric for two decades like what was suggested. On top of that, if anyone with even a sinew of fairness reads the Radcliffe quote in full context, they'd hardly portray him as making excuses.

You have never heard this type of rhetoric from the Twins, ever. On the other hand, this is the type of false accusatory rhetoric we've heard from TD contributors for the past decade.

Or maybe shave the name Mauer in your back hair?

I agree. About the bad baseball decision I mean. The TR bashing is really refreshing.

I agree. They were loaded coming into the year, and they've gotten deeper and better. Contast that to Detroit and KC with none, and CWS with only Fulmer at #73.

Do you think this stuff is still a problem?

I don't have an opinion about Nola versus Gordon. I'll leave that to all the experts and wait until a verdict is actually possible, but I will say that Gordon is doing fine by all accounts. And give me a list of experts that thought Stewart was the wrong choice ? Or even a bad choice? If we try hard enough, we can find some odd thing to prove they are a bunch of putzes. I'd label your examples here as odd things.

Were either available for the Twins to draft?

But don't confuse a discussion about causes with laments about results, Mike. We all know what the results have been. And no one is suggesting the bad ERA is due to unlucky wind gusts at Metrop[olitan Stadium, right? Specifically, I have simply been questioning how much any true incompetence at drafting and developing front line starting pitching factors in on the results.

...my bad, but it strengthens the argument...Cleveland missed on Kluber four times too....idiots...

No, the best you can hope for in drafting and development is to not miss too often when you get a shot at a premier prospect. They've had early selections in recent years. None of the pundits outside of some here on TD perhaps are criticizing the Twins regarding Berrios, Jay, and even Stewart for that matter, and are praising them for Gonsalves and a few others. And no, Terry Ryan didn't get his job because he's a scout by upbringing. He got it mainly because five dozen people are willing to work together under him, and because he listens to them. I'm not interested in having a discussion about what happened with a few position players, especially pre-Target Field economics. If you want to talk about whether Gibson was a good pick at #22, or Wimmers was not, we can swap a story here or there about a success here and a failure there. It's the draft. Throw a dart at any year, open up the file, and count the first-round pitching failures. The Twins haven't cornered the market on early-round disappointments.

Worse at what? FA signings? Trades? I remain unconvinced that they are poorer at drafting and developing. The quantity argument has massive holes in it. Their main failure has been front line starters. Someone said earlier that the Twins have drafted and developed more poorly than their AL Central counterparts. Really? First, exclude Sale, Verlander, Bauer, and Rodon. All top 5 selections I think. The Twins drafted after those players were taken. Everyone missed on Kluber. They all missed four times, except the Indians. They only missed on him three times. So, give Cleveland and KC credit of one IFA apiece, Ventura and Carrasco. Because Salazar and Quintana were originally signed by other teams. And there you pretty much have it. Not better, not worse at building their own. Just clearly worse at constructing a pitching staff using all other available avenues, which I think pretty much every one of us sees as having been a problem for a long long time.

I'm questioning one simple opinion, which is that the Twins are worse than most other teams when it comes to drafting and developing pitchers. I constrained my history to the first round. We're discussing pitchers. We're discussing front line guys, #1 and #2 guys. When we look at aces selected in later rounds, we'll find that most clubs missed on them. That makes it pretty hard to argue that the fact that the Twins missed on Kluber and Zimmerman and Arrietta proves that they are deficient at drafting and developing pitchers, unless your argument is that all or most clubs are deficient at it.

You make sense here. There's a good chance that there were problems with the "thought process" back in 2010, pre-Target Field, and there's a good chance we still have a "thought process" problem in the GM's seat when it comes to the financial part of things, and with the risk tolerance piece. But there's at least some evidence that this is no longer a problem, what with guys like Jay, Stewart, Berrios, Gonsalves et al in the queue.

I don't know who ever said it was never the Twin's fault that they haven't produced good results over 16 years, or over 26 years, or whatever. I for one think it is very much their fault. I disagree with your first sentence though. I believe it's an erroneous conclusion that has become a "fact" for many now. There are other factors at work here, Mike. It's my theory that they are maybe nominally better or nominally worse than average at drafting and developing starting pitching, and that this has been the case for quite some time, perhaps as long as a decade or so. It's everyone's prerogative to ignore the facts I laid out earlier in the thread. Could it be other factors, such as avoiding free agency for much of this period? Bad coaching at the MLB level? I don't know why the long=term numbers are so abysmal. But I just don't see good evidence that the cause of this is inferior drafting and development of starting pitchers. For fun, make a list of very pitcher, in both leagues, that you believe are or have been clear #1 or #2 guys. Next, eliminate the names on the list that were unavailable to the Twins in the Rule 4 draft. Next, make a list of every team that passed on each of the remaining front-line starters in each round they were passed up. If you want, you make the list, I'll do the grunt work. Now, we may discover a franchise or three with a sweet record of finding later-round gems, or IFA gems, We also may find a team or two with a knack for trading for them, and a team or two with a good FA track record. I don't know. But my hunch is that we're going to have a very long list of teams with approximately the same type of record when it comes to drafting and developing starting pitchers. That's always been my pushback. Is it a problem with drafting and development competence, or is it something else? And my pet peeve is ignoring the fact that Sale, Kershaw, Verlander, Strasberg, and three dozen other #1 and #2 guys were never available for the Twins to draft and develop.

I clearly did NOT misunderstand you, and I would not, under any circumstances, trade any of the players you're mentioning, Plouffe, Park, Grossman, Suzuki, and Nolasco, unless the return I got was, at the very least, prospects rated by the Twins as C+ or better. I'd do whatever it takes to sweeten the pot, and that includes being on the hook for an entire contract if that's what it took to convince the other guy to give up a real live prospect instead of an "anything I could get" prospect. I don't know enough to have a strong opinion about what level of prospect each of these guys might attract in a straight-up trade, but I highly suspect you have a low hypothetical value on maybe all of them except for perhaps Grossman. For fun, go out to Sickle's site and tell me which Twins prospect among his Top 35-40, if any, you'd say most closely matches your own perception of the trade value for each of the five. Then, focising on only the C+ or better prospects, let's talk about how much of say, Plouffe's salary they'd have to assume to entice the other team into a trade. Example: We have Zack Jones at AA. I think he's a C+ prospect in Sickle's mind. If you needed a 3B, would you give him up for Plouffe? I'm not sure, but I think a lot of people would feel that the team acquiring Plouffsie would be doing well with this trade. So, maybe, by your definition, Zack Jones represents "anything I can get" and we're basically in agreement?

Let's look at this history more closely: In 2001, forgive them for taking Mauer instead of Mark Prior or Dewon Brazelton. There are no #1 or #2 in the first round of that draft. In 2002, we took Span #20, and were one of 4 teams who passed on Matt Cain at #25. No other missed front line starters here. 2003, Matt Moses #21, zero aces or #2's selected this year. 2004: Plouffsie at #20, Perksie at #22. Coulda had Hughes one pick later than Glen. 13 teams passed on Gio Gonzales before he was a late round pick. That's it. 2005. Garza at #25. 17 teams passed on Buchholz thereafter. Coulda had Pelfrey if we selected #9. 2006. Parmelee at #20, Ian Kennedy at #21, no other front line guy thereafter. 2007. Revere at #28. Not one front line starter selected after him. 2008. Hicks at #14, then the infamous duo of Gutty and Shooter. Best pitcher in the next 25 picks that year was Lance Lynn at #39. Lots of teams "missed", right? 2009. Gibson at #22. Find me a decent pitcher later in that round. 2010. Wimmers at #21. Okay, 17 teams had a shot after that at Noah Syndergaard, and 20 missed on Tijuan Walker. 2011. Michael at #30. Henry Owens 5 picks later, Michael Fulmer 17 picks after that. I submit that the first problem has been draft slot, not position allocation. I submit that it's ALWAYS hard to draft a front-line starter, but especially when you had no shot at Sale, Verlander, Strasberg, Greinke, Kershaw, Hamels, Harvey, Cole, Fernandez, Scherzer, Foltynewicz, Kazmir, Pomeranz....let alone Danks, Weaver, Porcello, and another dozen or so slightly lesser guys. I submit that luck has more to do with it than we tend to think. So do injuries. It's not formulaic. Hell, Brian Matusz was the #3 selection, and I think Gonsalves just out-dueled him at AA. I mean, please, go out and review these drafts (not you specifically tobi) and tell me what I'm missing here. But for God's sake, don't come back with that silly argument about all the front-line starters you can list, all ten of them, who were available to the Twins and all the other teams, some times for many rounds, and contend that the Twins just can't draft and develop good pitching. People were saying that about middle infielders when we had a dearth of them too. I predict we'll see opinions expressed here that they just don't know what they're doing when it comes to catchers...or maybe we have already,

What an interesting thread. Nicely done, Nick, and thanks to everyone for the really thoughtful contributions.

How ironic that, if we were to trade Mauer now, we'd have to settle for a middling relief pitcher.

I remember not liking the trade, not because I had an opinion about the players involved, but because it reminded me of the Capps for Ramos deal, which sickens me yet today.

I too would shop just about everyone on the team, including Rosario. But unlike DaveW, I would not take "anything I could get" just to rid myself of any of these players. For players who clearly do not have a future with us past 2016 (and the 2016 "future" itself is pretty meaningless standings-wise of course) I still am holding out for fair value in return, or better. Why? For one, the last thing this franchise needs is to clog the system with more "anything I can gets". People are saying they'd dump Nolasco for a C prospect. Do they realize a C prospect nets you someone else's Logan Darnell or Aaron Sleger? I mean, why bother? If that's all anyone will pay for Nolasco, I'm reeling him back in. If my manager wants, he can have him languish in the bullpen. Same with Plouffe, he's a bench bat if we can't deal him. The difference between getting a crummy C prospect for him now versus releasing him over the winter doesn't faze me. For two, I'm thinking that we here at TD are underestimating what we might be able to get for some of these guys, Plouffe and Ervin Santana in particular, but others as well. So, I'm holding out for C+ or better prospects. It's doable, even with Suzuki, and Abad. I'd entice things if need be by taking on contracts very aggressively. I'd view doing this as a way of simply paying already spent money for upgrades in minor league talent. I'll constantly remind myself that the newly acquitred assets will become part of a more fluid population of prospects, because they may become useful trade pieces for me later. C prospects are not useful as much more than fungible commodities used to "fill" a trade. There's a vast difference between "anything I can get" C prospects (Wimmers) and a C+/B- guy (Chargois). Caveat: the Twins might view someone Sickles rates as a C prospect a good bit higher, and my definition is about what the Twins think, not what Sickles thinks. For example, Sickles viewed Yorman Landa as a C prospect, and I'm guessing the Twins would have labelled him as more of a B- guy at the time. I'm just not terribly concerned about getting AAA guys time in Target Field this season, with the exception of Berrios, Chargois, and Polanco. Jason Wheeler isn't being stifled in AAA. Anyway, as GM, I'm really hoping to get overwhelmed by offers for Ervin Santana, Dozier, Grossman, Rosario, Gibson, Abad, and any other player who could possibly factor into the 2017 plans. Those are strictly sell high efforts. I'm looking for modest overpays for Kintzler, Nunez, Nolasco, and others who can more readily be replaced but still have value and a role to play. I'm looking for fair trades for the guys who are blocking better players. You know, guys like Plouffe, Milone, and Mauer.

Okay, I can accept that perhaps their rate of success at signing and developing (and yes, they get some credit for successfully developing Liriano, Ramos, Guerra, Hendriks, Solarte, Pinto,, and even Ortiz) international prospects is in line with their success at drafting and developing above-average position players. If that's also suboptimal by your definition, fine. Are you limiting your observations to 2014? Sano and Kepler and Rosario, and it's still suboptimal? Compared to...? I've never been one to tout their expertise as superior to most other teams with either domestic or foreign prospects. But I strongly believe that the constantly stated opinion that they are somehow inferior, worse than average at it, is false, and unsupported by the evidence. This holds true in particular when one examines more recent history, say, the past decade, and when one rightfully factors in the main mitigating circumstances, such as draft position. What happened 14 years ago, when Jose Mijares was signed, hardly tells us a thing.