Bill Parker

Nick, all fair points, except I don't think the alternative is any better. As I think I demonstrated pretty well above, it's going to take a miracle to contend in 2013. The likely effect of an active winter in free agency would be to make them a 75-78 win team instead of 70-72. That's not, despite Jim's contention just above, going to do anything to keep fans interested, and history has plenty of precedent for that, too. It's just building a more expensive loser, and you're facing a future just as uncertain as under the rebuilding plan, except that in the event the pieces do start to fall into place and you're ready to make a push in 2015 or so, the payroll is saddled with the aging vets' contracts you signed two years ago.

Wait, what? They didn't destroy anything, or at least not for financial reasons. They traded Hardy, stupidly, but it was because they didn't like him, not because he was expensive. They brought Thome and Pavano back. They let Cuddyer and Kubel go when other teams were willing to pay them way, way more than they were worth, and brought back Willingham and Doumit, better players at better prices. The team was "destroyed" by injury, not financial decisions.

False. That's exactly the problem with trying to rebuild through free agency -- by definition, you're overpaying. If you land a free agent, you're paying more than all 29 other teams are willing to pay for that free agent. If that's "market value," something's really screwy with how you're defining the market. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winner's_curse Math and stuff, but this is a pretty good read on bad teams signing free agents: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9869 Totally agreed with your #3 (though the full-on rebuild is definitely the better course, IMO).

Oh gee, would you? Thanks. This stuff is so hard for me. You made the point in response to me pointing out (and see it in more detail in response to Jim above) that payroll really doesn't matter to this team, right now. But the insult is appreciated anyway!

Really, you want to spend Yankees money? I'm not sure you could do that in one year and field a playoff team (Matt Kory tried on Baseball Prospectus a week or two ago and it was so-so), but I was trying to retain some semblance of realism here. And even the Yankees, most years (not so much in 2012), have some pre-free-agency homegrown talent that helps out, more of it than the Twins currently have.

Brainwashing, Jim? Please. I have nothing against the current front office, but I can't say I've ever seriously listened to anything they've said publicly. It's just good baseball sense. Can you list some examples of teams that have lost ~200 games over the preceding two years, have tried to fix all their problems in the short term and with money, and have seen it go well? Because I can't think of any, but can think of quite a few counterexamples. When those teams get better, whether it takes one year or five, it's because they had young players develop and THEN, at a time when free agent adds could actually make a difference, have put up the money. The Twins currently have exactly three big-league quality pitchers: one who is a #4 starter on a good team in Diamond, and a short reliever from either side in Perkins and Burton. So they need at least three quality starters and two bullpen arms to turn this team around. Say they outbid every other team (read: overpay) for Greinke and two of Sanchez, Dempster, Lohse, McCarthy, Saunders, Marcum, Lewis and Kuroda. That'd be probably something like $30 million (at a minimum) for 2013, plus huge outlays going forward. You've still got a crap bullpen to deal with, so throw another $8 million or so at that, probably with commitments for 2014 as well. You've put together a rotation that could be pretty good, if Diamond repeats and everybody stays healthy, and a bullpen that might be pretty good (but they're inherently fickle and the free agent market for relievers is almost always a losing play), along with an offense that was a little below average in 2012 and doesn't have a lot of room to grow, and has a ton of injury/collapse risk. If it goes perfectly well, you may be spending something like $140 million next season on a team that's slightly above .500, which in the Central isn't too far from contention. If it doesn't, if one or more of the free agents is injured or suddenly gets old or Mauer, Span and/or Morneau are hurt again, not only have you thrown away a ton of money, but you've completely crippled the team going forward, for at least the next two years. At some point you do run out of payroll room, and spending a big chunk of it on a hope and prayer now makes a lot less sense than saving it to spend on a much better bet later. I don't care what the front office says -- and if his public comments are to be believed, it sounds to me like Ryan is trying to sign some pitching, which would concern me -- the plainly right thing to do is to sell off every asset that's worth more now than it will be two years from now, wait until some of the prospects who might contribute to the next good team are really ready to do so, and then open up the pocketbook. Or, then, roast them if they don't. Spending significant money right now, as has been shown time and again throughout the history of free agency in baseball, is just not a winning proposition.

No, they couldn't. That kind of thinking is how decent teams become the late-1990s Orioles and Dodgers. There's a time when opening up the checkbook makes good sense (the Tigers now, the Twins three years ago), and a time when it doesn't (the Twins now, the Tigers a decade ago). There's no amount of money they could throw at this to help things in 2013.

Yep, that's since been added, and that's really all it took. Now it's great.

I have to agree to some extent with the "out of context" thing. From this post, Bowden seems to be stating as fact that "The Twins will be looking to trade Justin Morneau, perhaps in the near future." Which he does, if you take the thing out of context. He also says "This might be going out on a limb a little too far, but it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want here," which is the functional equivalent of saying "This probably won't actually happen, but." So I think to ascribe the opinion to Bowden without making any mention of any of the qualifiers is a bit misleading. And of course anyone could click over and see it in context for themselves, but come on, this is 2012! No one reads anything anymore!

I'd love to see an explanatory comment from whoever voted for Blackburn... I went Baker, but I think Liriano is a defensible answer.

Hmm... Metrodome Target Field Kingdome Safeco Big A Dodger Stadium Petco Jack Murphy Wrigley US Cellular Miller Park PNC Park RFK Camden Yards Fenway Doesn't feel like that should be it, but I think it is...

I hope this isn't an abuse of this forum -- I stand to gain very little, and only indirectly, from more pageviews on this -- but I thought people might be interested in my (free) article over at Baseball Prospectus today on why I think people are giving up on the Twins too readily, and why I still hold out some hope for 2012. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=16164 When people have asked me, I've been giving my outlook in percentages. I think there's about a 40-50% chance that they're very bad again (let's say 50), and a 35% or so chance that they're improved and healthier enough to get back to mediocre, somewhere within a few of .500. But, that leaves a 15% chance that everyone is healthy, everything clicks back into place, and they're actually really good again--maybe not good enough to beat the Tigers, but enough to keep it interesting. And I think people are overlooking that chance and ignoring just how much we don't know about all those injuries and how they're likely to play into 2012.

I just don't trust any of the metrics that have attempted to measure outfield arms. (The obvious response is they're better than a computer game, and that's true, but I'm relying more on what I think is common sense, which the computer game got me thinking about.) I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the general consensus is that Span's arm is considerably better than Revere's. I mean, of course you move back and forth according to whether you've got a left- or right-handed hitter up there. But with a RHB, expect Span to cheat less toward left than he would if, say, Delmon Young were in LF. They'd have to be incredibly stupid not to play it that way, and I don't think they're incredibly stupid. I agree with you. It's pretty good either way -- we're probably talking about a couple of runs either way over the entire season. I just think Span in center probably gives you the better chance of saving those couple runs.

Diamond Mind Baseball, the simulation game, teaches me that center field is the most important position not only for range, but for OF arms. I don't know for sure that that carries over to real baseball, of course, but it makes sense. You have to make some pretty long throws -- many about as long as your typical throw from RF -- and you have to make a ton more of them. In that game, a bad outfield arm can cost you something like 10-12 runs per year (vs. 2-3 runs from a left fielder, 5-7 from a right fielder), and as I think about it, that seems about right to me. I'd put Revere in left for that reason. There are a lot of teams on which Revere would be the best defensive option in center, but I don't think this Twins team, assuming Denard Span is healthy, is one. Span himself has excellent range, and an averageish arm. By my reckoning, to make it worth putting Revere in center, his range would have to be 7-10 runs a year better than Span's, and Span is good enough that I just don't think there's anybody who would reliably be that. I think the balls Span doesn't get to that Revere might have will be more than outweighed by the extra bases Span's arm prevents. It helps, of course, that you've got Revere's range in LF, not dragged down (to nearly the same degree) by the bad arm.Then you free Span up to kind of cheat toward right-center, minimizing the impact of having Willingham (or, gulp, Doumit) out there, and when he makes the plays a good RF might have, you don't have to cover your eyes when he winds up to throw it back in... I think it's extremely close, but that Span in CF is just barely the better option.