Mr. Brooks

At least I now know whose blog to avoid. With that level of homerism, he might as well just call it "Thoughts from Dick Bremer." Sorry Seth, that's pretty harsh, but these confidence levels really do defy the results, and are not possibly objective.

There is not a firm date, since the exact numbers are not calculated until after the season. But a safe time frame to avoid super 2 would be right around the 2nd week in June.

It's not realistic to expect "consistency" from a prospect. Baseball is a tough game, young players, almost by definition, are never going to be "consistent", even the really good ones. If every GM demanded true "consistency" from every player, you wouldn't be able to find 25 guys to fill out a single roster, let alone 30 rosters.

I agree. But here is the area I find myself in, and why I'm so disappointed in Arcia going down, and Gibson not coming up: I used to say that there would be no joy in a .500'ish season. My philosophy before the season was that if you arent going to contend for a WS, you might as well be brutal, and get better draft picks. Well, I learned something about myself during that brief flirtation with .500 baseball over the first 5 weeks. I was wrong. I was enjoying this season a whole hell of a lot more than I enjoyed the last 2. I was under no illusions that this team had any shot at winning the division, and also recognized that it was a lot of smoke and mirrors, and likely wouldnt last, but at the end of the day, it WAS fun following a team that was .500, as opposed to the embarrassing garbage we've had the last 2 years. So, I wanted that to continue as long as it could. Yes, Arcia has slumped lately, but even so, he still is one of the 3 or 4 best hitters on this team. Sure, Gibson hasn't been the model of consistency that Sam Deduno and PJ Walters have, and no, we havent seen him throw a single MLB pitch, but I still feel very strongly that he would be easily one of our top 5 starting pitchers right now. And I keep hearing the argument (mostly on the radio, havent been here much) that, "relax, adding Gibson doesn't turn this team into a WS contender, so it doesnt matter", ETC., ETC. Yes, we all know that is true, but if Arcia and Gibson can each add a couple more wins, and maybe Meyer and heaven forbid Sano can come up in September and each add a win or so, then just maybe we could string out enjoyable baseball for the entire year. But, that dream is now dead. During the last 2 years I had the complete opposite stance in this regard, and perhaps its selfish of me to prefer mediocre results (after all, complete failure DOES yield a better draft slot), but I guess the further a long this embarrassing brand of baseball goes, the more and more I yearn for even reasonably competitive baseball from my favorite team.

I'd like to know how an organization almost completely run by guys you have complete confidence in finds themselves in this mess? Let me guess, you are going to pin all the blame on Bill Smith, a guy hand picked by Ryan (whom you have 99% confidence in to make good decisions), and who was an admitted administrator who relied on his scouts and other FO members for input (all of whom you also have 99% confidence in). I guess this organization is run by brilliant baseball people, and is only being held back by inept 1st base coaches, bullpen coaches, and AAA managers.

I'd rather have the guy struggling of late, over the plethora of guys we have who have struggled all year. But thats just me. I find it comical how Ryan expects "consistency" from prospects. Young guys are going to be inconsistent, that is part of the learning curve.

Can we please stop pretending that we have '27 Yankees talent in our lineup? Outside of maybe Doumit, who is really hitting much worse than could have been reasonably expected? Morneau is not the same player as pre concussion, his OPS is nearly identical to last year, right about what should have been expected. Given Willingham's age, and the fact he is coming off a career year, his OPS is pretty darn close to where it should have been expected to be. Sorry to say he wasnt going to repeat 2012. Mauer is right in line with his career norms. The entire rest of the lineup is basically guys with not enough experience or track record to have any expectation of coming into the year other than 'TBD'.

Personally I'd rather see Benson as the 4th OF'er than Wilkin Ramirez. At least Benson can actually play CF adequately.

When your corner OF is Willingham and Parmalee, you are going to have a higher than average BABIP against, that isnt bad luck.

Gibson needs to be more consistent, like Sam Deduno, the model of a consistent pitcher.

That is my point right there! Why is that hard to believe? What made you think this year would be any different? Its basically the same cast of characters as last year, but with the addition of 3 mediocre to terrible NL pitchers, and your best pitcher (Diamond) was due for a pretty significant regression. The only reason to think it could even be slightly better was a belief that maybe we'd get a decent amount of innings from Gibson and/or Meyer. But apparently Gibson has to throw consecutive perfect games before we see him, so scratch that idea.

The Span trade was great. We will most likely have gotten nothing for Revere though. Actually scratch that, we will have gotten whatever negative WAR "Vanimal" contributes by the time he is given a Blackburnish long leash to unleash havoc and terror on Twins' teams ERA's for years to come, so there is that. Maybe we get a few dozen decent middle relief/ mop up innings from May as well.

Tell me the reason to have Collabello on the roster over Arcia?

I'll venture to guess from the lack of serious responses that suddenly nobody is so eager to defend Worley's impressive "track record" at this point?

Why would he crushed for saying something to the effect of what I posted above? I disagree big time, I think he would actually score some points for the honesty.

I guess I just don't understand why this move was necessary. Even if he is out of options after this year, so what? There is still 4 months left in the season. He could have gotten hot for 6 weeks, at which point he probably would have been a better option as a 4th OF'er than Wilkin Ramirez.

Of course I knew that the pre season statements were BS. Perhaps you should try actually reading the OP once. My whole point is that there definately was something else he could say. Please tell me what exactly is wrong with saying something like, "The organization is not where we want it to be, and I want to put a WS contender on the field. In order to do that we may have to take a step backwards to take two steps forward. We have a lot of exciting young players that will be coming up over the next couple years, and I really think the fans are going to want to come out and see the emerging talent that will define this team for years to come." Frankly, I dont understand what is wrong with that type of honesty. They could do the whole, "get to know em" campaign all over again, and I really think it would go over a whole lot better than just flat out lying to the customer, which I think is very distasteful. I'm simply not buying this 'there is nothing else he can say' theory.

Spot on. Mauer is literally the least of our problems right now. Just think how much more awful this team would be without him. The ONLY remotely reasonable argument for trading him is the flexibility his contract would give us, but as you (and others) have pointed out, Ryan basically left the equivalent of Mauer's salary on the table the way it is, so there is no reason to believe that he would actually spend any of that money.

The declining attendance since they began being terrible disagrees with this statement.

I'm not sure what that has to do with evaluating them coming into the season. For example, of course Morneau is going to be below his career norm, he isnt the same player he was before the concussion in Toronto, and his career norm is weighted pretty heavily by his pre concussion numbers. Example 2: Josh Willingham is only 43 pts below his career OPS. Given his age (34) and the fact that he is coming off a career year, I'd say that is right around where he should have been expected to be. Expecting guys like Morneau (injury) and Willingham (age) to perform at their career norm is extremely inept, and is kind of my point here. That likely wasnt going to happen. It is the FO's job to take that into consideration.

If he stays healthy he will be an absolute no doubter first ballot HOF'er, and will be as close to unanimous as is possible (some voters wont vote for anyone first ballot.)

I think you are the first person to use the word "fair" in this thread. The people that this move is not "fair" to are guys like Mauer and Morneau. Those guys could care less about rebuilding and getting "a good look" at guys like Parmalee, Wilkin Ramirez, and Chris Collabello. They want to win now, even if that isnt realistic. And sending down your 3rd or 4th best hitter while guys hitting sub .200 get to play every day, and minor league journeymen like Wilkin Ramirez and Chris Collabello get to keep roster spots over Arcia is a slap in the face to those guys. The thing that is almost comical is how Mauer came out after he signed his extension and said something to the effect that he made it clear to management that he expected a contending roster to be assembled around him. Have they kept their word to you Joe? Or have they wasted now 3 of your prime years with basement rosters?

Yes. Just because they are casual fans does not mean they are brain dead zombies that can't remember the GM saying over and over again how competitive this team was going to be. It's not like he said it once in some off the wall publication. Anyone who picked up a sports section of a local paper from about mid January through April 1st would have seen these quotes. Equating casual fan to moron is a bit arrogant IMO. Even if they don't remember specifically when and how Ryan said it, it will have been imbedded into their thinking. I can't tell you how many conversations I had with casual fans coming into this season who were very optimistic about the team. When I'd ask them why they would say something like: "I like the changes they have made with the pitching staff." or, "Not sure, I've just heard that the roster has improved." Etc., etc.

I'd think its safe to assume that different sites having the same player with WAR's that far out of whack over a substantial sample size is probably an extremely tiny percentage. They are almost always very small differences by the end of the year.

WAR is not a stat, it's a metric. Slight difference. Saying WAR should be completely tossed out because it is calculated slightly differently by different sites is akin to saying that real estate appraisal is completely useless because one firm appraises your home at 250k and another firm appraises it at 255k.