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Major League Ready

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Everything posted by Major League Ready

  1. Major League Ready
    What did Chicago do? Tampa traded Snell and lost Morton to free agency and yet they have the best record in baseball. They have always been willing to part with players approaching free agency while they still have value. You are welcome to your opinion but IMO you don't trade these players if your only focus is next year. You trade them if you get the kind of return that makes you better for several years.
  2. Major League Ready
    Agree completely. Who should they trade that would yield high quality prospects? The only players I see netting that kind of return are Berrios / Buxton / Polanco / Arraez. Maybe Kepler if he plays better the rest of the year.
  3. Major League Ready
    I was on the fence with Darvish so I understand the attraction. The really top free agent pitchers have had a pretty good track record. The guys a notch below (IE Jordan Zimmer) have failed at a high rate. With Darvish his age and length of contract made me nervous. So many fail but then you have guys like Grienke and Verlander who have been fantastic. You need a crystal ball with pitchers.
  4. Major League Ready
    I am praying for Sano to catch fire between now and the break. He has always been a guy that goes cold for significant periods and I stated at the time he should not be extended. Have to agree it is not ideal to have AK in the OF with Larnach. The fact he can play out there when needed is good but most days at 1B would be ideal. Worst case scenario Sano can be the DH next year and we pray he is good enough to move next year or we decline the option in 2023.
  5. Major League Ready
    If they decide 2022 is a rebuilding year they could play Polanco at SS until one of the prospects earns a shot. That would give them great flexibility. I agree one of them should be traded but not Miranda as he could be Donaldson's replacement. It comes down to Arraez or Polanco for me with Gordon being kept as a utility player. Of course, this assumes we could we get a really good CF / SS or SP prospect for Arraez or Polanco? Also, does Gordon continues to hit and can he go to AAA and prove he can play CF. That would make him a valuable utility player. If not he is the easiest to cut. I would love to see the scenario where Gordon continues to hit, proves he can play CF and we get a great prospect for Arraez or Polanco.
  6. Major League Ready
    I agree with all of this except I see great potential the long-term outlook IF the pitching prospects pan out reasonably well. We will be positioned extremely well If 2 or 3 SP prospects do well. We have been spending plenty of free agents pitchers but its been multiple pitchers. Prospects panning out means they can sign 1 very good $25M guy instead of 2 or 3 decent guys. Yes, prospects fail. I am optimistic because they have a much better group of SP prospects than they have in a longtime IMO. Ober looks like a good bet to be a solid SP. Is he an Ace? No but he could be as good as Pineda for $10M less than can be invested elsewhere. Balazovic / Duran / Winder look like guys that could be top of the rotation SPs. I am less optimistic about Canterino but he looks like a back of the BP guy worst case scenario. They have a few other guys that also look like they could be MLB SPs. I don't think it's at all a stretch we get 3 MLB pitchers out of the group over the next 2 years. A couple of the other guys probably become BP arnms. Add to this some combination of Polanco / Arraez / Kepler / Kirilloff / Larnach / Garver / Jeffers and that's a nice group of young players at a modest cost. They could afford to add a very good position player and SP in free agency, especially when Donaldson is gone. I would envision something like this .... Balazovic / Duran / Winder / Ober / Maeda or perhaps a FA in the mix 1B? / 2B Polanco / SS Lewis or FA / 3B Miranda / OF Kepler / Kirilloff / Larnach + CF to be determined (perhaps Lewis) and Kirilloff at 1B) Gordon and Refsnyder as bench players BTW ... as long as we are wishing, I hope Javier stuns us all and continues to break out in a big way. Send Lewis to CF. And, if we do trade Buxton or Berrios, let's get a AA guy that is contributing in a significant way by 2022
  7. Major League Ready
    1) That's completely irrelevant to the discussion of decisions made this year. 2) They still would not be contending 3) We would have been without some key additions in 2019 when Darish was out all year. They could not have afforded him and all the other additions including Cruz. Therefore, that decision would have hurt the team in the best year they have had in quite sometime in order to be a little bit better in a year we are very bad.
  8. Major League Ready
    Who is suggesting they blow it up? I would view blowing it up as what Chicago did trading top players with multiple years of control. I am suggesting they are very unlikely to contend next year. Could they go out and make one last push next year in the last year of Berrios and Buxton. Sure, how is that going to be different than the last few years? IMO, becoming a true contender is going to require the crop of SPs that are nearing MLB ready become established. That does not happen over night. Again, my opinion is that process is going to take the rest of 21 through 22. They do not have the payroll capacity to go out and buy enough pitching. What would Tampa do MIke? Sure as hell not trade away top prospects or sign expensive free agents. Target 2023. They can put an exciting young team on the field in 2022 that will be entertaining and competitive. They will still have the core guys + Kirilloff and Larnach. If the young guys adapt to the ML level right away they might even be quite good. The only thing I am suggesting is they sacrifice Berrios and Buxton in 2022 if a trade nets an impact player(s) that will be part of the next 6-20 years of twins baseball. That's how Tampa stays good despite a huge revenue disadvantage. Everyone said they are just giving up when they traded Snell and lost Morton. Well, here we are and they have the best record in the league. Perhaps we should take note.
  9. Major League Ready
    The fact you felt it was directed at you does not make it so.
  10. Major League Ready
    Hindsight makes for pure genius. Colome and Happ were very reasonable additions. We can find countless examples of free agents that failed in every year for every team for a lot more money that were perfectly good choices. Easily over half of "high-end" free agent RPs fail. The majority of people on this board have called for the signing of a long-list of RPs that have failed, including a call to keep Wisler and Clippard. Most posters here called for Odorizzi. Turns out he has been bad but he was not a horrible choice. Let's not forget they could have signed Bauer and we would still be quite bad. People just feel better if they bitch about it especially if they can insinuate the problem is the stupidity of management.
  11. Major League Ready
    Sure with 20/20 hindsight Hill was the better choice but Happ was widely considered the better option during the off-season which is why he got paid more than 2X Hill. I thought Walker was a better choice but most people were not that high on him. We also can't reallly suggest they should have know to use Ober out of the gate when he had not competed since 2019. This is pure hindsight given Shoemaker failed. Regardless, we might be talking about a couple more wins. We can hardly look back and say these choices would have made much of a difference. BTW ... most people were feeling pretty good about Dobnak after he had a very good spring training.
  12. Major League Ready
    I agree which is why I capitalized "could". Pitching is always in demand at the deadline and Buxton has been having a Traut like season. Is it not possible to believe a team takes a chance this is Yelich type situation and trades for him in season? I don't think it's probable but I could happen.
  13. Major League Ready
    So what would you have done within the budget they have to work with in 2021? Most here advocated for Odorizzi. That would not be much better. Some said trade a bunch of prospects for Snell. That would be a little better but for all practical purposes insignificant. It's easy to complain. What would have been accepted here at the start of the year as a reasonable solution, within the budget, that would have made this team a contender?
  14. Major League Ready
    There COULD be some decisions to make to that end in the next 1.5 months.
  15. Major League Ready
    The point was they need to cash in on their trade value if possible. Keeping them through 2022 relinquishes that opportunity so just keeping them is the same outcome for the purposes of this discussion. The comments on signing them was directed at the masses that say we just have to sign them.
  16. Major League Ready
    Crushing to what? We suck and he is hurt half of the time. Getting a nice return from a playoff team that will gamble on him being healthy the next year and a half could be the boost this team needs. A blind focus on the present or even next year is exactly what we can't afford right now. This is not a $500M revenue team that can go out an buy the pieces next year so how are you turning this team into a contender next year. Extreme long-shot. They need to take and trade with a good return on anyone that is not signed past next year including Berrios and Buxton if the compensation is good. The idea that we can just extend this naive. The big clubs are simply able to outbid us and any other mid/small market team. Players like Buxton and Berrios that are brilliant at times are going to have their agents advising them to test the market. Berrios and his agent are hoping he gets paid like an ace. Buxton is probably hoping to get paid like a guy that plays 150 games/year at the level he played in May. The only way to some players are going to sign is if they get substantially over paid and that's not good for the team either. Maybe they crave the spotlight in a big market. Maybe they just want to play somewhere else. Maybe they want to get every last nickel and therefore insist on going through the free agency process, IDK but to just say they need to sign them is simplistic.
  17. Major League Ready
    The examples of players who have turned around a bad season are endless. Players should not be jettisoned at the first sign of trouble. They moved him to the pen 60 games into the season. It's not if they just ignored the problem. The next logical step was to see if he could provide value out of the BP. They also have to have a replacement. How quickly did you expect them to determine readiness with no Milb season last year and a late start this year? I would have much more difficulty having faith in an organization that did things without a thoughtful process. Just dumping Shoemaker is not a thoughtful process.
  18. Major League Ready
    Apparently pretty much every training staff in baseball is doing it wrong because there is an unprecedented injury rate this year and it's not even close. Why do sports fan so love to go right to assuming someone is incompetent? I have no idea what's going on. It's not my area of expertise. Perhaps someone here who actually has some credentials on the subject could offer some ideas on why the league is absolutely plagued with injuries.
  19. Major League Ready
    He started a little slow but since May 1 he has a wRC+ of 148. Only Garver has a better wRC+ but he has 1/2 of the ABs. His bat looks faster to me. IDK if he made an adjustment or it just looks faster when it's going well but he looks great right now.
  20. Major League Ready
    I hope they just recall Buxton because we are running out of bodies. They should have given Gordon some reps in CF while he was in the minors. They were asleep at the switch on that one. I would guess he is going to spend a fair amount of time at AAA this year if the injury parade lets up. Hopefully they put him in the OF and get a good idea how he adapts. He would be a much better asset if he can also play the OF. Gordon and Refsneider could be a great great bench tandem for the next few years.
  21. Major League Ready
    You are welcome to your opinion. In the consulting world it's considered gross incompetence to derive conclusions without in depth gathering of information and validation of that information. I guess I am really stupid because after 20 years of conducting this sort of assessment I would need much more information to derive any conclusions as to the competence of Mr. Baldelli.
  22. Major League Ready
    I am not siding with anyone. I am stating fact in that teams spend according to revenue and that's the way the world works. If suggesting that expecting spending to align with revenue is siding … you are welcome to that opinion. What you are asking is that we find an owner who unlike all the other owners is willing to forgo profit or even take a loss. That would be great but it but it’s a fanatical expectation IMO. If it's such a good idea, why haven't other mid market teams signed the top FAs? There has literally been one signing of the kind of FA (Bauer) by a mid market team in the last 20 years. That was Grienke and The Dbacks had just signed a $1B TV contract. That signing did not bring them success.
  23. Major League Ready
    That theory is popular with fans who don't think a little thing like a significant revenue disadvantage should stop them from spending like a large market team. I guess the theory is the big markets would make a good profit and the small market owners should take a loss. Not too many guys signing up to buy mid/small market teams under that premise. I would like to have an owner that was indifferent about financial concerns but it's certainly don't expect someone to spend 10 of millions/year to entertain me. There is also the fact that their actions (spending) are quite consistent with revenue across all the MLB teams. They consistently make a solid profit except when the team rapidly declines while they have a high payroll. In those cases, that problem is rectified quickly which speaks to their financial focus / goals. The Twins spending is relatively consistent with other teams of equal revenue. They all operate to make a profit. We should also keep in mind that the value of the team is completely predicated it's ability to produce a profit. These guys are not going to spend a billion plus to lose money annually as well as reduce the asset value. Perhaps more to the point, if they were willing to basically donate 10s of millions to a cause, I certainly hope they would donate to a better cause than a couple more wins for their baseball team. It is mind boggling to me to suggest they spend (donate) 20 or 30+ million a year to get 3 or 4 more wins in a given year when that money could be allocated to MUCH more worthy causes. I would add, if the theory is owning is fun therefore they should be willing to forgo a profit, why do we so readily accept the players focus on getting every dollar they can as they did during Covid?
  24. Major League Ready
    A "businessman" that has amassed a billion dollar net worth is not going to operate at a loss which is what the post you responded to is hoping to find. The constant complaining about spending is misguided. The appropriate thing to complain about would be that the Twins have half the revenue of the Yankees/Dodgers and a lot less than than several others. To complain they don't spend money they don't have is the equivalent of calling a guy cheap who makes $50K/yr because he does not drive a $100K vehicle. Small/mid market teams never operate this way. Are they all incompetent. Tampa has consistently been successful trading for players before they are established. Tatis Jr. was acquired for James Shields who was bad to horrible after the trade. Chicago's team was bolstered considerably because they traded away very good established players. Boston with an enormous budget compared to the Twins let Betts go. Where are they now? The Angels spent a fortune and and stink even after hitting the draft jackpot in Pujlos. How have they been doing. The Phillies signed Harper / Degrom and traded for Realmuto. How did that go for them? The bottom line is that we don't have the revenue to sign the "Bauers". Therfore, we can complain they don't spend money they don't have or we can embrace the need to draft / trade and develop. People with average incomes don't drive a Ferrari.
  25. Major League Ready
    Would you feel better if I had suggested it is easier said than done or it would be great if all our pitchers developed another effect pitch. I guess I could have responded the same way to the OP but I thought it was fair to suggest developing a change-up would make Alcala a great RP just as I thought it was fair to point out this is relatively true for all pitchers. Lighten up Francis!
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