Major League Ready

I would think a player with a desire to manage would start learning Spanish during the later part of their career. They have time in the off-season and a fantastic opportunity to practice and learn from their teammates during their final season(s). There is also lots of travel time coaches could use to learn a 2nd language. Obviously, that travel time can be used for other preparation but they could find the time just as many of us have to master additional / incremental skills for our professions.

You have never heard a reference to a players bat not being good enough to play a corner OF spot as an example? Offensive production matter in reference to position. The relevance is that playing at guy with a sub 750 OPS at 1B will put you at a disadvantage against ,ost teams. At least with Mauer we had a great defender. I don't know how good Kepler is at 1B but I doubt he would be anywhere as good as Mauer without a couple years worth of reps. You have lost me here. You start out supporting the Dodgers strategy and now you have come back with it would be a waste of Kepler's athleticism. I agree with the latter but you have contradicted yourself. Regardless, with someone of Bellingers offensive potency, it is possible putting Bellinger at 1B results in the best overall line-up. We are not so fortunate as to have a player with his offensive product where we might have the same situation.

I am sad to say I agree. The core or players I would not trade consists of Berrios Rogers, and Polanco (at 2B). I really value Garver's steady improvement so I am ok with him being considered part of the core. Buxton and Sano have so little value right now that I seriously doubt a deal comes along that would make sense to give up on their upside. If we could get a return representative of the best of Rosario, great. His lack of plate discipline drives me nuts. Aggressive is fine. Astudillo is aggressive but he does not swing at pitches 16 inches off the plate. It does not appear to be not pitch recognition. Therefore, it should be correctable. He should be getting better with experience but it appears to be getting worse.

I am not sure I go along with Rosario being consistent. His OPS was .622 for the 2nd of 2018. He was more consistent in 2017 but the league has figured out they don't need to throw it over the plate. Rosario was among the very worst in all of MLB in terms of swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. He is going to be an elite hitter if he develops plate discipline but I seriously doubt he is ever consistent going forward unless he becomes a more professional hitter. Many of his ABs the 2nd half were absolutely horrible.

The relative merit of following the Dodgers action is not automatic because some famous leaders used this phrase. It's merit is only relevant to how a given player is able to perform when compared to others playing that position. Bellinger has an OPS while playing 1B of 1.081 in 2017 and 946 in 2018. Your example will have merit when Kepler can come anywhere near this level of performance.

Resources = Revenue less operating expenses (basically). The relative net worth of ownership has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the relative financial resource of a team. For example, if Tampa's ownership group had 10X the Pohlad's net worth, they would still have half the financial resource of the NY Yankees.

Mike, I might be under estimating the return on Gibson. He only has one year of control and he produced 2.8 WAR. That’s not the kind of difference maker that teams are willing to give up top type prospects to acquire. With everyone clamoring (me included) for difference makers I don’t see the point. It makes more sense to extend him. If they are unable, ok, go ahead and test the trade waters. I also don’t see this team as being positioned to rebuild. We don’t have the types of veteran players that would allow us to acquire top talent. It just does not make sense to give up on the guys we have just yet. They have too much potential and waiting a year is not going to have any impact on the duration of the rebuild. What do you or anyone else think Gibson would bring on the trade market? I prefer an extension but I can see your point if they were able to get a great return.

I can't remember for sure but I am pretty sure I posted the summary of team profitability I put together a couple years ago. based on 10 years of Forbes reports. MLB teams are ptetty darn consistent in terms of spending / profitability and the Twins have no more profitable than other teams. Your position is uniformed. If you really are think differently than show us evidence. You can Google the reports year by year just as I did and compile a summary. This is tiresome and parochial thinking. No kidding a team with a couple hundred million less revenue does not spend like tome revenue teams.

The highlighted part of your post is a reality many fans do not want to accept. We live in an instant gratification society. However, I also agree with Yarnivek that rushing players can be a disaster. We would not be giving up development time because they are not ready yet. I would add that we have invested significantly in the current core and there are many examples of players that took time to develop. There is still hope for significant improvement from Buxton, Sano and Kepler and to a lesser degree with some other players. Why sell low in order to execute a plan to be bad for a few years when there really is no upside. Gibson is the only asset we could sell off at this point for a decent return and that return would be modest so why go there? We have plenty holes to fill so fill them. If most of our numerous question marks perform well, great, we can all enjoy some good baseball. We could even make some mid-season acquisitions if we hit the lottery and every things comes together but it does not make sense to rebuild just yet or push all of our chips in just yet. Someone is going to respond that you have to do one or another. Go big or go home, yada, yada. To them I say show me a realistic plan to build a team that can contend with Houston, Boston, and NY because leveraging our future to build a non-contender is the worst thing we could do given the strength of the teams at the top of the AL.

He can swing at anything he likes when he proves he can do that and produce consistently at a much higher level than Rosario has with the exception of the 1st half of this season. Do you actually believe he can consistently produce a 900 OPS with the plate disciple he practiced the 2nd half of the season of is your response for show? Of course, you won't answer this question because we both know Rosario's only chance of having a .900+ OPS for an entire season is to develop and maintain good plate discipline but you responded the way you did despite this knowledge.

Check back ... I used OPS for corner outfielders. What is obviously much more relevant than comparing to all position players. His career OPS of .784 is 35 points below the average of .819 for corner outfielders. A child failing the 6th grade would probably know better than to think a team would give value commensurate with a player able to sustain a .950 OPS. It was a tongue and cheek statement. There is absolutely no denying Rosario takes horrible ABs. The numbers don't lie and he was almost the worst in all of baseball. Fanaticism is not a good foundation for logical or even rational thinking. The situation with Sano is the perfect example. When I tried to say it was not too much to ask for a professional athlete to stay in shape and there was obviously room for a 6'4" 280lbs + man to lose some weight, there were people here who were absolutely incensed at my suggestion that he was out of shape.

You employ a different form of logic than I do or any MLB team for that matter. No team is going to make a retention decision based on a half-season performance measured by a single statistic for a player with over 2000 PA over 4 seasons. I simply pointed out that his 2nd half was a bad as his first half was good. I would make personnel decisions based on a larger sample size but I would give some weight to the most recent data. Rosario’s career OPs is 35 point below the league average. His OPS this year was still below league average. Apparently your logic dictates that focusing on the bad outlier is cherry picking but focusing on the good outlier (1st) half should be the basis for personnel decisions. I am not suggesting we should expect performance similar to either half year. However, is it logical to presume extremely poor plate discipline will not significantly reduce offensive production? Is it logical to believe Rosario will be able to perform at an elite level with horrible plate discipline? He ranked 271st for plate discipline out of 278 ML players with 300+ ABs. I think it’s logical to assume the league adjusted because Rosario was incredibly productive. The result was quite clear. The logic I employ would suggest his manager and coaches sit down with Eddie and perhaps even his agent and discuss the need for Eddie to develop at least modest plate discipline because I believe it is logical to assume ML teams/pitchers are going to continue to throw pitches that are extremely difficult for anyone to hit as long as Eddie continues to swing at bad pitches. If the team believes he is incapable of adapting, it might be logical to assume the adjustments the league has made will result in performance much closer to his 2nd half numbers than his first half numbers. In that case, it might make sense to trade him if you can find a team that believes he is he will perform fairly close to the 950 OPS he put up in the first half and are willing to provide value commensurate with that kind of performance.

I have been a big Rosario fan but the facts are the facts. There is no disputing his 2nd half was very poor. The league adjusts to players that are productive. He did not adjust back. As a matter of fact he is among the very worst in the league at swinging a pitches outside the zone. The good news is that plate discipline can be developed. Can or will Rosario develop it. Your guess is as good as mine but at present, I seriously doubt his approach will net above average offensive numbers going forward.

He could be very important to this team. If you don't care about that, we made a $4M investment followed by several years of development. Plus, we don't even know the facts. So, before we flush Sano, let's find out the facts and try to assist him IF HE DEMONSTRATES A WILLINGNESS to get it together.

This is how Twins position players ranked by OPS for the 2nd half off the season (After 6/30) Grossman ----- .852 Garver --------- .823 Cave ----------- .815 Polanco -------- .773 Kepler --------- .756 Mauer --------- .729 Forsythe ------ .648 Rosario ------- .642 Rosario's plate disciple is not existent at times and teams adjusted how they pitch to him. I had a man crush on this guy ever since I watched him in the Arizona Fall Championship but I am tired of watching his horrible ABs. Will he develop the discipline necessary to be a top player? I don't know and I am not sure we would get a big return for him because Al teams have learned how to nullify him.

The comments sure are in stark contrast to the outrage when a couple local writers questioned his character.

If you look at how ALL of the teams outside the top 10 in revenue acquired an "Ace" it was almost exclusively a trade when the player was still a prospect or developed them internally. (see Cleveland) I posted the last 20 years of FAs a year or two ago in this site. The only semi-reasonable comparison is Scherzer and the Nats incremental revenue over the Twins covers his salary. Some like to use Grienke as an example but they had just signed a $1.5 BILLION TV contract so unless the Twins triple their TV revenue it's hardly a reasonable comparison. If somehow they got it done, great but it's not a reasonable to expect it I simply don't agree that signing a "2" is pointless. This team would be considerably better adding a legit #2. The only other way to get an ace would be to pay a kings randsom to a rebuilding team. It would expect it would take something like Kirilloff plus Romero or Graterol + Gonsalves or Stewart + Wade or Blankenhorn. To go all-in given the state of team would be absolute incompetence. I am all for adding legit #2 through free agency. If they could get this done plus a couple BP arms through FA or trade it would be a good off-season. We also need a good middle infielder and the FA options are not good but Iglesias is a decent FA add or perhaps they can get a decent middle infielder by trading depth without giving up Kirilloff / Lewis or Romero / Lewis. A #2 + two good BP arms and a middle infielder would have me a great off-season and we would be positioned to have a realistic chance of winning the division.

I am pretty sure 56 is 8 more than 48. Granted, it's convenient to have more information now but projecting Cleveland's performance was part of that equation. That pitching staff with a 1-4 of Rameriz, Lindor, Brantley, and Encarcion projected to perform better than they had to date. I would expect the Twins to have factored this into their decisions. There is simply no way to get around the fact that Cleveland's team projected to do significantly better than the Twins with all of the original roster in place much less make up 8 games. I butchered the math earlier. They would have needed to go 42-24.

You are refusing to look at this objectively. The Indians are on pace to win 91 games. The Twins would have had to have gone 52-14 to catch the Indians. Are you really suggesting it is reasonable to think a team with a winning percentage of .462 was going to win at a .788 pace had they kept the players you mentioned? Cleveland’s 4th best SP has equal or perhaps even better stats than our best SP. Brantley's stats are better than our best offensive player. Their two best position players are significantly better than any of the Twin’s position players. Please explain how Cleveland is not good relative to the Twins. I would love to see what I am missing.

The first problem with this thought process is that you have a faulty assumption. Your assessment is based the assumption Santana would be back AND effective. He was not effective when he was back and in the end he could not overcome his injury. You better know he will be back and effective before you forgo adding a dozen prospects. However, let’s just say the best case scenario you laid out came together. How would the Twins have stacked up against the Indians? In other words, what were the chances of playing at a win rate to overcome a 10 game deficit with 56 games to play? They have two players (Rameriz and Lindor) that are legit MVP candidates. They are better defensively than the Twins counterparts and Faaaaaar better offensively with an OPS of .967 and .881 respectively. Even their 3rd best hitter (Brantley is better than our best offensive player (Rosario). 831 vs 800 OPS. What about starting pitching. Again, their 4th best guy is pretty equivalent to our best guy. Their two best SPs are among the very best in baseball. HUGE advantage Cleveland. I respect a never quit approach but where management decision making is concerned, not selling would have been gross incompetence IMO. Even under the best case scenario you applied, the Twins were very unlikely to keep pace much less make up 10 games. If the Indians only play 500 ball the rest of the way, the end up with 91 wins. The Twins would have needed to go 52-14 to tie the Indians. That’s assuming they play 500 ball. More likely, they would have to have gone at least 54-12 (.818) If you look at the decision to sell based on these facts and determine the opportunity cost ( a dozen prospects) would have been justified, we definitely disagree. If you look at these facts, any competent GM would evaluate this type of decision far differently than you have.

Reading between the lines, there are some people who just can’t accept that the Twins were sellers or as they see it gave up on the season. Ironically, most of those same people are complaining the 40 man is in horrible shape. Yet, somehow they look at a very poorly performing team with very little in the high minors and deplore the very actions required to rectify the situation. The disdain for “giving up” is an opportunity to portray everything they do in the worst possible light. Granted there are a couple things that were not handled ideally but to rant about the arrogant whiz kids auditioning for a gig in a larger market does not suggest an objective point of view. Teams selling off free agents in a lost season is baseball management 101. You can’t rant about how bad the team is positioned and at the same time ridicule the FO for selling. An Executive’s role and responsibilities are long-term in nature. Short-term focused fans are going to have a problem with a F/O looking to build sustainable systems, processes and practices. I want to watch a better brand of baseball year after year and short-term thinking is death of sustained performance.

It's possible to do both but you have to communicate on a personal level. This might be a silly example but the conversation between Billy Beane and David Justice in Money Ball comes to mind. I have no idea If this was an accurate potrayal but this is a good example. You can't have a relationship with the players if you completely delegate communication. Players are treating this as a business and they will accept the F/O doing the same if leadership takes time on occasion to explain why they want a given action and how it will benefit the individual.

Anyone that thinks that short-term has no business in a director position. Your example (IMO) has nothing to do with the original poster's position calling for decisions to be made based on sound business principals as opposed to emotion. Terminating sales people because they had one bad month would be the definition of incompetence and ironically an example of an emotional decision. If that director is making sound business decisions as suggested by the previous poster, termination or retention is based on ability. effort, competence, professionalism, track record, etc, as well as the cost associated with said sales person vs production.

I would like to know too but they are not going to broadcast the strategies they hope will give the team a competitive advantage. We will need to read between the lines. The people they brought on does imply some very specific things about their assessment of past practices, what needed to be done, and even what they are doing about it. These are people that have demonstrated thought leadership. They will bring with them practices that will be implemented here. This is probably the most crucial aspect of anything that has gone on in the last couple years. Of course, the impact of these actions will never be black and white and it will take a couple more years before we can judge the effect. This is never going to be accepted by the masses who demand immediate change.

230 would not be so bad. The league has learned how to pitch him and he is going to have a tough time getting above the Mendoza line if he does not figure it out. There would be little or at least much less made of this if there was no a year of control hanging in the balance. The team has given him a great deal of time at the ML league level (service time) while he has been completely inept at the plate. I can appreciate the extra year could cost Byron several million dollars, assuming he gets it together. However, he was also promoted rapidly and kept at the ML level while batting exceptionally poorly so he should consider that service time was increased to his benefit.