Major League Ready

That’s not what sustainability means. The validity of most strategies / concepts is nullified when taken to an extreme as you have here. No MLB team has fielded a championship caliber team year after year. If stated as a goal, it means to do achieve this level as often or consistently as possible. Managing for sustainability means emphasizing things like analytics, player development, scouting, talent evaluation, conditioning, etc. These are practices/programs that promote sustained performance. These practices yield better drafts, trade results and maximizing player potential. It also means managing assets in a manner that maximizes the talent level and return on trades over the entire length of time a transaction impacts the organization as opposed to the immediate term or next year. There is a great deal of short-term emphasis among some fans and you will have a problem with any good GM as long as you remain short-term focused. Selling at the deadline this year is a good example. The Twins could have won a couple more games in a lost season. To forgo adding as many prospects as they did for a minuscule shot at winning the division, especially given they would have been huge underdogs against any of the playoff teams that made it would have been absolutely incompetent.

1) What does this have to do with how far off people were who insisted we should utilize a QO? 2) We have no idea what went on so to form any opinion is by definition a word I probably should not use here. 3) I absolutely loved having Escobar on this team. He had a big year but was under 2 WAR the previous 3 seasons. They will need to do something bigger if we are to become a contender. Polanco needs to be moved to 2B and moving Sano to accommodate Escobar makes no sense. Do something like taking a shot with Donaldson. That might be worth moving Sano to 1B. I am not sure how it makes sense to be critical when you don't have any idea what they have planned.

You lost me. You will have to explain the relevance of what happened long before the new FO took over. You see, I was hoping the would not follow the same pedestrian thinking and mediocre management practices that resulted in the ineptitude you describe.

I am profoundly aware that there are fans of this opinion. I would bet any amount of money you would care to wager that if we polled all of the ML GMs on if they would have been sellers in the Twins position, 90% would respond yes. The only reason I would not bet 100% is because there have been GMs that have proven they do not possess any long-term thinking.

We should look back on all the posts insisting a QO was a good idea because he was going to get close to $50M. He was a free agent and we got 3 prospects that are in our top 25. Should we have just held on to him and hoped he resigned?

If there is a profession where employees are coddled more than professional athletes, I certainly have not seen it. In the real world, when you are part of the problem, you don't get away with shooting your mouth off. Same goes for guys that have not been able to work. Jimmy Butler goes off the deep end because Towns and Wiggins get paid big and he did not. It's hard to put into words just how nice professional athletes have it. Play a kids game and get paid far more in a single year than the average American makes in a 50 year career. Poor abused players. You have got to be kidding me.

Which current players should the new FO have signed to new contracts other than maybe Escobar? Signing Dozier would have probably ended up a disaster. We could talk about extension candidates but that would be so speculative as to have no value. So what if players whined about them be sellers at the deadline. Do you really think we should not have sold at the deadline? Using that as knock is a real reach when they were doing exactly what they should have to improve the team so we are not in this position year after year. Dozier and Santana contributed very little and then bit@#ed about the team being sellers. The players don't perform and then complain. Then, fans support the players complete lack of accountability and disregard for the long-term viability of the team.

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.

He knows enough to gain a competitive advantage. If someone is beating you at a game you supposedly know more about, perhaps it's time to reassess how much you really know.

I agree and we don't have nearly enough basis to come to any conclusion. However, the new F/O has had enough time to implement process and practices that should have us very close to as capable as the top teams in terms of analytics. I am not sure just how long it should take to be on par without considerably more information but this type of transformation is done in every industry. My team did an operations assessment for one of the most prestigious and respected cancer research and treatment organizations in the world. I am under an NDA so I have to speak in very general terms but it suffices to say the performance metrics are far more complex and there are a lot more measures in that type of application. The result of that engagement was a 3-year plan to make them world-class. We audited the results 2 ½ years in an there was no question they had elevated to the top 1% when compared to all US companies across all industries. Building a MLB analytics team should not take 6-8 years. To be fair, improvements in that specific environment were more about systems and process than personnel. However, the requisite analytical skillset is not uncommon. The combination of that skillset and baseball acumen was virtually non-existent just a few years ago. Personnel with this skillset could be brought in (perhaps as interns) and this capability could be built to an elite level in 3-5 years.

I agree with you in concept but it should be noted that this is not the type of problem that requires years to build elite capabilities. Similar deficiencies are often identified in other industries. It is not uncommon for the leadership of the deficient organization to craft a plan to bring their organization to that elite level within a couple years. This is actually a relatively simple problem to fix. We don't really know how wide the gap is between us and Houston but the quote from Pressly is a bit concerning. These are the kinds of things a mid-market team has to excel in as it impacts so many aspects of building a winner and the cost is modest in relative terms.

I don't know why it's a mystery that a team that lacks the talent to contend in the short-term would trade good players. Why did Chicago trade Chris Sale?

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 would need to develop pin point control IMO. I don't see why so many people thought he was more deserving of a shot than the others. Stewart actually looked to me like his stuff would play better at the MLB level but he needs to improve his control as well. Mejia has looked pretty good at times and they won't just cut him so he gets a shot unless they trade him. What free agent SP is a good bet? Corbin had a great year but it's hard to trust he will sustain that level given he has not in the past.I would think Keuchel is likely to resign with the Astros. Who's else is a clear upgrade?

I think most of us would agree the bright spot for this team is we have a lot of inexpensive talent with potential. The question is how certain is this potential? How many guys on the 25 man do we think we can count on and how do we compare across all areas of the team against established contenders? Let’s look at each area. Starting Pitching – We have two good SP and no great SPs. Houston, Cleveland, Boston are grossly superior. Bullpen – We had one guy (Rogers) emerge this year. He is the only guy that has dominated and that is a relatively SSS. We can also reasonably expect May to be pretty good. All of the contenders have better to grossly superior BPs. Position Players – We have one guy (Rosario) with a WAR over 3 last year and he was terrible the 2nd half of the season. Has the league adjusted? I think he will probably equal his 3.5 WAR but I find it hard to count on him doing something he has never demonstrated the ability to do. I am not going to go through the exercise of comparing our 25 man to Houston, Boson or NY or even Cleveland. Any of those teams are filled with established players that are far better than our best. Every day is the time to act. The question is what type of investment should we make as part of this “time to act”? I think every single person here would trade decent prospects for an above average guy (Yelich) that breaks out to superstar status. Outside of this type of obvious scenario, do you commit every dollar of payroll budget you have for the next 3 or more years to free agent players or do you hold a little back to allow for a mid-season upgrade or addition next year? Do you trade Kirilloff or Lewis? How about any of our top pitching prospects.

I think signing Iglesias and moving Polanco to 2nd is huge along with a couple BP arms. One or both of them will hopefully be pushed out but that's ideal. Love the Donaldson move to as long as the market factors in the risk. Gonzalez was someone I was thinking of too until Austudillo came along. I know the baseball pundits don't think he belongs on a MLB roster and Gonzalez is a very good utility man but Austidillo was a breath of fresh air and he can BU at catcher. I would sit him down and have a talk about the importance of conditioning and then arm him with the help of a nutritionist and strength coach.

Also fair and also recognized. My vote for Verlander would have been a yes if the team was positioned even reasonable well but I did not think that was the case which I believe has been proven in no uncertain terms. Tulo - Hell no. Lucroy was a matter of price and control. The price was high for 2 years of control when I did not believe the rest of the team was anywhere near as good as the contenders. Darvish was a yes as long as the years did not exceed 5. Ellsbury was the biggest no of all and I was indifferent on Gray. I thought he was decent but would not move the needle. Let's recap. One deal (Verlander) would have netted a player that performed very well but we still would never had been a serious contender. Four of these deals would have been horrible and one (Darvish) is yet to be determined. It looks to be horrible at this point. That deal and others like it depend on the early years being great because the final years are likely to be diminished performance. The first year netted to contribution and I would not expect the 1st year back to be great. Of course, it is possible that Gray bounces back. The Milwaukee trade is not really an example of trading for an established elite player. They traded decent but not great prospects for a very good but not great player who broke out. I will take all of the deals like that we can find.

Fangraphs list his WAR at 2.6. Was the 1.6 a typo or does another source list him at 1.6? Regardless, his track record is a WAR of 2-3. Why cut him until one of our prospects proves they are ready unless you get a FA that is significantly better and those are in very short supply.

That's very fair but I thought it went without saying. The context of the post in question was that there are two very opposed views. Perhaps more to the point, some of us believe you don't trade elite prospects as was suggested with Berrios until you have an established core with the key being the established part. The other side of this argument is generally speaking that we should upgrade whenever the opportunity presents it self. Some of us are of the frame of mind that you don't push your chips to the middle until you have a worthy hand. The free agent portion of this debate is even more naive IMO. History is very clear that the very best free agents go to teams who are the top third in terms of revenue. Somehow people find it unacceptable that teams with far more financial resource win was is basically an auction. How is this surprising? The FA argument also tends to ignore that Minnesota is not a preferred destination even if we are willing to bid equal to the large markets. Having said this ... We have an unprecedented budget this year and I am very hopeful we can make meaningful FA additions. I too have unrealistic optimism because Machado is a big spend I could get behind.