Major League Ready

How about the LuCroy thread. Was there a Sonny Gray thread or was that just part of a more general discussion. How about the Darvish thread where some that suggested just pay whatever it takes? How about when Ellsbury was a free agent. I recall posters insisting he was a great investment. These risks also make a lot more sense when you are Houston and you have a great core to build around. So what if we would have gotten Verlander. Is the goal to build a 500 team? The one thing that is certain is that elite veterans are only traded by teams looking to acquire players that will make them contenders in the future. What is the point of giving away the players who have the potential to make you a contender to get to 80 or even 85 wins? That's a very good way to stay mediocre for a long time. Of course, this assumes the veteran performs and remains healthy. Most of us who have opposed trading for veterans do so because we have not believed these acquisitions would get us even close to a true contender. There is an extreme emphasis on the immediate or short-term here. People who think that way do not retain GM jobs so those of you who are looking for immediate gratification or going to be disappointed most of the time.

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.

Let’s start with the suggestion this is a strawman argument. My argument is based on your post that the FO could have done much better last off-season. Is this not your belief? Asking for specifics is anything but a strawman argument. Unless you provide specifics, we can’t possibly measure the relative merit or impact of what you are suggesting. There are also many cases where fan insist on solutions that are not really available. You need to demonstrate viable solutions were available and at least estimate the impact. For example, had the signed a different catcher, what could have we anticipated in terms of WAR, for example. The Twins needed to improve by 14 games to win the division. I would love to see the transactions that would have gotten us to that point. Why do you ask “Why should this team rely solely on Royce Lewis & co. to all hit the ground running a few years from now”? How did you possibly conclude this is my position? That would be a good example of a strawman. This argument can only be made while conveniently ignoring most of what I wrote given we have been debating the merit of savvy trades, usage of international bonus pool, drafting and development, as well as free agent signings. I also framed my position with two elements. One is that the context was top prospects as opposed to "Royce Lewis". The other is the timing of trading top prospects. GMs don't trade top prospects until they have a proven core in place. Our core is not only unproven, they are quite suspect. It's ironic that you highlight the risk of prospects and then insist that it's a sound strategy to make long-term decision based on the assumption the current suspects are all going to emerge. That is anything but sound management practice, especially given they would need to emerge as superstar in order for us to contend. BTW … If you don’t include cost, we can’t possibly determine if the solution is feasible. The statement that costs are not relevant is extremely naïve. Draft like Houston was meant conceptually not literally tank and get several #1 and #2 picks. It means draft well. Mid-market teams must draft well that is no secret. The previous regime missed on some extremely important picks. How much better would last season and our future been had they taken Benintendi and Nola. I can’t blame them too much for Rodriguez but these are the decisions that you have to get right to contend with teams that have made great personnel decisions and have bigger budgets. Trade like Cleveland does not literally mean go out acquire an entire staff of SPs as prospects and trade relatively little to get them. I would guess they believe some of the deadline acquisitions have this potential. Just one such acquisition is big. The success of teams outside the top revenue producers requires effective identification of potential and some savvy trades to acquire players that develop exceptionally well.

I noticed you still have not provided the post number(s) where you specified players and cost. Does it or does it not exist? Sure those players have promise and no I have not thrown in the towel. That is an entirely different frame of mine from trading top prospects in the hope the guys that have not yet shown after 3 years that they can play with any consistency. I am not sure that's what you are suggesting because you refuse to respond with any specificity. However, I can only assume you are suggesting trading away most of our best prospects because that's what it would take to get the type of players we need to actually become contenders. I would done very similar to what the F/O did last year, add without levering the future. Had Buxton and Sano proved themselves last year, we still would not have contended in a meaningful way but we would be in great shape this year with salaries coming off the books. Had they made this step forward it might have even made sense to trade some of our better prospects this off-season. However, the core of this team as compared to Houston, Boston, NY, and Cleveland is not in the same stratosphere and to bet the future with such a large gap and depending on massive improvement from multiple players would have been gross incompetence. DO the posts exist where you say you provided specific players and cost or are you simply refusing to admit that you were complaining about the incompetence of the FO when you know there really was no realistic plan to put a contender on the field given the injuries to Saantana and Castro, the Polanco suspension, and poor play from several players?

What core? Two weeks ago the conversation was that the current roster was a disaster. Now we are wasting our core? The Twins top 4 position players in WAR were Rosario / Kepler / Escobar & Dozier with a combined WAR of 9.4. Two of them were free agents this year. Cleveland’s top 4 had a combined WAR of 21.3. Of course, where Cleveland’s core is immensely better than the Twins is starting pitching. Our top 4 SPs had a WAR of 8.8. Cleveland’s top 4 had a WAR of 21.3. We have one very good but not elite SP. We have one BP guy (Rogers) that emerged this year. Rosario was our best position player and he is not a guy I want to rely on in the playoffs or in general for that matter. He might have the worst plate discipline in the league. Our 2nd best position player was Kepler who is an average player that still could improve. Beyond that we have a bunch of question marks. What core. To trade away key assets building around this core would be the height of incompetence. I must have missed the post where you provided specific free agents and trade candidates with their salaries and prospects required to acquire them. Just give the numbers of the post(s) and I will sincerely apologize for suggesting your complaint regarding the approach the team took was the typical ramblings of fans that think this is fantasy baseball and they can just go get any player they want in free agency or trade depth for superstars. Let’s not waist any more time on this. Give the post numbers with the specifics.

You have a response to everything but continue to refuse to respond when any specifics as to to what they could have realistically done or should have done to avoid the failure of 2018. say nothing when asked what they should have done. They did not need to pick at the very top. They needed to pick well like Houston or Boston. Kirilloff was the 15th pick. They could have taken Benindendi instead of Jay and they could have taken Nola instead of Gordon. You make it seem impossible to trade for players in the low minors who become great. That basically how Cleveland got their entire staff. Yes, I am saying get better at identifying international prospects. You want instant gratification. Building a winner in a mid-market like Cleveland has is the product of crafting and implementing best practices and processes. You and Chief can scream show me the results all you want. You simply do not understand the results are directly related to leadership, process, and practices that were not in place previously. I don't know that they are know without complete access but it appears from the outside looking in that Levine is building the requisite infrastructure.

You are changing the narrative. I asked Kirby for specifics on what the FO should have done differently. Anyone can say their plan sucked. It’s an entirely different thing to construct and articulate a plan that is reasonable financially and/or reasonable in terms of the cost in prospects. Fans want free agents that don’t exist and assume to be able to trade “depth” for elite players. The fact is that the success of this team depended upon Sano, Buxton, and probably Polanco realizing the potential / level of play we have seen in spirts. The alternative was to conclude the team did not have the core players and go into a full rebuild. That would not have demonstrated good management practices or an understanding of risk/reward. There was little risk associated with giving them another year and the reward potentially high. Competing for the division was also going to require Dozier and Santana to play at or near their best. Odorizzi, Lynn, and Morrison improved our chances without sacrificing our future. The plan was reasonably good. Sano and Buxton did not deliver. Dozier sucked and Polanco got himself suspended and Santana contributed nothing. Fans won’t players for their absolute abysmal performance they squak about the FO. I am not opposed to trading meaningful prospects. I have been opposed to trading them in recent years because I have never believed the core was established. All we would have done was get mediocre while trading away players that could provide the core like the Astros and Indians built via drafting, development, and trades for players before they emerged as elite. Many here wanted us to trade prospects for players like Tulo, LuCroy, Gray, etc because they insisted we were ready to compete. We would have significantly reduced our talent long-term for very modest short-term gains during years where those players would have not gotten us remotely close to contention. I would be absolutely fine with trading key prospects for a player that actually contributes significantly to a true contender. You are willing to trade away the possibility of building a contender to build a 500 team or slightly better. I am not. My aversion to Free Agents is a matter of the number of years past their prime that was common just 2-3 years ago. The entire league apparently agrees with me because those practices have changed rapidly. I also recognize the scarcity of free agents and the difficulty of convincing them to come to Minnesota. I also recognize there are other teams that simply have much greater financial resources. So, while you say it’s an excuse, I say it is economic reality. It’s a bid for god sake. How can anyone be surprised the teams with the most money win these bids? How do we get better. Identify talent like Kluber, Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, Clevinger, and trade for them while their acquisition cost is modest. Identify and sign guys like Rameriz for $50K instead of giving Sano all or most of your International pool ($4M). Then, sign him to a team friendly option as they did with Carrasco. Draft like Houston. Then add a guy like Verlander when your core is established.

For starters, the national (unbiased) had relatively high praise for the Twins off-season and many felt they had a legit shot at the central. IO also don't understand the no back-up catcher comment. Garver was the back-up. Did you mean they did have a back-up for the back-up? I am sorry to keep repeating myself but you continue to use generalizations which is a long way from providing a tangible (SPECIFIC) solution which is the point. Anyone can say the should have gotten an ace and a better bullpen, etc. I agree with the bullpen BTW and we can come up with specific examples. However, its not like they had $60M in available payroll to work with last winter. The 4th outfielder is a product of the organization liking Grossman more than TDers. I am not a Grossman fan but he is not a terrible option as a 4th outfielder. I would guess they also thought Granite or Wade would be up to fill that role at some point during the season. Regardless, the 4th outfielder is a long way down the list of the causes for this year's failure. In case it's still not clear, I am asking what specific players you would have acquired. No specificity is required if you think the solution would have been to trade prospects. The scenarios tossed around here to get great players for multiple C+ or even B- players is a fallacy. It would have cost us several of our very best prospects to land impact players given one big trade would have meant little and best case would have gotten us to 500 or a couple games above even had we acquired 2 or 3 impact players. That route would have been an absolute disaster given how the year played out with injury and poor play from Dozier, Sano, and Buxton.

I meant contend for the division. My previous posts throughout the year consistently point out we were not going to contend with Houston / Boston ? NY. However, this distinction has little to do with the point I was trying to make. Your stated "FO acquisitions, and a lack thereof, contributed significantly to the overall poor performance." It's easy to criticize after the season has played out. My question was what would you have done. All you have done is stated what you would not have done which is easy to do after you know that Morrison had a bad season as an example. This team was dependent upon Sano / Buxton and perhaps Kepler improving as we hoped. That did not happen but you can't blame the organization for allowing it to play out. It's also not their fault that Polanco was suspended and Santana made absolutely no contribution. While I did not care for relying on Rodney, the additions they made were the pretty darn good on paper given the available budget. The only other choice was to trade away elite prospects because or "depth" was not going to garner the level of player necessary. That would have been the worst thing they could have done. We still would have been well out of contention and our best prospects gone. So, I ask again, what should they have done.

I don't have any real disagreement with any of this post but it don't find an answer to the question of what you would have done differently that would have resulted in a contender.

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.

Brain Fart ... I meant to suggest Arrieta was the best choice in hindsight. You have a point about Martinez as a DH but I would think he would have been less inclined to come here knowing he would primarily DH. Regardless, the point was that there were other areas where I think we can all agree were more desperately in need of upgrades. Therefore, you probably don't spend $125M on a DH unless you are NY/BOS/LA , especially the way benches are being utilized now.

I agree. I just think fans tend to absolve players for their part. I see it as the player performed poorly and have primary responsibility and the manager was unable to correct their failure. They were too patient with Sano IMO. His approach sucked and there is n o excuse for a professional athlete to be in poor shape. However, before we are too tough on the organization, we should revisit the disdain many here had for the articles written criticizing Sano.

Molitor is the only person to be blamed? How about the players that performed poorly? They have no accountability? It's all the managers fault? I think Molitor has some accountability but we are talking about professional athletes, some of them very experienced. It's just a lot easier to blame the manger as opposed to the players were revere.

What would you have done differently? Hindsight is always 20/20. By far the best free agent SP choice was DeGrom but the overwhelming sentiment here was Darvish. I think it's fair to say that Cobb and Lynn were next in terms of support with Cobb probably being favored by the majority. Would you really have signed Martinez (not that he would have signed here) with the presumed strength of the team being our young OF. They certainly could have done a better job with the BP but the national media felt we did well with the available FA budget. The only other choice would have been to trade Lewis / Kiriloff / Romero because those are the only prospects that would have moved the needle. We would have still been mediocre with considerably less elite talent on the horizon which would have the absolute worst move they could have made. So what should have they done. You can say things like they should have kept Sanchez but there was very little remorse here when he was let go.

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.