Major League Ready

Sorry ... That was from ND-Fan and I was thinking it was from you.

I have a very hard time following your logic, not just here but in general. I thought you meant odds of getting into the playoffs. No kidding they are not that far off from a coin flip on a given game. A 90 loss team has a 44.4% chance of winning any given game. There are two other points where we simply differ in opinion. You view the goal as getting into the playoffs. I view the goal as building a great team. If Cleveland folds the rest of the way and we get in as a 500 team, so what. We are still a bad team. The odds makers would give us somewhere around a 30% chance of winning a playoff series which I include when assessing our odds of success and consequent buy/sell strategies. Again, what difference does it make if we get crushed in a playoff series? That's not success in my opinion. Therefore, I am looking at the probability of success as the odds of getting into the playoffs multiplied by the odds of winning a playoff series. I think the core of our disagreement is you and the millennial fans you reference are unwilling to ,make even the smallest sacrifice to get better better in the future. Cashing in our small odds would require a bunch of players to completely turn around their performance. The departure of Escobar and Pressly does not preclude this from happening (see 2017). To address your question about the odds of the players we received contributing to the ML club, once again we evaluate that situation very differently. For starters the contribution of Escobar is this season with an extremely low odds of contending a decent RP in the same time period as well as next year where our chances of contending have to be at least a little better. The players we received in trade would contribute for 6 years if they make it to the ML club. Your focus on the immediate seems to have precluded this consideration. So, do I think the odds are higher of the players we received contributing to an actual contender, absolutely.

A coin flip is 50/50. We are not remotely a coin flip. Plus, the only reason we have a chance to make the playoffs is that we play in an extremely weak division. Is the goal to make the playoffs in a weak division or is it to construct a great team? It seems many of you are want to waste an opportunity to get better for a small chance to get into a playoff series where we would be the considerably weaker team no matter which of the opponents we draw. That is an incredibly misguided unless your goal is to stay mediocre or in our case not even mediocre.

If a player gets a better offer in FA, do their teammates say "hey forget about the money, think about the team? Do they apologize to the players for abandoning the team or do you suppose the players understand this is a business and everyone is going to look out for their best interest. Do fan's basically accept that it's a business and free agents are going to take the best offer they can find? Why should that only apply to the players. I really don't understand a fan who objects to the team making moves that should be good for the team long-term because the current players who are under performing might be upset. MLB players are INCREDIBLY fortunate. They get paid an insane amount of money to play a game. They hire agents to makes sure they get every dollar they can. It would be incredibly unfair for them to have a problem with the owners looking out for the long-term benefit of the team.

It was not even ready for the minor leagues. I have to scrutinize my writing extremely carefully for clients and I tend to not even look for errors in this type of casual writing. It can be pretty ugly sometimes.

You will have to explain this to me and I am not trying to be cute. I have no idea what relevance the preseason odds have in terms of decision making now. Are you suggesting there was an option for us to forfeit. Companies, especially large start-ups project losses for the first year(s). They don't just not try. They make the best decisions possible. Are you suggesting that no team should ever sell unless they have been mathematically eliminated? Several other teams that still technically have a chance have sold assets. Actually, it's a well-accepted practice. Are you saying the entire industry just does not understand that they should never trade current players for prospects if they have even the slightest of chances?

I deleted the original when I realized after it could not longer be edited that it was written with 3rd grade grammar. Sorry!

You are going to have to elaborate on this logic because it makes absolutely no sense to me. We have a 12.5% chance of winning the central and roughly a 4% chance of winning a playoff series. As proven last year, we can still get in the playoffs and improve our holdings (prospects). The chances of winning a playoff series remains extremely low. Both involve significant risk. I guess if getting crushed in a playoff series is somehow a goal, I can see your point that 12.5% are not terrible odds. What are the odds that one of the 5 players the Twins traded for so far will contribute to the ML team? We just had a thread where several people articulated the value of coming up with low cost trades that produce big. Pretty hard to do that if you refuse to trade assets of modest value (pending FAs). I think we can look the national baseball reporters to see what an unbiased view looks like. Plus, I am very certain I could present this argument before a BoDs and be well received.

12.5% is a long ways from powerball numbers. However, passing on opportunities to obtain assets with potential i pact for several years is incompetence that will get you fired as the leader of any organization, including a baseball team. We also need to qualify exactly what we have a 12.5% chance of winning. That would be the central. Our chance of winning a playoff series is about 4%.

I feel a little better after reading this report on Duran. This is a very good trade if this guy turns out to be an 8th inning guy or closer. It's a great trade if he becomes an "impact starter". It will look even better when they resign Escobar next year.

I appreciate the sentiment about NY but emotion does not belong in business decisions. I think Milwaukee is just as good a bet. Where this year is concerned, we would be managing the club based on a less than 10% chance of making the playoffs. That in itself would be cause for termination. Then, if we beat those considerable odds, we would be huge underdogs no matter who we faced in the playoffs. The previous regime refused to do what was necessary to rebuild or in this case retool. As for next year, we have much to be resolved before we can expect to compete with Cleveland and we are not going to actually contend with NY / Boston / Houston for the next several years unless we fix some of the players currently struggling and infuse some serious talent. Passing on these opportunities is a good way to stay mediocre at a time where several teams have constructed rosters that are likely to be 95+ win teams for several years. I keep seeing on this board a call for the F/O to build a contender. This does not happen by passing on opportunities to bring in the type of players necessary to get to that position.

You can start with explaining how you know this without knowing the return. You can add how we are going to compete with several teams that are positioned to be great for the next several years without adding talent that will be here for several years. If you don't look beyond next year, I understand how you can immediately dismiss trading Gibson. Thankfully, our CBO has pledged to build a sustainable winner. If an offer comes along that offers a good probability of achieving that status, Falvey/Lavine will take it. Fan's who don't like it will curse them and claim they don't care about winning just like they did when Cuddyer was not resigned. Of course, the comp pick (Berrios) is to our chances of becoming a contender.

That would be an incredible boost. If that happens Berrios / Romero / Gonsalves / Graterol & Wells could give is a great home grown rotation similar to what Cleveland fans have enjoyed of late. We are overdue for a break or two!

I think they already signed that guy in Pineada. So much depends on Gonsalves, Can he command the strike zone enough to pitch at the MLB level. We will find out after the deadline unless the FO is already sure the answer is not yet.

I agree completely. Our results in terms of development are evident. However, that's on the previous regime IMO. This type of organizational transformation does not take place over night. Plus, we are talking about a development process of 3-6 years. The results won't show-up over night. Gibson took a while. It would give us good reason to be optimistic if they can fix Sano and Buxton.

Riverbrian put together a nice list of valuable players acquired for minimal cost. Those acquisitions are huge and we have not had one since Johan. That would be a fair question to pose to the F/O. However, to be fair, this F/O has only been in place for a relatively short time. Hopefully, Cave will turn out to be such an acquisition although I doubt he becomes JD Martinez or Corey Kluber equivalent. If we are being fair, what is the response here when a player like Muncy is acquired? Very negative, right. We are dumpster diving again. His numbers were mediocre at best in the minors and miserable at the ML level. https://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=13301&position=1B/3B The acquisition of Muncy would have resulted in several very negative posts here and a few others who would have acknowledged it was a depth move. Nobody would have said they thought this guy could be a great replacement for Mauer.

It requires fairly intimate knowledge of a large sample size of leaders which I will define as CxOs (ie Lavine). Unless you have considerable experience working directly with CxOs you are assuming to know something based on conjecture. I have worked with hundreds of CxOs. Their integrity, like any other subset of the population varies substantially. Good leadership requires people are willing to follow and people are much more apt to follow someone who acts with integrity. My experience suggests that leaders sometimes can't be 100 transparent because the audience won't accept any rational. This situation is a good example. The FO made moves that were pretty much mutually praised by the baseball community. The best case scenario this year was Clevelend would be down and we could sneak by. After a couple key injuries, a key suspension, and 3 of our key players (Samo / Buxton / dozier) under performing and the fans want to know how could this happen? Why are we not a 90+ win team. It's absolutely absurd. What should we expect with all that's gone wrong. I have asked a couple of the complainers what the F/O should have done. No takers. Please someone tell me what the F/O should have done to win the Central this year that would have actually accomplished that goal. Another poster claimed that the results spoke for themselves. In a follow-up accepted that if this was true, all of these multi-page debates about what's a good ,move and what's not are absolutely useless because a move can't be good if it does not pan out. In other words, we can't evaluate the quality of the decision making at the time. If a player gets hurt, the F/O failed in their decision making. This would suggest that had the Twins F/O signed Darvish and Lynn, and traded a C prospect for Sonny Gray, when he was still considered a hot commodity, that the front office was responsible for the failure as a result of their poor decision making. This bit$#@ng is ridiculous. Some fans simply can't accept what has been proven for 100 years in sports. The best laid plans can fail. Anyone wanting to respond needs to include a plan with a reasonable chance of winning the division. That plan needs to include at least one front of the rotation SP, a couple of back of the bullpen arms, a 2B, 3B, and shortstop to replace Sano, Polanco, and Dozier. One could argue 1B as well but Mauer is not part of the failure in my opinion. I would be happy to apologize for suggesting this is whining if someone can show me a plan that would have averted this disaster.

I don't understand the Belisle thing myself. That aside, what should they do about catcher that would be a long-term solution? They don't have a prospect that's even close to being ready. I guess you could bring Navarreto up but I don't see how that would have any long-term impact. You could make a case for bringing up a BP arm but it makes no sense to stop playing guys you want to move. So, what should they be doing pre-deadline that can't wait another week until the roster construction going forward is known?

I may have missed it but I don't recall anyone posting that injuries were the reason for the bad season. I have seen post suggesting that the injuries combined with several players under performing as well as losing Polanco to a suspension are the cause. What should they have done to remain in contention? What plan could have possibly overcame the injuries, the play of Buxton, Sano, Kepler, and Dozier as well as Polanco's suspension? If the failure is a product of what the F/O did or did not do, it should be eeasy enough to articulate a plan that would have succeeded. Most here would have spent a huge chunk of our FA money on Darvish so we would have been even worse off. Our entire infield other than Mauer has drastically under performed. As you have reported, Mauer is one of the worst offensive 1B in baseball. Obviously, $23M of our payroll is tied up in him which of course the current regime has no account in that matter. So, which is it, is there a plan that would have likely resulted in us winning the division or are you complaining for the sake of complaining? We would have needed an entirely new infield and a front of the rotation SP as well as at least a couple elite BP arms. To be fair, most people would have started with Darvish so let's see your plan with Darvish as the answer to one of our SP spots. That would have given us 3 very good starters we would still need two more

Is this what people want .... Reporter: Mr. Pohlad, Did the F/O make poor decisions leading to the failure on the field this year. Jim Pohlad: Geez Mr. Reporter, where do I start? I don’t know why Derek and Thad did not anticipate losing Ervin Santana or Jason Castro for the season. For that matter, they should have known Polanco would be suspended for PEDs. And, what were they thinking trading for Odorizzi and signing Lance Lynn. They should have known those guys would not perform to their careers norms. They should have signed the other top FA pitchers. Reporter: Mr. Pohlad, Do you realize Darvish is out for the season and Cobb has been really terrible. Pohlad: Oh. Well, starting pitching is easy to find. The rebuilding teams have lots of great starters. Derek and Thad should have negotiated a trade for a font of the rotation SP for a couple C+ prospects in return. Reporter: Why didn't your F/O know Dozier would decline so much this year? Shouldn't they have been able to replace him with another All-star caliber 2B? Pohlad: Yep, I don't know how they failed to see that coming? Reporter: The national media gave heavy praise to your teams off season moves. Were you buying into the same hype? Pohlad: What do they know? The players we signed under performed. Free agents always meet expectations, right. They are almost a sure thing and they always pan out for other teams. Reporter: What about Sano and Buxton? Shouldn’t the F/O take the blame for their dismal performance? Pohlad: You bet. Never mind they had nothing to do with drafting or developing them. Derek and Thad should have magically cured all of their flaws or replaced them. Guys with superstar potential are a dime a dozen. Our F/O should have come up with a couple others who would have salvaged this season. Reporter: What about Morrison under performing? Why didn’t your F/O see that coming? Pohlad: No excuse for a F/O taking a chance he would perform like he did last year. I don't know what they were thinking. This stuff is easy. You have to wonder why we the league pays GMs over a million dollars a year. There are lots of guys on Twin's Daily that could make us a contender immediately and they would never make these mistakes. I bet none of them wanted to sign Darvish.

1. Hiring decisions and those made by popular vote are two very different things. 2. I made no reference of politicians. 3. The premise in the original posts suggests the primary qualification for a leadership position is the ability to deceive. Do you really support the notion that getting a great education, amassing skills, and an excellent track record are subordinate to the ability to deceive if you want to ascend to a position of leadership? I guess I am teaching my kids the wrong lessons if I want them to excel in business.

If your premise is correct, this would sure simply the assessment of personnel decisions. I have a hard time believing anyone who participates here believes as you do that the quality of a decision (baseball decision) can’t be judged on the merit of that decision at the time? There are threads that last for many pages based on the relative merit of signing or trading for a given player. Your premise renders all of these opinions and discussion meaningless. BTW … There are a lot of journalists who believe the merit of personnel decisions can be assessed even before they are consummated. Should I assume you have not and will not offer any opinions on the relative merit of any personnel decisions until the result of those decisions have been realized?

For starters, you are assuming to know exactly what happened without direct access. I have been in that position literally hundreds of times and the people making the assumptions are almost always wrong. Regardless of what happened with Machado, to characterize executives as making a living or that a principal part of the job is incredibly naive. Frankly it's incredibly insulting to those of us who have held the position and worked with hundreds of others holding a similar position. I have met plenty of CxOs who were not exactly pillars but anyone who ascends to that position have a hole lot more to offer than the ability to mislead. I would add that until the deal with LA was actually official, it is fair to assume Baltimore's FO was hoping to persuade the others for an even better deal that LA was offering. There was also a possibility the deal from LA would fall through. There were reports of medical concerns.

The best prospects are two years away. That's not along time in terms of retooling a team. There is no reason to tear down and do a complete rebuild at least not yet. They are taking the necessary steps with Buxton and Sano while bringing in other talent (Odorizzi / Lynn / Morrison / Cave / Rodney) that do not jeopardize our future. We have payroll available to invest next year. Polanco will be back. Kepler has learned to hit LH pitching. There is a good chance he puts it all together. Gonsalves / Gordon, Romero, and probably Mejia at the door step.,There is plenty to be optimistic about. This should be a considerably better team next year.

Yes, that's the skill set ML teams are paying millions/year to acquire. It does not have anything to do with a possessing the leadership, organizational development skills, educational background and experience necessary to run a 9 figure business.