Major League Ready

Every team has let players go. There are many examples of considerably better players than those you have mentioned. We got Johan as a rule 5 players. Corey Kluber and the list is very long. To suggest this is a Twins thing is very uninformed.

You really don’t care about reality if you think you can make a point. Encarnacion was 3 years and $60M. That’s certainly not a mega contract in the vein we are talking about and you know this without doubt. That’s why you used the AAV rather than the total amount. Yet, you roll it out anyway. Where the pitchers are concerned, the position you and others have taken is why won’t the Twins go sign a Darvish type or trade for a top SP. How are the pitchers you listed proof of the need to go sign a big name established player which is what you are arguing? They are proof of the opposite. They are examples of how a team with the Twin’s revenue can become contenders for a sustained period. This is my point. These types of deals are the key to elevating a team to contention. Very little risk paying off in huge production. You are so unwilling to actually evaluate the implications that you offer proof of my point as proof of your position.

There was definitely room for me to me more specific but I thought the difference was obvious. That's what I get for expecting a reasonable interpretation. Of course the Yankees were still reasonably good after buying top free agents. However, they were not as good as they were when when Jeter came up. Those teams had home grown talent. The teams I reference were not nearly as good as they are today. Judge, Sanchez, Andujar, and Torres all products of their farm system and Gregorius acquired from Arizona while still a prospect. Not to mention getting Hicks from us who was hardly considered and elite player at the time of the trade. Severino is their best pitcher. Their big trade (Sonny Gray) has been mediocre at best. The Dodgers were good but not a serious contender during the years I referenced. They are now great and should be great for at least a decade perhaps longer because they have kept their best prospects. How did Cleveland build their team that has been elite for the past few seasons? Someone please show me their mega free agents. Show me where they traded top prospects. How well would it have turned out had we traded for Tulo and LeCroy like so many here insisted was the thing to do. Some wanted us to trade Berrios + others for Sonny Gray. We don't know the long-term implications for sure but right that looks like it would have been terrible. There are a number of deals promoted here that would have devasted this team for several years so how some of you can continue to insist these moves are the obvious solution is beyond me. Some of you here are unwilling to acknowledge how bad these moves would have been and equally unwilling to look at a successful mid-market teams (Cleveland) and fairly interpret their model of success.

It's not like we have the kind of access necessary to fully assess any members of the FO but from the outside looking in this FO looks to instituting many fundamental changes for the better. There will always be people who complain the Twins won't spend like top markets. Somehow the concept those teams have a couple hundred million dollar revenue advantage does not register with some fans. Prospect acquisition and development is absolutely essential to any team and that need is heightened the greater the delta in revenue. During the Beane years, Oakland had by far the best win record of any of the team outside the top 10 in revenue and also had a better record than some of those top revenue teams. When did he trade prospects. He did the opposite trading established players. Why, because it's necessary to compete when you are at a substantial disadvantaged in terms of revenue. How did it work for the Dodgers and Yankees to buy teams. When both became dominant again once they got back to focusing on prospects and they were not giving up Bellinger, Sanchez, Judge, etc. They walked away from deals when those types of prospects were the asking price.

How much more definitive can it get than the incredible teams NY, Boston, and Houston haven put together. We know at anytime a team can go cold like the Dodgers did last year. Houston and Cleveland are not playing up to their potential but we can say in no uncertain teams those teams all have considerably more proven talent than the Twins. That chasm is not going to be closed by adding a catcher. If the goal is to improve by 3 wins at the cost of giving up top prospects than by all means we should trade away our future. If you want to build a real contender it's incredibly inept management.

It’s not that I think you position is without merit. I think it’s is very important to look beyond 2019. We are going to lose Santana and Lynn after this year. Gibson and Odorizzi after next year. We just don’t have enough depth in starting pitching prospects that I would be willing to give one up. Plus, I think Romero would be the guy they want. I guess the basis of what I have been saying is that fan think in terms of the immediate and next year but very few look at the long-term as required of a GM. My other issue is more fundamental. I think it’s pretty evident that even the top revenue teams need to prioritize their top prospects. Proven players are so expensive that even NY, LA, and Boston had a hard time competing following approached similar in concept to what you are advocating. The new breed of FO executives have shown they understand the need to prioritize the acquisition, development and retention of top prospects. Given the disparity in revenue, I believe the Twins have to prioritize prospects in almost every case. Their ability to add a key piece or two through agency is dependent upon them fielding a team with as many highly productive players on cost controlled contract as possible. How else can we produce the same level of productivity with considerable less available payroll dollars? BTW ... What do you or others think would take in terms of trading prospects for Realmuto?

I have to admit you are right. I was reaching to find a neutral party that actually quantified the Twins chances. You are absolutely correct in your characterization and I did not think that one through. However, you have to admit that on face value there is still some merit to the relative odds given other teams. I tried on a more than one occasion to have someone explain in baseball terms how this team is anywhere near the same level as the other playoff teams and that garnered no response. If you happened to hear the Mackey & Judd show today, they had Derek Wetmore on. They all agreed that the only way the Twins get to the level of the top teams is if Buxton becomes the superstar we hoped for and Sano becomes a perennial all-star. Judd said he hopes Cleveland gets extremely hot and the Twins become sellers. He even mentioned it would be great if we could acquire a good catching prospect. Basically, they said pretty much exactly what I have been saying so obviously I thought it was a great segment. It's not at all necessary to start over but they do need to retool and they need to get something out of these expiring contracts. They also talked about the possibilities given the payroll dollars becoming available for the 2019 season. Here is the link. https://player.fm/series/mackey-and-judd/ep-61118-hr-3-derek-wetmore

Anyone would agree to Realmuto for redundant pieces in nanosecond. Perhaps I am way off in what it would take to acquire him. I thought it had been established that the Marlins are looking for a haul if they trade him and we have the LuCroy trade as somewhat indicative of Realmuto's value. With an extra year of control he is worth considerably more that LuCroy. Am I wrong thinking it's going to take a lot more than "redundant pieces"? I assumed they would be holding out for pitching so Romero would be at the top of their list. If not Romeroe, than Gonsalves or Graterol plus another top position player prospect and someone like Diaz or Jay. Remember when many here were clamoring for LuCroy and were willing to give up top prospects. What would that have done to our present and future? I would look into the cost somewhere around July 20th if the Twins can improve in the many areas necessary to be considered a legit contender.

Are you saying the odds calculated by people who are highly skilled and determining how likely a team is to make the playoffs is not a reasonable way to demonstrate how a neutral party would evaluate the Twins odds of winning the pennant as compared to other teams?

Declaring them unbeatable this year is a very different thing than managing assets in a manner to eventually field a team on par with NY, Boston and NY. I have been before numerous boards and delivered 100+ page assessments to a number of state legislatures. Board members look to outside counsel to counteract short-sighted management. I would love to have this debate in front of that type of audience. This team is mediocre and to suggest it can be put on par with NY by trading for premium assets is the product of fandom not analytical thought, Fans think in terms of this year. What are you going to do next year when several key players are gone. What are you going to do in the years beyond that if you trade away our best prospects? This team is no threat unless Buxton and Sano get it together. The pitching is really not good enough to contend either. How are you going to fix the problem by trading assets. Paying the premium required for that type of trade during the season is a good way to ensure future mediocrity.

That's true but also not the intent. The intent was to point out there is a constant theme of maximizing the short-term. That has a tendency to mitigate sustained success in this league. Previous management aside, there are generally good reasons why GMs don't manage the way fans would like them to manage. There are alot of people here who conveniently forget the deals they insisted that were great that would have been disasters with long-term impact.

I would love to have this conversation in the board room where management principles dictate actions and emotional (fanatical) decision making gets your a$$ kicked to the curb. Expenditure of resources, especially when a premium exists is done when the odds are in your favor. Any other approach is incompetence. Winning a division does not make you a contender when there are 3 teams that are grossly superior. Fans can stick their heads in the sand and say we want it now! Leadership requires doing the right thing for more than a single season view regardless of what the masses believe. If the masses knew what was best, they would not have to pay GMs millions/year. Just look back on the moves this board called for in the same vein. Many called for trading for LuCroy for 2 years and giving up the likes of Kepler or Berrios. Some wanted Tulo while giving up our best prospects. Others wanted us to trade Nolasco for Shields. Yu Darvish was a sure thing no brainer give him whatever it takes. It was also insisted Berrios was our best SP long before he was close and on and on. This team would have no top prospects, a huge payroll, and still be mediocre of the moves insisted upon here were executed.

OK. Let's just put this in the most possible of neutral terms. How do odds makers see the Twins versus the teams I mentioned. These are the odds of winning the American League pennant. Houston 11/4 NY 3/1 Boston 7/2 Twins 25/1 In other words the other teams are roughly 8X more likely to go to the world series. Any reasonable assessment of their odds is that the odds are significantly against them. Any other interpretation is homerism in my opinion. I gave you an opening to make a meaningful argument. In what areas are the Twins equivalent to NY, Boston, and Houston? You can just argue that any team can get hot. While true, that's a very empty premise, especially in terms of how to manage assets.

I am not sure what you mean by "doesn't looks good on paper". If we compare Offense, Defense, SP, and Bullpen, NY, Boston, and Houston all are simply much better teams. You will have to explain specifically where we have a competitive advantage in any aspect of the game when compared to these teams.

Sorry, I used your quote but it was directed toward all of the posters who were approaching this as if we are a contender. I should have asked why you or anyone else would accept the premise we are a contender. The poster above is worried about Cleveland. So what if we win the division of the entire team does not improve significantly. The wolves earned a playoff spot. So what when you have a mediocre team. It always possible to win a given series but or chances against NY, Boston or Houston are not good. We simply need to see if this team can get it together by the deadline. Right now we look much more like sellers than buyers. If we don't improve dramatically, we should get Gordon up here to play with Polanco for the 2nd half of the season and see if that is our future. Get Gonsalves up and a couple of bullpen arms from AAA. I would find that more interesting than a 500 team that happens to be in contention for a playoff series because the division is terribly weak.

How is this team a contender now? We are contending for a playoff spot in a terrible division. We are under 500 and there are 3 extremely dominant teams. How is this team a contender against NY, Boston, and Houston? Don't expect this FO to be expending any valuable prospects this year unless the team improves significantly before the deadline.

Most fans of teams that play in a league with a cap come to understand the correlation to spending wisely and winning. Some baseball fans somehow can’t grasp that there is a practical limitation to what the team can spend. The “I don’t care because it’s not my money” position is a simplistic line of thought. Given the revenue advantage of the top teams, we should all be hoping for very wise spending on the part of the FO. This entire discussion is premature. This team might be in contention for the central division but we are far from contenders. NY, Boston and Houston are on a completely different level. Upgrading at Catcher won't change that much. The only way it makes sense for this team to be buyers is If the entire team improves dramatically by the deadline. If not, why spend a premium for mid-season additions? We have a lot of payroll dollars freeing up this off-season. Address the problem with those dollars instead of prospects, especially the kind of prospects it would take to get an elite Catcher.

I was basically saying the same thing as you have here. If you include 3 rounds for 15 years it's the equivalent of 45 years. I would take rounds 74-78 for 20 years and make it 100 years. Divide by the number of ML players produced. You could even project the probable war of a player picked. I don't like giving up the pick but none of us have any regard for the financial component. This is a business and that's the basis of this decision. Baseball fans understand and accept players treating it as a business but they often can't accept the teams making business decisions.

When you expand the comparison beyond #74 you are multiply the odds of getting a viable player by the number of rounds you are adding. So, no you can't look at successive rounds or anyone taken past #74 when evaluating the odds of getting a viable player at #74. It would only makes sense to compare all picks between 74-xxx if they were trading away a comparable number of picks. I would prefer they kept the pick but I also recognize they are running a business.

This sounds about right to me. Let him get a half season with Forth Meyers and hope he continues to excel at that level. Hopefully he is ready for AA early next year maybe even to begin the season. That would be awesome because that rapid ascension would suggest the ceiling we all hope for in Lewis.

The point you made was not restricted to RPs. You made it very clear you did not think value mattered. Now you are reshaping your statement. BTW ... I would love to be in the board room when you tell leadership a couple million does not matter. Only in the world of sports fans do they speak so cavalier of a couple million not mattering. The amount you speak of with so little regard is 20 or 20 or 40 FTEs in the real world.

You might want to rethink this position given their are other teams have nearly twice our revenue. The only way to post a playoff worthy record is to achieving a lower cost:win ration. Cost/win is an absolutely critical metric. Fans of teams in salary cap leagues are quite aware of this reality and the discussion around player value is very different.

I would think we can all agree there are many facets of the job to be considered in determining an individuals relative merit as a manger. Do you think we have adequate access / information / insight to assess Molitor's relative ability as a a manager? My team is doing a staff assessment for a division of a well-known entity right now. I can assure you the process being used is much deeper than would be possible as a baseball fan assessing managerial competence. Should we consider .... We started the season without Santana The potential impact of all of the cancellations early in the season We lost Buxton early Rodney sucks! Polanco got himself suspended Logan Morrison forgot how to hit Rosario regressed Sano refuses to attempt to do anything but pull the ball 500ft.

How would you feel if you were voted the best at your job in your entire industry the previous year and then were fired for a rough month. This type of stuff is just maneuvering to appease fans and I hope this FO has more integrity than this type of circus management tactics.

I have worked with over well over 100 fortune 500 companies specifically managing infrastructure and asset strategies. Not one of them practices writing off an asset past it's useful life. Shareholders won't stand for that kind of foolishness and the the IRS has guidelines that prevent it. So, no "most businesses" are not happy to spread the cost beyond the assets useful life. It' also a horrible business practice. Let's spend money we don't have by creating a liability we will have to deal with long after the value of the asset has expired. Really bad idea.