Jim Crikket

I can't help with the penguins, but I know we can find some pigeons and some black and white paint. He'll never know the difference.

A guy falls in to an eight foot deep hole while at work. His boss comes along and the guy says, “hey boss can you get me out of here?” The boss says, “Things are pretty tight around here so we can’t afford to buy a ladder, but we have this old shovel sitting around. I’ll throw it down and you can dig yourself out.” It takes a long time, but after a lot of trial and error (sometimes even digging in the wrong place and making the hole deeper) our guy manages to dig himself out of the hole. And of course, he’s damn proud of himself for that accomplishment. It certainly wasn’t easy. He's recognized far and wide for his perseverance. The boss is so impressed that, not long after, the guy gets a promotion. And, while everyone thinks it’s a bit odd, the guy never goes anywhere without that old shovel. (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com) A couple of years later, company revenues have grown significantly but, alas, holes still happen and one day the guy’s replacement in his old job falls into another eight foot hole. Sure enough, our guy is the first person to walk by and he hears, “Hey, can you get me out of here?” Still holding on to that old shovel, the guy jumps down in to the hole, too. “What the hell, man? Why didn’t you just reach down and pull me out?” “Don’t worry,” our guy answers, “I’ve been down here before and I know how to dig us out.” http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/HoleLadder.gif After a couple hours of digging, the boss comes by. He looks down in to the hole and shakes his head. “Hold on a minute, guys, we can afford a ladder now. I’ll be right back.” He walks in to a nearby hardware store and returns a few minutes later with an extension ladder and lowers it in to the hole. The new guy climbs up the ladder and walks away. But our guy looks distrustfully at the ladder and keeps on digging. A couple of days later, the boss walks by the hole again and, to his surprise, the guy is still down there digging, only now the hole is 12 feet deep. The boss kind of shakes his head and laughs, but when customers question why the hole is getting deeper, he just tells them this guy has done this before and knows what he’s doing. Days later, a crowd has gathered and they’re all exasperatedly trying to tell the guy that all he has to do is extend the ladder and climb out. Pretty soon, a reporter shows up and asks the guy why he won’t use the ladder. "We've got a lot different revenue streams now,” says the guy, “but if you've got to try to get out using a ladder, you're probably going to fall. It just doesn't work." Soon after, the boss walks by again and he doesn’t seem as amused now. These people gathered around are all potential customers and the guy in the hole is making him and his company look foolish or like they’re too cheap to give the guy the right tools to get out of the hole. The reporter asks the boss to comment on the guy digging in the hole and the boss replies, "We have to acknowledge we probably have to use that ladder to get out of that hole. Our guy is committed to using the ladder. He can speak for himself, but I believe he's enthusiastic about doing that." Of course, the guy continues to dig. Eventually, the crowd turns angry because the hole just keeps getting bigger and the police have to clear the area until the only people left are the guy in the hole and his boss. When he's certain nobody but the guy in the hole can hear what he says, the boss looks down in to the hole and says firmly, “Enough with the digging. Use the damn ladder to get out of that hole. Now!” Of course, since there was nobody else around to hear it, we can't be 100% positive that’s what the boss finally said. But I sure hope it is. - JC ~You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant~

[deleted] Screw it. It ain't worth it.

Add me to the list of extremely jealous readers of your stuff here, Bob. Thanks a lot!

It's fun having a good guy I enjoyed watching as a Twins player for years get this shot with the Pirates. You watch him and it's clear he's having a great time. Always one of the first to congratulate a teammate in the dugout. Really trying to be one of the guys, even though he arrived late with the Pirates.

Just completed submitting my order. Now waiting for it to arrive. Still waiting. Where the hell is it???? I want it. Now. *sigh*

I haven't spent much time on TD the last couple of days and I'm disappointed to return and find one sentence of a comment I made a couple days ago has caused such consternation. I apologize to those who were offended. Even more so, I apologize to the moderators who have had to devote more time than they should have had to on my account. My frustration comes largely because I find myself defending advanced statistical analysis and old school scouting from what I consider to be extreme viewpoints of one side or the other. I don't think anyone knows the degree to which the Twins and Terry Ryan listen to Jack Goin. What we do know is that the Twins have lost way too much the last three years and that's not acceptable to us, as fans. It seems to me that arguing over this kind of thing is counterproductive anyway and I'm sorry I weighed in at all. Again, I apologize. P.S. Shane: I like the term "OBP-phobic" as applied to DY, too, even if it is a label.

I might quibble a little bit with the Berrios/Walker/Polanco rankings, but having all three of them in the 13-20 range is about right, so if you think one is a couple slots high or a couple slots low (which I do), that's totally immaterial. What's very impressive and encouraging for Twins fans is that the Twins placed four players among the top 20 prospects in a league with 16 teams and there were a couple others that might have had an argument had things fallen a little differently. Brett Lee was strong all season. Mason Melotakis was lights out once he finally found the grip for his slider. Travis Harrison was about as impressive offensively as Walker through the first half of the season, before hitting a similar "wall" as Berrios. A lot of talent in that group.

I think Terry Ryan is a pretty smart guy and a pretty good judge of baseball talent. That said, it's also true that I think he (and Dave St. Peter, for that matter) probably have too much job security. Doesn't mean I would have let them go right now, but Pohlad's comment about Ryan being the team's GM for as long as he wants to be was something I cringed at.

When I look at the lineup put on the field by the Twins in September (and much of the season, for that matter), I think I could make a pretty good case for that roster having as little talent as many expansion rosters had in their early years. Historically, yes, GMs have fired managers after a series of years with so many losses. Often, I think that's been a way of deflecting blame so that GM can save his own job. Like it or not, Ryan's job is secure enough that he didn't have to worry about his own neck if he didn't find a scapegoat. Guess I'm among the people who just didn't care that much whether Gardy was retained or not, since I feel he had very little to do with the results.

First, if I were Terry Ryan, I'd throw a million dollars more a year on advanced analytics, even if I weren't convinced myself of the value. At some point, you have to recognize most other teams are doing it, so it's value to you simply as "opposition research" is pretty critical. When I talk trades with an opposing GM, it would be worth a lot for my guys to have told me what kind of player that other GM values. That said, I think a lot of people seem to be guilty of exactly what they accuse others of. The Giants won in 2012 so look at what they do with their advanced analysis and give those guys the credit. But if a team loses, then it can't possibly be the analysis that's to blame. It must have been injuries or underperformance or bad decisions or FO not heeding the analysts. Conversely, a team that wins despite doing little advanced analysis just lucked in to their success despite doing it wrong. Ryan's staunch opposition to giving any sort of credence to advanced analytical research is frustrating to me. So is the staunch insistence, by some, that anyone who doesn't bow at the SABR alter doesn't know anything about evaluating baseball talent.

I have to ask, since when is it the MLB manager and pitching coach's job to "develop young players"? For me, it's their job to win as many games as possible. They have to motivate, maybe even psycho-analyze, and perhaps tweak something here or there, but "development" is not at the top of the list of duties at that level. In fact, the Major League level is the first level in the organization where development of young players ISN'T the #1 responsibility of the field staff. It seems to me that the Twins have done a pretty good job of developing hitting and pitching talent at the Class A levels, but I'm not sure I consistently see that development steadily continue through AA. It's almost as though, as they reach AA, the players are no longer being "developed," but the focus begins to prematurely be turned to winning games. I think developing a winning mentality is important, but at AA I think you still need to be coaching individual players to improve, whether that's working on driving the ball at a time when players' bodies are maturing and getting stronger or whether it's mastering an out-pitch at a time when pitchers can no longer get by just throwing all their pitches for strikes. I see New Britain manager Jeff Smith was assigned to manager duties in the Arizona Fall League, so obviously the Twins FO likes him a lot. If so, maybe they should make him their extra MLB coach and put someone in the AA manager's chair that is more focused on helping players continue to develop at that level.

From the AP game report: Gomez didn't blame McCann for blocking his path to the plate. "If I'm a catcher, I do the same thing," Gomez said. "I try to protect my pitchers, my teammates. I respect McCann, all his players. I'm going to apologize to his manager, his organization, that it went that far. The adrenaline, the emotion takes it more than you expect." That tells me Gomez "gets it" at least a bit. Of course, he has every right to pimp his home runs any time he wants for whatever reason he wants. That quote tells me he also understands that, at times, there will be consequences for doing so. As long as he's willing to accept that those consequences can mean he might end up in a fight or get knocked down or plunked and, perhaps, miss playing time due to subsequent injury or ejection, that's fine.

Gomez was a punk when he was with the Twins and he's still a punk. I'm sorry he was ejected. I would have enjoyed seeing him get what he deserved next time he came up. Then again, since you really can't throw at a guy any more, the punch that got landed serves the same purpose. I always have trouble coming up with a NL team to root for in the postseason, but the Braves and, particularly, McCann, are now at the top of my NL list. I love that he and Freeman and the others didn't let Gomez get away with that crap. Obviously, McCann and Johnson should have been ejected. The fact that they weren't either speaks to incompetency of the umpires or maybe even they felt Gomez got what he deserved.

1: Maybe. I think $11 million is not a bad place to put the over/under. It's about what I expect him to spend on pitching in free agency (unless it turns out he gets really creative/lucky in the trade market). Face it, none of the top-tier arms are going to come to Minn for any price. The time to lure one or more of them here was a couple years ago when you might have been able to convince them there was enough offensive talent to compete behind them. That's no longer the case. Nobody will be tripping over themselves to sign with the Twins this offseason, especially not on a short term (1-2 year) deal. John, in the interview Ryan gave you last year, he seemed to say he recognized a need to fish in the FA waters, but didn't feel those waters were as deep as you (and many of us) believed. (Based on results, it turns out he was right, by the way.) Maybe he's taking the opposite tack this year... saying publicly he won't be looking to do anything significant in FA, lower expectations, and then if he can make a deal, great. Frankly, that approach is much more Ryan-esque than what he was saying a year ago. 2. Probably not by much. Even with some moderate FA help, the Twins are going to have to get lucky to improve their numbers a lot among SPs. Maybe a young guy or two bounces back with a better season. Maybe a former star SP on a make-good contract actually makes good. 3. No, it's not acceptable. I'm just becoming more and more convinced it's also not avoidable. By not supplementing the home grown roster with legitimate MLB talent, especially pitching, the past couple of years, the opportunity to remain competitive while you wait for the young prospects to arrive and develop in to big leaguers was missed. The hole may just be too deep to dig out of in less than three more years at this point.

I had thought about Smith and I wouldn't totally rule him out. He has a reputation of not being all that popular with the players, so it seems like the only reason you would give him the Big League job would be because you wanted to hire "not Gardy." That is, a manager who isn't too concerned about being well-liked in the clubhouse. I wouldn't rule that out, but I think he's more likely to be added as a coach than a manager. I could also see him moving up to Rochester if Glynn moves up/on, but I'm not sure he'd be real popular there with fans/media, either. Jake Mauer has spent several years working with young players, including most of those who are likely to be the core of the next wave of MLB talent. The only thing his resume lacks is Big League experience and, knowing how high the front office is on him, I'll be very surprised if they don't give him an opportunity to fill that gap on his resume. I'm not at all surprised no announcement has been made re Gardy. Everyone knows it won't be an altogether popular decision, so I can see them announcing it after the season is over when he won't have to hear that displeasure vocalized every time he steps out of the dugout.

Despite the general wailing and gnashing of teeth it will cause, Gardy will be getting a new 2-year contract, but Jake Mauer will be added to the Major League coaching staff, probably as a base coach, and will be the odds-on favorite to be the next Twins manager. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Molitor managing a Twins affiliate next year. The combination will make for an interesting dynamic to watch as the Twins likely go through another tough year in 2014. Gardy could be Dead Man Walking by mid summer, with the Twins being willing to eat a year of his pay to replace him if the team tanks again. There's absolutely no way Terry Ryan goes outside the Twins organization for his next manager. Simply can't see that happening. Also can't see him replacing Gardy with someone even older, to lead a youthful rebuild. That leaves Glynn out. Dougie is, as I recall, in Florida because that's where he wants to be due to family issues. Unless those have been resolved, I don't see him being anywhere but with the Miracle in 2014. Of course, by 2015 or 2016, if Gardy survives that long, he could be a consideration if he keeps the number of meltdowns in check and the family issues aren't still a factor.

You can't tell me that umpires are incapable of making the corrections necessary to improve the way they call balls/strikes. The problem is that they have absolutely no incentive to do so. These egomaniacs actually seem to believe that the appropriate way fans should react to this kind of data is to insist on the players adjusting how they perform based on who the umpire is. If umpires' compensation and perhaps even their jobs were influenced heavily by how accurately they called balls/strikes (not to mention outs), I guarantee you that we'd see a lot more accuracy in their calls. We wouldn't see NEARLY as much bias on 3-ball or 2-strike calls and we certainly would see a lot less "this rookie hasn't earned that call" crap. Robots or other electronic calls of balls/strikes may be where we need to get, but I would prefer to see the THREAT of going there move umpires (and their union) toward accepting a compensation/employment system that places a high level of emphasis on competency and that certainly includes calling balls and strikes accurately.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=2333-The-Twins-Way

How many times have we heard someone say, “The Twins need to get back to emphasizing the Twins Way?” Or, perhaps just as often we hear, “the Twins need to forget about the Twins Way crap… it doesn’t work.” Either way, “The Twins Way” has become a cliché and a pretty tired one, at that. But what is The Twins Way? We have some vague idea that it’s about playing good defense, running the bases intelligently, moving runners effectively and, yes, “pitching to contact” (how’s that for using one tired cliché to define another one?). http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/TwinsWay.jpg But I think it goes much, much deeper than all of that. I think The Twins Way is a philosophy – a culture that is imbedded at every level of the organization. It is a culture that has led to a fair amount of success for the Twins over the years, as a Major League Baseball team and as a privately owned and operated for-profit business. It’s also a culture that has driven many Twins fans to such a level of frustration that they’re almost incapable of having any discussion about the ballclub that doesn’t include a loud cry to get rid of the ownership, the front office executives, the manager, the coaches or, quite often, all of the above. Of course, taking issue with how those in authority run things is almost as ingrained in American culture as baseball, itself. On the other hand, whether the subject is government, business or sports, those with no clue about how to actually run something are often the most vocal critics of those who do. But if we’re going to have a dialogue about the pros and cons of The Twins Way, I think we should get our arms around what that actually means, so at least we all know what we’re talking about when we hear the term used or, heaven forbid, use the term ourselves. (This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com.) In my mind, The Twins Way starts with the concept of getting the best possible efforts and results out of whatever level of talent specific players might possess. The 1987 World Champion Twins. The “piranhas.” Brad Radke and Nick Punto. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Ryan_Santana.jpg Terry Ryan discusses the “Twins way” with a minor leaguer during spring training in 2010. The player quickly tucked his jersey back in his pants. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this concept. It’s what every organization SHOULD strive to achieve, isn’t it? And if you have a baseball team filled with overachieving mid-level talent, you can occasionally catch lightning in a bottle and accomplish great things. When that happens, the entire community and fan base rightfully takes great pride in the accomplishment. Sometimes, however, it causes those in charge to conclude that catching that lightning is something that can be repeated consistently or, even worse, that what’s been accomplished is not due to something as random as lightning strikes, but was actually accomplished by intentionally identifying potential new piranhas or the “next Brad Radke.” In fairness, this aspect of The Twins Way has its roots in necessity. Going back to the near-contraction days, the Carl Pohlad-owned Twins had to find inexpensive ways to compete with the rich clubs. They weren’t going to get Roger Clemens, so they needed to figure out how to win with Radke-types. Scouts looked for a certain sort of “make-up” in high school and college players, not to mention minor leaguers. “Toolsy” position players and “pitch to contact” pitchers with good “make-up” were perhaps deemed more affordable, short term and long term, than top-tier talents who would not only be more costly to sign initially, but would be more likely to bolt for major market teams as soon as they could escape their serfdom with the Twins. Shopping the free agent market meant picking through the bargain bins once the teams with real money to spend signed all the best available talent. There was never enough money in the coffers to retain the Twins’ own free agents, much less pay for those hitting the market from other organizations. The move to the Target Field was supposed to change things and, in many ways, it has. I’ve had the opportunity to talk to some of the people running the show and they are smart people. They know baseball and they know they need to put a better product on the field. To their credit, they’ve made some of the necessary cultural changes. Starting with the draft and international signings, the Twins have begun to spend money. The Twins outbid the Pirates for Dominican Miguel Sano and they’ve used the early draft picks that come with having really bad seasons to select what are arguably the best athletes available, such as Byron Buxton, rather than use “sign-ability” as a code word for spending as little as possible on new talent. They re-signed the players they deemed the most critical to retain from among their own group of free agents, including a significant extension for Justin Morneau and an eight-year contract for Joe Mauer at $23 million per year. They’ve dipped their toes in the mid-range levels of free agency, signing players like Josh Willingham and Kevin Correia to multi-year contracts at mid-seven digit levels annually. As the Twins complete a third consecutive season in which they’re likely to lose at least 90 games, it may not seem like it but The Twins Way is changing. They’re still teaching the importance of fundamentals at the lower levels of the minor leagues, but they’re teaching those fundamentals to, on balance, a group of ballplayers with more pure talent than used to be the case. In time, we should see these talented players working just as hard as the piranhas did and winning more games, as a result. As I see it, there’s really one remaining major cultural paradigm within the organization that needs to change and it’s probably the most difficult change for the organization to make. It has to do with being prepared to spend significant money on top-tier free agents from other organizations, even if it means having to risk paying more for their talents than your best judgment tells you they are worth. Not doing so won’t prevent the Twins from eventually becoming competitive again. Three years from now (maybe even two, if everything falls right), the talent in their minor league pipeline could well have the Twins competing for an AL Central Division title again. But if they show their historical patience, how many fans will still be showing up at Target Field by then? It’s a lot harder to get fans to come back than it is to keep them, but you need to be willing to give them a reason to keep showing up. It doesn’t take a baseball genius to figure out what the Twins need to improve significantly next season. It will require the same thing everyone knew it would take a year ago… and the year before that. It will take better starting pitching – much better starting pitching. Adding the kind of pitching required won’t be easy. They’ll have to outbid teams that have had more recent success for one or more of the best available free agent arms and/or they’ll need to let go of some of their highly coveted young prospects to get pitching help via trade. Either way, they’ll need to be willing to spend money, perhaps a lot of it. If they add nobody of significance to their roster, they’ll start 2014 with a payroll just slightly more than half of what they had committed to their Opening Day roster in 2011, so there’s no argument to be made that money isn’t available. The only remaining question is whether General Manager Terry Ryan and others running the organization are prepared to let go of the last remaining tie to the old culture and spend that money. In his excellent article at TwinsDaily.com, Nick Nelson laid out a number of reasons Twins fans should be optimistic that Ryan will do exactly that. I hope he’s right. I want so badly to believe he’s right. But after expecting more aggressive moves the past two winters and being left thoroughly disappointed, I just can’t convince myself to believe it until I see it. - JC I opine about the Twins and Kernels regularly at Knuckleballsblog.com while my alter ego, SD Buhr covers the Kernels for MetroSportsReport.com. ~You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant~

Of course, before we get too excited about Buck inevitably leading the Twins to the Promised Land, a glance at where the Trout-led Angels are in the standings might be in order.

I started typing out my thoughts on this, but it got rather lengthy and I decided I'd just do a blog post at some point instead. For now, I'll just say Terry Ryan will not be going anywhere until he wants to, but I could see him offering Gardy a 1 year extension and requiring more coaching changes... and I could see Gardy walking away from that and the Twins. I don't see it as at all likely his replacement would come from outside the organization, but there are some interesting possible internal choices.

I think most of us have some level of confidence that the rebuild will be at least moderately successful at some point. Some of us, however, see no reason why fans should have to wait several more years to see any success at all while that internal rebuild is taking place. "Because that's the way TR has always done it," is not a good reason to accept it. However, it's a pretty compelling reason to expect it.