Jim Crikket

From MLB Trade Rumors, John Heyman identifying (via twitter) Edwin Jackson, Shawn Marcum and Brandon McCarthy as potential targers. (Also Jair Jurrjens and Carl Pavano). I'm not exactly sure what "identifying as potential targets" means, but if Heyman has information that the Twins are actually seriously involved with discussions for Jackson, Marcum and McCarthy, that would be more encouraging than anything else I've read this week. Until Greinke signs and sets the market, these 3 probably aren't going to sign anywhere, so I won't expect deals done in Nashville.

Well, yeah, kinda. I believe Cuellar has been credited for helping Liriano a bit when they were together in the minors and since he'll be the Twins bullpen coach this season, you probably aren't far off. That could be factoring in to what the Twins are thinking.

Maybe the Twins' crack medical staff believes they've spotted something in Marcum's medical history that they believe they can fix. #sarcasm

I guess it's encouraging that the Twins have moved past the "checking in" phase and have actually made some offers. I'm more of a fan of Saunders than most people around here are, I would guess. If nothing else, he'd give us CR Kernels fans someone new to root for in a Twins uniform, now that Alexi's gone. Obviously, neither of these guys can be the "top" pitcher the Twins add this offseason, however.

Here's a crazy idea to throw out... we know the Twins have room to take on some salary for '13 and even '14. What if Revere went to a team that also wants to shed a contract and that got us back a better prospect? Angels are the first to mind with Vernon Wells. They'd have a nice outfield of Trout and Trumbo with Bourjos ® and Revere (L) and the salary savings would let them get another SP. We could easily ask for a pair of nice prospects in return. Crazy? Probably crazy, yeah. But it's not like this FO hasn't done crazy stuff before. It does seem a little "out there" for someone as conservative as Terry Ryan. I'm also not sure there's all that much room to take on salary in '13 unless Ryan really doesn't do anything except dumpster dive for pitching. By 2014 and certainly 2015, there would be a lot more room for this kind of move. By then, it may make more sense, too, if there's a particular position they feel they need to fill from outside the organization to augment all of the young kids coming up. Keep thinking outside the box, though. Someone around here should do it and it's not likely to be the Twins FO.

I suspect the "may need to get a CF in return" thing was pure speculation on Morosi's part. It wouldn't make any sense at all to take a lesser SP because the trade partner had to give up a CF, too. You get the best SP you can, period. But if CFs are in high demand right now and you think Revere is pretty much a 1-2 year bridge to Hicks or someone else coming up through the organization, you don't hesitate to make the deal now.

In the end, the "rock and a hard place" that Terry Ryan finds himself in is between: (a) fan expectations the he, Dave St. Peter and Jim Pohlad have are responsible for setting. Each of those gentlemen have publicly stated that they expect the Twins to contend next year and that the FO's intent is to find pitching that will accomplish such; and ( an ownership that is slow to acknowledge that sometimes that kind of fix takes more money than he'd like to spend. Ryan has certainly placed himself in that uncomfortable place by telling fans (and likely, his owner) that he believes he can acquire good starting pitching without spending a lot of money. It's quite possible he significantly underestimated market prices for such pitching (just as many of the rest of us did). If it turns out he can't deliver on his promisies, he's going to have a choice to make: go to Pohlad and ask for more money (they've never told him "no", or so we've been told, right?) or tell his bosses and the fans that he can't do what he said he should be able to do. There's still time for Ryan to get the job done. Haren is the only big time FA pitcher that's signed and most of the rest aren't likely to sign anywhere until Greinke signs. But reality is that the cost of labor has gone up and probably higher and faster than Ryan and Pohlad expected it to. How they react to that reality will tell fans all we need to know about how serious they are about putting a Major League team on the field in 2013. It's a perfectly legitimate business decision for Pohlad to make... whether to spend more money now to put a real MLB team on the field or punt on 2013. But if you choose the latter, I don't want to hear whining from the Twins offices about how fans are not being "supportive" of the team when more than half of Target Field seats are empty all year. If you choose not to put a priority on being competitive, that has to come with the assumption that few people will pay MLB prices to watch that team play.

Absolutely correct, raindog. It's Ryan's job to try to make the team semi-competitive in 2013 while really doing what is best for the organization long term. That doesn't mean I wouldn't still go after Sanchez and/or Jackson since they are young and will be around for 4-5 years. But spending (and especially overspending) just because it's what others are doing isn't right at all. At some point, overspending isn't overspending anymore. It's what the market price is and any major league GM has to deal with the rules of the game. EXACTLY! I don't know why people think paying market prices for top pitching is "overspending," other than it means paying more than what the Twins have been willing to pay in the past. But just because the Twins have been dumpster diving for years doesn't mean it's "overspending" to pay market price for top pitchers. To assume that when every team gets an extra $25 million in media revenue, it won't result in market prices for top players going up significantly is a pipe dream that no fan should allow his team's ownership to sell to its fanbase without being challenged.

I dunno man, Hammel doesn't do a whole lot for me. He was pretty mediorce prior to last season and couple that with the injury thing I don't think he is worth targeting at this point. If he had a couple more years of team control, or if the Twins were looking for "one more piece" then I could see it happening, I just fail to see the upside here, especially if you are trading a guy who could have a lot of value in a trade later in the season (Morneau) I hear ya and I don't necessarily disagree. Sure, you would like a guy who's under team control longer, but Hammel might not be impossible to lock up for a few more years, either. I do tend to discount his stats with Colorado a bit, though, so there's part of me that think you may be underestimating his abilities. The thing is, with Morneau being owed $14 million, that presents a lot of opportunities. The Twins can agree to eat a significant part of that if they want something better than Hammel in return or the O's can take on most of the remaining money if Hammel is all they'd part with. Even that result would leave the Twins with a pretty big chunk of change that would be added to the $25 million or so that Ryan has to play with right now. Like I said, it just seems like there could be a deal to be made between these two teams since they do have pieces that the other could use.

Funny... I JUST posed this question to Bonnes over on his "Rock and a Hard Place" thread. Morneau and Hammel both become free agents after 2013, I believe. Parmelee and Tillman are younger guys that the Twins and O's would have around for several years. Sure there are injury issues with almost all of these guys, but certainly no more so than with someone like Brandon McCarthy. It just seems to me like there should be a potential fit here.

John, your list of potential pitchers from the Handbook doesn't include Orioles starting pitchers that are now rumored to be in play for a potential trade for a 1B/DH with power. Why wouldn't a Morneau for Jason Hammel trade make sense? Both players, I believe, are potential free agents after 2014. There would almost certainly need to be other lesser pieces included by one team or the other, depending on how much of Morneau's $14 million salary the Twins agree to eat, but since the Orioles seem intent on fielding as much of the Twins' 2010-11 infield as possible, why not help them out? If they'd rather take Chris Parmelee for the longer term potential, that's fine, too. Then maybe you look at Chris Tillman instead of Hammel. Again, other pieces may need to balance things out, but it seems to me either Tillman or Hammel would be better acquisitions than any of the pitchers Ryan is currently being linked to on the FA market. There's no way of knowing whether the Orioles would even be interested in Morneau or Parmelee, but given they've picked up Casilla and Valencia, they certainly don't have an aversion to Twins players on principle.

What do you do? It's easy. You pay. Simple as that. As mike indicated above, this is the industry the Pohlads chose to participate in. Overpaying to improve your team is the price you pay for being cheap and stupid last year (and even before that) and not making sure you had competitive pitching. If you won't pay, then don't tell everyone who puts a microphone in your face that you know you need more than one guy better than Diamond and getting that talent is your job. That's exactly what Terry Ryan has been doing and if he fails to deliver, then by his own definition, he has not done his job. Period.

Here's the problem... the Twins HAVE a #3 starter in Scott Diamond and they have a crapload of potential #4-#5 starters to audition in February and March. They don't need another "#3 or #4". They need at least a couple of guys BETTER THAN Scott Diamond and Terry Ryan knows it. We know he knows it because he's been saying it to anyone with a microphone for the past 2 months. Yet the only reports that have the Twins showing real interest are about other bottom of the rotation pitchers. Terry Ryan has at least $25 million dollars in his pocket and if he comes away from Nashville with nothing but low end pitching to show for it because he got spooked by the dollars that agents for top pitchers were asking for, fans have every right to stay away from Target Field en masse this summer.

It's only Day 1 of the Winter Meetings, but when you sort through all of the rumors, there's virtually no mention of the Twins doing anything more than "checking in" on the top available free agent pitchers. Joe Blanton is the best that the Twins have been seriously connected to, so far. Beyond that, it's bottom-dwellers, so far. Not an encouraging first day.

Why don't we wait and see how much he actually spends before getting disgusted? I agree with your overall viewpoints about payroll but this seems like needless hand-wringing to me. Sorry, I keep forgetting that TD is only for discussion regarding what has actually transpired. The $90 million figure is not something just being floated out there online by us know-nothings, it's been appearing in "real" media reports, including the beat writers who supposedly have some level of insight (not to mention contacts within the organization itself) that the rest of us don't. Of course, the Twins do have years of history where they've had ownership approval to dive right in to the free agent market to get top pitching, so why would anyone doubt them, right?

I trust Terry Ryan, too. I believe he's a savvy baseball mind and a decent negotiator. I trust him to get as much out of his allowed payroll number as almost any GM in baseball. I don't trust what he says publicly, however. Like most of us, he's not free to make public statements that put his employer in a bad light... and while I trust Ryan's abilities, I do not trust his employer much at all. In their final years at the Metrodome, the Twins had payrolls of about $65 million a year. Had they stayed at the 'dome and continued to be recipients of revenue sharing money rather than contributors, I think we'd be looking at payrolls in the mid $80 millions (assuming the infamous 50% of revenue standard) at this point. So when I read media reports that Ryan may be looking at a Pohlad-imposed limit near the $90 million mark, it disgusts me. Failing to add pitching over the past couple of years means Ryan will have to pay a premium for legitimate free agent SPs now to get them to sign with a bad team. In interviews over the past couple months, he's seemed to acknowledge that improving the rotation will cost money and require multiple year contracts. More recently, however, his quotes have returned to the "We're going to make reasonable baseball decisions" standard we've been accustomed to for years. Translated, this has typically meant dumpster diving. Based on his comments earlier in the offseason (including those to John Bonnes), I don't think that's what Ryan wanted to do this year. But while other owners are apparently willing to let their GMs spend a little bit of the new National TV money a year before it arrives, I'm guessing Ryan is getting no such latitude from his ownership. The result is that FA price inflation is taking all of the pitching that could truly help the Twins out of Ryan's price range. Trusting Terry Ryan is one thing, but what has Jim Pohlad done to make anyone believe we should trust him?

Having to overpay is the price this front office pays for allowing the team to fall to the depths it has. Starting pitching was a huge need last offseason, too, and they did nothing about it. Congratulations, you shaved $15 million off your 2011 payroll by not signing real pitching last year. Now you get to overpay to get similar pitching because you have to convince those pitchers that you're serious about contending. It's the price you pay for being stupid and cheap last year. Those pitchers also know that, if the Twins aren't competitive, there's a pretty good chance they get traded to a contender at mid-season anyway. Some might argue you've got a better chance of being in the playoffs by signing with a bad team now than if you sign with a borderline competitive team in the first place.

There are 30 million ways Ryan could win a bidding war for pitching and MI help. How many other GMs have that much payroll room before they even hit the prior year's Opening Day payroll? I have no issue with the Span/Meyer trade, but with $30 million in his pocket, there's no excuse at all for Ryan not being able to address the present AND the future needs of his ballclub.

You can view the page at http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?1216-Winter-Meetings-Time-For-Terry-Ryan-to-Step-Up

This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com. Baseball’s Winter Meetings get in to gear down at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville on Monday and that’s got me a bit nervous. The Twins, at least at the Major League level, are in a sorry state, having come off a 96-loss season which followed a 99-loss season. It just doesn’t get much worse than this, folks. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OprylandIce.jpg A year ago, just ahead of the Winter Meetings in Dallas, I wrote a post here headlined “M&M: Time to Step Up or Shut Up.” The point was that, following a season in which the Twins stars had spent more time not playing baseball than playing baseball, perhaps it wasn’t totally unrealistic for the front office to play a little “wait and see” before spending a bunch of money trying to rebuild the roster to a level capable of contending. Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, among others, needed to play better in 2012 or it really wouldn’t matter whether the Twins spent money to buy them some help. To their credit, I believe Mauer and Morneau did exactly what I asked. They both had much-improved seasons, managing to stay on the field and hit baseballs with some regularity. Whatever the reasons were for the Twins dropping 96 games in 2012, those reasons had little, if anything, to do with Mauer and Morneau. The failure can arguably be laid almost entirely at the feet of the pitching staff. And that’s not entirely surprising. We at Knuckleballs posted multiple articles last offseason expressing our disappointment about the Twins failure to add significant pitching help and we certainly weren’t the only people making that point. So here we are, a year later, on the eve of yet another week of Winter Meetings, and guess what… the Twins need to significantly improve their pitching staff. Terry Ryan made what certainly appears to have been a reasonable trade this week when he sent popular and productive outfielder/leadoff hitter Denard Span to the Nationals for potential future top-of-the-rotation pitcher Alex Meyer. But that deal won’t do anything to make the product at Target Field any more watchable in 2013. The reports we are reading leading up to these meetings indicate the Twins are expected to be very active and that Terry Ryan is looking to significantly improve the 2013 rotation largely through the free agent market. That’s encouraging to hear, but gang, we’ve heard that before. Let’s hop in to our time machine and go back just one year ago, shall we? Here’s a summary of what we were reading about the Twins activities during the Winter Meetings last December: On Day One last year, there was conjecture that the Twins remained interested in Edwin Jackson, but that Jackson was going to wait until CJ Wilson and/or Mark Buehrle set the market. The Twins were said to be interested in Jackson only if they did not spend the money to re-sign Michael Cuddyer. Of course, they signed Josh Willingham for considerably less money than Cuddyer was demanding, but we certainly did not see Jackson in a Twins uniform. Speaking of Mark Buehrle, reports also came out of Dallas on Day One that the Twins were one of four teams (along with the Nationals, Marlins and Rangers) that were “still in on” Buehrle. He eventually signed with the Marlins and is now a Blue Jay. So what DID the Twins do on Day One? They re-signed Matt Capps and claimed SS Pedro Florimon off waivers from the Orioles. On Day Two, we read that Buehrle had narrowed his list to five teams and that the Twins had an offer in. Word also came out that the Twins would be meeting with Jeff Francis’ agent during the Winter Meetings. On the other hand, the Strib’s LaVelle E. Neal III was reporting that the Twins had had no conversations with the agents of Francis and Jackson. They didn’t add a pitcher on Day Two, but the Twins did part with one. They traded Kevin Slowey to the Rockies for a “player to be named later.” And on Day Three, apparently worn out by all the activity the first two days, the Twins front office rested. Of course, later in the month, Terry Ryan inked Jason Marquis to a one year contract, so it’s not like he didn’t add any starting pitching, right? So what’s my point? My point is that, while Terry Ryan and Dave St. Peter are saying all the right things right now about improving the Twins in 2013 by adding legitimate starting pitchers, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve heard it before. Just a year ago, the media was being fed reports about how the Twins were in on Mark Buehrle and interested in talking to Edwin Jackson’s agent. But when it came to actually spending money, they signed Jason Marquis. And make no mistake, it would have been pretty easy to make a case to a top pitcher that their 2011 failures were fluke-ish… that injuries to Mauer, Morneau, Span, and others were responsible for the lousy record… and that with some pitching help and a return to health by their stars, the Twins could contend again in 2012. It won’t be nearly as easy to convince a top free agent that they’d be signing on to a contender in Minnesota this year. Last year, all Ryan had to so was spend money. This year he has to do a helluva sales job AND spend money. It’s perfectly fine for fans to be hopeful that Ryan will do exactly that. As fans, hope is what we live on in December and January. It’s also perfectly understandable for us to be skeptical that the Twins are really serious about being willing to spend the money that would be necessary to bring legitimate starting pitching help on board. As I’ve written this past week, Terry Ryan has been saying all the right things. I’m sure the Twins would like fans to take them at their word when they talk about being willing to spend money to make real and immediate improvements. But if the Twins really want us to take their words seriously, they need to do more than talk about signing good pitchers. They need to do it. You’re on deck Mr. Ryan. It’s time for you to step up. - JC

This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com. Baseball’s Winter Meetings get in to gear down at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville on Monday and that’s got me a bit nervous. The Twins, at least at the Major League level, are in a sorry state, having come off a 96-loss season which followed a 99-loss season. It just doesn’t get much worse than this, folks. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/OprylandIce.jpg A year ago, just ahead of the Winter Meetings in Dallas, I wrote a post here headlined “M&M: Time to Step Up or Shut Up.” The point was that, following a season in which the Twins stars had spent more time not playing baseball than playing baseball, perhaps it wasn’t totally unrealistic for the front office to play a little “wait and see” before spending a bunch of money trying to rebuild the roster to a level capable of contending. Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau, among others, needed to play better in 2012 or it really wouldn’t matter whether the Twins spent money to buy them some help. To their credit, I believe Mauer and Morneau did exactly what I asked. They both had much-improved seasons, managing to stay on the field and hit baseballs with some regularity. Whatever the reasons were for the Twins dropping 96 games in 2012, those reasons had little, if anything, to do with Mauer and Morneau. The failure can arguably be laid almost entirely at the feet of the pitching staff. And that’s not entirely surprising. We at Knuckleballs posted multiple articles last offseason expressing our disappointment about the Twins failure to add significant pitching help and we certainly weren’t the only people making that point. So here we are, a year later, on the eve of yet another week of Winter Meetings, and guess what… the Twins need to significantly improve their pitching staff. Terry Ryan made what certainly appears to have been a reasonable trade this week when he sent popular and productive outfielder/leadoff hitter Denard Span to the Nationals for potential future top-of-the-rotation pitcher Alex Meyer. But that deal won’t do anything to make the product at Target Field any more watchable in 2013. The reports we are reading leading up to these meetings indicate the Twins are expected to be very active and that Terry Ryan is looking to significantly improve the 2013 rotation largely through the free agent market. That’s encouraging to hear, but gang, we’ve heard that before. Let’s hop in to our time machine and go back just one year ago, shall we? Here’s a summary of what we were reading about the Twins activities during the Winter Meetings last December: On Day One last year, there was conjecture that the Twins remained interested in Edwin Jackson, but that Jackson was going to wait until CJ Wilson and/or Mark Buehrle set the market. The Twins were said to be interested in Jackson only if they did not spend the money to re-sign Michael Cuddyer. Of course, they signed Josh Willingham for considerably less money than Cuddyer was demanding, but we certainly did not see Jackson in a Twins uniform. Speaking of Mark Buehrle, reports also came out of Dallas on Day One that the Twins were one of four teams (along with the Nationals, Marlins and Rangers) that were “still in on” Buehrle. He eventually signed with the Marlins and is now a Blue Jay. So what DID the Twins do on Day One? They re-signed Matt Capps and claimed SS Pedro Florimon off waivers from the Orioles. On Day Two, we read that Buehrle had narrowed his list to five teams and that the Twins had an offer in. Word also came out that the Twins would be meeting with Jeff Francis’ agent during the Winter Meetings. On the other hand, the Strib’s LaVelle E. Neal III was reporting that the Twins had had no conversations with the agents of Francis and Jackson. They didn’t add a pitcher on Day Two, but the Twins did part with one. They traded Kevin Slowey to the Rockies for a “player to be named later.” And on Day Three, apparently worn out by all the activity the first two days, the Twins front office rested. Of course, later in the month, Terry Ryan inked Jason Marquis to a one year contract, so it’s not like he didn’t add any starting pitching, right? So what’s my point? My point is that, while Terry Ryan and Dave St. Peter are saying all the right things right now about improving the Twins in 2013 by adding legitimate starting pitchers, I’ll believe it when I see it. I’ve heard it before. Just a year ago, the media was being fed reports about how the Twins were in on Mark Buehrle and interested in talking to Edwin Jackson’s agent. But when it came to actually spending money, they signed Jason Marquis. And make no mistake, it would have been pretty easy to make a case to a top pitcher that their 2011 failures were fluke-ish… that injuries to Mauer, Morneau, Span, and others were responsible for the lousy record… and that with some pitching help and a return to health by their stars, the Twins could contend again in 2012. It won’t be nearly as easy to convince a top free agent that they’d be signing on to a contender in Minnesota this year. Last year, all Ryan had to so was spend money. This year he has to do a helluva sales job AND spend money. It’s perfectly fine for fans to be hopeful that Ryan will do exactly that. As fans, hope is what we live on in December and January. It’s also perfectly understandable for us to be skeptical that the Twins are really serious about being willing to spend the money that would be necessary to bring legitimate starting pitching help on board. As I’ve written this past week, Terry Ryan has been saying all the right things. I’m sure the Twins would like fans to take them at their word when they talk about being willing to spend money to make real and immediate improvements. But if the Twins really want us to take their words seriously, they need to do more than talk about signing good pitchers. They need to do it. You’re on deck Mr. Ryan. It’s time for you to step up. - JC

Jack, I don't disagree that a pitching prospect is a risk, but given the total absence of even potential top of the rotation pitching in the Twins organization, I believe this was a reasonable risk for the Twins to take. I was not in the least bit interested in seeing Span traded for a relief pitcher, I don't care who it is. But the biggest objection I have to your post is the statement that Meyer competed against younger kids who were 18-20 years old last year. I'm sorry to pick on you, because you certainly aren't the only person to make a comment like this. It's one of those things that seems to have become acknowledged as fact just because it's been stated so often. But go look at the rosters of full-season Class A teams. They are certainly not full of nothing but 18-20 year olds. For example, look over the Beloit Snappers roster at the end of their season. A 20 year old would have been born some time in 1992, right? The Snappers had exactly ONE PLAYER born in 1992 or later... Miguel Sano. Every other player on their roster was born in 1991 or earlier. As a regular fan of a Class A team in Cedar Rapids, I can say this is typical. Sure you'll see a Sano (or, in CR, a Trout) come through as an 18-19 year old from time to time, but they are the exception, not the rule. Teenagers tend to spend their time in rookie/short season leagues. Typically, we see players 21-22 years old in Class A. In fact, just for the heck of it, I glanced at the end-of-the-season roster of the Nationals' Class A team in Hagerstown and not a single position player on that roster was born after 1989, so that would indicate that all of the guys lined up behind Meyer while he pitched there were older than Meyer. It's fair to question whether getting a pitcher who hasn't pitched above Class A for Span was a good deal, but anyone who claims he built his stats at Class A against a bunch of younger players simply is not taking the time to research the facts.

Well applying that rationale, maybe the Nats should have been really nice and sent us Ramos back along with Meyer!

So, naturally, just as I get ready to post this, Ryan swings in to action and trades Denard Span to the Nationals for Alex Meyer, who sure looks like the real deal to me, though obviously not real enough to help a lot immediately. Sure should change those "top 10 prospect" lists for the Twins that are floating about, though.