Mike Sixel

Why the concern over the pick? How often will a second rounder even contribute 2 GOOD seasons to a team? Drew is worth 2.5-3 WAR a year..... For the Twins: Assuming it takes 5 years to make the majors...starting with 2008 draft picks (and working backward), 21 picks in round two contributed no WAR, or negative WAR, while 6 contributed positive WAR in the last couple of decades.......two of those less than 2.5 WAR for their career. Only Baker, Slowey, Crain and Jaque Jones contributed more than 2.5 WAR for their career from 1984 - 2008.

Like last year, when he traded for Worely, signed KC and Pelfrey, and made the rotation worse relative to the league? I do agree, the GM gets way too much credit/blame for the draft, other than he hires the scouting director, and probably has say (at least) in the makeup and approach of the minor league development staff. But I do agree, the easiest way to judge a GM is on FA signings and on trades......what is Ryan's record in FA signings, in your opionon? Not just this year, but over his career?

Sure sould be nice to have hardy....sure hard to judge Smith on that, given what we have heard about Gardy's desires. But, we have no idea how those decisions were made.

Drew had a positive offensive WAR, Floriman, not so much.....by any measure, he's better than Floriman. But you don't do this unless you are trying to win this year or next year.......which requires maybe another SP.

Only if you somehow sign Santana to an extension. Only if you somehow don't acquire Gomez in the first place to trade for Hardy. No, no it does not. The analysis is lacking some precision, imo (and others have pointed out similar things).

He tried to replace 60% of his rotation, and made it worse, and yet, everyone can't stop praising him.

And yet, Ryan gets little blame for the last three years, because of Smith. Odd, that.

I think KC's offense will be better. The SP, not so sure. Cleveland is going to lose pitching. Detroit is still one of the 2-5 best teams in MLB. The WS appear destined to be bad, imo. Either way, I think the Twins should continue to try to get better, for 2014, 2015, and beyond. The Cards have shown you can do both.....

From what I've read, next year's FA crops looks like one of the worst ever. Looking now..... no catcher under 31 two 1B under 35 no 2B under 30, only two under 33 probably 1-2 good SS not much at 3B no OF as good as the two big names this year the SP could be interesting, but I see most of those guys being locked up or outrageous in cost I see no reason not to sign another guy (or trade for one) right now, as long as Sano/Buxton are not given up.

Good point on TF... a "regular" business analogy is that when big companies build new corporate HQs, their stock generally drops. It is hypothosized that leadership gets distracted, and does not lead as well......

Well, if you look at the numbers....it does possibly work. You get Mauer for 40 more games, and you get a healthy Willingham, and you get not negative WAR from LF and CF, and Arcia is 2 games better.....that's 8 wins right there. You get two legit pitchers instead of 60+ starts from AAAA filler, that's 8 wins right there. Now all you need is some luck with Dozier and Pinto, and Sano up and average for a 3B. Brock, Mauer is 30.....you may as well trade him if you aren't going to try to win this year or next. I don't get why people don't want them to try to win. And, I didn't say it would happen, I said it could happen. The arguments against boil down to: It won't happen (this isn't an argument at all) It can't happen (it happened last year) Why try to make it happen We will know more about the future after this year (after Willingham (gone?) and Mauer are a year older, and next year's FA market looks like the worst ever) It's funny, if I write a negative comment, I get all kinds of logical reasons why I am wrong. If I write a positive one, all I get are statements, and very few if any actual logical arguments. I do agree, it is optimistic, but I disagree that it can't happen.

Actually, I assumed 150 games at 1B for Mauer, not 160. They can be like the pirates, the delta is the Twins' best player is 30, not in his early twenties.....the Twins also have Buxton and Sano coming up this year/next year....why not surround them with elite pitching when you have the chance?

Not one mention of the "prospects" that Smith inherited when he took over. Not one mention of TR not signing Hunter the year before, when he said he would sign. Barely a mention of Sano at all. Not one mention of Gardy's role in any of the decisions. look, Smith was not good at his job. But the reason they have no one in their prime on this roster right now (Dozier?) that they drafted is about the time before Smith, not during Smith. If it takes 5 years for a HS player to come up (or longer)......when would the players that would come up in Smith's year's as GM (or even 1-3 years later) have been drafted? Before Smith was there. I get it, we all get it. Bill Smith is the reason this team is devoid of good players. It isn't on the time before him somehow, it isn't about the scouts that advised him, it isn't about the owner not wanting to pay for Mauer and two other expensive players, it isn't about Gardy and the need for MIF speed.....it is all on Bill Smith.

What is the point of keeping prospects, and never playing for hte present (only to have those prospects not be that good)? Which great prospect did I suggest trading? Gibson? He's on the same timefram as Hamels and Lee in terms of his value to the team. Berrios? He's a good prospect. Actually, I didn't really make an assumption about the DL.....other than Nolasco making 30 starts.....since I have Hughes being Pelfry, and the combination of starters replacing the 3-5th worst startes only being as good as Pelfrey....I expect that to be a combo of Gibson and Meyer and Diamond and Worly....and if someone is hurt midway, I expect Meyer to be ready, and to be better than a 5.2-6 ERA.

The Phillies have told teams they are willing to trade both of them.....

I agree, Hamels, Nolasco, Hughes, KC, random guy is more than enough to get this team in striking distance of the playoffs....see my recent thread for why I think that.

Willingham, and he's not traded because they are around .500 and they try to win instead of punting. It's a new era in Twins' land.....

Willingham doesn't even need to be as good as he was two years ago, he just has to be an ok DH. Hicks has to not be the worst CF in baseball, just bad. They don't need Buxton at all, looking at the numbers realistically. It would be great, but not needed. If Brock is right, and they are a .500 team, imagine adding Hamels or Lee to the rotation....oh, and maybe Meyer coming up and being better than KC or Deduno, or Hughes being better than Pelfrey.....all of that is possible/realistic. Really, if the OF could be replacement level in LF and CF, and Sano comes up halfway, and mauer plays 40 more games, and Dozier is the same as last year, they are at least 5 games better, probably closer to 9. Add in the 10+ wins more from the pitching, w/o additions, and this team is .500.

I didn't even touch on Dozier being good all year, I only have Sano up half a year, my assumptions around Hughes are pretty conservative, my assumptions on Mauer are conservative, my assumptions on LF/CF are that the players are worth 1 WAR cumulative (which is better than last year)....I think I've accounted for the luck, but maybe not.

Bear with me, this is a bit long….. Given that 10 runs equals a win, and given actual results last year, here is how I think the Twins can get close to the playoffs in 2014. Last year, Diamond and Hendriks made a combined 32 starts. In those, they had 9 quality starts, and gave up a combined 127 runs. In those 32 starts, the Twins won 11 games. Nolasco had 18 quality starts, and gave up 90 runs. By runs allowed, you are looking at 3-4 wins, by assuming they win half the QS difference, that is 4-5 wins, by looking at the fact the Twins only won 11 of the games, if you assume they are .500 in his starts, they win 5 more games. Nolasco replacing those two gives them 3-5 more wins. Last year, Mauer played a lot less games than he will this coming year. The projections on Fangraphs are very conservative, IMO. But, going by those, there are 1-2 more wins from his offense. Assuming Pinto is about equal to the 1B they sent out last year, that is only 1-2 more wins. I think that is VERY conservative, but whatever. Willingham’s numbers last year were really quite bad. Fangraphs projects him at 2 wins better than last year. I’d put him at DH, and put a good OFer out there for defense and actually, Pressley would be no worse than the DH’s last year (unreal). 2 more wins from Willingham. From just those three, you are looking at 7 wins being conservative, imo. On the positive side, you are looking at 11 more wins. I’ll split the delta and go 9 more wins. They now have only 87 losses. Phil Hughes…..pretty much gave up the same number of runs as Mike Plefrey last year. I’m going to call that a draw, in a conservative move. Oswaldo Arcia….wow, Fangraphs is high on him. They are projecting him to be 2-4 more wins than he was last year. Let’s go with 2. They now have 85 losses. 3B….Plouffe is projected by Fangraphs to be 1-1.5 wins better. Assuming Sano comes up half way through the year, 3B should be 2 wins better than last year. They now have 83 losses. CF….wow, Hicks was bad last year. Offense AND defense was bad. Fangraphs had him negative for defense. Baseball prospectus did not, but I don’t have all their stats. If Presley starts there, and is as “good” as last year (his worst in the majors), he is worth 1-2 more wins than Hicks was last year. If Hicks starts, and is just the 27th worst CF, instead of the 38th worst, he is worth 2 more wins. Let’s go 2 wins here. They now are a .500 team. I don’t think any of that is unrealistic. Some of it is quite conservative. We have not even discussed replacing the 32 starts made by Hernandez, Worley, and Albers (8 quality starts, 120 runs given up between them). If those are replaced by a guy(s) equivalent to Plefrey, that is 2-3 wins more right there. The Twins LFers had a net negative .7 WAR last year. If Mastrioni or Presley are worth zero, that is worth 1 win. Seems realistic, and is conservative by Fangraphs estimates. So, 3-4 more wins right there. That puts the Twins at 83-85 wins, w/o any real additions from what they have already done (this is why I wanted Ellsbury, put him in CF, and you are looking at around 7 more wins than the negative wins they got last year, but that is not happening now). So, how do you add more wins at this point? Catcher, LF, CF, SP……. KC….let’s assume he’s the same pitcher. So, we’ve accounted for KC’s starts, Hughes (replacing Pelfrey), Nolasco (replacing Diamond/Hendriks), Deduno (replacing Hernandez, Worley, Albers), that leaves one starter to cover what Gibson/Deduno/Walters, et. al. produced. Let’s make a big trade…..for either Hamels or Lee. Let’s trade Gibson and Berrios and a random 10-20 prospect. Hamels or Lee have accumulated between 3.5 and 7 wins a year for the last few years. Fangraphs projects them for around 4 WAR next year. The guys they are replacing produced negative WAR last year. Let’s count this as 4 wins. Twins now have 87-89 wins, and I’d say that is conservative. Why not do this? Why not try to win while Mauer is good? Oh, and when Buxton comes up in 2015, and Sano is here for a full year, and Rosario is your starting LF? Those three are worth more than any of the options listed for 2014, even as rookies. When you point out that teams can’t go from 96 losses to being good, ask yourself what happened in 91, or last year with the Red Sox…….

Fair enough, Thrylos. I over estimated his ability......doesn't matter now.

Redundant how? They have 1 OF on the roster right now, Arcia. Wilingham should be the DH, and never see LF again for an AL team. Hicks is an unknown. That leaves a bunch of AAAA/bakcup types. Why not sign him?

Didn't the Red Sox just go from being awful to winning it all? It is a fallacy you should wait for some perfect storm you make your perfect storm. Assuming Price is great for four years, why would you not wan him paired up with peak Mauer? This is exactly why the last Ryan run was a waste, because he was always waiting for something, instead of making something happen.

I have no idea when he will slow down, but it likely isn't super soon. But again, it is about what the Yankees can do, and I do not see this stopping them from signing others. In the meantime, they got a lot better in the OF. They just need to bid more for Tanaka in negotiations with him, and trade for a 2b, and they are back in the playoff hunt, since they already added MCCann.

One way the A's were good last year was by not throwing away any of the 24 spots. They made small improvements across the board. The Twins need to decide if they are going that route (e.g., making some small signing of guys they know can add some value), or if they are going to give some of the young guys already here a shot to provide more data about their ability to play. I'd think there are guys that are much likely to be better than Doumit, Parms, Hicks/Mastro/Pressley were last year available. Do you roll the dice on the guys you have, or bring in some vets to maybe be better and send the guys to AAA or packing? The Yankees now need a 2B....if you think Rosario can be your guy starting in 2015, do you deal Dozier for prospects (I have no idea if the Yanks have any prospects)?