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tobi0040

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Everything posted by tobi0040

  1. tobi0040
    He will turn 33 in a three months. I would go 4-80 on Shields this off-season. K rate is declining, but he stiill put up a 3.21 ERA with the 7.1 K per 9. 3.15 ERA with a 7.7 K per 9 last year. His secret is crazy control to go along with slightly better than average K rates. Over 4 K to BB this year. I don't think we have great options and I think Shields is the best of them Option 1 - We can not sign anyone and go with the hope and wait strategy (hope everyone is better and nobody good regresses) and wait and hope prospects come up and pitch well from day 1. I would like to rule that out. When you are 28-30th in starter ERA three years running you need an infusion of better talent. Option 2 - Sign someone. We are not signing Max or Lester and IMO, Ervin is risky. He has had good/bad years on and off and only one year younger. So it leaves Shields as the last impact guy left. Option 3 - Trade. This should be pursued. But I think many on these boards have had unrealistc proposals. We are not getting a guy like Cole Hamels, Jeff S., or Cueto with several OK to maybe good prospects. We would be losing Sano or Buxton plus something AND taking payroll up to about our cap for next year if we dole out extensions or take on the salary. This is actually the option that makes the least sense to me. You give up payroll and key prospects for one player. One player is not turning this around.
  2. tobi0040
    I agree that you won't find a 24 year old free agent pitcher. I don't think any high profile guys from Japan are coming. But this is the Twins, resources are scarce. We do have to acknowledge this. If we drop $70M on this guy, we won't be adding a pitcher sans very short high upside one year deal. And this guy isn't going to be improving the staff. The staff is the issue. The Twins will need better pitching to become relevant. Not adding a pitcher means the strategy is wait for prospects and pray for improvement of the guys there (and also pray you don't get regression from Hughes and Gibson).
  3. tobi0040
    I just think in this day and age, a believer in applying numbers to the game should be a requirement. Doug's comments were discouraging. I could not support a guy that is only "open" to new ways of thinking. I am guessing Gardy would say he is open too.
  4. tobi0040
    I think it will by Molitor as well. I think one or two future manager types on the bench makes snnse. But I just don't know how they can't bring Brunansky back as the hitting coach. 5th in runs with that offense?
  5. tobi0040
    "if they hadn't swooned". We were two games below .500, I am guessing 6-10 games out of first place. Payroll would only have ended at $95M if we made a serious run and even Terry had to know with a sudden turn to form by Morales in the middle of the season, our rotation, regression from guys like Escobar, Colabello, etc. that was very unlikely. It is not like we had a huge lead and lost it.
  6. tobi0040
    I liked the move too. But we were 2 games below .500 fueled by un-sustainable runs by guys like Colabello, Escobar, and Santana (yes he tailed off from June 8). Our rotation was in shambles. Terry knew it was a 10% shot he was paid $10M. In fact he only was here 39 games.
  7. tobi0040
    We started at $85M. Morales was a flip from day one. He was never going to be paid $10M by the Twins. We were hoping he would catch fire and be worth something. Last year it was $20M less. Starting from $110 or $95 doesn't matter. Going down to $75, then up to $85 is not anything to brag about.
  8. tobi0040
    We will never know the inner workings/politics of it all. Here are my thoughts: Terry Ryan could fire Deron Johnson if he wanted to. In my experience, not many things happen in this world without your boss on board. Whether that be in baseball or corporate america.
  9. tobi0040
    That assumes he has no input. My gut tells me he has to at least approve and does scout them all personally.
  10. tobi0040
    You mean a comment like this from 2011? "Pohlad said Target Field revenues should allow the Twins' payroll to remain in the $95 million range beyond this season." So we get a nice flashy payroll in year one. The owner says it will remain in that range. It goes to $75M. Then he brags when it goes up to $85M. I don't think my perception is that this is misleading. It just is.
  11. tobi0040
    I am a believer in ths meme for a few reasons. Most importantly, I think Terry was brought in to rebuild this team and had a clear mandate to do so internally. He was not given the payroll for any free agent signings. So to criticize the guys like Correia or Pelfrey as major flops seems to be a tad off base. I think he also had to rely on getting innings from AAAA types. While blessed with three draft picks in the top five, these picks are never locks. Buxton, Kohl, and Gordon look like really good picks. Specifically the Buxton pick over the arm we all throught we desparately needed (Appel, Zimmer, or Gausman). In 2012 we also walked away with Berrios, Walker, Melotakis, Rogers, Muren, and Hicks among others. Also signed Thorpe this year. In 2013 we stole Gonslaves, got Turner and Garver late as well as Alex Swim. In 2014, Burdi was a steal. Batts, Cederoth, Murphy, etc.looks like another good one. I also believe the Meyer and May trades are going to pay off for us. He has done about as good of a job turning the system around as we could have asked. I think we went from mid 20's to top 3.
  12. tobi0040
    When payroll goes from $110M, to $100M, to $75M, then back up to $85M.....why brag about how much you have spent? In 2011 we let a LF leave that was making $10.5M. Then signed a replacement (Josh) for $7M and bragged that we made the largest free agent signing in our history. This type of thing is extremely misleading. The Twins do this type of thing all the time and yes, it leads to credibility issues with fans. What if a money manager bought a stock for $50 per share. Then it drops to $30, then goes up to $35. Can that money manager tell his investors he made them money?
  13. tobi0040
    Given the $20M gap, we have to concude this includes the draft and international pools. No way the benefits to the MLB players are $20M. Especially given the final published payroll numbers include player earned bonuses.
  14. tobi0040
    In ten minutes of looking, I have only found TR and DSP talking of 50-52% of payroll and payroll numbers that do not align wih the player expenses numbers that Forbes. Rather, the lower MLB payroll figure. Example, $100M in 2012 versus the Forbes $122M
  15. tobi0040
    All the money they have went around bragging they have spent, has resulted in payroll to decline from $110M to in the $80's. Last off-season they went around saying they spent $85M. That was on 2 3, and 4 year deas to three different starting pitchers. Paying a pitching $6M, $8M, and $11M a year for starting pitchers on the free agent market is not really a huge spend. It was a record by Twins standards, but we are talking about a world where Scott Feldman signs for $9M a year. Gil Meche for $11M.
  16. tobi0040
    I think we are talking about two different sets of numbers. Player expenses and MLB payroll are two different things. The first takes into account, I am guessing minor league salaries, bonuses paid to international free agents, probably your draft pool as well. No? When talking about "payroll", the Twins even acknowledge payroll is nowhere near $97M this year, $122M last year. Here is a conversation with Terry Ryan in the context of a $100M payroll for 2012, not the $122M number you have. The conversation was in 2013. http://www.twincities.com/ci_22132930/minnesota-twins-gm-terry-ryan-doesnt-want-top
  17. tobi0040
    Hopefully that came up in the interview. That is beyond concerning.
  18. tobi0040
    Yes. If the Twins drop $70M on this guy, that is likely all the money we are going to spend this off-season. The starters ERA was 28th last year, we were 5th in runs scored. Lets fix the actual problem.
  19. tobi0040
    The write up I saw suggested up to a 30% K rate in the big leagues. Had a ton by Cuban standards. He was listed as a 6'1 230 pound guy but he played CF up until last year. I figured maybe he was athletic?
  20. tobi0040
    I agree completely. If he was engaged he would say whatever he thought. But it is that loose cannon trait that makes the team not call him and I don't blame them for that.
  21. tobi0040
      I was using the .750 OPS number with a comp to Cespedes (years 2 and 3). His numbers are close in Cuba. Abreu had an OPS of .960 and I don't see him sniffing that with the k's. Regarding the platooning, I think it would very difficult to NOT have LF production of .750 if we devoted that position to a platoon. Here are a few examples: Arcia versus Right - career .848 OPS Plouffe versus Left - career .783 (assumes back half of the year and Sano is up) Hicks versus left - career .758 OPS Here is the list of characters around .750 OPS with the Rays in 2013: Scott - .748 Delmon - .780 Joyce - .747 Dejesus - .741 Jennings - .748 This is why I don't neccesarily want the Twins to spend $70-80M on this guy and why I think advanced metrics are so important in our next managerial decision. You can get creative and get production from LF without breaking the bank. It is much harder to get creative and get production out of a starting rotation. I would rather invest there.
  22. tobi0040
    True, but I think teams are going to jump at Tomas because of what Abreu has done. So the price is going to be way too high IMO. I am guessing a FA LF comp in the .750 OPS range will cost a fraction less, in dollars and years. Or here is a crazy thought, the Rays had .750-.800 OPS production out of their entire outfield the last few years through platooning. I haven't looked this year, but in 2013 they had bunch of cast aways with that production.
  23. tobi0040
    Same here. On a side note, I mis-spelled Doug's last name so bad, that it took my third attempt for Google to offer a suggestion.
  24. tobi0040
    Or they talk about the huge investment they made in Willingham, when he simply replaced a larger contract that expired. Or every offseason the owner claims Terry can do anything he wants to improve the club and does not have a budget. Or when they said they were "Going to sign a pretty darn good pitcher" and signed only Kevin Corriea. We really could go on and on. This front office has a credibility issue, no doubt.
  25. tobi0040
    Conspiracy is not what I am saying. But I do think the Twins are very sensitive of the perception that they are cheap, especially since they got a new stadium and payroll has dipped. Just think of how they have went out of their way to publicize how many free agents, MLB and international they "were in on" and found "guys just won't take our money". Doesn't that strike you as very odd? I think the Twins would also publicize if they went over 52% by a dollar, which they might have in year one. They were close. But they would not tell us it was by a dollar. They would say they went over and let us speculate how much. And I think in down years they would question the accuracy of the revenue number when everyone has them at 35%, even if the real number is 36%. You keep coming back to the grey nature of the analysis or the fact that these are estimates. Do you really think we are north of 40%? For me, it doesn't matter if it is 35, 37, or 39. But to be within 10% of the magical 52%, the revenue estimate would have to short by 10's of millions. Finally, isn't the number as likely to be too low as too high?
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