tobi0040
-
Posts
5,776 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
10
Content Type
Profiles
Minnesota Twins News, Rumors & Analysis
Minnesota Twins Videos
2026 Minnesota Twins Top Prospect Rankings
2022 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
Minnesota Twins Trade & Free Agent Rumors
Minnesota Twins Fan Guides & Resources
2023 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
The Minnesota Twins Players Project
2024 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
2025 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
2026 Minnesota Twins Draft Picks & Signing Bonuses
Forums
Blogs
Events
Store
Downloads
Gallery
Everything posted by tobi0040
-
The New Top Twins Pitching Prospect?
tobi0040 replied to Nick Nelson's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I think this is a case where causation and correlation get a little gray. Do the Nats have a good pitching system because of the way they handled their promotions? I think you can look at each separately and conclude otherwise. They had the #1 pick in a draft in which the best pitching prospect in 10 years came out (many scouts opinions). He was going to be up 1-2 years from the draft when healthy. Fister has a 2.66 ERA and was traded for after he was an established starter. Gio has a 3.89 ERA and was also trade for after he was established. This Roark guy did not see the big leagues until he was 26. He has a 2.91 ERA Jordan Zimmerman came up a few days before he was 23. So at best this promoting early concept impacted 20% of the rotation and 23 is not super young. I think it says more about organizational philosophy. The Twins could trade right now for pitchers of the Gio and Fister caliber but we don't want to give up our prospects and/or turn around and pay a guy like Gio. -
I agree. Put Plouffe and Dozier in that same category. At some point we want to win ball games and we are going to need good players around to do it, versus prospects, who then are good, then flipped for prospects.
-
Twins Promote Eight for September
tobi0040 replied to Seth Stohs's topic in Twins Daily Front Page News
I think September will say a lot about the future of Santana and Pinto. I don't believe the Twins view Santana as a SS or Pinto as a catcher. If they don't see significant reps with the extended rosters, that will confirm my thoughts. -
Agree on the Plouffe timing....I just think Santana is either the SS on this team when we are good or he has no part of it (at least starting). Giving him SS right now may create a short term issue and weaken the team a tad, but big picture, that doesn't bother me at all. We should have had a big picture view all along IMO.
-
I too don't get the Plouffe talk. He has an OPS of .750, 30 basis points above the average 3B. I am guessing he is close to average defensively. He is relatively cheap and under team control. If we could net a top 50 prospect, OK move him. If we could net a top 75 prospect AND Sano was a lock to stick at 3B and be up in June, that is fine. But many don't believe we will get even a top 100 prospect and Sano's defensive position is not settled. So I just don't see the point until we have more clarity.
-
I would do all but trading Plouffe. I am not sold on Escobar and I think that is a risk if Sano does not stick at 3B,
-
1 - It is not that simple as he was the best pitcher. He was 29 year old and demanding $140M and the Twins were demanding a teams best prospects. If it was that simple no bidding war would have been needed. The fact is the Dodgers could have given up a very young player by the name of Kershaw for him and they didn't want to. We would have traded him to the Yankees for Hughes and they didn't want to. We would have traded him for Lester or Clay and they didn't want to. If those teams thought those were wise moves they would not have needed to be goated into a bidding war in order to do it. Right now, would the Cubs give up Kris Bryant for David Price, then pay Price $170M? That seems like a very, very steep price. 2 - Literally only 3 teams in baseball were going to be able to sign him and by all accounts, the interest of two of those has been called into question. 3 - some scouts already started to see him slowing down, others suggested his body frame was not going tol hold up from 29-36. They were right by the way. This is silly, I will give you the last word and not respond.
-
I think you dramtically overstate the market for a 29 year old pitcher demanding $140M and a team demanding top prospects to go along with it. By some reports, the Red Soz and Yankees were not really interested, rather wanted to bid the other up. The Yankee owner even stated that he wasn't interested in both handing out that kind of money and giving up Hughes and Kennedy. We got a huge upside guy that turned out to be a stud, that is a fact. At the end of the day, no GM "would be good with free agents" given the budget he has had and situation (rebuild). That is a fact and that is why you can't go through the exercise. Even with hindsight of injuries, etc. it would be very hard to pick guys we can all sit here and be happy about. The real fallacy is that Terry could be good with free agents given his situation.
-
He was a 21 year old in AAA with 5 tool potential. That potential has been realized and he is a star in this league. You are overblowing the situation to a huge degree.
-
The premise is Ryan's actions were a destruction of value. The fact is, we got one of the best CF in the game. If Gomez was on our team doing that we would not be having this conversation. The decision to promote and keep Gomez up here for 2 years when he needed to work on his game in the minors, changing his approach, etc. were not on Terry Ryan. Sorry that is inconvenient for your theory, but it is true.
-
I am confused. I thought we got a center fielder with an .800+ OPS, on 24 HR and 40 SB last year...an outside shot at 30-30 this year.
-
If anyone wants to say Terry Ryan is "not good" at free agency, they should walk through that exercise because that absolutely, without a doubt was the reality of 2001 to 2010 and 2012 to 2014. Maybe the budget was $20M in 2014 or whatever to fill about 12 holes. But the reality is Terry was cutting payroll from 2001 to 2010 or whenver he left. Arbitration or the one or two contracts he had were higher than the budget he was given. I am also one that believes critcism should be accompanied by a better solution. So far I have not seen any on the free agent front. Not one.
-
Leviathan, why don't you go back and look at the free agents from 2001 to 2010. You get a budget of $3M to spend from 2001 to 2005. $4M from 2006 to 2010. In some of these years I am guessing he had no money because payroll was going up through arbitration for the whole team and many of the moves needed to be made to lower payroll, not add to it. Then you get $10M to spend from 2012 to 2014. Look at the Twins holes that year and allocate resources appropriately. Lastly, since you get the benefit of hindsight, please put together a summary of how many players were signed in that dollar range. That way we can say Terry had a 5, 10, 20% or whatever chance at getting that decision right.
-
Of course they were, I am surprised that we are debating this frankly. Regarding the Santana thing, from my source inside the Twins office. Many of the trades that were reported, including any deal involving Lester or Clay were never on the table. Was Johan a great pitcher? Yes, but a team needed to give up their best prospects AND turn around and give a 29 year old a 7 year deal at $140M or whatever. So basically we had 3 teams to negotiate with and a year later, CC could have been signed without giving up any prospects at all. Given that, we still got one of the best CF in the league in the trade.
-
Having 7M to spend on 4 positions is different than having $7M to spend on one. From 2005 on we let players leave almost every year because we could not afford them. Do we know for sure he did not have money to spend? probably not, but I think you would have seen us keep more guys around if we had the money for them. That seems like a reasonable assumption.
-
This might sound ridiculous, but it is true. In most years from 2001 to 2010, Terry didn't have $7M to spend.
-
Blame Ryan for the Santana thing all you want. That is fine, he got a 22 year old CF that would become one of the best in the league. Is the Twins rushing and not being patient with Gomez also Ryan's fault?
-
Who should he have signed for $3M each year?
-
From 2001 to 2010, did Terry Ryan ever have a budget for a single impact free agent? It seems to me payroll was maxed out for just keeping our players and in many cases he didn't even have the budget for that. From 2012 on, he was brought in for a rebuild. The issue I have is we don't know and will never know what the budget was, so if 80% of the free agents are off-limits it is a little harsh to say he has never been good at free agency. I think the Pohlads have given him $4,000 to go to the local car dealership and buy the best car he can. So I can't sit here and say he doesn't know how to pick out nice cars.
-
A lot of truth to this and I could have articulated the reason for the trade better. But just because Meyer has not come up yet, you still do it 10 times out of 10 (which was the assertion).
-
The context was FA signings and nothing else. I went back and looked at the 2012 free agent pitchers. Even with the benefit of hindsight it is hard to say who should have been signed. Highly doubt we had the budget for: Greinke, Anibal. Was not going to sign here: Kuroda - only wanted to play for LAD or NYY Pettitte - NYY or retire Terrible contract: Edwin Jackson, Scott Baker, Dan Haren (league average for $13M), Dempster, Marcum Tried attacking our manager with a bat: Lohse With the look of hindsight, the best we could have done was probably Ryu or Colon. That was 6/36 so I doubt we had the clearance, especially for an unknown player. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb--2012-mlb-free-agent-tracker--position-breakdown.html#SP
-
I may be wrong, but I thought the initial question of who should he have signed was in response to the assertion that he has done a horrible job signing free agents. So I think the context here is limited to FA signings, not anything else. Given this fairly limited context, I think it is a fair question. My gut tells me given how bad our team was in 2011, ownership was not going to dole out a 3+ year contract to a pitcher. Therefore he had a bunch of bounce-back types, retreads, and guys like Corriea to choose from. If those were the options he had, it is hard for me to say he made a terrible signing. I could write several blogs about things Terry should have done differently, but I am not sold he had better FA options given the budget he likely had.
-
If some criticize the moves he did make, I think it is fair to look at the moves he didn't make. Maybe he didn't have many better options?
-
The problem with placing blame on the GM is we don't really know what strings are being pulled by the ownership group. What the budget was, etc. Terry says every year we can do everything we can every offseason, but he can't really say anything else. For example, if it is true that Bill Smith came in and presented his 2012 plan that included doubling down on aging vets that won 66 games and was canned.....then Terry was hired for a rebuild.....he has done about as good of a job as he could have done. Under that scenario, 2/10 for Corriea and the Pelfrey signing was probably all that he had in his budget for. If ownwership wanted a rebuild, which by all actions is appears, I think it is unfair to say the signing of Correia did not do exactly what we wanted and had the budget for (eat innings at around an MLB average ERA). Regarding the trades, Meyer will be starting game 1 of our next playoff game and Span has aged/regressed a ton. That was a great trade regardless of when Meyer is up. Revere is hitting .310 with a .690 OPS (all singles), career .660 OPS, stealing bases and has a noodle arm in the OF. I would rather have May right now regardless of how his first few starts have gone. His floor is a very good bullpen guy which I would rather have for Revere, especially given that Revere would be fighting for a corner spot on our team and you just can't have him in a corner.
-
I think Terry is too loyal to Gardy and I wish he had more power in the organization to not allow Santana and Pinto to play out of position in a throw away year (probably an owner issue ). But I doubt we would find someone better at drafting, trading, and signing guys than Terry Ryan. So I would probably keep him and can Gardy.
