tobi0040

I think he should go to the pen. I would understand shutting him down and giving that a shot

With Spy on these points. We need to quit acting like guys like Nolasco and Hughes can be flipped after a good month. These contracts are going nowhere. We may as well move them to the pen in an attempt to salvage value and improve the pen. Lastly, August 1 is way too late. You don't play 28-33 year olds an additional 2+ months. As long as guys are doing well at AAA get them here. Trade plouffe and dozier now and move on. This team is terrible. Get a top 2 pick and seasoning for the next wave

Generally speaking,guys need to figure it out at this level. You have your organizations biggest pitching prospect and pull him after 3 starts? 2 of which were not that bad. Especially relative to Hughes and Nolasco the last two years. Just seems like our prospects aren't getting a chance to adapt and adjust.

The irritating thing is the obvious move is to switch May and Hughes. But Hughes contract will give him another 30 starts with a 5.00+ ERA. This is not how winning franchises operate.

May and Meyer don't have to be put in the rotation at the exact same time. But we can always add an extra pitcher to alleviate taxing the pen. I mean, what good is a bench spot for a late inning pinch hitting attempt on a team that is going to win 50-60 games? As long as the team is committed to something and the focus shifts, we can work around these things. But when you have a 50 win team that acts like this is game 163, then you have issues.

This was a really good article. I completely agree with moves #1 and #5. Here is a blue print for me, with a little longer horizon. I am looking at the pieces right now and thinking about the next good team. Lineup – I think generally our lineup has the pieces for the most part. Sano, Park, and Mauer are pretty good pieces. Between Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Gordon, etc. I think some will emerge and become core guys. The biggest issue is the catcher position. We have no organizational talent at the positon and improving here help drive change. Rotation - Right now our rotation is a pretty long ways off. In the current rotation, I think Berrios is a fixture and Santana could be a #4 or #5 on a good team. I am less confident on the rest of these guys. Gibson and Duffey could be back of the rotation guys, but we need 1-2’s, not more 4-5’s. Pen - I am not overly worried about the Twins pen 12-24 months down the road. I think 2-3 young guys will emerge and you add a good player each off-season and you are in business. Moves: Move #1 – This is by far the most important move of all. Immediately fire Terry Ryan and conduct a search for an external GM. I would look for talent from the A’s, Cards, Rays, Cubs, Red Sox, and Giants for starters. I am confident the #2 guy I these front offices would be a dramatic upgrade over what we have. I get the reason for not doing this mid-season and I think that has merit. But to be blunt, I don’t want the current crew deciding who to keep and trade, I don’t trust them to have a plan and execute it, or to push veterans out of the way. That would also give the new GM four months to work along-side the rest of the Twins front office and get comfortable with the organization assets and liabilities (both players and FO). The franchise is outgunned right now by the rest of the league. Like a poorly run company, low hanging fruit is ready to be picked. I firmly believe upgrading here is worth at least five wins a year. Move #2 - My trading assets are Dozier, Plouffe, Gibson, and prospects. I would target starting pitchers and catchers. Maybe you hold off a bit for Dozier to turn it around at the plate and build up his value. But Dozier and Plouffe’s age combined with the talent around (Sano to 3B and Polanco to 2B), it seems like it would make a ton of sense to me. Move #3 - Shift May and Meyer to the rotation. It has been beat to death, I get it. But we need to give these guys an extended shot at the starting rotation. We are likely not going to be good in the next 18 months, so why not do this and move them to the pen if it fails? On our 25 man right now, the only guys who have similar raw stuff are Berrios and Santana (on a good day). We need to see if one or both of these could be top of the rotation arms. If one turns out to be, the additional 130 innings a year will go a long way in righting the ship for the long haul. The corresponding moves are Phil Hughes and Ricky Nolasco to the pen. I think both of these guys could actually be good relievers and it is 100% clear to me that Hughes needs to get his velo back or the next 3-4 years are not going to be good. I think moving him to the pen is the only way to achieve that.

Before today his ERA is 1.89. 220 ERA+. 2.36 FIP.12.8 k per 9. That ERA has now balloned to 3.20. Which five starters would you prefer?

San Man is going to HR or strike out trying to hit it to the moon

Yeah. Buck Britton. Buxton's son's name is Brixton too

I would not be opposed to a longer stint. I just don't think service time should be driving decisions.

That maybe true. But I think it was either admitted to or confirmed by a source (if I remember correctly), that we never reached out to Maddon. If you have a job opening, why not at least put in a phone call to the best candidate?

Assuming Sano is off the list. What about Buxton and Berrios? Meyer?

I didn't have the mid 90's history, because I was 10 at the time. But thank you for depressing me. The lack of a plan is the biggest issue. Going back to the veteran pool over and over again is frustrating.

Yeah, I just hope that second part about the veterans is punted until the first happens. At this point we need fewer vets, not more. Once we know what holes we have, move to the second phase.

I am not overly concerned with average age. If this franchise is going to be good again it will be on the backs of Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Jay, Gonsalves, Rosario, Meyer, May, etc

I was thinking in $$$. 1 year 2.75m when we initially signed him

Yup. Even in the good years of winning a bad division. I think Krivsky is the only guy under Terry that has been a GM elsewhere. I can't think of a guy under Gardy or TK that has managed elsewhere. Nobody hired Gardy or Bill Smith. Doug M was a candidate internally but I have not seen anyone else interested.

Speculating who the 8 would be. Sano, Berrios, May, Duffey, Rosario, Polanco, and Park. Because it is LA they want a face to throw on the trade and hopefully have immediate results so maybe they take Mauer. Honestly, the Angels and Twins would be a terrible match. We don't have a good roster and would blow our entire farm assets for Trout. We would be in their shoes, Trout and nothing else.

The biggest complication is we would have to do a three team trade, including whatever independent team Brian Duensing is pitching for. I am not sure we can do cross league trades. Sure fun to think about but will never happen.They aren't moving Mike Trout. He is basically making $2.5m per WAR. If any team had the assets to do it, assuming they wanted prospects the Twins would be up there. On a complete side note, the Phillies pulled a prank on Kyle Kendrick a few years ago. He was convinced he was being traded to Japan. It is pretty funny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nKKqPOiJxI

I don’t think Krivsky had a terrible run in Cincy and it was too brief too draw too many conclusions. He was hired at the end of February in 2006, where the roster was basically set. They won 80 games. The next year they won 74 and he was fired 21 days into the 2008 season. So he basically had the 2006 and 2007 draft and 2007 and 2008 offseason. The 2006 draft was not great but not terrible. They took Drew Stubbs 8th overall. He has had a ten year career, averaging over a WAR per season. We have seen worse. The 2007 draft was quite good. Mesoraco was taken in the middle of the first round. Todd Frazier was taken in the 2nd round. And Zach Cosart was taken in the 4th round. He also took Josh Hamilton in the rule 5, had him on the roster for a year and flipped him for Edinson Volquez, who had an all star year in 2008. The only real free agent signing he had was Francisco Cordero, 4 years and $46M. Too much for a closer but he was very good in his four years there. The team got better after he was fired, but he had his fingerprints on the starting CF, 3B, SS, catcher, closer, and a starter of those teams. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want him as the next GM here. I want an outsider. But we could do worse among the Twins brass.

I in no way tried to imply that. Simply that he was both a heartbeat (or cancer scare) away from being the GM and he was woefully unfit to perform the role relative to his peers. That should in no way be a controversial statement. There is literally no chance he was among the top 30-60 people qualified for that role in the world. And I would suggest that aptitude lacks an intellectual curiosity on his part and speaks to the culture with the Twins where that was not only acceptable, but recognized and continually promoted. Lastly, he likely has Improved his knowledge and by a lot, but so has the rest of the league and he had a long way to go.

Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, he was three years into his role as assistant GM (after scouting for 12 years)I can't think of a bigger red flag.

Yup The fear was he pulled an Arcia and never really pulled out of it in AAA (last year).

That is fair. Even a catcher at 56 it sounds like would not be bad and represent an improvement

The last first round pick was Mauer 15 years ago. The last second rounder was Rams in 2007. In seven of the last eight drafts we did not take a catcher in rounds 1-4 (none before the 9th round in half of them). Kurt Suzuki was likely the biggest free agent catcher signed in franchise history. And we can't find a recent example of an international signee over $200k. I stand by my statement. We have clearly neglected this position. A good number of these guys were likely taken because you need two at every level