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tobi0040

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Everything posted by tobi0040

  1. tobi0040
    He can't be counted on to be an every day player until he earns it. That includes preparation as well as results. I do think that his floor is a 4th OF/platoon at any of the OF spots against lefties (career .750 OPS). Unless we make a splash in free agency, I would rather see him up here than in AAA. He has been back down 3 times now.
  2. tobi0040
    Here is why I think it is the same thing. Ortiz was OK here and never healthy. We cut him. Nobody gave the guy any money. The team that did sign him had him on their bench for 3-4 months. Then he turned into a hall of fame player. People sit here and act like Terry Ryan had four aces with a king kicker and he folded the hand. Just bringing up his name invokes disgust for Terry Ryan 12 years later. You guys are ripping Terry for not signing Cuban outfielders. One turned out to be an all star where the high bidder paid him only an AAV of $11M. Clearly 29 GM's mis-judged the value of this guy. The White Sox in a sense mis-judged him as well. They would have offered more if they knew just how good he was going to be in a blind bid scenario. The Puig signing was ridiculed around the league at the time. Scouts and GM's were wondering what the Dodgers were smoking. Again, 29 GM's missed this. Cespedes, it is not really clear to me that $9M a year is a good contract for him. Translation, Terry deserves as much heat as 28 other GM's for "missing out" on two players and this line of attack is 99% hindsight. It doesn't strike me as an organizational flaw we need to focus on, nor are these players going to help our pitching staff out.
  3. tobi0040
    Would you have wanted us to drop $170M on Tanaka last summer? At the time? Scouts were all over the board but nobody credible thought he was in the same ballpark as Darvish. At the time it looked like ace money for a #2 starter.
  4. tobi0040
    This thread reminds me of the meme that the Twins were dumb for letting David Ortiz go. When 29 teams make a mistake on a guy, I am not going to sit here and act like this is some huge organizational deficiency. You can if you want, you and Mike seem happy to do so.
  5. tobi0040
    Completely agree. Look up James Simons. A quant hedge fund manager that has had a legendary run for many years. He is a billionaire and the lengths he goes through with his employees and technology to keep his secrets proprietary are legendary. It really makes no sense to do a bunch of work and then give it way to people because you want a good interview.
  6. tobi0040
    Lets talk about his Cuban bonanza for a second. Abreu was clearly a great signing. Nobody can argue that. I would argue that Puig and Cespedes had a nice drop off in production after year one. Which has happened a ton when unknown players come into the league (Nomo anyone). Puig, OPS of .920 and .860. Hard to argue that does not look good right now. Here were opinions of the scouts and teams when he was signed. Please read some of the quotes. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/international-affairs/2012/2613621.html Cespedes is wildly over-rated. After his first year and some tape on him existed, he has had an OPS of .737 and .750. We could platoon Hicks .750 against lefties and Arcia, .850 OPS against righties and vastly exceed that production and save about $9M. But again these guys are not starting pitchers. Which is the actual problem. So two of the 30 teams signed one player each, in an area of strength for our club (international scouting). I am not going to get too riled up about it.
  7. tobi0040
    Here is my argument, If I owned a company that was 5th in an area and 28th in another, I would focus on the area where we are 28th as a source of improvement. From a scouting perspective, if we are top 5 I would look to keep that edge versus improve upon it and focus time and money to the problem. The Twins are where we are because we have not drafted, developed, or signed good enough starting pitchers. So focusing on the international market, specifically Cuba where almost all of the guys are outfielders is not really my focus.
  8. tobi0040
    While Sano's production is speculative, I offered up the ability to trade him and rank our system based on him right now. I think the lack of MLB production since 2009 goes to show that our investments have been primarily in minor leaguers. But overall if we want to throw in Arcia, Liriano, the Aussies, etc. we have done okay. Of the 10 guys on BA's list of Twins prospects, only four have come from America if you view PR as still an international location from a scouting perspective. TOP 10 PROSPECTS 1. Byron Buxton, of 2. Miguel Sano, 3b 3. Alex Meyer, rhp 4. Kohl Stewart, rhp 5. J.O. Berrios, rhp 6. Eddie Rosario, 2b/of 7. Lewis Thorpe, lhp 8. Trevor May, rhp 9. Danny Santana, ss/2b 10. Jorge Polanco, ss/2b
  9. tobi0040
    If we want to criticize the Twins, I just think we should focus on the areas of weakness and look to improve them. We took Buxton and Berrios in the 2012 draft. I am OK with that. I am not going to sift through some guy in the 3rd round and say we should have taken him over Bard. My criticism will focus on analytics and improving our rotation through free agency.
  10. tobi0040
    Where would you rank the Twins since 2009 on their international signings? In other words, if you could trade Sano for all of the international signings a team made, how many would you trade with? My gut says the Twins are top 3, or top 5 at least. Would you agree? If you agree we are top 3 or top 5, is this really the area we should be criticizing? I think the Twins deserve blame for many things, but I am not sure this is one of them. With hindsight, yeah, we should have signed Abreu. You got me. But lets focus on an areas where we are at least out of the top 10.
  11. tobi0040
    What are you arguing? We should have signed every good international free agent? Sure, we could have signed Sano and someone else. But your stance is basically that we have not done enough on the international front, when if you take a step back and rate the Twins since 2009 you would probably rate them in the top 5. No? Seems silly to me.
  12. tobi0040
    That is the hope. At every turn Gardy either does not use them or in the case of shifting, reluctantly went along with it after some fighting. I am also encouraged by a new manager who is a believer.
  13. tobi0040
    I think Stanton gets moved this year or next. I don't see them doling out the cash.
  14. tobi0040
    Of all the internatonal signings since 2009 by team, how many would you trade for Miguel Sano? I bet you don't get to 5. If we are ahead of 25 teams and behind 5, maybe the expectations are a tad high. I would rather have Sano than Puig/Ryu. Rather have Sano than Cespedes. Sano over Chen.
  15. tobi0040
    If you go back to 2009, the Twins take Sano. Give the Cubs Soler. Give the White Sox Abreu. The Dodgers have done really well obviously with Puig and Ryu. The A's took Cespedes. The Twins getting Sano is still going to push them into the top 10 in the league for international signings. So this we haven't done anything meme or we should have gotten all the guys is not something that I buy into.
  16. tobi0040
    I will call Sano and Soler a wash. I know Sano was in 2009 or whatever, but not many teams, especially non large market teams dump $30M on a 22 year old or even $4M on a 16 year old every year. We can all pat the White Sox on the back, but what kind of look do teams have on Cuban players before dropping $70M on them? They get a workout maybe? He hits some BP. Then they have a handful of games in international competition. Then stats against Cubans. Isn't that about what they have to go on? I could be wrong here.
  17. tobi0040
    I forgot Puig and Cespedes, which by the way would have been further cherry picking the signings that worked out and still not made us a contender. Payroll around $100M.
  18. tobi0040
    So you handpicked Abreu, Soler, Kazmir, and Chen. Clearly Abreu, Soler, and Chen were drastically under-estimated by every team in MLB. I would argue, even the team that submitted the winning bid under-estimated how good these guys were going to be. These are high bidder wins scenario, I assure you if the White Sox knew they had a guy with a .950 OPS they would have offered him more money than 6-70. If the Cubs knew they had one of the top 3-5 prospects in baseball and could get him on a 9 year deal, they would have probably bid more than $30M total. In addition, you are not signing Willngham, Pelfrey, or Nolasco. How is this not near flawless hindsight?
  19. tobi0040
    This is really my point. With the benefit of hindisight we could have not signed Pelfrey and Nolasco and then handpicked four of the best FA bargains out there. By my count, payroll would have been $97M last year without Ricky and Pelfrey and add Abreu (11M), Chen (4M) Soler (3M) , and Kazmir (11M) WAR: Soler - 0 ( was in AAA) Abreu - 5.5 Kazmir - 1.7 Chen - 1.8 We are a $98M team that won 79 games with the benefit of flawless signings and no signings. I think that goes to show how far we were away. Kazmir and Chen would have a year left.
  20. tobi0040
    It is about timing. The Twins model of a sustainable run is young players contributing and a few veterans. By the time our prospects are adding value, Gio has one year left and is demanding $120M. no thanks.
  21. tobi0040
    I don't think this year is the time. Gio has 2 years and one team option, then a vesting option. So maybe only 3 years left. We are probably not competing the first year, maybe two of those three years and Polanco is still young. If we were one player away and we had more clarity about Polanco maybe.
  22. tobi0040
    I think you are drastically overstating the value of duffey and eades
  23. tobi0040
    I would not flip Dozier or Plouffe at the moment. I think Dozier is a core guy on a good team and we need clarity about Sano's position. I pretty much agree with everything else. Although letting all the pen guys go depends on our trust in the pen prospects.
  24. tobi0040
    I think the Dodgers would be willing to dump his salary if it meant they could then sign Max Scherzer. I actually was getting on board with the Kemp thing (supporting it, not thinking it would happen). But as I typed that first sentence I asked myself who I would rather have, Kemp or Scherzer. We need the pitcher. Kemp has 5/100 left. Max will cost a bit more but if we are rolling the dice......give me the stud pitcher.
  25. tobi0040
    I think Terry and the owners had an agreement when he signed on that it was going to take a long time to rebuild the team, given the shape it was in. I think "not playing the FA game" was part of the deal for the first 2-3 years. Both sides were on the same page. Because of that I have not heard Terry complain about the situation or his resources. The fact remains that no path existed from 2012 to a contending team in 2014. Even with the benefit of hindsight you can't put one together (with the prospects we had and a 110M payroll). I am of the belief that you can only criticize someone if you can offer up a better solution. Saying Terry failed without putting together a path is not productive at best.
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