IndianaTwin

Isn't this the perfect role for Nolasco? Oh wait, he's not here anymore. (Sorry, it's been a while since I've read any Nolasco comments -- it just doesn't seem like Twins Daily without one from time to time.)

I don't think you're being negative at all. I agree that injuries are a reality, which is why I don't get too hung up in February about which five are the first five to get a shot. I picked those six, but I'd easily add Vogelsong or somebody else if a couple of those are hurt. Looking at the schedule, I do like the idea of starting with six, however, particularly if that includes at least a couple of Hughes (coming back from injury), May (transitioning from bullpen), or Berrios (still progressing in innings). That's a way of continuing to work them in gradually.

A week or so ago, there was a discussion about adding another bat (Napoli, etc.) Given that Wieters is still available, on a scale of 1 to Stupid, what about pursuing him as the other side of the platoon? Besides catching 40 percent of the games, he could DH or even play 1B in a few more games. I know that managers are loathe to DH their second catcher because of losing the spot for an injury, but realistically, that might cost them 1 or 2 at bats over the course of the season.

After the day off after opening day, the Twins play 21 games in 22 days. Rather than making a big deal out of who gets the No. 5 spot, I'd say plan toward a 6-man rotation of Santana, Santiago, Gibson, Hughes, May, Berrios,* with the assumption that one will be hurt by April 26, resulting in a five-man rotation by when the off days start to appear. Pitchers getting hurt is just what happens. Then, keep with whichever five are healthy and start to feed in the others as needed (or when ineptitude sets in). We're going to start at least 10 guys by the end of the year. Does Vogelsong have an opt out in his contract? If so, he'd need to be included if he's pitching well in spring training, a possibility that shouldn't be discounted.

Yeah, I've reached that age too. Now to remember to schedule that colonoscopy...

Some impressive clips. Including that Jon Miller pronounced it "Ay-ray Odd-ree-ONZ-a." When it comes to Anglo guys pronouncing Latino names, I'll take Miller against anyone.

My standard line is, "Football and basketball are just something to have on TV until baseball comes around." The best part of the Super Bowl is that it means it's only about a week until pitchers and catchers report. That said, I think it speaks highly of this site that so many players and others responded. Thanks again for all you do to make this a great distraction from the stuff I SHOULD be doing.

I'm an old goat too -- do you have a couch I can crash on? It's not like poor sleeping conditions will negatively affect my performance.

How about this one -- sign me! For the league minimum, I'll gladly be the 4th outfielder and endure the wrath of Twins Daily posters.

Count me in as one of the optimists. I'm not sure I'm an 80-win optimist yet, but... I start with the assumption that last year's unlucky team was more like a 63-65 win team. People also seem to think that the starting pitching hasn't improved, but I think it could be much better than a year ago. We tend to think that only five guys make up a rotation, but that's rarely the case. Last year, for example, it was an 11-man batch that started games. We started with five, some of them sucked, and there were no options to go to. But look at these lists side-by-side. The 2016 guys are listed in order of appearance: 2016 starters (number of starts) 2017 options Santana (30) Santana Gibson (25) Gibson Hughes (11) Hughes Milone (12) Berrios Nolasco (21) Santiago Duffey (26) Vogelsong Berrios (14) May Meyer (1) Haley Dean (9) Duffey Albers (2) Mejia Santiago (11) Tepisch __________ Stewart __________ Gonsalves __________ Jay __________ Romero __________ Jorge (If anyone can tell me how to use tabs, I'll make that easier to read.) I like the list on the right a whole better than the list on the left. For starters: Santana was really good last year, but could handle a few more starts than 30 (Career ERA+ of 103, with 110 over the past four years).Think of Santiago for 32 starts regressing upward to his career average (ERA+ of 103) instead of 21 starts for Nolasco and 11 from Santiago in what looks like the worst 11-start stretch of his career.Swap the composite of 26 starts from 2016 Milone and rookie Berrios for 26+ starts of Berrios as a second-year player showing the ups and downs one might expect. Imagine those 26 starts net an ERA+ of 95 instead of about 63 from Milone/Berrios.If those three things happen, none of which seem like an outlandish stretch, look at the long list of guys remaining to fill two slots in the rotation over the course of the year. There are several guys (Gibson, Hughes, Vogelsong, Duffey) who have been good (sometimes really good) for long stretches at a time. There are a number of others who are not far behind (May, Mejia, Tepisch, etc.). And there are several names that will certainly start the season in the minors, but who could pitch their way up by the end of the year. So... Don't give Duffey 26 starts if he's turning in an ERA+ of 65. Try someone else.Don't give Gibson 25 starts with an ERA+ of 81. Try someone else.Don't give Hughes 11 starts with an ERA+ of 70 and Dean with 9 at 67. Try someone else.Give Vogelsong the chance to be the ERA+ of 91 in his second career. Or even better. But if he doesn't show it early, try someone else.If they commit to relatively short leashes on ineffective starters and to playing the hands as they are hot (okay, lukewarm), and with adding Castro's defense over Suzuki, I could see this as a rotation that approaches league average. Think ERA+ of even 95 compared to last year's 82. Maybe even higher, if you consider that the Santana/Santiago/Berrios group would represent the majority of the starts and could easily be around 103-105 in net (Santana 110+, Santiago 103, and Berrios 95, all weighted toward Santana). Pair that with an offense that was league average last year despite being the second-youngest in the league when at bats are weighted by age. The lineup should generally be better as young potential develops. There are a couple of guys who have the potential to be significantly better than a year ago (Sano, Buxton, maybe Kepler, Arcia or Park) and not many candidates for regression downward. Again, playing the hot hands would mean more 2016Vargas-like at bats and fewer 2016Park-like ones. That sounds like an offense that I expect to be somewhat above average, say an OPS+ of 105 compared to last year's 99. Wait a minute. An ERA+ of 95 and an OPS+ of 105. That would probably get us near 80 wins. Maybe I'm an 80-win optimist after all.

I don't think I'm selling them short. And I don't think I've said that they NEED extended inactivity to get familiar. Rather, I've tried to say that I think they should have the freedom to jump into the pond at the time they are ready. Rather than selling them short, I give them props for making what they think is an educated judgment on what is best for the organization and not trading him if they haven't gotten what they think he's worth. I also give them credit for not jumping to an assumption that many of us on this Web site (and many in the national media) are making -- an assumption that says, "I've got to trade Brian Dozier for whatever I can get by the start of spring training, because there's no other way forward." Sorry if "Can anyone think of someone who came in as a GM (particularly a first-time GM) from outside the organization and made a good move in trading away the team's best player within three (or even five) months?" feels too specific to be helpful. It's intended to be pretty general. I'm fine if you prefer it as "How often do rookie GMs come to an organization and win a blockbuster trade early in their tenure?" I stuck in 3-5 months because they've been on the job about three months and it will be roughly five months into their tenure when the season starts. Some of us on this site probably think waiting a week was too long, and some of us probably think waiting 9 months is too long, so I was trying to emphasize our current situation. Similarly, I said "best player" because we've been talking about Dozier. If you want to expand that to "guys as good as Dozier or Santana," I'm fine with that too. My underlying points still stand: 1. I think it's human nature to be pretty cautious in a new job. 1.1 That may be even more the case when you're new to the organization. 1.1.1. And even more so when it's your first job at that level. 2. They're still early in their job. 3. Given 1 and its subpoints and given 2, I'm cool with the fact that they haven't traded Dozier (or Santana) yet. I also heard someone say recently that we should pay attention to the anomalies, because it's in the anomalies that we are typically pushed into new and better ways of thinking. I was asking for a little help in finding the anomalies. The best possible anomaly I've heard so far is Matt Klentak trading Ken Giles. Probably too early to tell if he won the trade, but we'll see. Even if it was anomaly in coming early in his tenure, he did seem to follow conventional wisdom in forcing both quality and quantity by making it a 2 for 5 trade, something that for what we know, the Dodgers haven't offered. That we don't have others swarming to mind makes me think that it probably is pretty common for new GMs to be cautious, and I'll continue not getting too worked up about the fact that he hasn't been traded yet. And if they make a trade tomorrow, I'll either give them credit for making a good trade or say, "Hmm -- they must know something I don't."

I don't, but that's sorta my point. I think most new GMs from outside an organization are naturally cautious, and that may generally be for the better. Talent's hard to come by, but it seems that 1) a bad trade can generally hamstring a team more than a good trade can help it; and 2) the likelihood of a bad trade increases when you're playing short-handed by not having a complete understanding of the value of your assets. I don't have a way of quantifying statement 1, but statement 2 seems pretty clear to me.

Okay, although there's also a pretty significant difference in that Coppolella was in the Atlanta system for at least eight years, including two years as assistant GM. I probably should have phrased the question as "Can anyone think of someone who came in as a GM (particularly a first-time GM) from outside the organization and made a good move in trading away the team's best player within three (or even five) months?"

There are plenty of reasons to trade Dozier. I won't summarize, but they seem to center around "We're bad, and his value will never be higher." There are at least a few reasons not to trade Dozier. These are harder to summarize, but the sentiment seems to be, "We're not saying we can't trade Dozier, but we need to get more than what seems to be on the table." I have another possible reason for not trading Dozier that I'm not sure has been discussed much, at least not in these terms. I'll get at it by asking a question: "What is the best pattern for a new President/GM?" When I'm new in a job, the first thing I want to do (other than find the best local lunch spots; oh, and "Where's the crapper?") is get a really good handle on the situation. If my boss (or my first hire, depending on whether we're thinking of Falvey or Levine) is also new, I especially want to get a handle on the situation before making any major changes. Now, I know that it's easy to say that getting a handle on our current situation is saying, "We suck." More specifically, "Our pitching sucks." But that doesn't seem complete enough for what I'd want. I'd want to know the degree of suckitude at each position, from our best player to our 100th, from our big-league manager to our lowest-level scout. I want to know which asset has potential to be great and which has the likelihood of continued suckitude. And that takes time. Thus my question above. The only example I looked at was The Mighty Theo (hereafter, TMT), who was signed in October 2011. Here's what appears to be the extent of TMT's first offseason: Signed Reed Johnson as a free agent.Traded Sean Marshall for two guys I don't remember and Travis Wood.Traded Andrew Cashner and a nobody for Anthony Rizzo and a nobody.Signed Paul Maholm. That's three moves that classify as "tinkering" to me, plus hitting the jackpot with Rizzo. But even Rizzo has a pretty big asterisk. TMT had drafted him with the Red Sox and had a very good handle on what he was getting. TMT had a much better handle on what he was getting in Rizzo than FalVine would have in trading for DeLeon or probably anyone else in the Dodger's system. In general, TMT's moves didn't begin in earnest until mid-2012 (the draft, primarily, followed by a couple deadline deals). In his first offseason, the only potential assets he traded away were a combined 86.1 previous-season innings from Marshall and Cashner. He seemed to take a much more patient approach than we are suggesting in trading Dozier. So, back to my first question: What's the best pattern for a new President/GM? I'll show my bias toward patience by asking another honest question. Can anyone think of someone who came in as a GM (particularly a first-time GM) and made a good move in trading away the team's best player within three (or even five) months?

I can see the marketing possibilities already if both he and Stewart make it: "Kohl's Law: Hit it to Cabbage."

Cabbage is "raw," huh? Nice touch. (And apologies if 30 other people have already made that joke.)

The Hag always nailed it: If we make it through December Everything's gonna be all right, I know It's the coldest time of winter And I shiver when I see the falling snow If we make it through December Got plans to be in a warmer town come summertime Maybe even California If we make it through December, we'll be fine

This could be fun. Is there an AB/IP minimum to qualify? I was always a Paul Thormodsgard fan myself, though it's hard to argue with Dave McKay either.

More than that, actually. Last year 153 guys started a game in the AL. That's an average of more than 10 per team. Of those 121 started at least 5. Among rookies, only three started more than 15 games and none more than 26. And as you note, there may be even more with the shortened DL period. I'm with you. No need to try pushing an entire MLB season out of Berrios. Odds are slim that he'd make it through unscathed -- he still hasn't gone beyond 170 innings. He was great in Rochester but struggled in Minnesota. Spend April/May in Rochester, maxing out at 80-90 pitches and working out the details of what he learned in the majors. Then bring him up around June 1, looking for a time when his first several starts could slot against weaker teams. He could get still get another 22 or so starts in the majors. That would also keep him fresher for the meaningful October games. Oh wait. Ignore that last sentence.

Having been accused many times of being a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, I can appreciate these post.

You said you like the Twins. And that you like minor league baseball. Isn't that redundant? But welcome, nonetheless.

Bingo -- I agree it has to be talent that can help now (and into the reasonable future). I had a couple of long posts in which people responded to specific points. I was going to respond, but then we thought the trade was going to be completed in 24 hours, so I figured it was a moot point. Rather than quoting each, I'll try to respond to several: On my point about winning the Pierzynski trade. We won the trade by getting Nathan, a pitcher already in the majors who the Twins identified as having the potential to play a higher-leverage role than he was currently in. We also got the Giants to throw in two lottery picks in Liriano and Bonser. One of those lottery picks came through in a big way, turning the trade into the lopsided result it was. But the focus of the trade was getting Nathan as an immediate help.On my distinction between guys who were traded with some major league experience or during the season vs. those traded with no experience. That had to do with where they are in the development curve. My point is that the odds of minor leaguers who are traded with no experience making it big are not that great. I would rather target guys who are further along than guys who are high on prospect lists. I especially prefer not to target prospects when they are pitchers, because pitching prospects are even more fickle than hitting prospects. Rizzo was received in trade as a prospect, but he already had 128 at bats, which can be huge. I acknowledge that amidst all the Urias hype this season, I had missed that DeLeon has actually had major league time and is a little further along than I realized. My apologies. That softens my stance on him as the centerpiece, though just a little, for reasons I'll come back to.Another noted that sometimes the prospect turns into Thor, Kluber, or Arrieta.Thor the Prospect was part of a big trade, and he certainly was a key part of the trade. But he also came with a starting catcher who was not far removed from an all-star season, so the Mets received MLB-ready talent as well. Even if Thor didn't come through, the Mets would have received something of value that could help the major league team.Kluber was part of a three-team trade, and I don't have a great read on it. He certainly wasn't highly regarded by anyone at the time. He wasn't even in the Padres Top 30 prospects. Kudos to the Indians for picking Kluber out of Double A, but from what I can read, it wasn't so much that they were pursuing Kluber as figuring that they needed to get something in exchange for the salary dump on Jake Westbrook. After some research, they picked Kluber over some other flotsam. But again, I don't have a good recollection, so that may be a misreading.But Arrieta wasn't a prospect. See next point.Arietta was a suspect by the time he was traded. He had been highly regarded as a prospect when he came up with Orioles, but he hadn't shown it in his 64 starts and the Orioles gave up on him. The astute Cubs swooped in to get him and Pedro Strop for Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger, neither of which is Brian Dozier.In fact, Arrieta is exactly the kind of guy I'd prefer to target rather than prospects. Pitchers very often take a while to develop, as "Markos" similarly noted over in the "Less is More" post. Rick Porcello is another trade success story. He was highly thought of as a rookie, but struggled in 180(!) starts with the Tigers before being the piece that the Red Sox got when they wanted to trade Cespedes rather than lose him. The Red Sox did their homework and found a pitcher they could straighten out. So rather than going after a DeLeon and lottery picks and letting DeLeon spend 50-100 starts figuring it out (IF he ever does), I'd rather that they go after the next Arrieta or Porcello (or, I'm wondering, was Falvey part of the group that figured out that Kluber is the Padres loser to go after?). Who might that be? Here are a few names that come to mind. Guys like Carlos Rodon, Henry Owens, Eduardo Rodriguez, Yordano Ventura, Luis Severino, Mike Foltynewicz, Brandon Finnegan, and Taijuan Walker are all guys who were highly thought of and have had between 16 and 93 starts in the majors, but they haven't quite figured it out yet. Maybe even Shelby Miller, who has 122 starts and still looks good at times. Undoubtedly there are others. Maybe it's even a Joe Nathan-type who has been underutilized. Kevin Siegrist as our new closer, anyone? How about if he came with Jhonny Peralta, at least if Peralta can still play short? A Tommy John guy like Zach Wheeler along with Wilmer Flores? I haven't considered whether these particular teams are a logical trade partner -- that's not my point. I'm just trying to identify the typology. If the Diamondbacks can get Walker for Jean Segura, I think the Twins can do better, perhaps in terms of talent, but definitely in terms of success likelihood. And yes, ask for the lottery pick in the process that might turn into the next Francisco Liriano (but sure, could just as likely could end up being the next Boof Bonser). We might not get the No. 1 that Urias/DeLeon MIGHT be, but then again we might. And I'd be glad to end up with a rotation that includes five No. 2s. If Falvey is smart enough to figure out who the next Arrieta is, go for it, particularly if it comes with something more. But if not, don't discount that Dozier will still be pretty valuable down the road, one way or another.

Thanks, Mike. And I agree that we're probably both partly correct (and by extension, partly incorrect.). I also agree that it doesn't seem prudent to assume that we WILL be competitive in 2018. But I don't think it's prudent to assume that we WON'T be either. And that's the gist of my point in saying it might make sense to ride out 2017. After all, maybe with new leadership we might try outbidding everyone for a Lester type. Wouldn't that be a welcome surprise?

Yes, I was thinking someone might bring up Johan Santana. I do see his situation as analogous. Santana was a multi-year Cy Young candidate, mind you. And for him, we got Kevin Mulvey (Who?), Deolis Guerra (Who?), Philip Humber (Who?) and 2.6 WAR from Carlos Gomez. Then, we traded Gomez for 1.3 WAR of J.J. Hardy, who we traded for Jim Hoey. About him, I wish I could say, "Who?" Instead, we got worse than "Who?" We got Hoey. And he sucked. I'm just afraid that if we trade Dozier we're going to end with Hoey, (Chin-Lung) Hu, and another "Who?" Oh, and sorry to be a Grinch here, but probably Cindy Lou Who as a throw-in.

In response to my long post that ended: So yeah, listen to offers, but unless you're blown away with a deal that includes some talent that already has a year or two in the majors, I'm inclined to hang on. Quite frankly, we may be able to get a better haul in July of this year or next year when some team is really desperate. In the meantime, we've gotten more of a chance to find out how legit Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Park, Berrios, etc. are, and we have a better sense of what our major league needs really are. Mike said... (Comments on the pitching part will come at the end.) To clarify, I'm not saying, "Don't trade him." I'm just not sure that the suggestions of what to go after (which have focused on high-upside starting pitchers, particularly from the Dodgers) are not necessarily the best option. Quibble over decimal points, but the chances of us competing in 2017 are about 0.2 percent. By trading Dozier they probably become 0.1 percent. That's not a reason to keep him. But whatever the chances are in 2018, I think they become less with trading Dozier than they are with keeping him. Pitchers take a while to develop. I'm not sure that even Urias is far enough along to be counted on as an ace in 2018. Someone less far along is even less likely to be a known ace in 2018. I do think we can compete in 2018, but it will take a number of things going right. For 2018, here's where I see the question marks being if we keep Dozier: SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, DH, SP1, SP2, SP3, CL, RP1, RP2, RP3, etc. (We can argue, but I'm being generous in saying that C and 1B can still be served by Castro and Mauer. Hopefully they are what we expect them to be (as in, modestly effective), but they still end up be the 8th and 9th best position players we have. If they are, that's a pretty good lineup.) What I mean in listing all those as question marks is to say that they aren't yet proven. A lot of those spots have current people who could very realistically be 2018 solutions. We just don't know for sure which ones they are, including which ones will be merely passable and which ones will actually be points of excellence. And maybe some of the current possibilities will turn into one-hit wonders like Eduardo Nunez and net us something in return. (And I didn't include SP4 and SP5 because I think it's feasible that between Santana, Hughes, Santiago, Gibson, Berrios, May, Stewart, etc., a couple will stick and will fill those two spots. We just don't know which ones from that list it will be. Maybe we even get lucky and they cover SP3 as well. Many of us think Berrios in particular could potentially cover SP2 or even SP1. But I'll accept your argument if you say that SP4 and SP5 need to be counted as question marks as well.) So, how do we answer those questions for 2018? Well, they say that when you've dug yourself a hole, the first solution in getting yourself out is to quit digging. If you trade Dozier, you add 2B to that list of question marks, and I'd rather not add a question mark at a place where a solution is present. Many of us agreed going into last season that we could be better and not repeat the 2015 season. We weren't better, and we didn't repeat 2015. But I also don't think that the current roster will repeat only a 59-win season either. There's just too many young guys ranging from lots of potential (Sano, Buxton, Berrios) to some potential (insert your preferences) to not improve. So, I'm inclined to make modest improvements as we can (Castro's a good example) that ride out the 72-75 win season in 2017. In the meantime, we let the new management more fully understand which prospects (and manager and coaches) have the ability to help us in 2018 and beyond. Then, if we're close enough to contend in 2018, we will probably be glad we still have Dozier. If we're not, we can still trade him for a needed piece. We may not (and likely would not) have as much upside in the trade, but we'll have a better sense of what the needs actually are. If we're not close to competing in 2018, the difference between what we get now and what we'll get later isn't enough to get us over the top. I get that people are saying that a 2018 need WILL be starting pitching, but my first point is that trading for a high-upside prospect at this time doesn't fill the need. It just gives us one more possibility of filling the need. My second point is that Dozier is a known quantity -- if you trade him, trade him for a known quantity. I'd rather get a controllable, known SP2 or SP3 than a potential SP 1. If we've got a better potential long-term solution at 2B than we do at SS, consider trading him for a known SS. We've got enough question marks already, let's not add another. As to how to improve the starting pitching, I'm intrigued with what the Braves have done this off-season in a down market. They've rebuilt 60% of the rotation with two one-year signings (one with an option for 2018) and a trade for (mid-level? I'm not sure) prospects. I don't think this is the year for the Twins to do this, both because there aren't good options remaining and because the timing isn't right. Maybe next year the timing is right. So, what if next offseason included some combination of the following: The answering (or at least clarifying) of what the needs actually are for 2018.Continued development of the young guys we have.A decision on whether we can compete in 2018.If so,A Jon Lester-type signing to fill the hole we assume to be at the top of the rotation. An R.A. Dickey-type signing to fill the hole we assume to be in the middle of the rotation.A Ben Zobrist-type signing at some position player need. (Maybe even Dozier himself with a contract extension if that's warranted.)And a trade or two, using the remaining prospects we have to fill a gap or two.If not, it's continued evaluation of the progress made to date, which will still include the answering and clarifying of what the needs are. And then on to Plan B (or J, or Q, or whatever we're up to by now).