alarp33

Job security, low pressure environment... and you can look ahead to say 2019 when Mauer, Santana, Nolasco's contracts will all be off the books. Guys who could potentially be All Stars by then just entering arbitration (Buxton, Sano, Kepler), Young cost controlled pitchers (Berrios, Stewart, Jay, Gonsalves, etc), Nick Gordon, Jorge Polanco, etc. It's not a bad job. As much as I dislike Jim Pohlad, and found his Molitor comments moronic, he does stay out of the way and leave baseball to the baseball people.

I would say you're being set-up to have a position for life with even a tad bit of success, not a bad situation.

Sure, I thought it was fairly obvious I was being facetious when I suggested having no Marketing or Ops Manager. My issue with St. Peter is people acting like he is doing a good job because new food gets introduced and they have interesting promotions. He is the President, the Owner just said whoever comes in will work under him, and that he will have a large part in picking the new GM. Totally unqualified for that by everything I can tell, and he is O for 2 with 2 big strikeouts picking GM's thus far...

Ok. Thanks for the response and feedback

He said at the end of the day what matters is what happens on the field. And frankly I agree. I am genuinely wondering why we are giving St. Peter credit for his ballpark food and promotions when people aren't coming to the game, and the "brand" has been pretty heavily tarnished. Was St. Peter not responsible for Bill Smith being hired and the 2nd Terry Ryan stint? Can we criticize him for that?

If the only thing that matters to attendance is what happens on the field, why do they even need a VP like St. Peter who's job is apparently to come up with ballpark foods and "Sano Globes"? Couldn't his salary + marketing dollars be better spent on the VP of Baseball Ops and GM (and players)?

2001-2010 was pretty good. Personally what I found the most preposterous was calling those years "as good of 10 years as you can have". I mean come on, the team won 1 stinking playoff series in 10 years. 2010 was a long time ago as well.. I'm not really sure in what business, pro sports or not, a boss would look back and say "while he did have a strong year 15 years ago, so maybe we should keep this going" And I agree with your very last sentence...

I didn't see any value in the comparison unless it was a billion dollar industry. Certainly any search firm used by my medium sized company has no comparison to a Major League Baseball team hiring a new president/ gm

You've had a lot of personal experience working at billion $ businesses who used a search firm to hire a CEO or COO (which by all intents and purposes the new GM/ Pres of Baseball Ops is for the Twins)? And those didn't work out, which companies? Interesting

Gleeman wrote in his article on Baseball Prospectus yesterday I believe that he did sit down with him, and came away from the sit down even more convinced Antony had no clue (not exact quotes, I don't have the article in front of me)

1) A search firm can be a useful tool, especially when the internal people charged with making the hire have the working baseball knowledge of "I have read other teams media guides". The UofM just made by all accounts a hell of a hire, I'm guessing Mark Coyles name would not have come up without help of the search firm. If there's even a chance it helps why wouldn't you spend the money to have them drum up a list of candidates for you? 2) The Twins have the 2nd worst record in baseball since 2011 and an organization largely considered as being well behind the times. That's why you wouldn't hire internally. 3) There are 30 GM jobs in all of baseball, and someone could do a hell of a lot worse than an organization with a good pipeline of young talent and seemingly endless job security if they can win even at an average clip. Even with the Molitor caveat (which i hate), they will have plenty of candidates. 4) Huh? You are advocating not to use all the tools at the front office's disposal, why? Because you aren't familiar with how they work?

Can we agree on this basic premise... Terry Ryan was fired because; 1) his team has been a total failure for the better part of 6 years now. 2) his team/ organization is universally considered woefully behind the times in terms of 21st century Major League Baseball. 3) Lack of innovation, new ideas, etc. has this team falling further and further behind their counterparts in each year that goes by. Like or Dislike Terry Ryan, I don't think those points are all that much up for debate. Now tell me how an organization that is so adverse to change, who finally realized those 3 points (amongst other things) and fired Terry Ryan... would be better off hiring the person who has been the #2 to Terry for so long, over practically anyone else from any other organization in baseball. I will not even go into Rob Antony's baseball knowledge (or lack thereof), he could be the next great General Manager of another MLB franchise 3 years from all for all I know (I highly highly highly doubt this but I'll play along). There is still ample evidence to suggest he should be no where near the next person in charge of fixing this organization. And I don't know how any reasonable person can make an argument that THIS organization, that needs so much changing to keep up with the times and catch up to the rest of baseball.. will get that from hiring the guy who has been in the #2 seat all along - Sorry for rambling on, I may have talked in circles. But to sum it up. You like Rob Antony personally or are scared of change if you think he deserves the job. There's literally no other reason

I wish this was from an Onion article, but its a Jim Pohlad quote from a new MinnPost story. Jim Pohlad on Ryan's potential successor; "When we had the all-staff meeting, you can see how loved Terry is by our organization. If I had to pick one requirement for somebody going forward, it's someone that's loveable. The only way you can be loved is if you're lovable. We want someone that can ultimately be loved. Technically they have to have the skills and strength and so forth, and have to have the willingness to look an organization and make hard decisions, or come up with ways for improvement."

I don't understand your point but that is not new. My response was directly related to the poster arguing that the system was rebuilt by Ryan not only because they picked top 6 every year. The farm system was rebuilt nearly solely on Bill Smith international signings and top 6 picks, evidenced by the top prospects nearly all fitting into one of those categories

You do realize that Kepler, Sano, Jorge and Polanco were all signed by Bill Smith, right?

You definitely are not in the minority. There's 100 baseball execs I would choose over Rob Antony... and I would still take Antony 10 times out of 10 over Torii Hunter. Why would his name even be mentioned? Because he played here and we all liked him?

I hope you were just trying to play contrarian because that was hard to listen to. Did you really call the 10 year run in the 2000's one of the most successful ever? Didn't the Red Sox and Cardinals each win multiple World Series in that same 10 year period?

Exactly my thoughts. This timing actually makes me feel much better that Antony will NOT get the permanent job

Right, the Twins can win 40 games from here on out in 2016 and it isn't going to alter my opinion of Terry Ryan one bit. It may alter my outlook for the 2017 season though. My opinion of Terry Ryan is based off of moves made or not made, roster management, front office and coaching staffs assembled, records, etc. over the past 20 some odd years.

It wasn't about the sample size of 3 seasons, it was about the Stats used to reach the conclusion. Those stats, ERA+ and K/9 don't differentiate between the numbers of innings pitched, or whether they came in relief or the rotation. I'm not really arguing whether the Red Sox should have made the deal or not, or whether Pomeranz can be good or not. I was really just quibbling over the stats used to conclude he's an elite pitcher, worthy of being traded for a top 15 prospect in all of baseball. I think the Red Sox overpaid, but thats neither here nor there. I think its unlikely Pomeranz helps their starting rotation come September and October due to the obvious risk factors based on his IP, but his 2017 + 2018 seasons are certainly valuable

It's cherry picking because the main reason people are skeptical of this trade and calling it an overpay, sellers market, etc. has nothing to do with Pomeranz's ERA+ or K/9. It has everything to do with the fact that he has never thrown over 100 innings until 2016. Yes, you used 3 seasons of data. 3 seasons where he made 36 starts. His ERA+ and K/9 since the start of 2014 include a whopping 200 Starter innings spread over 3 seasons, and 57 relief innings. Just to use one small example to make my point clearer. It appears without pulling up the splits Corey Kluber has a similar ERA+ and K/9 as Drew Pomeranz since the start of 2014. Would you say its fair to Kluber if I made the argument "Pomeranz has been as good if not better of pitcher than Kluber since 2014, look at the ERA+ and K/9"? Probably not, because you'd point out Kluber has started more than twice as many games, pitched more than twice as many innings and has compiled almost 10 more Wins Above Replacement than Pomeranz.

I am curious to see what 2017 and 2018 look like. Why would I want Terry Ryan to be in charge of those teams when he's proven over 21 seasons he isn't up to the task. Why can't I be curious without him around?

Right, they got the best possible prospects by agreeing to take on the Reyes contract. I'm not disagreeing with the route Colorado went in anyway. I was simply clearing up the misconception that "Tulo brought back X amount of top prospects". Picking up $48 million of dead weight + Tulo brought back X amount of top prospects.

That is not what you wrote, nor what I replied to. You ignored the part about explaining how the Twins could have gotten Tulo without giving up a top prospect given Colorado got a top 50 and two other pitching prospects. You ignored the fact that Reyes had $48M remaining and Tulo had $109M.You might not think this is relevant but anyone I have ever worked with that has every managed at $100M plus P&L would consider that omission a significant lapse in judgment.

Ervin obviously doesn't have the value Pomeranz had, but.... He had never thrown more than 100 innings in a season before this year, looking solely at his ERA+ and K/9 in his last 180 innings (26 starts, 44 Relief appearances)) is an extreme cherry pick.