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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    I liked the De la Torre pick. Always nice to nab falling talent. From what I've read, he'll stick at short and the big question is his bat. But true shortstops are rare so he'll get plenty of time to develop. A lot of relief arms and a couple backend starters in this group but not anyone with a huge ceiling. Maybe Leach could get there but he isn't there yet.
  2. gunnarthor
    Nor should a player walk away from that money so the billionaire owners can save it.
  3. gunnarthor
    Actually, I would doubt that. With our young offensive talent, I would imagine most pitchers would say "yeah, I'm what they need." But ownership is going to limit what bin we can look in. If we can get a Cobb like signing, that's probably the best we could realistically hope for.
  4. gunnarthor
    Sure, there are ways to improve other than pitching although that's the obvious upgrade. But they don't need us making Anibal Sanchez contracts. Would you agree that a rotation (ignoring the bullpen for a moment) of Berrios, Alex Cobb and Ervin Santana could be a good enough top 3 for a playoff team?
  5. gunnarthor
    I tend to think that Ryan took a lot of bullets for the Pohlad family. We'll see what happens now. One thing that has always bothered me about the ownership is that they had years where they 'saved' money by playing the young guys but they've never saved that money for seasons where going over was needed.
  6. gunnarthor
    And I also pointed out that the Giants won it with a pitching staff WAR of 9 and the Cards did it with an 8. Or the Astros relatively low 13 this year. It's not just the Royals. There are a lot of exceptions to whatever arbitrary line you are making. And the Dodgers and Nationals (and Tigers) have failed in the postseason with some of the greatest pitching staffs ever. You can win the World Series if your #1 starter is just a 4 WAR type pitcher. It's happened a lot over the last few years. There are a lot of ways for the Twins to move from an 85 win team to 90+. Improving the bullpen and rotation seem like the easiest. That doesn't mean that the Twins need to waste 160m on Darvish (and we have 20 years of history that says we won't do that). Adding Cobb to our nucleus could be enough. Berrios looks like a stud in the making. If those are your first two arms and Santana is #3, that's not a bad rotation on paper. We have two top 100 prospects in AAA this year (Romero and Gonsalves) and a few other arms not far behind that are worth being excited about (Thorpe being a really intriguing sleeper) as well.
  7. gunnarthor
    Sure, WAR is just one stat, I've also pointed out the low ERA+ as well. The point is we need better starters. But better starters could mean Cobb and not Darvish, for instance.
  8. gunnarthor
    I think you're taking a few things out of context (again) and moving goalposts. You originally suggested that teams need one or two "impact" pitchers. Now you want to look at staffs. Either way, it really just depends on what you think of as impact. For example, the Cards 4 starters were pitching in the NL. Carpenter was legit good but Jackson and Garcia had WARs under 1.0, Westbrook was in negative territory. Lohse was 2.3. They had some good relief pitchers but overall, it wasn't that impressive. Team wise, they had 9 WAR. Frankly, they really weren't too far off from where the Twins were this year. The 2012 Giants had 5 starters w/184ip. That is true. What you didn't mention was that Lincecum was really, really bad and, as a staff, they managed only 8 WAR. I did mention that Cain and Bumgarner were their two best pitchers but neither was anything special. You didn't say anything really different than what I said about the 2014 Giants squad. Casilla, Machi, Affeldt were all good relief arms for them that year. They had a solid pen but I don't think anyone on that staff would be called impactful. And if they are, then yes, the Twins could find some similar arms. The Mets certainly had better arms than these Giant and Cards teams but again, they didn't really have anything too impactful. They had a couple guys with 4+ WAR seasons but not above it. Could a Berrios, Cobb, Santana front three (as I suggested) come close to what the Mets group kicked out? Maybe.
  9. gunnarthor
    Might depend on what you mean by impact. The Royals won the WS when their best pitcher was Edison Volquez and Chris Young. Obviously, they had a great bullpen and amazing team defense. The 2015 Mets pitching staff wasn't that great either but was certainly better than the Twins this year. The 2014 Giants had a team ERA+ of 99 but rode Bumgarner (4.0 WAR pitcher) and Jake Peavy down the stretch. They beat a Royals team with 3 solid starters but none had a WAR above 4. The 2012 Giants pitching staff was actually worse than 2014. Bumgarner and Cain were both good but again both were sub 4.0 WAR pitchers. 2011 Cards had Chris Carpenter and nothing - Kyle Lohse was their second best starter. So a World Series team doesn't need a bunch of 4+ WAR pitchers. That helps, of course. But could Berrios and, say, Alex Cobb and Ervin Santana be a strong enough front of the rotation for the Twins? Maybe?
  10. gunnarthor
    I think, with the exception of the extensions, this is fairly realistic. Tillman and Reynolds are the type of free agents they might be able to afford and that still might let them get a decent bullpen arm as well. I'm not sure they could afford both Shaw and McGee but the idea is about right. I didn't follow Baltimore much last year but their entire pitching staff seemed to have a lost season. I wonder if the FO thinks we could 'fix' whatever went wrong for Tillman because he was absolutely horrible last year. I'd also like to look at potential trades for Gausman.
  11. gunnarthor
    Myth 1 isn't a myth. Ownership is not going to add much. I'd be stunned if we were over 115m and I agree that number is optimistic. We have 20+ years of proof of the Pohlad's spending habits. Ryan wasn't the problem. The Pohlads didn't want to spend money in Latin America - Ryan begged them for 1.5 to get Cabrera! - they didn't spend on the draft - which is why we drafted guys like Revere and Span - they don't lock up our own guys at market rates (except for Mauer whose contract coincided with the taxpayers giving them a new stadium) so we lost guys like Hunter and Santana. That's why the 2000s were so amazing, the players and FO were competitive despite ownership, not because of it. If the Pohlads were going to change they wouldn't have hired Falvey, a young kid who would work cheap and came from an org that didn't spend much on free agency. We've already had Levine talk about payroll remaining low. Ownership won't sign a big free agent now because doing so would harm our chances of locking up the young core in the future. Of course, they won't do that either but they'll wait a few years to drop that bomb on us.
  12. gunnarthor
    Sure, we could find a guy like Adrianza and bat him ninth. With the expected improvement from Buxton and Kepler, our offense shouldn't take too much of a dive down. That said, I don't think Polanco is a fit for Pitt if they were to trade Cole. But I like the idea of getting him.
  13. gunnarthor
    Like everyone, it depends on the deal but I do think the the Twins should trade one of their middle infielders for pitching help if they can manage it. I still think a package of Gordon and Romero with something like Wade and an A ball player could get a strong return and keep the ML squad more or less intact. I'd go that route first. If we do trade Polanco we probably have a one year hole at short. Gordon's not ready yet, at least not for opening day, and Escobar isn't a good defender there. So they'd have to address that as well.
  14. gunnarthor
    While I don't agree with his premise there are substantial differences between Gibson and Buxton. One of them is still young and improving. Gibson's last 10 starts or so were against some very bad offensive ball clubs while Buxton was playing everyday and facing some legit pitchers. Buxton's pedigree and background make him a much safer bet moving forward. Etc.
  15. gunnarthor
    I think you have to protect Lewis for sure. LH pitching is too rare. San Diego, for instance, would gobble him up and put him in their pen for the year without hesitation, I would think. Stewart deserves another year so protect him, too. Burdi is recovering from TJ surgery so no one will nab him.
  16. gunnarthor
    I'm fine with your second point - if we can move him, great. As to your first point, I'm less convinced. I'm pretty sure if we started looking at the pitchers on the list in the 90-115 range we'd see a lot of up and down seasons and variances between level of opposition. And the Twins will still face bad teams next year so wins against Detroit still matter.
  17. gunnarthor
    Yeah, I don't think it's very realistic. Most teams don't pull that kind of stuff off. Cleveland did but the Astros gave 60 starts to fip's above 4.40, the Red Sox 48, Yankees 70, etc. All those teams were top 7 in fWAR for starting pitching. But that's just one random stat. Why not xFIP, where Gibby looks better? Or fWAR? (or bWAR which doesn't like him at all). The point is, most teams don't have five pitchers better than Gibson. The Nationals, a great pitching team, gave 28 starts to Jason Ross, AJ Cole, Matt Grace, Jacob Turner, Jeremy Gutherie, Edwin Jackson and Krick Fedde. Those seven pitchers managed 147ip and 0.1 WAR. By most metrics, Gibby was our 3rd best starter last year. By some, xfip, he was our best, by others, bWAR or FIP, probably 4th. If the Twins can improve that, great. But it's not realistic to expect it. Gibson is what he is, a back of the rotation starter who will have hot and cold streaks but probably finish around 160 innings and stay relatively healthy.
  18. gunnarthor
    Sure, but a lot of those other pitchers had up and down seasons. Jake Ordorizzi had a 14 start run with an era over 6 before finishing Sept with a sub 2.00 era. Almost every single pitcher has up and down streaks and after you get past the cream of the crop, you'll get a lot of guys like this.
  19. gunnarthor
    Keep in mind, MLB is short of good pitchers. Look at the teams right behind us in the Wild Card race. A lot of them would have liked to have Kyle Gibson. If you made a list of all starters last year in the majors (218 pitched at least 30 innings), Gibson is probably in the 90-100 range (I looked at fWAR and it has him at 108 by WAR and 87 by xFIP (above Berrios). Obviously, having 5 pitchers better than that would be ideal but it's not realistic.
  20. gunnarthor
    Next year will be pretty big for Cabbage. He needs to start hitting otherwise they'll let him go. I like Davis and hope he can continue to develop for us. As to the relief pitchers, I don't really care that much. Low level pitchers generally can put up insane strike out numbers b/c the batters they are facing aren't going to go much further than rookie league ball. So take those numbers with a huge grain of salt. But it is nice having a lot of potential closer arms in the system even if, individually, they probably aren't that impressive.
  21. gunnarthor
    And basically 0 WAR in 200 innings to go with a 79 ERA+. I like him a lot, actually, but fip isn't a perfect stat and doesn't tell the whole story either. He's no longer a young prospect and really hasn't done much yet. I think he can be a pretty good starter in the long run but the Twins would be nuts to expect much from him. Make him be a pleasant surprise this year. He'll start in AAA and force his way up by results.
  22. gunnarthor
    I'd go with Gordon
  23. gunnarthor
    Woah. I agree with everything Thrylos said.
  24. gunnarthor
    To my eye test, for just range, I think it goes Buxton, Rosario, Granite, Kepler, Adrianza, Grossman. But I think the advanced stats like Kepler and dislike Rosario a lot more than I do.
  25. gunnarthor
    The only significant change we might see before opening day is if the Twins decide to move Sano off of third base. Not sure what other options they have - obviously Escobar could get first crack but I'm not sold on him being a starter for a season and his defense might not be an upgrade. There isn't much on mlbtraderumor's free agent tracker for third base but Logan Forsythe got good marks at third base, although he didn't play it much. The Dodgers have an option year on him for only 8.5m but he wasn't great this year but he got better as the year went on. They probably still pick up the option though. After that, there isn't much. Baltimore probably doesn't pick up JJ Hardy's option but do the Twins want to bet on a 35 year old shortstop (decent marks still) moving to third? So I would guess we stick with the Sano/Escobar/other UI for this year. Or we trade for Machado. I'm sure that's in the cards.
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