gunnarthor

And the shoe dropped - Porter is fired during the season. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/09/astros-fire-bo-porter.html

I tend to think we're over thinking this. He rested Mauer and said it was his decision. If he had said "Joe needed a day," we'd be hearing 'Joe is soft" crud. On the all star game, Gardy might think it's true but might also want fans to move away from concussion concerns or push a narrative that Mauer's struggles are behind him. It fits. Also, when we start these "Gardy throwing someone under the bus" threads (and I guess it's always young guys except when it's Mauer), it's probably worth remembering that he's been saying Hicks should be back up.

Yeah, Appel has been a bit better in AA - although he has some h/r splits but it's only 6 games. I wonder if his scouting reports have gotten better. A month or so ago, BP thought he was a #3 if it broke right. Ugh.

Man, the Astros are the team that never stops giving. Now there are reports that the GM and manager don't get along - to the point the manager has gone to the owner and the GM is accussed of living in his own little bubble and seems incapable of not insulting people. http://deadspin.com/reports-astros-manager-and-gm-definitely-not-getting-a-1628531365 So, Astros have - 1) drafted Appel, who has sucked, and passed on Bryant and Grey 2) drafted Correa and passed on Buxton 3) drafted Aiken, burned that bridge, got some gas, lit that on fire, called in a bomber, dropped payload and lost the 1-1 pick. And a 5th round pick. And are facing grievances by potentially both. Also pissed off an incredibly powerful agent. Worst case scenario, they could actually lose future first round picks. 4) Correa got hurt. 5) Leaked internal memos that showed they were a bit out of touch - "Norris for Bundy"? Somehow the Orioles didn't bite on that. 6) Asked one of the top 10 prospects in the game to sign a team friendly deal and, when he refused, sent him to the minors for "seasoning." Union threatened to look into it. 7) Are avg about 104 losses per year for the last four seasons. 8) Got a zero home TV rating. 9) Pissed of the vets on the team by letting Appel pitch at MM park while posting an ERA over 10.00 in A ball, leading to players vent that the FO doesn't care about the ML team at all.

"Final years" - awesome. Regardless of whether or not there was any media report of any failed offer by the FO, every team knew he was leaving. Everyone. It changed nothing. At all. Every team knew that Santana was going to demand a huge extension. It would have been silly of Ryan to trade him midway through the season as well. I gotta agree with Tobi. There's no reason to continue this.

http://deadspin.com/whats-wrong-with-baseball-1628473196 Excellent article on deadspin about the issues baseball is now dealing with. I'd add one thing that has hurt the game is the lack of strong rivalries, but that's not really covered in that article.

Guerra was ranked #35 and Gomez #52. And Humber had been ranked #50 before his TJ surgery. The Garcia trade was a nice trade but Gonzalez had been ranked #72 at the time and Floyd was entering his arb years as a back of the rotation guy. In 3 years in Philly he amassed -1.6 WAR and a 66 ERA+. The Twins package was better on paper. Additionally, Santana was going to cost the other team a ton of money - only a few teams could even conceivably be in on the trade. I think the idea that Ryan destroyed any trade leverage is massively overstated by you and not supported by any facts. Sure, other teams knew the Twins weren't going to extend him and Santana was going to leave. So what? That didn't change his value in their eyes. What changed his value the most was his drop in production in 07, from best pitcher in baseball to merely a top 10 pitcher who was going to demand top dollar.

Because he didn't trade Santana. Good gravy indeed. He also didn't extend him to a team crippling deal, which is what Santana's side wanted.

I've been a bit surprised on how much KC fans seem to dislike Yost.

Shields, obviously. My bad.

By 09, Revere and Ramos (both Ryan guys) and Hicks were the only top 100. Revere was the 07 draft. The 05 draft was already in the majors - Garza, Slowey and Duensing. The 04 draft had Perkins in the majors, 3 injured starting pitchers and a long developing Plouffe. 03 draft already had Baker in the majors. The only development hiccup by 09 was on the 06 draft - Parmelee wasn't a highly rated prospect anymore, Benson would become a 2x top 100 guy but a ML bust and Robertson would be a journeyman reliever. Valencia helped out in 2010. So I think most of Ryan's minor league development was already off the books by 09. The big problem, which isn't really on anyone, is the unfortunate injuries to that 04 class. All four pitchers taken in the first round ended up getting surgery. Swarzak was a good 2nd round pick. BA rated the Twins draft the only A draft at the time. Crap happens.

How are they 100% on Ryan? Santana had an entire year left on his contract when Ryan left. All that is his fault? Wow. I mean that is literally like saying Dayton Moore should have traded David Price last year at the deadline since his team was out of it and shouldn't expect to be much better a year from then.

But if you're arguing about FA in the small market days, then you have to take payroll into account. It's not really realistic that the Twins would have been big players in FA. Ryan, before he retired the first time, never made huge FA picks. Since he's come back, he's made a couple of solid FA signings for a mid market team that we are still debating - Nolasco looks bad, Hughes looks good, Hammer was fine etc. My feeling on the FA stuff is that it's too early to worry about it. The team needs to have a foundation put in place before it uses FA to complete a rebuild. If, in a few years, he's not using the entire payroll to support the Buxton/Sano foundation, then we should complain. But I'm not going to worry too much about fringe FA while the team rebuilds - and you see that Hoyer and Lunhow are doing more or less the same thing - rebuild by creating a strong farm system through drafts and trades and international signings.

I don't think that's completely fair. Sure, Hunter, Santana and Silva were leaving and that was huge. But, as posted elsewhere, Garza, Slowey, Perkins, Liriano and Swarzak had all been top 100 guys and all but Swarzak were in the high minors at that point (or the majors). At the time, pitching was considered a real strength of the team but that they couldn't develop bats. The team was still mostly young with guys like Mauer, Morneau, Span, Cuddy, Baker, Garza, Bartlett, Casilla, Kubel, Blackburn, Crain, Slowey, Boof etc still in their prime or entering it. They also had a shut down bullpen. That core went to two striaght 163 games and then exploded in 2010. That wasn't exactly shoestring and duct tape.

I seem to remember it happening a few times but I can't remember if MLB changed the rules on that. Anyone know? The reason I bring it up was this Joe Posnanski column on Ned Yost - http://joeposnanski.com/joeblogs/the-gomes-affair/ In that column, Posnanski opines that a guy like Dusty Baker (who statheads always attacked), might have been a better manager for this KC team. Say what you will about Gardy but he seems like a really good fit for KC over Yost. I don't think Ryan wants Gardy to go (and there's probably an open thread on that so we don't need to start it here) but if KC has a manager led fiasco in August or in the playoffs, maybe Moore tries to pry Gardy away?

When did the minor league system really fail us though? I'd say 2011. Again, Ryan's last years had several top 100 guys - his last drafts were much better than people pretend to claim. In 07 we had one pick in the top 90 - Ben Revere, who ended up being a decent pick. The team has had problems since 2011 b/c of the collapse of the minor leagues (which is a normal cycle that all teams go through). In 2010, the Twins got some nice support from guys like Valencia (2 WAR season) and Duensing (who lost his rookie status in 09). And that team was mostly home grown w/smart FA additions to complement it. Trying to pin the 2011 collapse on the 04-06 drafts is greatly over simplifying the problems. The Twins have had very little bang since Deron Johnson took over the draft. In 08, he had 3 first round picks, Hicks might still be a player but Hunt and Gutierrez are long gone. 09 was Gibson, a bunch of failed flame throwers and Dozier. etc.

The Twins were only 6 GB at the deadline, had been a pretty good second half team the previous few years and were stuck in a weird season - Mauer and Cuddy were constantly nicked up and Morneau faded badly. I don't think he could have moved Hunter at the deadline. And Hunter was going to get us two draft picks at a minimum. (Also, stat heads thought Hunter was wildly overrated at that time. It was after he left us that b-r tweaked WAR and showed that he was a 3.5-4.0 WAR guy). When he traded Castillo (so that promising rookie Castilla could get some playing time and got us Drew Buetera), fans went nuts about the team throwing up the white flag. As for Santana, he couldn't have moved him w/1.5 years left on his contract while the taxpayers were about to agree to build the team a new stadium. He may have been able to get a better trade than Smith though in the offseason.

Ryan, Lunhow and Hoyer were all hired at roughly the same time. I think it's fair to say that if you think those two deserve more time, Ryan certainly does. When he stepped down in 07, Ryan had the team fairly well established at the ML level. We had a strong nucleus of guys and several top 100 pitchers ready to help out (Garza, Perkins, Swarzak, Slowey and Liriano were all top 100 in 06/07). I don't think it's fair to assume that things that happened under Smith/Johnson would have happened if Ryan remained.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/draft/selig-admits-aiken-case-isnt-closed/ Sounds like Houston might be allowed to sign Aiken even though the deadline has passed. Aiken has not yet filed a grievance and Selig hopes it doesn't come to that so they are working on something else. I would be pretty upset if Houston was allowed to sign Aiken and Nix a month after the deadline.

What talent would you bring in? What trades would you make? http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015-free-agent-power-rankings

I really don't like WAR but I'm going to use fWAR for a quick second to see how the Twins are per position in the AL. The second number is just OPS, non-adjusted. C - 8/15 (WAR) and 5/15 (OPS). Suzuki has been solid but Fryar and Pinto have been useless. 1B - 13/15 and 13/15. This is the one spot I think they Twins can expect a big rebound with a healthy Mauer and less Colabello and Parm. 2B - 5/15 and 3/15. Dozier is a legit second baseman on a playoff team. 3B - 5/15 and 9/15. I was surprised. Weak year for offense hides the fact that Plouffe's been pretty good overall. I still don't trust Plouffe but Sano should be here soon enough. SS - 1/15 and 5/15. And here I was stunned but they are double counting Santana for WAR. Just Escobar and it's closer to 7 out of 15. Still, pretty good year for our short stops. LF - 12/15 and 11/15. CF - 6/15 and 5/15. Fangraphs loved Fuld for WAR and Santana's obviously been good. RF - 14/15 and 9/15. Pulled down by the double counting of Parm and Colabello for WAR but Arcia isn't a good defender yet. DH - 9/15 and 5/15. A bit surprised that OPS liked the Twins DH's so much. So ... Nick has a point. While RF hasn't been great, Arcia should get the vast majority of AB next year, even if his defense is down. Vargas should get 600 PA too. The big questions is regression for guys like Escobar, Santana, Suzuki and Plouffe. The Twins could bring in a guy like Nelson Cruz on a 3 year deal. Or Nick Markakis. But there isn't a lot else out there in the FA bin. Maybe Colby Rasmus accepts a one year deal to fix his stock. But a lot of guys - Hicks, Arcia, Vargas, Santana, Pinto, Escobar just need to play to see what we have while Buxton and Sano are in AAA.

Upton is so bad he might just be considered a sunk cost at this point. Minor was good last year but he hasn't been great this year, for whatever reason. fWAR actually has Nolasco higher than Minor this year and bWAR is pretty close. Both have been bad ERA+-wise (71 and 75). I think I actually trust Nolasco a bit more than Minor at this point, at least if Upton is involved.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/08/phil-bickford-considering-independent-ball-eyeing-2015-draft.html Phil Bickford was drafted tenth overall in the 2013 draft as a young HS pitcher. He turned down 2m and went to Cal State Fullerton where he was really good. Now it sounds like he's leaving Cal State to play in independent ball which would make him eligible for next years draft. This is good news for the Twins as Bickford will likely join Brady Aiken and Jacob Nix (both drafted but not signed by Houston) in next years draft. Nix probably won't be a top 10 guy in that draft but Aiken and Bickford certainly are and gives the draft some more depth and high upside pitching talent.

BP highlighted both in their recent ten pack. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24500 Rosario entered the season firmly entrenched in a deep Minnesota system and his upward trajectory carried him to the no. 60 spot in our Top 101. I caught him after his promotion to the Eastern League last season and the feel for hitting, along with some legit thunder in his stick, stuck out. There was some swing-and-miss to his game, but the 22-year-old was confidently turning around fastballs with authority and attacking offerings with a fluid stroke that unfolds with some leverage. A 50-game suspension for a banned substance started this year off on the wrong foot and delayed what looked to be merely a brief follow-up in Double-A before a promotion. When I’ve seen Rosario this season, though, it’s been apparent that there is a need for major adjustments to his approach and mindset as a hitter. His strike zone selection has been poor, compounded by his thinking he’s a power guy instead of a gap-to-gap hitter who can muscle up in spots. Neglecting to cover the outer third of the plate has led to a lot of weak roll-overs, popups, and lazy fly balls. The defense is far from a carrying tool, so with his bat’s progression stalling, so have Rosario's major-league prospects. Failure can stimulate, and Rosario certainly has offensive talent. With adjustments, Rosario can quickly get back on track, but it’s going to come down to the recognition and commitment to do so. —Chris Mellen Max Kepler, OF, Twins (High-A Fort Myers) Kepler looks the part. If you were designing a ballplayer, Kepler could be the mold. At 6-foot-4 and well-built but not oversized, Kepler could sell jeans, as the old story goes. The swing looks as good as the build, starting with a lightly open, traditional left-handed stance, continuing with a slight uppercut and above-average bat speed, and ending with a nice, two-handed finish. Despite looking the part, Kepler simply doesn't square the ball up consistently, and when he does, he doesn't do so with the authority expected from a player his size. He doesn't swing and miss a ton and has a decent eye with a sound approach, but he feels for the ball (especially against left-handed pitching) and does not drive it. Kepler therefore fails to project as a regular. He's already limited to corner outfield positions and first base, which raises the bar even higher, but right now, he's nowhere close to displaying the power necessary to live up to the expectations of his defensive position. The profile is there for more, and he's still just 21, so it's far from a lost cause, but we've yet to see any kind of power production outside of the Appalachian League two years ago and there are few signs this year that he's turning the corner. —Jeff Moore

Always fun to read Sickels. On that list, I think May, Pinto, Santana and Vargas will meet rookie minimums and be off of it for next season. Gordon and Burdi are locks to be added. Guys like Hu will be added. Still a strong system although health was a bit issue this year.