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gunnarthor

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Everything posted by gunnarthor

  1. gunnarthor
    McPhail didn't have the same economic problems that Ryan faced. It's an apples/oranges comparison. Yep, we disagree on FA. But please tell me what path the Twins should've taken. What FA should they have signed? I'm comfortable with Ryan and the FO getting the team right. They have the history and they've made a number of moves that suggests that the game hasn't passed them by. I'm not going to get upset if they don't seem to be going things the "fangraphs" way or if they keep thins close to the vest.
  2. gunnarthor
    I'm not going to disagree with you but I'm also not sure you're right. In fairness to Ryan, when he was GM through 07, he did lock up a lot of talent on extensions, which was significant, but he didn't really have the means to bid on top talent. After he left, we did see the Twins have a top 10 payroll for one year, with some real smart FA pickups (Pavano, Thome, Hudson) that helped them to a great season. When Ryan came back, the team wasn't in a position where free agency was going to help, esp with a bunch of young guys needing to come up. The Willingham, Doumit, Correia, Burton finds were ok for a rebuilding team. I'm still willing to give Ryan the benefit of the doubt and think he can spend more but he won't use FA as a crutch, he'll use it to help polish a nearly finished project like they did in 2010. And these last two years, there really wasn't a high end talent that anyone could realistically think the Twins could have gotten. They weren't going to win a bidding match against the Dodgers. Sanchez wasn't going to come here when Detroit was backing up the truck for him. The Twins weren't going to win a bidding on Hamilton or Pujols.
  3. gunnarthor
    Well, Correia pitched how Ryan thought he would and he specifically mentioned Goin when talking about signing Correia, so I do think it shows the Twins have some analysis based on stats. Probably not the same ones that fangraphs use. (But clearly they are also scout heavy). Remember, Joe Posnanski wrote that the A's internal WAR calculator had Cabrera ahead of Trout last year. ML teams have more info than we (fans) give them credit for.
  4. gunnarthor
    OK, here are most of the pitchers that were in that group. I might have missed one or two. John Lannan? Anyhow, other than Feldman and Correia, not a lot was gotten in that price range. I think the Cubs signed Villanueva to a similar deal but he spent most of the time in the bullpen (although I know some Twins fans talked him up). Anyhow, which high risk/reward guys was I missing? I guess Liriano? Scott Feldman - Cubs - 1/6m, 12-12 105 ERA+, 181.2ip, 1.6 WAR Kevin Correia 2/10m 9-13, 97 ERA+, 185.1ip, 1.6 WAR Brandon McCarthy - DBacks - 2/15.5m - 5-11 84 ERA+, 135ip -0.2 WAR Dan Haren - Nats - 1/13m - 10-14 81 ERA+, 169.2ip -0.1 WAR Ryan Dempster - Bos -2/26.5m 8-9 89 ERA+, 171.1ip, -0.2 WAR Joe Saunders - Seattle - 1/6.5m - 11-16, 70 ERA+, 183ip -0.3 WAR Mike Pelfrey 1/4m 5-13, 78 ERA+, 152.2ip, -0.3 WAR Shawn Marcum - Mets - 1/4m - 1-10 67 ERA+, 78.1ip -1.0 WAR Joe Blanton Angels - 2/15m - 2-14 62 ERA+, 132.2ip -2.0 WAR Scott Baker - Cubs - 1/5.5m 3 starts, 15ip. Missed most season w/injury (This is bWAR but fWAR can be very different - according to them, Pelfrey was a 2 WAR pitcher this year).
  5. gunnarthor
    In all honesty, how can you think it's an ego thing? The guy literally prevented a fawning book to be written about him. I'm sure he believes in his staff to fix this since they've done it before and he was the only small payroll GM to keep his team successful while turning over the teams nucleus. It's not like he took over a team with an obvious quick fix solution. The Twins couldn't have spent their way out of this mess.
  6. gunnarthor
    My guess is #3 would be the highest. You're right that they have some nice top talent but the Cubs and Astros have a lot of depth. I think they have to be the top 2 right now. Maybe the Red Sox if Bogaerts is still a "prospect" for these things. Then the Twins, Pirates and maybe Cards come into play. In John Sickels end of the season rankings, he had 6 Cubs, Astros and Pirates in his top 75. 5 Twins and 5 Red Sox.
  7. gunnarthor
    What moves has Ryan done that you think show he doesn't know what he's doing? What moves should he have done? Shouldn't that be the barometer instead of him using language you like? I mean, the main gripe with him seems to be not spending big on free agents. We had entire threads about the pitchers we didn't get and it looked like Ryan ended up pretty good in that regard. Are we concerned that he's being outfoxed in trades? Are the Twins promoting prospects too slowly? Has he made good waiver claims or rule v picks?
  8. gunnarthor
    Wow, taking ever chance to rip the FO aren't we? I think you're ignoring just how bad Liriano pitched for the White Sox. That was worth the trade all by itself.
  9. gunnarthor
    I love that you linked to a story written by a stat guy that finished with this: "And also because Ron Gardenhire is one damn fine manager."
  10. gunnarthor
    One other point, which I've mentioned before, is that the Twins are insanely tight lipped. We never get leaks from them - we got a few more in the Smith years but Ryan simply doesn't let stuff leak. Last year, for example, mlbtraderumors reported that Denard Span might be traded based on "speculation" by Ken Rosenthal but no Twins sources were used. The first time mlbtraderumors linked to a Twins source that Span might be traded was Nov 28, when Wolfson quoted someone in the Twins FO saying that the winter meetings could be active and then Wolfson made the connection to Span ("There's a belief that Span could be traded"). Span was traded the next day. Same with Revere - on Dec 3, mlbtraderumors noted that teams had "approached" the Twins about Revere. On Dec 5, Paul Morosi tweeted that Revere's name had surfaced as a possible trade chip but he didn't have any information from the Twins - he guessed that they'd want a CFer in return. He was traded the next day. I'm not sure if being this tight lipped is useful (I don't think it hurts them) but clearly Ryan does. He turned down the chance to be the subject of a book.
  11. gunnarthor
    I have no idea where you were able to find or do that search. How'd you do it?
  12. gunnarthor
    Yeah, that was based on former pitching coach/roving instructor Rick Knapp. He thought taller pitchers would have an easier time with creating "plane at the plate" stuff that Blyleven is always harping on about. .
  13. gunnarthor
    I think part of this might just be polarization by what fans hear. We don't have insights into any FO so we just generally go along with the sources we do have - BA, Fangraphs, ESPN etc. So at draft time, someone invariably will say that Team X reached to grab Player A with the #35 pick b/c BA had him ranked #49. The Twins for years used to harp about defense and were pretty consistently mocked about it. Tom Kelly was ripped for suggesting that Todd Walker's defense was negating his offensive contributions. Eventually, outside sources started to agree that defense was pretty important (and agreed that Walker's defense really hurt his overall value). The Twins, in that example, clearly knew some way of judging player's value that wasn't available to us and ended up being proven right. So I'm not sure I'd care if the Assistant GM didn't know what a fangraphs created stat was (or even if the Assistant GM has input on scouting and free agency or if his job is market based or contracts or vendors).
  14. gunnarthor
    Actually, I think his answer was "we're smart enough to fix this."
  15. gunnarthor
    Has Ryan been passive on the trade market? In the two years he's been back, he's traded Slowey, Liriano, Valencia, Span, Revere, Butera and Morneau. Not sure if that's a passive trade pattern.
  16. gunnarthor
    Not sure there's much to get angry about here. Corrigan is a long time scout who happened to previously work here and is very good at his job. Special-assignment scouts Larry Corrigan and Tim Schmidt crucial to Angels' success | angels.com: News I have no idea what his job will be here but it almost certainly will be involved in scouting. A few years ago the Twins decided they weren't scouting the southwest well enough so they put former GM Ryan in charge of that area and hired longtime scout Jack Powell who had just left the Rays. That led to Goodrum and Buxton fairly quickly. Don't think it makes much sense to say that we can't have someone work here if he used to work here. There's nothing that suggests he's bad at his job and he has proven capable of working with the current FO. Those are usually positive attributes when hiring someone.
  17. gunnarthor
    Yeah, agree with TRex, this ranking was based solely on league top 20 rankings which isn't clear in your post. And even on this 5-7 were basically tied. And the Rangers list included Profar. I suspect that when the real BA list comes out, the Twins will be a top 4 system.
  18. gunnarthor
    Yeah, the stats don't mean much but the approach, stuff etc is what the scouts are looking for when facing higher talent than before and playing a longer season. And teams also push players to either highlight for possible trades (I think the Twins could be doing this for both Rosario and Kepler) or to make a decision on rule v protections.
  19. gunnarthor
    They really aren't. Neither team has a great farm system right now - I believe both are middle of the road. From 2008 on, the Rays have had 2 players drafted make the majors, they combined for 57 games and 0.1 WAR. They did have some better drafts before then, although they constantly picked in the top 10, they didn't get great results either - Townsend, Young, Brazelton, Niemann and Hamilton were all first round picks that didn't do much, although Hamilton got pretty good after leaving and they made a good trade in Young. Niemann and Baldelli got hurt. Bad luck there. This years Rays' team only had 8 players play a game for them that were drafted by the org. (They made some smart trades). Marlins made some better recent picks - Fernandez and Yelich in the first rounds, Stanton in the 2nd but they've had a lot of bad drafts - usually picking in that ugly 11-20 area. From 02-12 drafts (ie, not the Mauer draft), the players drafted by the Marlins have accumulated 75.7 WAR, players drafted by the Twins have accumulated 101.5 WAR. (Interesting comparison, the Rays in the same time amassed 174 WAR but the 06 and 07 drafts are nearly the entire difference - 76.8 WAR from those two drafts, which netted Longoria, Jennings, Cobb, Moore and Price).
  20. gunnarthor
    I have no expectations. Anything he gives us would be a bonus. Too bad, I didn't much like the pick at the time (I wanted them to play hardball with Ranuado or get an additional pick the next year) but he was supposed to be a quick to the majors guy which we really could've used. The 2011 draft is pretty interesting - lot of talent fell - Ranuado, Olt, Biddle, Lee, Yelich, Walker, Castellenos. Some of it was for signing bonuses. Sale dropped to #13, Matt Harvey went #7. Royals really made a mistake at #4 (it was a top 3 draft) - took a guy with a perceived high floor but low ceiling in Colon and passed on some pretty good arms. Ouch.
  21. gunnarthor
    Yeah, I thought it was interesting too. And this is where the Ryan and anti-Ryan crowds will clash so I didn't post it. I agree with Ryan, others don't. It seems that people are so dug in now it doesn't really matter anymore.
  22. gunnarthor
    Nice interview. Seems he's confident in his plans. I hope Plouffe has a strong year next season. He's frustrating.
  23. gunnarthor
    Is he under contract for next year? I thought next year was an option year that the Twins would clearly not exercise. I suppose they could invite him back on a minor league deal but I guess I'm not really seeing the connection of your quoted material.
  24. gunnarthor
    Ryan only has to answer to the Pohlads and it's pretty clear they have a very high opinion of him so I don't think he has to give away his thinking just so a few guys in the fanbase are satisfied. Most of the local writers - at least the ones that matter - are pretty pro-Ryan, even if they do take the occasional shot at him.
  25. gunnarthor
    In all honesty, why would Ryan reveal any of the things he does? I'm not suggesting that the Twins are more sabrematically inclined than the Rays but the BP article I linked above does suggest they're in the middle, not the bottom. As to Ryan himself, he doesn't leak anything, ever. It sorta makes the hot stove league boring for us Twins fans. Regardless of how some fans may feel, Ryan clearly has the trust of ownership to do whatever he needs to and he doesn't need to give out information to feel vindicated to fans. He didn't ok Michael Lewis to write about his work (so Lewis wrote Moneyball instead). As I mentioned above, he's made a number of good moves in the two years since he's been back that suggests he's not out of his depth in running the team again.
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