gunnarthor

What a bum. Folds as soon as he gets tougher competition. Can you believe Ryan didn't trade this guy a month ago when his trade value was high?

Nobody wants the Polhads to get richer. Screw them. I hate them. But that doesn't mean you have to ignore the obvious - that the Twins are rebuilding and it doesn't make sense to spend much in FA to go from a 96 loss team to a 90 loss team. I have yet to see anyone suggest a reasonably likely scenario that Ryan could have done last year after the season that was better than what he did do.

Opposing starter is Michael Roth, from the Angels. Drafted last year (2012) in the 9th round, iffy stuff but already made the majors as a bullpen arm. Lefty. Nice first pitcher for Buxton et al to see.

Sure, and Ryan will sign some pitchers. But who exactly do you think we should be targeting? Pretend you were the GM a year ago. What would you have done differently? I think too many people think free agency is more than what it is, the finishing touches for creating a contending team.

The article doesn't really say much we didn't know, although I missed the "saving the chips" part. He's not going to spend money just to spend money.

In fairness, in 2001 Mays led the AL in ERA+ and posted a 6.7 WAR year. His season was a bit lucky but it was still a legitimately good season. He had a bunch of injuries after that year though.

I'd disagree with that. Price, I believe has two years left before he's a free agent. That's what Sano would be buying. If he had two more years of similar production to this year, the Twins would be giving up 6 years of control of the best power prospect in the minors for 374ip, 114 ERA+, 5.6 WAR. That would be a horrible, horrible trade for us.

Well, that won't be too hard. Heck, you could correctly say that they did that last year when they signed Correia as he was better than what they had.

Maybe, maybe not. But when Smith was GM, the team did spend money. Whether or not they spent it well is a different matter.

He's only been GM for two offseasons and the team has been so bad that free agency isn't the fix.

Well, Mauer is still here and Hunter stuck around through the traditional prime years and was able to get a large FA contract. Same with Santana. Takes two to tango. Extending guys in their arbitration years is a fantastic way to get value for money since the team has leverage over the player. (And I believe the Twins got two of Santana's FA years). Most agents want the security of a contract over the arb years but don't want to limit the FA years. I don't know if Santana or Hunter would have nec agreed to an extra year on their extensions. And was Santana's extension a bad deal? It took him through his age 29 season (Mets ripped up his last year and gave him a new contract but he was signed to be with us through 2008). He's had a few good years since then but nothing close to what they would've been paying him to be (and that also assumes he continued to pitch well in the AL).

It is a fact but it might not be a relevant one b/c a different fact, Metrodome Twins payroll issues, significantly impacted Ryan's ability to do so.

He signed Hunter, Mauer and Santana to longer deals that bought out some free agency years. (Hunter stayed with the Twins through his age 31 season). Also, those Twins teams had significant payroll issues that limit how much we compare to now. And, realistically, Ryan will probably retire before any of these elite prospects are out of team control. Oh, forgot, he also kept Radke here.

Mostly agree with Snepp and Brock. I was pretty angry about the contraction thing at the time but I had also moved away from MN. I stopped following the Vikings and T-Wolves. It would've been pretty easy to stop caring about baseball if the Twins were gone. I might have been interested in a dispersal draft and might have followed the team that certain players (Radke, Mauer) but probably would have slowly not cared.

OK, we get it.

He's a mod. Just ignore him.

Mark Anderson did a chat and had a few Twins questions. Jim (Fargo): Would you call Oswaldo Arcia's 2013 a success, failure, or something in between? What did we learn? Mark Anderson: I think it was an absolute success. At 22-years old he proved he had nothing left to do in the minor leagues and got nearly 100 games in the big leagues to make adjustments, learn and prepare for when the Twins will actually need him to be a centerpiece in their lineup. What did we learn? I think we learned he is going to hit, show good power and be a quality MLB player overall; it just takes time and doesn't always happen instantaneously. Clint Frazier (Georgia): Do you think I am better than Byron Buxton or George Springer? Mark Anderson: I don't think there is anyone in the minor leagues better than Byron Buxton right now. He is incredible. I am a huge Frazier fan and have struggled with Springer going back to college. Right now I would take Springer just becaues he's done it throughout the minor leagues, but Frazier has the potential to be better. Ed (Jacksonville): When all said and done, who will have the best MLB career between O. Taveras, X. Bogaerts, and M. Sano? Mark Anderson: Wow! This might be the impossible question. I think Taveras is a potential batting champion with plus power. Bogaerts could pop 30 bombs a year and hit very well in the process, all while playing a premium defensive position. Sano...well, Sano is one of the few players in the minor leagues that you could actually say has a chance to hit 50 home runs some day. I'm a huge believer in Sano and I can't quit now. I think he's going to be fantastic.

People can do it through the government they elect. Perhaps a bunch of us wanted health care reform to help the poor but couldn't do it ourselves. So we had a big election and voted in people that could handle such a large project.

Cracked.com had a silly post today about scientific answers to silly questions, including what is the catchiest song. The answer, "We are the Champions" by Queen. I don't quite agree - it'll stick in your head but I heard Billy Squier's "In the Dark" (not a good song) but that sucker stuck in my head for a week.

Ryan wasn't our GM from 08-10. If he had been, I suspect things would have been quite different. I assume the GM is following his own plan, which he ran past ownership. I have yet to read anyone's plan, even with the benefit of hindsight, that realistically improved the Twins this last season. It's all generic "spend money" but it ignores that guys like Marcum, Dempster, Jackson, Haren all sucked pretty hard this year. Or it's unrealistic cries to outbid for Grieinke and Sanchez.

Smith wasn't fired for his international work (although Nishi was certainly used against him). Ryan did a remarkable job in his first go around of bringing in talent outside of the draft - Santana, Lohse, Silva, Milton, Bartlett, Liriano, Boof, Nathan, Punto, etc. He's already shown that ability in his 2 years back. It is unrealistic to expect the Twins to stay at the top. Sports are made to be cyclical. The fact that they were able to stay atop so long speaks to the ability of Ryan, not his inability.

Houston could easily afford to give a guy like Kepler a bunch of ML at bats and have him learn on the job. They're openly tanking. I guess it would be what their scouts think but if they say something like - love this guy, great body, good work ethic, fast learner, just needs time, I think Houston bites.

How long does a normal rebuild take? Cleveland had 4 straight 90 loss seasons. Rays had 10. Pirates had 20 years below .500. Rangers had one winning season in 9 years before they figured it out. Tigers had 12 years of being lost in the desert. Orioles had 14. Oakland had 5 losing seasons before last year. Mets are working on 5 straight losing seasons. Nats had 6 straight losing seasons in their rebuild. Seattle's been a mess since 04. Houston has lost 106 games or more for 3 straight seasons and hasn't had a winning season since 08. Reds had 9 sub .500 seasons before they got back to respectability. Giants had 4 bad years followed by 4 good years before this year. Brewers had 12 years of rebuilding.

Two points to make. You are significantly understating the Cards/Twins payroll differences and the advantage it gave St. Louis. You point out that both teams topped 100m 3x. Another way of saying it would be, since 2005, the Cards payroll has always been more than 83m and the Twins have topped that 3x. And if we're looking at history events here - ie where payroll really did factor - you can't brush that off and say it wasn't a factor b/c the Twins had 100m payroll 3x. You can argue that, going forward, payroll isn't as big a deal. Secondly, yes, there is talent throughout the draft but after the top picks, it's pretty random (and some of the talent that did fall, fell b/c of salary demands, not talent). In another post, you pointed out that there is talent at the #20 pick. Since 1990 (23 drafts) only Mike Mussina, Torii Hunter, Eric Milton, Adam Kennedy, CC Sabathia, Denard Span and Chad Cordero have managed to amass even 7.0 WAR. That's a 30% hit rate and you'll notice that two of those hits were drafted by the Twins and a third we brought into our system. If you go to pick #28, only three guys (Colby Rasmus, Daric Barton and Charles Johnson) meet that cut off. That's a 13% hit rate. 1st pick - 13 so far (57%). Another way to look at it would be to compare the accumulated WAR totals of the picks - #15 picks since 1990 have amassed 129.4 WAR (Chase Utley making nearly half of it). #5 picks have amassed 200 WAR. #25 picks managed 77.8 (basically just Trout, Garza and Cain). So while there is talent, it's not realistic to expect that drafting in the 20s for a decade isn't going to severely hurt your team. In a single year, you can make a nice hit and the Twins have done so several times - Hunter, Span, Revere, Garza, Gibson. But they'll have misses too. Yankees have the same problem now - although that payroll thing (and massive PED use) helps them out some.

I'd vote 1999