gunnarthor

I'm not sure how much of that is actually true. I looked at the 04-07 Twins draft earlier in this thread. Here's the Cards: 04 - Chris Lambert was their first pick (before any Twins pick) and he was a bust. Best player drafted in this draft was 6th rounder Jarrett Hoffpauir who played in 21 games and had a .590 OPS. Twins had a better draft. 05 - They had 4 first round picks (and 6 in the top 70) but only Colby Rasmus has made it. Twins had a better draft. 06 - They nailed this draft about as well as the Twins blew it. They had 5 picks in the first two rounds. First pick Adam Ottavino has been ok but after him they took Chris Perez and hit on John Jay in the 2nd round. 8th round pick Allen Craig has been a good player. 8th rounder David Carpenter and 28th rounder Luke Gregerson have both become legit relief pitchers. 07 - Nothing really. They had two first round picks - Pete Kozma and Clayton Mortensen - and they've combined for 0.5 WAR. Twins had a better draft. 08 - (I didn't do the Twins 08 draft but that was the Hicks draft). They had two first round picks again. Wallace was a bit of a bomb but Lance Lynn has been solid. So I think the Twins have drafted about as well as the Cards over that period (if we keep this going, it looks like the 09 draft favors the Cards but they blew 3 first round picks in 2010.) One thing the Cards have done is made some trades that the Twins probably couldn't have done b/c of the salary issues. But both Wallace and Mortensen were part of the Matt Holliday trades.

I think this would be more interesting if it was the 2010 Twins instead. That team might not have had a lot of room to play with the 40 man roster. But this team can afford to protect Kepler and just lose an option year. They'll also have the AFL season to look at him first. I think they'll protect him just in case and hope he can get to AA next year. But if they don't protect him, I do think the Astros would risk taking him.

I think this has been gone over before but we can look at it quickly again. The 04 draft was a biggie and BA actually gave the Twins the highest grade after that draft. Unfortunately, Plouffe has never really developed and all 4 first round pitchers ended up getting serious injuries which effected their careers greatly. Perkins turned into a top notch closer but even that took a long time to happen. 2nd round pick Swarzak has been a decent long reliever. 3rd round pick Morlan was part of the Delmon Young trade. But it was an unfortunate draft for us but it was also a weak draft (sorta like 2001). Perkins actually has the 8th most WAR of the first round picks. The best players we missed on were Phil Hughes and Gio Gonzalez (I believe he fell b/c of salary demands). The second round saw guys like Dustin Pedroia, Hunter Pence, Yovani Gallardo, Kurt Suzuki picked. Would we look back on that draft differently if our guys had stayed healthy? 05 they did ok for a bit - Garza's been a pretty good ML player, Slowey (2nd) and Duensing (3rd) both had decent seasons as starters. The Twins had another first round pick and used it on a washout Hank Sanchez, Clay Bucholz went a few picks later (he dropped for criminal reasons, IIRC). Slowey was an ok pick for a 2nd rounder so I guess we can't complain but Yunel Escobar went two picks later and he's easily been the best player from that round. They also missed with the last pick of the second round. Only Bret Gardener of the Yankees has amassed more WAR than Duensing, of the 3rd round picks. I think this ended up being a pretty solid draft for us actually. Garza has been a quality ML pitcher for years (and still is), Slowey was close to solid for a while and Duensing had several good seasons and has become a decent reliever. Obviously, the Garza trade hangs over this one. 06 was a bad draft for us (but it probably bad for most. Pretty weak group). Top picks were Parmelee, Benson, and Tyler Robertson. I don't think Parmelee was considered a reach or anything (and the 06 1st round wasn't great) but Ian Kennedy, Daniel Bard, Joba Chamberlain and Chris Perez all went after him. Benson in the 2nd round was a bust and Cahill and Masterson both went after him. Joe Smith was the best player taken in the 3rd round. 07 wasn't really a bad draft esp since they drafted so late. They used their first round pick on Revere at pick #28. They wouldn't get to pick again until # 92. The only useful player taken within 30 picks that signed was Brewers C LuCroy. Twins missed with 3rd round pick Angel Morales although I still liked that pick. Nothing special went after him. That was Ryan and Radcliff's last draft as GM and Draft coordinator. Smith and Johnson came the next year (and man, you don't want to look at the misses in that draft). I'm not sure how much of these drafts are the FO's "fault" as opposed to sorta normal drafting. The injuries that decimated the 04 group are really unfortuante but it was considered a good draft at the time. The 05 group was good although Slowey never really came back from his broken wrist and Garza/Young didn't work out for us. 06 was the disaster draft. The one thing that was really missing from the 04-07 group was the late round hit. Danny Valencia, Alex Burnett, Matt Tolbert were about it in those years. From 99-02, they got lucky with Neshek, Kubel and Blackburn. And Morneau was a really nice 3rd round pick. Maybe we'll start to see a few more of those going forward. Rosario was a 4th round pick and has become a top 100 prospect. Dozier was a 9th rounder in 09.

Yeah, I agree. I'd like a Spanish speaking coach to help out Bruno.

Well, the 2010 Twins did trade Ramos but that was after Seattle turned down a Ramos and Hicks offer for Lee. Cliff Lee Rumors: Monday: MLB Rumors - MLBTradeRumors.com Seattle ended up liking Texas' offer (centered around uber slugging prospect Smoak) better.

So you'd be ok for a repeat of the 90s? Between 91-2000 the team had two winning seasons and one postseason appearance (which happened to be the GOAT. I saw it.)

Not really. While you can find plenty of managers getting the axe after three bad seasons, it's rarer to find one who got axed in Gardy's position - ie, after having a long run of success with that same team and with the same GM in place that hired him.

I don't think you need WAR to tell us how bad the staff is. Fangraphs WAR likes Pelfrey because it bases WAR on fip, whereas bWAR uses runs allowed (I believe), which really didn't like him.

So firing Quade didn't help? Did they fire Pinella before that or did he resign?

Maybe. And maybe that credit goes to Gardy. Jauque Jones, AJ, Lohse, Koskie, Lew Ford (had one really nice season), Keilty (played well enough to get traded for Stewart), etc were never highly regarded prospects. Guys like Everyday Eddie and LaTroy Hawkins emerged when he came in. But as I posted somewhere else, it's pretty arguable that those 02-04 White Sox had more talent.

How's that working out for them?

So, because the 07 lost the 04 Yankees were just a run of the mill team?

No, this isn't on Smith. Smith took over and built toward that 2010 team. The 08-09 teams saw a bunch of younger players come up and get playing time. Not all his moves worked but he certainly had a plan. Giving up Garza, Ramos and Bartlett and the unfortunately small actual return for Santana didn't help, of course. The problem was many things but I think it's really two things - the 04-07 drafts were underwhelming and/or took a long time to develop. And then Delmon Young and Francisco Liriano failed to continue to develop as hoped/expected. But I think the drafting problems are mostly cyclical (although in 08 Deron Johnson was put in charge of it) - the Twins won't get a Buxton like talent unless they are at the top of the draft.

Keep in mind, the Twins weren't losing to run of the mill playoff teams. They lost to three teams that won 101 or more games during the season, another team that won 99. Two went on to win the WS. Only the 06 team had a better record than its opponent (and that series really hurt). It's tough to beat those sort of teams, esp if you're missing a Liriano, Morneau or Nathan. They did knock of one 103 win team but I would suspect that a 25% winning percentage against playoff teams w/over 100 wins is actually above average.

Well, I was trying to supply facts. But ok. Those 02-04 White Sox had guys like Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko. Dye. Carlos Lee. Magglio Ordonez. Bartolo Colon. Buehrle. Garland (a top pitching prospect who had a nice career). Estaban Loiza came in 2nd in Cy Young voting. Generally had some strong bullpens w/Gordon and Koch. Contreras. That talent lapped MLB in 2005 but couldn't get past the Twins for several years beforehand. I think you could make a case that if the 06 Twins had stayed healthy, they might have been better than the 06 Tigers but they didn't, so I don't think they were. The Tigers were a lot better in run differential, made the WS and had a really strong rotation (verlander, Bonderman, Rogers and Robertson were all 3 WAR or better guys). Bullpen w/Zumaya. Inge had a great year. I'm not going to argue about the 2009 87 win Twins overall talent level. I agree that the 2010 team was the best team in the central.

The 02-04 White Sox were better by RS and pyth w/l records. As were the 06 Tigers. (And the 09 Tigers were probably better, too). 2010 Twins were the only Twins team that was clearly the best team on paper.

Actually, I sure don't remember them looking scared and quitting. Sure, they weren't as good - esp the 87 win team that managed to lose three games to a 103 win team - but they didn't hang their heads and quit.

Or his good teams still managed to overachieve. And his bad teams should have been worse.

Well, first, the Twins did extend Santana and Hunter. Everyday Eddie was here forever. As was Hawkins. They traded for and resigned Stewart. But I get your point. I think there might be something about the Latin American born players and Gardy. Maybe an inability to relate. I'd disagree on the African American players. Besides extending Hunter, when Hunter ripped MLB a few years ago when he was in LAA, the Star Tribune interviewed him and he specifically said that Gardy and the Twins were one of the few teams doing good things for African American players. They were heavily involved in MLB's inner city baseball program, Deron Johnson is one of the few African American draft guru's in baseball. But if you look at the teams from the Gardy era, there are a lot of minority players. Guzman was an all-star, Rivas stuck around too long for most, Reyes was an extremely successful reclamation project. Silva got a huge FA deal to leave us. etc. So I'm not sure.

Agreed. I'd like to know more, too.

No evidence that Gardenhire has lost his players | 6-4-3 | StarTribune.com From the article: "But one thing was pretty clear in the Twins' clubhouse this weekend: The players seem pretty solidly behind their manager. Nobody ever goes on the record with calls for firing the manager, of course, but the current roster seems pretty loyal to Gardenhire. There's no evidence of a whisper campaign against him, no sense that he's lost the clubhouse in the least. If that's true, even amid 291 losses over three seasons, it's pretty remarkable."

Well, since Ryan took over, I believe he made changes in the minor league coaching staffs, fired 4 or so ML coaches. Promoted Steil to minor league development guru. I know you want Ryan out but ownership is behind him 100% (which I think is a good thing). And it's good that Ryan doesn't have to do risky job security type moves (fire the manager to get another year or trade a top prospect to get wins now).

No. I think the Pohlad's have complete trust in Ryan and probably expect another losing season. If Buxton and Sano and Meyer etc bomb out in the minors next season, maybe. But other than that, no, the Pohlad's are letting Ryan run this.

Do you really thing Ryan's job security or character is so low that he'd purposefully avoid blaming himself? I mean, even if you don't think he's good at his job, has he ever come across as dishonest or self promoting?

Man, there is no way this thread doesn't blow up.