gunnarthor

Or six years of Johan. In fairness, Choo is a better player and they also traded Donald (who sorta sucks but still had potential) and Anderson (overhyped but probably a solid everyday 1B eventually) and a LOOGY. And the Reds got more than just Choo (and their big surrender was Didi). DBacks gave up the best prospect but got a solid shortstop prospect. Man, Cleveland did well on this trade. Every other fan base in baseball is complaining that their GM should've topped this.

I think a lot of people take it as gospel without knowing it's limitations. Player A had a 3.3 WAR last year so he's better than player B who had a 2.9. That annoys the crap out of me. It's defensive calculations are troublesome and not consistent. Defensive stats for shortstops are far better than for catcher. But WAR is tricked by defensive shifts, too. I think it undervalues durability, both in games played and innings pitched. Differences between fWAR and bWAR are annoying. Jack Morris, for example, is a borderline HOFer by fWAR but not even close by bWAR. The calculations keep changing and probably aren't done yet. Torii Hunter, for example, used to be a solid 2ish WAR guy while with the Twins. Lots of poeple ripped on the Angels for signing him, and suggested the Twins were wrong to think he was a good defensive CFer. Then bWAR modified their formula, Hunter gained 11 WAR over a 8 year period and lo and behold, he's always been a good player. But I really don't want to make this a WAR discussion, either. It's a fun stat, esp for projects like this one.

Gardy gets way too much blame from fans. He's a good manager. For whatever reason, fans always complaint that he's not good with young players yet he's often had some of the youngest teams in baseball. He has some issues - I hate the piranha ball that he likes - but I think he's a net positive for the team.

Amazing. Reds really didn't get much either. They lose a solid SS in Didi (and some people think he can be better than solid) and add Choo, a Boras free agent after the year, to play CF? (They also got Jason Donald + cash). They really needed a CFer. I wonder what kind of discussions they had with the Twins. Cleveland really did well. It's possible that Bauer doesn't develop and he's a bit of hothead apparently, DBack blogs are mentioning that he didn't work well with his catcher, Montero, wouldn't listen to his coaches and was and ripping Obama on twitter. Still, nice gamble.

Wow. Great trade for Cleveland. Wish the Twins had gone after Bauer.

Yeah, next years pick will likely be a quick to the majors college pitcher with solid #1/2 upside, maybe similar to Gausman or Zimmer. A future rotation with Meyer, Gibson, May, Zimmer-clone, Hendriks, Worley and Berrios all competing for spots is fun to think about.

BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Ask BA BA puts Meyer at #4 after Arcia and above Gibson and May at #9, between Rosario and Kepler. Also says Twins went from a 10-15 system to a top 10 system. Here's the original top 10 before Meyer and May were added. Solid depth. BaseballAmerica.com: Prospects: Rankings: Organization Top 10 Prospects: 2013 Minnesota Twins Top 10 Prospects

ESPN's sweetland had an article about how much WAR is needed to win the Central. They concluded 38 and did a model for the Royals. I don't like WAR but it's a neat exercise. For the Twins to get there we'd need: C- Mauer 5.0 1B Morneau 2.5 2B Carroll 2.5 3B Plouffe 3.0 SS Floriman 0.0 RF Parmelee 2.0 CF Hicks 2.5 LF Willingham 3.0 DH Doumit 2.0 Bench 1-4 -.5 Total 22 WAR. That's sorta doable, Twins position players had that last year. Hicks should be worth 2WAR on defense/base running alone. Expects improvement from Parmelee and Plouffe but what the heck. Expects solid seasons from the core guys but no monster years. It's not entirely unreasonable and they do have some depth to cover a little bit. Pitchers would need 16 WAR. They were -3.3 last year. I have no idea how they can get to that level. Worley 3.5 (assumes best year) Diamond 2.5 (no slump) Correa 0.0 (isn't a black hole) Hendriks 1.0 (sorta best case hope) Gibson 2.0 (between starter/bullpen) Other starters -3.0 (kind of a best case hope over about 40 starts) Perkins 1.5 (similar to last year) Burton 1.5 (similar to last year) Fein 1.5 (similar to last year, with more playing time) others 0.0 (being kind) That's 9.5 WAR and extremely kind. I doubt anyone other than Worley and Diamond make even 18 starts. Last year, Pavano, Marquis, Blackburn, Duensing and Hendriks combined for nearly -7.0 WAR in 64 starts. That will probably happen again but let's hope not. I think Gibson will be ok. I hope he starts in the pen and gets moved to the rotation midway through the season. Hendriks hasn't really shown that he can be anything but he's young so we'll give him more time. May or Meyer could have huge seasons in the minors and come up but that's unlikely. If they don't get anymore solid starters, I don't see anyway this could happen. They need better pitchers to cover those 64 starts. Correa can't do it and we just spent 10m on him. Hendriks and Gibson are too young to cover much of it.

Ryan has never been in this position before. He's never had much more than $10m to patch together a team in the offseason. While we all know he skews on the cheap side of the spectrum, there's no reason to think he was going to be this cheap. He has at least $20m to spend, probably more like $25-30m to spend. There's just no excuse for this type of signing unless he is still in the market for one of the decent arms on the market. And after this signing, I'm incredibly skeptical that he's going to make a splash. My guess, and it's only a guess, is that Ryan isn't willing to give the years to guys like Dempster, Marcum etc. The annual salary probably isn't a problem.

Man, hard to like this move. I think criticism of Ryan has always been that he's unwilling to give long contracts to FA, especially pitchers. We knew this when he came back. Twins are going to have to get better through their farm system. I also want to know how much payroll is limited by the Pohlads and how much is it Ryan's preference not to spend.

Baseball America subscription might answer most of those questions. BA comes out with a book every year (you can get it at your library) and I believe, although am not certain, that they list 20-80 rankings on every player they scout. Usually they'll have write ups on around 30 players per team. Other than that, I don't have any ideas. I know some guys on chats (Klaw, Callis, Manuel) will give a grade here and there but that's about it.

Most of those guys were signed/drafted before Ryan came back Well, actually, 5 of those guys weren't. But you're right that Smith did a solid job in international signings and his drafts haven't finished producing yet.

I think the corresponding trade from a Twins perspective would have been Sano (Myers), May (Odozzri), Benson (Montgomery) and Kepler (last guy). I'm not trying to argue KC got the better deal. But I'm not sure it's as one sided as I originally thought. If KC is right on Myers, they did ok. Cost of pitching is insane right now. We gave up two starting center fielders (under 8 years of team control) for one mid rotation guy and two prospects. Grienke is getting 24m/yr. Dempster is turning down 24m. Sanchez is insulted by 4/48. Nats and Reds gave up tons for Gio Gonzalez and Mat Latos. Oakland turned down Myers for Anderson. Baker got 5.5 guaranteed coming off TJ surgery. Someone will give Liriano more than that.

I read that the A's turned down a Myers for Anderson deal. That's stunning. Maybe Myers is really overvalued by those outside baseball. Anderson is a good pitcher but he missed nearly all of last year. Odorzzi has a fip over 4.00 in AA and AAA. Montgomery fell completely apart last year. And Shields and Davis are known quantities. I still don't like the trade for the Royals but it makes more sense with a little more thought. And this is a good time to try and win the central. Tigers aren't that good, especially if they don't resign Sanchez. Twins have a real nice system setting up a solid 2014-15 team. There is a window here.

I don't know if the clock will have a huge impact on Hicks. He might not be ready, he might struggle and get sent down, but I don't think they'll worry too much about service time. In any event, I'm excited for him. Here's hoping.

I wonder if KC knows (or thinks it knows) something about Myers that makes them think he won't be good at the next level? Seems strange to move a guy who has been dominating the minors and someone you've been feeding to your fan base as part of your rebuilding, even for Shields.

Horrible trade for KC. Can't imagine they couldn't have gotten better pitchers for Myers. Seattle or Arizona had pitching and needed a bat. Lose their best hitting and pitching prospect and more? Wow. Horrible deal.

We argue this so much it's probably fruitless at this point. But the Twins had a pretty solid decade before 11 where the minor league system kept restocking the ML team. Heck, the Twins completely changed team nucleus without much of a beat. Teams can't stay on top forever, unless it's the Yanks. It's cyclical. Drafting late and having ownership limit going over slot affected the drafts. But, generally, the Twins have drafted pretty well, even if it takes a bit longer for some to make it to the majors. Gibson, 09, should make his debut this year. Dozier already has. Bullock from that draft was traded for Diamond. Hicks, 08, should debut this year. Revere was 07, was solid and traded for Worley and a prospect. 06 draft hasn't really helped yet. Lots of players from that draft have made the majors but none have, yet, really broken out. Parmelee and Benson will both get shots this season. We'll see. But if you really are looking at the last decade as you say, as opposed to the last two years as you seem to mean, the Twins have developed a lot of talent. All of the players debuted in the last decade and have had at least one decent year: C - Mauer, Ramos 1B - Morneau, Parmelee 2B - ugh, Casilla SS - Bartlett 3B - Plouffe, Valencia OF - Gomez, Ford, Keilty, Mohr, Span, Revere, Kubel SP - Liriano, Blackburn, Slowey, Duensing, Garza, Baker, Boof, Diamond, RP - Mijares, Neshek, Crain, Guerrier, Perkins, Swarzak And that also doesn't count trades of prospects for guys like Cabrera and Castillo. And it's not counting replacement level guys like Morales, Butera, Tolbert.

I think next year the Twins system will be ranked a lot higher. But right now, we have a bunch of guys in the 20-80 range but probably not anyone above that. A great year from a few of those players could change that and I think next years rankings, even with Hicks and Gibson coming off, will be better overall. But a year from now we could realistically be looking at Sano, Buxton, Arcia, Meyer, Rosario, Kepler and the #4 pick all being in the top 100 with potential break out seasons from Meyer and Sano (and maybe Appel) pushing them into the top 20. (And they might make a midseason trade of Morneau and WIllingham for another pitching prospet). And they'd still have nice depth with May, Berrios, Polanco and Harrison. I think the team has done a great job rebuilding the farm system. Top 3 or top 8, the FO is building a nice nucleus for the Sano Twins.

Yeah, I think he probably gets it in April but I wouldn't be shocked if he does poorly and was sent to AAA.

I believe both Mijares and Neshek were called up straight from AA. Same with Burnett. I think all three were later sent back to AAA but originally skipped it.

Nice write up. I still hope for Marcum but I think they'll add at least one of those 4 pitchers.

Yeah, I think he gets at least 5 years and over 15m per. His agent called a 4/48 offer insulting. Still, I'd be willing to offer him 5/70 and hope that's enough. Also like to see Marcum come here.

I like our system but we don't have a top 20 type prospect (yet). We have a lot of guys in the 20-80 range but no certain elite prospect. I think Sano and Buxton could get there but they aren't there yet. I think 1-10, we're probably good as anyone but a few teams probably have a better 1-5 or so. I think we're probably a top 8 system but I don't know if we're much higher than that. On the plus side, next year, despite losing Hicks and Gibson, we'll be adding the #4 pick and hopefully we'll have great years out of Meyer and May to see them shoot up the rankings.

Meyer has the best ceiling but getting a ML now starter and a solid prospect like May makes it a tie, in my opinion.