gunnarthor

I dunno. At the beginning of the year, I said Levine should be in the hot seat and I was pretty worried about how this season would play out. I thought we would be a playoff team but a complete pitching fiasco was not that improbable. I said then that it could wreck our season. I think I've seen enough of Levine to move on from him. His trades have been pretty bad, his understanding of the talent in and outside the organization has been even worse. While his drafts aren't fully ready to grade, we can move on. I'll ok giving Falvey more time although I hope he rethinks this 5 inning pitching philosophy.

Joe Mauer's stats will shock you then.

I'm not sure there is a best answer. We bought a lot of stocks while we still had a lot of debt a lot higher than 3% (both mortgage and school loans) but after the financial crisis hit us (we had one of those bad adjustable-rate mortgages) we were stunned on how exposed we had been. (My wife also got cancer in 2010 which added to our debt significantly). So, for us, there was a lot of relief not having debt and getting that monkey off our backs. The obvious other highlight is that now we save thousands of dollars each month that we are investing because we got insanely good at saving. The downside is exactly what you and the article reference - missed opportunities.

They've been a bit unlucky when it comes to runs but they have a 107 OPS+, a stat I like, which is tied for 6th in baseball. And TF tends to favor pitchers (which makes our pitching woes even worse) but they have a good enough offense, even with the injuries, struggles and rookies learning on the job.

3 out of 4 from Houston, 2 out of 3 from Chicago? Are we good somehow?

I thought this was a decent article on investing v. paying off debt that might be a useful read to some. My wife and I got drubbed pretty hard in 08-09 so we don't carry much debt anymore. It's amazing how much better not having a mortgage made us feel. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/pay-off-mortgage-invest-210000675.html

2012 Twins pitching WAR - .7 2013 Twins pitching WAR - 7.8 2014 Twins pitching WAR - 10.1 2015 Twins pitching WAR - 16.3 2016 Twins pitching WAR - 3.9 2017 Twins pitching WAR - 9.1 2018 Twins pitching WAR - 8 2019 Twins pitching WAR - 12.9 2021 Twins pitching WAR - -(!)3.2 WAR A few more years, maybe they can have a staff as good as the 2015 staff.

I was surprised that Jax's WPA for the game was negative. He's been on a nice run. I really hope he can keep it up. Last night was a really nice start for him.

Even now the offense is fine. They have no pitching at all.

Posts like this are so obviously dishonest, I'm not even sure you're not trying to troll. But let's just call out all your BS. "The previous front office repeatedly showed an inability to develop and maximize its own young talent, especially pitching, so why would we assume things would've played out the same way?" The previous FO kept a window of opportunity open for a decade because they built their own pitching pipeline. From 01-10, they had roughly 140 games started by FA pitchers (and that counts Radke). That was because Ryan, before he left, and Radcliff developed a strong farm system. They constantly retooled the Twins from a nucleus of Guzman, Hunter, Koskie, etc to Kubel, Morneau, Santana, and added more arms like Garza, Baker, Slowey. They left after 07 and both came back in 12. In three seasons, they had the next wave of players up for the playoff run that went to the last series of the season.* "The Twins lost the most games in baseball in 2016, as well as from 2011 through 2016 overall, and went 6 straight years without making the playoffs. It is not controversial in the least to say the franchise was in despair at that point in time." You say this because you know 1) it includes a period of time that wasn't covered by the previous FO, and you obviously ignore the short rebuild to 2015 b/c that screws up your story. So what we know about Terry Ryan was that, unlike this FO, he could build up minor league pitching pipeline, that he could keep a window of contention open longer than this FO. So, yeah, I think it's very obvious that had he stayed, this team would still have made the playoffs because the nucleus we had was going to do that, no matter who was in charge. The previous FO impact is so apparent that 1) the Twins best pitching and hitting prospect coming into 2021 were still players acquired by that old FO despite this FO failing to graduate their #1 pick or there other first round picks. 2) This year the WAR of players acquired by the previous FO is 14 while the WAR of players acquired by this FO is 1. That means that the FO has utterly failed to assist the nucleus they inherited. *Now, of course this is the part where you say "Ryan didn't acquire the good players Smith did" despite pinning 2011 on him. Whatever. If Ryan = Smith, fine. They still kept the window of contention open longer than this one did. Essentially, your entire argument is "Twins drafted bad in 2013-2015, I was spoiled from watching the team compete for a decade so I never understand rebuilding." Is my post too Ryan-friendly? Yes, obviously. He made numerous mistakes although hiring Brad Steil was a great move. But the revisionist history we're seeing from TD is over the top. Twins had 4 losing seasons in a row. White Sox had 7 (and 8 out of 9), Astros had 6. Etc. This FO had a simple job - assist the nucleus and extend the window of opportunity. They utterly failed on the second one and how much they assisted is up for debate.

Yeah, that move seemed strange to me too. I mean, he's a good ML relief pitcher who won't embarrass the team. And the Twins are really struggling right now so a vet might be good. But I'm trying really hard to be nice.

This FO let Ynoa, Gil, Rodriguez, Wells, Anderson and Chargois go in their first two years. That kind of changes the storyline on how good the pitching they inherited was, doesn't it? And they got back to back 4 WAR seasons out of Santana, acquired by the previous FO, as well as an "in his prime" Gibson, and even 21 decent starts from Mejia.

Travis Harrison. Comp pick, IIRC, who had the best HS power in the draft. Without looking it up, I think he got to AA. This is probably what you should normally see when you look at prospects 21-25.

I hope Nick is getting a little kickback from the FO at this point. I'm pretty close to completely against them at this point but articles like this kinda push me over the edge.

Sano's an impact bat who, I think, will age surprisingly well but I think he presses really hard and affects him. Once he gets going, he's ok but you got to let him go through his valleys. One of the dumber things Rocco did this year was bench him for Astuddio (sp). He should be penciled in at 1b/DH all the time. I'd be ok with Kiriloff in the OF with a healthy Buxton.

I suspect he'll won't be here next year but I think he does have a role somewhere as a jack-of-all-sorts backup player/pinch runner.

Sorry. Maybe it'll go back up.

This far out, I have no idea but Lesko excites me the most of that group. Agree with Mike that I'd like to know who the big college pitcher is.

The Twins have some pop in the minors. How good is Steer's defense? Nice to see Martin hit a walk-off. That must have felt good.

They can't trade Buxton and they shouldn't trade Donaldson. I'd listen on offers for the other two. I think we have enough corner depth to trade Kepler if it improves our pitching for 2022 and beyond. Rogers is greatly overrated and we should trade him ASAP. I think we have enough offensive pieces to have a good offense next year but the pitching staff is a disaster. They need to figure out something and if that means parting with Kepler, fine.

I'm going to share an older article from John Sickels about defining an ace, a #2, #3, etc. There have been several of these type of articles over the years from various sources but all of them are pretty much in agreement, although this talks more about prospects then established pitchers. And ML pitchers can pitch well above their label. (Radke and Buerhle are two classic examples) https://www.minorleagueball.com/2012/8/7/3226335/defining-1-2-3-4-5-starters Essentially, Maeda and Big Mike aren't #2. They are backend starters at this point. Mike will end the season with a WAR of around 1, Maeda will be less than that. Our best (arguably) pitching prospect, Balazovic, grades out as a future 3 or 4 type.

Three weeks ago, I was kicking around buying AMD at 87 and decided not to. Dang it.

I'm sure his starting ask was, at a minimum, a Wheeler-type deal. 5/118 (23.5).

Yeah, I suppose that's true of pretty much every post on TD. On the other hand, I'm fairly confident the Twins won't sign a top end pitcher at market rate.

I think the Twins should get two of Guasman, Rodon, Ray, Thor, Stroman. But that they didn't come close to extending Berrios suggests they won't pay market rate for a top end pitcher. I hope I'm wrong but the Twins way looks to be 5 inning starters, lots of bullpen arms, and AAAA arms with options to St Paul to help eat innings.