John Bonnes

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2710[/ATTACH]Aaron and John are at GleeManor being filmed for a documentary and talk about Scott Baker signing with the Cubs, Torii Hunter's post-Twins career and return to the AL Central, poor Mike Redmond, how the local media has and hasn't changed in their decade of blogging, why the Tigers and Blue Jays seem more willing to make big moves than the Twins, and their planned trip to see Hannibal Buress. Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes.

Wow. Talk about going outsider the organization. So the pitching coach was LaRussa's bullpen coach for 10 years and the hitting coach is a college/independent league guy?

If we're looking for a guy to just fill in innings on a minimum deal, I would be at least interested in Jeff Francis. I don't expect much, but his strikeout rate bumped back up last year, and I'd like to get him out of Colorado's thin air. I'd also roll the dice on Scott Feldman. And I'd be interested to see what Chris Young is like a year after his anterior capsule tear, ala Johan Santana.

Absolutely. Though I think getting him on a minor league deal is optimistic. This year, the Twins totally misdiagnosed his injury, so I don' t know what you can take from it. But in 2010 and 2011 he threw 443 innings. His ERA was about 4 and so was his xFIP and FIP. And the injury was a bone bruise, not something ligament related. Frankly, if you can get that guy on a minor league deal, not only do you do it, but there is not excuse for building a very good rotation strictly from the free agent market. All that's required is patience.

It might be Benson. I'm going to go with Berrios. Second place is Arcia. Third is Sano.

WE had a pretty good story on this site on this: http://www.twinsdaily.com/content.php?526-A-History-Lesson-Twins-Pitching-Draft-Edition For some reason, the Twins went away spending high picks on pitchers in 2006 and 2007, had a couple of clunkers in 2008 and have had injuries to their top piicks in 2009 and 2010. Prior to that they were on a roll with pitchers, but I don't know if a change in philosophy is really the culprit. They just haven't done as well. Some of that might be on the new draft guy, but some is just on not taking guys in 2006 and 2007.

Actually, I'd giddy that they had a minor breakthrough in how to get their guys through a Tommy John recovery in any kind of expedient fashion. FWIW, Gibson seems to be light-years (or at least light-months) ahead of where Liriano was when he went through it a couple of years ago.

It seems like Howard is advocating spending in the short term as a patch. That's fine to say, but harder to do, and impossible to do earlier in the season. The names that will sign now, at least as far as pitching, are going to want long-term deals. If we want to wait for the 1 and 2-year deals, then we aren't going to see many before Christmas. I'm not saying it's a bad strategy - I lobbied and lobbied hard even last season to not penny-pinch. But I think we're jumping the gun here. Of course, one way to appease fans now would be to be forthright about just how much money the Twins have to spend this offseason. Because we automatically (and justifiably) assume the worst when the management won't commit to that.

Hmmm.... that's an interesting thought. Things would need to deteriorate quickly with the Marlins for that to happen - or else the Twins would need to pay a ransom for him, I suppose.

This was brought up in the recent thread about the BP Twins top 10 list, but I want to talk about it a little more generally, so I thought I'd start a new thread. It is not uncommon to see a recent high draft choice be at the top of an organization's prospect ranking list. It's not crazy to do so. After all, they have made a significant investment in that player and their scouts (and likely scouts of other teams) are in love with him. And yet.... Scouts are often wrong. Teams are often wrong. I don't know how many first round picks (or top 10 picks) don't make the majors at all, but I'm sure studies have been done on that. I'd be interested to see how it compares to a fairly young guy who does well (not great, but well) at AA. (AA is often viewed as the league where the biggest step up is taken for prospects.) I wouldn't be surprised if the latter has a better chance of making it to the majors or even of having a successful major league career. They might even have a better chance at being an All-star. If that's the case, then you could make a pretty good argument that Hicks or Rosario should be ranked higher than Buxton, and maybe higher than Sano. Or, maybe more importantly, that the organization should value them more - targeting similar players in a trade and be more willing to trade away the possible future star (or bust) who is still in the rookie league. Am I crazy?

There is no evidence that the Twins went $20M over budget for payroll. At most, they went $8M (the cost of Pavano), and based on their own statements, it was probably closer to $4M. I don't personally have any problem with the Twins running their business like a business while Ilitch treats his like a fancy toy with super neat-o expensive options. But let's not pretend that the Twins ever did anything close to what Ilitch is doing now.

I almost started a topic last night titled "Does Mike Redmond have the worst job in MLB, or the best." I would think the best, but in that organization there is no guarantee that management's expectations are reasonable.

Two takes.... 1. Lord, is it ever going to end with Ilitch? They were at $133M last year, which was a top 5 payroll. I don't think they're losing any really big deals, and now they replace Delmon with Hunter? 2. Does the insane interest in Hunter so far this offseason mean that there is a tremendous market for trading Willingham? Other than Hunter, the only pretty big free agent bats out there are Hamilton (crazy expensive) and Swisher (probably gets a four year deal.) If I'm a GM looking to add some power to my OF, doesn't Willlingham's 2-year, $14M deal look crazy good right now?

Forgive me, but can someone pot som background on Collabelo? Age, level, etc?

Nick Nelson and I and The Voice of Reason and a bunch of friends and WAY too much Red Bull & vodka were at #1 on that list. We had never drank Red Bull & vodka before, and when Baker, who before that game had been pretty suspect, thrived, we decided we just had to keep drinking them to keep the no-no going. If I remember correctly (and I doubt I do) I think we ran out just before he gave up the hit. That will be my favorite Scott Baker moment.

I'll throw out a different question out there that I'm turning over in my head: under what circumstances should a MLB team play for next year versus playing for some year down the road? We could use the Twins as a case in point, if you like.... The advantage to reloading and trying again next year is that it is one more shot at winning a winnable division. Plus, there is still quite a bit of talent that is not a sure thing to be around in future years. Finally, it's not like any money saved this year can be put towards future years when talend and payroll climb. It's just pocketed. The advantage to wiping off next year - maybe you invest in players that use that time to develop. Maybe the prospects that are receive in a trade become pieces in the future (or mabye they don't.) I'm having trouble thinking of others. I'm not sure the Twins are clearly on one side or the other. But I think unless I know there is a pretty clear path toward winning in the future, I'd prefer to play for any given year.

So the Blue Jays, who were at $75M on Opening Day last year, just added.... $50M in salaries for next year? That doesn't make sense. Either they are flipping some of these guys or there are some 3rd teams involved, right?

I don't know if it was Tommy John, but you're right - Baker will likely be healthier. Either way, I don't see the point of a deal like this if there isn't an option year. I can't believe a team is going to get more than half a good year out of him in his first year back from TJ.

I haven't seen anything that has said an option year. Plus, I don't see what that is so hard to accept as what is a normal deal in the MLB. Revenues have gone up and the cost of acquiring FA talent has gone up. Roy Oswalt -- who was DOA in 2011 -- received a $5M contract with $1M in incentives to pitch from May onward of last year. Baker has a much higher upside if healthy and will likely be full strength by May or June. Not a bad deal for either side. I mistyped. I meant "no option year." The market for Baker was set by the deal Colby Lewis took a few months ago. Lewis has had better years than Baker, is coming off a smaller injury and is more likely to be 100% when teh season starts. And he took a $2M + $4M in incentive. Baker got nearly that much guaranteed.

If people think they have inside information about a pending move, I have no problem with them posting it in the bulletin board, PROVIDED THEY PUT THEIR NAME ON IT. That's part of what a bulletin board is. Now we know that Thrylos' sources cannot always be trusted (or that Thrylos is apt to jump the gun.) That's valuable information. I don't see a reason to pile on about this much beyond that. The last thing I think any of us want is for people to not share information which they have some confidence in because of some holy retribution.

$5.5M for one-year, plus incentives for a guy who had TJ in April? And no option year? You're welcome to him Theo. Congrats to Scotty's agent. (My guess is you'll be hearing from Colby Lewis shortly.)

If I remember correctly, Gardy and Rick Anderson go WAY back, like back to being roommates in AAA in the 80s. At the very least, they were both on the same team back then when they were trying to get to the majors. I think that is the bond that keeps Andy around, not one with Baker (unless Baker is his long lost son. ) It's also worth noting, he did have some successes early in his tenure, even if we haven't seen much evidence lately.

First, I should say that this was an investigation of a topic that came out of that debate. It was not meant to settle the debate. During the debate, we argued about whether "better" teams have an advantage in the playoffs. It is a topic we have touched on often, and I think we have waffled on it, most recently during the postseason. I realized afterwards that I don't have any idea what is true regarding that question, or to what extent it is true. Let me be specific about what I showed above: this shows that the number of wins a team has in the regular season is a poor predictor of their chances of winning a championship. I'll be honest - I was dumbstruck by how low this factor is. It might be that there are other predictors, and one of those predictors might have something to do with strength of schedule or divisional strength or starting pitching or whatever. But to conclude that any of them are important, one must define them. Maybe we should judge teams by something like wins times a factor for strength of schedule. Great. Then do so, and show it predicts success in the postseason. But otherwise, I don't see any difference in saying that a team is better because they had more regular season wins than saying a team was better because they had a higher batting average. Both are nice, but both are ultimately unimportant. I'll go a step further - and I think this might be important. This suggests that the best strategy for an organization to win a championship is NOT to push all their chips to the middle of the table and become really, really good (as judged by wins) for a few years. It is to extend their window of opportunity as long as they possibly can and make the postseason as many times as they can. For the record - I think the Rays are following this strategy. I think the Twins do too, though I think it's a side effect of a core belief in giving opportunities to minor leaguers.