chpettit19

I did raise the point of pitching depth, you only chose to take that 1 quote about CF and run with it. And you aren't disproving my point on either front. The Twins had depth set up, but the depth got hurt. That was my point on starting pitching that you conveniently ignored, and even acted like I didn't even mention. Yes, teams have injuries and do their best to provide depth to cover for those injuries, but spending the majority of your season using your 6th or 7th best CFer and your 10th to 20th best starting pitchers isn't something any team overcomes. If the Dodgers lose their top 10 starting pitching arms they're not making the playoffs either. That was the point I made that you conveniently ignored. Shoot, the Padres spent and traded for starting pitching like their lives depended on it and when they missed on 2 of those acquisitions and saw a couple others get hurt they failed too. Real world example, yay! The evaluations of Happ and Shoemaker were wrong. Can't argue against that. We've all been demanding to see the young arms and see what the pipeline had and that was the plan this season as they were absolutely expecting Duran, Balazovic, Canterino, Winder, Ober, Barnes, Jax to graduate and provide their depth. Then the vast majority of them got hurt, Maeda pitched hurt from the jump then got the knife, Pineda got hurt, Dobnak got hurt, Smeltzer got hurt, Thorpe got hurt. So they had 1 starter (Berrios) succeed, wildly missed on 2 (and deserve criticism for that), had 3 depth pieces step in and provide good to reasonable results, and had at least 9 starters go down with injuries. That's their top 15 starting arms. I don't know the numbers of starters most teams use per year, but when 9 of your top 15 are hurt and can't be used for the majority of the season you're going to fail. It is simply unreasonable to expect the Twins to sign major league arms to minor league deals or hit on all of their prospect arms, let alone lose their 4 best prospect arms, and still succeed. The FO certainly needs to shoulder some blame, but pretending they should've had more than 15 arms that could help them win games is simply fantasy. So, yes, I do think the starting pitcher injuries alone can explain 30-40 more losses. As I've said before it's a miracle they didn't lose 100 games with the way Colome, Happ, and Shoemaker started the year and the injuries they had.

The Twins problems with injuries this year were that even their depth got hurt. How many teams are set up to replace 6 or 7 CFers on their major league roster? The answer is 0. And the Twins were 7 CFers deep before May came to an end. If your expectation is that the Twins have 7 MLB caliber CFers available every year you're going to be disappointed every year. How many teams are set up to replace 13 or so of their top 15 or so rotation arms with MLB caliber players? Cuz the Twins had basically every pitcher not named Berrios or Ober go down with injuries (or be Happ or Shoemaker who would've been replaced by the depth had it not all been hurt). The FO absolutely needs to provide depth to cover for injuries, but there's a limit to that. Every team has struggles they need to overcome, but losing your starting LF, CF, and catcher like the White Sox did is much easier to overcome than losing your top 6 players at every OF position, plus your top 2 catchers, plus your 3B, plus your best reliever, plus basically your top 15 starter arms at some point in the season. Expecting them to stock the minor leagues with MLB caliber players 6 deep at any position is absurd. Yes, the FO failed this offseason, but lets not act like there should be an expectation that any MLB organization runs as deep with outfielders and arms as the Twins had to this year. Discounting the injuries that this team faced as simply normal, every year occurrence is simply wrong. It's certainly not the main problem, but this level of injuries shouldn't be counted as every year happenings.

They didn't go 1-5, they went 3-5. They still have Miranda and Moran. That's part of the challenge of the Rule 5 and 40 man. It's not simply "who is going to be ready next year?" it's "who is going to be taken and able to stick with another org?" They were right that Ober would be ready and Moran and Miranda wouldn't be picked. They were wrong that Wells and Baddoo wouldn't be picked and able to stick. So they went 3-5. There are Miranda and Moran players in every organization every year. Those teams didn't miss on not protecting them, in fact you could argue they straight up won as they still have those young guys plus the players they were able to protect on the 40 man. The Twins failed by having bad players on the 40 man, not by not protecting Moran and Miranda.

You keep suggesting Brantley for the 2022 Twins OF. Do you expect the Astros to cut him or the Twins to trade for him? Because he's under contract for $16 million with the Astros next year. And at his age and with his knees (currently on the DL with knee problems) he's a much better fit for DH than LF.

I agree they took a number of risks this off season and they certainly got burned for it. But I think the plan was for a handful of prospects to step into the Happ, Shoemaker, Dobnak roles, and I think that was a reasonable plan. They knew they'd need a ton of pitchers to get through this season coming off the shortened 2020 and I don't think bringing in Happ and Shoemaker were ridiculous. My guess would be they wanted Shoemaker to give them a few months of reasonable MLB pitching before handing over the #5 rotation spot to the young guys. Then he was horrendous and all the young guys got hurt. If Berrios, Maeda (I don't think its totally accurate to say he wore down, the Dodgers had about 183 guys capable of starting in their rotation and they saved a few bucks by putting him in the pen where he was able to dominate most of the time), and Pineda pitch roughly to their expectations and the pen does what it was expected to do (what it has done since the calendar flipped to August) their pitching strategy works. It most definitely wasn't a perfect plan, and had a lot of risk in it, but I think it went way worse than anyone could have predicted. Worst case scenarios very rarely actually play out, but this was about as close to worst case scenario as possible (at least Berrios was good!). Overall I think the FO had a reasonable plan for the year, but the injuries to the minor leaguers they expected to come up mixed with the injuries and complete failure of the MLB staff created a perfect storm of disaster. Berrios, Maeda, Pineda, Ober, and Balazovic (with a handful of others getting shots) seems like a decent little rotation for an August and September push for the division. Not ideal, and certainly able to improve that, but it's certainly not close to what actually came to fruition. They failed last offseason, but I don't think it was as much on them as some seem to think. They couldn't have seen Happ, Shoemaker, and Colome being completely unusable (and any fan being honest with themselves would know they didn't see them being that incredibly bad either) and couldn't have predicted basically every single prospect arm they have missing extended time. You prepare as best as you can for the worst case scenario, but it's almost impossible to actually survive a worst case scenario coming to life. Nobody has the depth to cover for your top 15 arms all going down.

I'm a "small hall" and "handful of aces" person. If I'm "ranking" pitchers in a staff I do it like this: #5 pitchers (Happ, Dobnak, filler types you don't think twice about cutting and replacing with upcoming prospects, never want starting a playoff game) #4 pitchers (veteran guys who will eat innings and keep you in more games than not, also easily replaced by upcoming prospects, but you expect to be in your rotation much of the season, never want starting a playoff game) #3 pitchers (Pineda types you can count on to give you a solid outing almost every time, but don't have great "stuff" or K numbers, can count on them for a playoff start or 2, but don't want them starting games 1, 2 or 6, 7) #2 pitchers (Odo, Maeda (in a normal year, not his stand out 2020) type guys who you count on to give you a good start every time out, but just don't have that last little bit to make them a #1 (usually lacking a little in the K department), can count on them in playoff games, but don't want them starting games 1 or 7) #1 pitchers (Berrios types who go out every 5th day and give you a chance to win basically every time, have good stuff and rarely have terrible outings, but you also aren't totally shocked they had 3 or 4 starts a year that they gave up 7, can start any playoff game, but aren't "aces") Aces (Verlander, Kershaw, Scherzer, Cole, deGrom types, only 5-10 of them in the game most of the time, are shocked when they give up more than 3 or 4 in any game or don't K at least 10 guys, go into every game expecting their team to win, want starting as many playoff games as possible) I agree with most of the people here who say "Ace" is arbitrary and hard to truly define. I think it's more about the expectations you have for a guy. If I told you Berrios went 5 innings and gave up 5 with 8 Ks and an inning where he walked 2 and gave up 3 I don't think many people would be shocked. If I told you deGrom had those numbers I think most people would ask if he was hurt. But you also wouldn't be shocked if I told you Berrios went 7, gave up 2, had 11 Ks, and walked 1. But that's the expectation for deGrom, Kershaw, Verlander types. I think you can win a World Series with 2 #1s and 2 #2s, but it sure makes it a whole lot better if you're running out an "Ace" or 2. And if you have to run out more than 1 #3 in a playoff series you're probably in trouble, especially without an "Ace" or 2 to take the rest of the games. I'd be happy to go into a playoff series with 2 Berrios types and 2 Odo types. I think you can win a lot of series with that setup. And I think that's doable with an org with the Twins financial situation (whether it's cheap owners or the actuality of their finances).

I don't know what exact percentages I'd give to everything, but I know at least 51% of the blame has to go to the players. They're the ones who play the game. I don't get the logic of the manager being to blame for millionaire, professional athletes not being prepared to play the game. It's their job. They're paid quite well to do it. If you have to make grounders and BP before the game mandatory to get your players to prepare for the game you have the wrong players. It's not like they came into the year as a super young team full of players needing more seasoning in the field or still learning how to be pros. They were one of the older teams in baseball to start the year and guys in their 6th or more season of major league baseball shouldn't have to be told how to prepare for the game anymore. They should have their routines down and show up everyday ready to go. Putting that on Rocco, or the coaches, is absurd. If my boss has to hold my hand every day to ensure I do my job I'm probably not the right employee to have on staff. Rocco, and the coaches, aren't without blame, but to have them as more to blame than the guys paid quite handsomely to play the game makes no sense to me. No argument can be made that the FO didn't misevaluate guys, but to suggest anyone thought they were THIS wrong is 20/20 hindsight. Nobody expected things to fall apart so horribly. Nobody could have predicted the injuries to be so vast. There isn't enough depth to be created to prepare a team to be on their 7th CFer less than 2 months into a season. That's an unrealistic ask. It's unrealistic to expect a starting staff to see everyone from their original starting 5 hurt or completely fall apart, then see every top arm in your system go down, and still be able to provide MLB quality starters. Honestly, it's impressive the Twins won't lose 100 games this year. At some point injuries and abysmal performance from veteran players with solid track records can overrun even the best depth. If your expectation is to have 8 MLB quality CFers in your system that are prepared to step in at any time before the end of May you're going to be disappointed by every organization in professional baseball because that's not realistic. The FO aren't without blame, but to expect them to provide that kind of depth doesn't make sense to me. If you want to give the FO, Rocco, whoever 49% of the blame that's cool. But I don't see any argument that doesn't give the players 51% of the blame as all that reasonable. Maybe 51% to players and injuries combined? But Happ and Shoemaker and Colome weren't the FO signing 3 TD posters. Those guys have all performed in MLB to acceptable results prior to the start of 2021. Colome has gotten back to performing well since his season torpedoing start. Happ is in the rotation for a team making a late playoff push. Shoemaker is still trash. Moral of my rant is FO and Rocco/coaches are to blame, but let's be realistic about what they should be expected to do and put proper blame on the players who many on here are saying were unprepared early because they weren't forced to do every part of their job.

I find it interesting that so many people see "redundant" players on the Twins roster. I mean I guess the argument could be made that they have an abundance of OFers, but none of those guys are good enough to bring back any kind of useful arm. If having more than 9 players for the lineup equals redundancy or abundance then, yes, the Twins have that, but I don't see the Twins having much more than 9 guys for their lineup. Who are all these redundant players people want to trade? Arraez? Isn't he our insurance plan for Donaldson and one of the best bats we can run out there? Refsnyder? Who's trading an arm for him? Larnach? Solid prospect, but just got sent down after the league "figured him out." He may bring back a guy along the lines of the guys in this post, but that doesn't solve our pitching problems. The Twins need frontline arms. I don't see the prospects in the system to bring those back right now. Sabato had an awful start to the year. Larnach got sent back down. Kirilloff is a core piece for the Twins. Arraez isn't a power hitter so you won't get a big time pitcher back for him. Lewis hasn't played a baseball game in 2 years. We just brought Martin in, and he's probably good enough to be part of a package to bring in a big name arm, but who else are you putting in that package? With the injuries that ravaged our minor league arms I don't know that adding just 1 of them to a package with Martin returns you a guy like Marquez or Alcantara so you're talking multiple of our higher end pitching prospects plus Martin and now we're right back to having to sign a bunch of stopgaps while we wait for more prospect arms to arrive. I think free agency is the way to go this year as I just don't think we have the pieces to move to bring back real pitching unless you're talking about trading Polanco (I don't think Buxton brings back an elite arm). At some point we have to run our young arms out there and see if the pipeline can produce. If I'm ownership I'm giving the greenlight to spend on some frontline pitching, but telling the FO it's time to put up or shut up about the pitching pipeline. Next year is the year. Time to see the arms they've been developing. If the Twins can't develop their own pitching it's a lost cause. I'm more of a fan of this FO than many on here because I believe in their 21st century approach and the systems they've set up to develop prospects, but it's time to see. The lost year was unfortunate and now all our young arms are in their mid 20s. I don't want one of the guys on this list at the cost of giving up something from our system when the system should be ready to produce the kind of results these guys have shown to produce at the ML level. It's time to see what our system has. Spend free agent dollars to front the rotation then let Ober and Ryan start the year in the rotation and give everyone else shots, whether in the pen or rotation, throughout the year and see where we're going. Wasting 2022 and going into 2023 with the same questions about the system producing arms would be the worst case scenario.

I wouldn't be surprised by that outcome at all. I think their main goal in a SS signing is a glove that can support the young pitching coming up, and Simmons is still the best in that regard if they're doing a short, cheap deal. So I think that's abundantly possible.

I think there'll be room to spend some on a SS. There are some big name, aging vets on the pitching market, but the Twins should have 60M at least to spend this year. If that's the case they aren't going to be able to get all the arms they target and if they're spending all that on pitchers they're likely overpaying for some middling arms. I'd prefer to grab the glove to put behind the pitchers if they can't get the top arms they want. Ideally they get a handful of top arms and spend almost all of their money there, but I don't think that's realistic and having a glove like Baez at SS can help with run prevention as well.

Javy Baez. Gold glove defense at SS and will be the cheapest of the "big name" SSs that will allow for the Twins to sign more pitching. Don't want to add Seager to the list of walking wounded that populate the top of the Twins talent list even though I think he's the best player available. Love Story, and trust his glove, but think he'll make more than Baez and don't know if I'd want to be the one to pay to see what he is on a team that doesn't play 81 games a year in Denver. But if he's comparable contract wise to Baez he may be my pick. Correa is in the same boat as Seager. Better than Baez and Story, but injury waiting to happen. I think Semien re-signs with Toronto so he doesn't make my list. No other position players peek my interest. SS or bust for me. Starling Marte is intriguing, though.

He should remind you of Tony Gwynn, not Lenny Green. You just keep proving more and more that your eyes are entirely unreliable. Lenny Green hit over .290 1 time his entire career and was a career .267 hitter. In 913 career PAs Arraez is a .312 hitter. Gwynn and Arraez both started their major league careers at the age of 22. Now Arraez isn't quite done with his age 24 season, but close enough. And Lenny Green started at age 24 so this is his age 24-26 seasons. Arraez: .312/.375/.404/.779 6 HRs, 78 RBI, 84 BBs, 83 Ks, 4 SBs Green: .237/.302/.317/.619 4 HRs, 26 RBI, 31 BBs, 32 Ks, 9 SBs Gwynn: .329/.382/.415/.797 7 HRs, 125 RBI, 96 BBs, 60 Ks, 48 SBs One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Gwynn obviously had drastically more speed early in his career, but when comparing their hitting skills who does Arraez look more like? Was Gwynn greatly overrated? Again, you're more than welcome to dislike Arraez, but your reasoning (beyond being a bad fielder) is totally and completely inaccurate. He's 14% better than the average hitter even without hitting HRs according to OPS+. wRC+ he's 13% better. He's an above average hitter whether you like how he does it or not. Sorry for using my nerd numbers, but everywhere you turn they're proving your eyes wrong. And in the case of the Lenny Green comparison, drastically wrong.

Ah, yes. The old "I was proven wrong on my original argument so I will change it to something completely different" maneuver. It's a classic. I said you're entitled to feel Arraez is overrated. You original argument of him striking out looking in big spots too often was completely absurd, but an argument that he isn't a good defender is absolutely correct. You should've started with that one. Oh, and I also appreciate you using those "math nerd numbers." Makes me feel right at home.

You're proving my point. Name 2 then. Your memory is no competition for the stats. You've picked a position that is entirely impossible to defend. Your stance is wrong and it's provable. "I feel like" is not a defense against "the physical proof shows." Your opinions aren't a defense against my facts. It's patently absurd to suggest Arraez strikes out too much no matter what variables you want to try to attach to the situation. There's no argument you can make to truly defend your stance beyond "this is how I feel." You're certainly entitled to not like Arraez, not like the type of player he is, feel he's overrated, wish the Twins would trade him, be upset about an instance (or 2) where he was caught looking in a big spot, or anything else along those lines. But when someone is one of the 5 best people on the planet at something you can't say they are bad at that thing. It's simply ridiculous.

Catchers: Jeffers, Garver 1B: Sano, Kirilloff 2B: Polanco, Arraez 3B: Donaldson SS: FA Signing LF: Larnach, Refsnyder CF: Buxton, Gordon RF: Kepler I think they bring in 1 FA to play SS, but otherwise 12 of the 13 guys to open the season with the big club are already on the team. Obviously there will be some moving around of positions with guys like Arraez, Gordon, and Refsnyder.

Name 5 times that he watched a 3rd strike go by "when the at bat really counts." This is exactly why front offices all around the league use the numbers and not just their memory for things like this. Arraez has struck out 43 total times this entire season and you're on here acting like he's watching 3rd strikes go by constantly. Your brain locks in on the moments that created the most emotional reaction for you and that appears to be a called 3rd strike or 2 against Arraez and you've decided one of the 5 hardest guys in baseball to strikeout is striking out too much looking in clutch situations. It's absurd.

You "going by what you see" and not "some math nerd numbers" is exactly why we have the "math nerd numbers." When your assessment is that Arraez "too often watches a third strike go by" and he is in the 99th percentile for K% in all of MLB you are literally proving the point that just going by your biased eyes is an awful strategy. You're complaining that a guy who strikes out less than all but 3 guys in baseball let's too many third strikes go by (Arraez strikes out in 10.2% of his ABs, Brantley 10.1, Fletcher 9.2, and Newman 7.3 are the only guys better in all of baseball. Sorry for being so nerdy). That's your complaint right now.

Why would the Twins trade anyone to bring in a lesser version of Polanco instead of just moving Polanco back to short? Strong no. I'm not a huge Kepler fan, but trading him for Torres worsens the Twins defensively without adding anything to the offense. Don't see the fit at all. He hit 13 of his 38 HRs in 2019 off Orioles pitching. He's hit 10 HRs in 152 games over the last 2 years. So I guess I'll change my stance to not only does Kepler for Torres hurt the defense it hurts the offense. Kepler is who he is, but I'll take who he is over the outside chance Torres is a 30 HR/year guy who will suddenly figure out how to play SS. Torres has negative trade value.

That 117 is what their payroll is after dumping money at the trade deadline of a lost season. All of those numbers are based on current rosters, not the start of year payroll numbers. The Twins started the season at a higher mark. But that's not the point. The point is the first comment of mine you responded to had me literally saying I think they could reasonably be in the 150-160 range. All the percentages I presented were based on a 160 Mil payroll (almost 50 mil more than the disingenuous number you presented here). What is even more disingenuous is you then stating that the "payroll is what you set it," which seems to be a pretty straight forward disagreement with my numbers. If it wasn't then I'm not sure why you'd choose my comment to respond to. It seems more that you simply felt like complaining about the Twins payroll and chose my comment to base your complaint off then call me disingenuous for already having used the general payroll range you wanted. You're not arguing against anything I've said you simply tried to piggyback off my comment to complain about the Twins payroll numbers, provided disingenuous numbers, ignored me twice using the payroll range you wanted, and that, to me, is exactly what I was talking about in saying that those complaints are tired. If you want to have a discussion on payroll sizes I'm more than happy to, but you better bring TV deal amounts, ticket, concession, parking amounts, revenue sharing amounts, sponsorship amounts, and a whole lot more beyond "hey Atlanta is currently 12th and the Padres are 8th so the Twins should be in there simply because these 2 random teams are at these places." Not to mention that Atlanta is only going to make the playoffs cuz the rest of their division is trash, and the Padres aren't going to make it at all. Guess those higher paid players aren't guaranteed to win more games. Who would've thought?

Yes. And in the real world it's based on real numbers and 150-160 million seems reasonable. If your expectations are the Pohlads spending Dodger type money on payroll and lose 10s, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year you should probably find a new team to cheer for. "There's no cap so they could/should spend more" is a tired, nonsensical, and unrealistic argument.

What's wrong with cookie monster?! I mean he should probably get checked for diabetes, but otherwise he seems like a nice enough dude.

Well they asked for a list of names because you said that there were a number of "Twins veterans" who were complaining about the FO and an apparent lack of support felt by the team. So, sure, my point is probably more along the lines of "I don't trust the sources," but in the big picture I'm arguing against your stance that if the Twins don't listen to the message given by these sources the FO should be fired. If Pohlad is firing people because a handful of guys who played 30 years ago aren't happy the Twins are in worse trouble than any of us could imagine. We don't need to be doing things the way they were done 30 years ago, we need to be doing them the way they're done in 2021, just do them better. So I'm saying your stance of basing anything off what those guys said is one I strongly disagree with and think it would doom the organization as a whole if ownership follows the advice of people who aren't part of the organization anymore (outside of Kaat and Gladden).

Maybe I didn't express myself well. I don't care about their "VIP access" at all, so I'll just skip over that. I acknowledged that Kaat and Gladden may have more insights (Kaat isn't with them every day, though). My point is that current athletes and organizations have different expectations and priorities than these guys who played 30 years ago. I know multiple Twins employees, including people who run the clubhouses, and none of them have said anything about there being bad chemistry. Shoemaker is the only player I've seen complain about anything (totally possible I missed someone else), but his complaint was about the coaching tips he received. Berrios had nothing bad to say on his way out. Cruz had nothing but great things to say on his way out. Many former players don't like the way things are done currently, but they also grew up in very different times and lived through a very different professional baseball world. So why should I care about their thoughts on how effectively the current Twins team is doing things (whether it be signings and trades, how the clubhouse is run, how the team is managed in game, or anything else) when their expectations don't match those of the current professional baseball world?

The phrase is certainly using a cross section of older individuals who tend to complain just to complain/are generally cranky individuals to make it's point, but anyone can be an "old man yelling at clouds." I think that's the point trying to be made. It's not just older individuals who complain just to complain or are cranky (believe me, I know plenty of people in my age group that are "old men yelling at clouds), but that's the stereotype it plays on.

Not sure anyone is saying his demeanor changed. Him having a bad temper then and now doesn't really matter. But the point of Viola (and all the other guys you listed previously, outside maybe Kaat and Gladden) having not stepped foot in the Twins clubhouse this year (maybe technically wrong as I'm sure a number of them did during the reunion weekend, but in any meaningful way it's true) stands. Former players talking about current clubhouse atmosphere has no more weight than any random TD poster speaking about current clubhouse atmosphere. We've all been a part of a group in some way, shape, or form (work, school, sports, friend groups, family, etc.). We all know that things are better when the members of the group genuinely get along. But none of us who aren't actually in the clubhouse can say what the clubhouse is really like. I haven't seen any reports (certainly possible I missed them) coming from actual Twin players about the clubhouse being bad. I have seen the report and complaints from Shoemaker and I give that far more weight since he's speaking from first hand knowledge of this season's organization. Why would we care what Viola, Aguilera, Erickson, Tapani, Gagne, Kaat, or Gladden have to say about the current Twins org when they don't have any more knowledge of the actual internal happenings than we do? Them having been major league baseball players gives them no more understanding of the current organization than anyone else. Whether they're talking about clubhouse chemistry, the strategy and processes used to make decisions, signings or trades, or anything else about the internal workings of the current Twins team doesn't even matter. None of them are in the room. None of them have any more knowledge about it than we do. And I'd argue that there's probably some on TD who understand the current strategy and thought processes of MLB organizations better than a number of the old players. The core of their comments is simply "back in our day it didn't work like this." That's not enough to get me to care. It's not their day anymore and things are done differently. Athletes care about different things and teams are managed in different ways. You can dislike it, and prefer the previous ways, but that doesn't give them anymore weight.