chpettit19

I think the FO, and probably Rocco, see him as better than many of us see him. Since his abysmal April he's been exactly what the Twins expected him to be. I don't think they'll pick up his option, but I think they'll have a conversation around bringing him back at a lower price. He'll see if he can get more elsewhere, but I think the Twins think he can be a late inning option next year. I'd be far more surprised by them going out and spending 12+ million on a big name reliever than in them bringing him back for another year. Certainly not guaranteeing anything, but my bet would be that they offer him a contract to return next year. If they cared about how the fans felt about him they would have moved on from him months ago, and certainly wouldn't be using him as their closer. For that matter, they would've called Moran up months ago, and would never call up any of the veteran retreads they've been bringing through for months.

I'm not interpreting things. I'm telling you there are posts that have the exact words "The front office should be fired" or something very close to that. I'm not going to take the time to comb through thread after thread, but on Friday gunnarthur posted in the "How quickly we Forget" thread "I've seen enough even though I'm sure they'll come back next year." I'm not going to post that entire post, but there is no doubt that they are literally saying they've seen enough of this FO and want them fired. If you want to call that interpreting and claim I'm misreading that, fine, but you'll have a hard time convincing anyone that that isn't a call for the FO to be fired. I'm not going to go through hundreds of posts to find more examples, and won't call out other posters directly without having the quotes in front of me, but I can think of at least 3 people I've seen post other direct calls for the FO to be fired. And they post them pretty regularly. No interpreting needed kind of posts. Literally saying the FO are idiots and need to be fired.

Fair enough. I don't think TD is ready for this conversation yet, but I think we should all start preparing ourselves for the return of Alexander Colome in 2022. My bet right now is that he's on the opening day roster for the Minnesota Twins. Does that give you better feelings about the shape of the 2022 pen? ?

Don't know if I agree that Moran is "likely a key component to the 2022 season." I think if they're truly trying to contend he's in the running for the lefty mid-relief role, but nothing more than that. And while you certainly want quality people in that role, I wouldn't call it key. If they're planning on running him out there in high leverage situations next year I agree they should've move quicker, but I'll be upset if they go into 2022 with Moran in a place to get anything more than middle inning appearances.

There are calls for the FO to be fired every day on this site. Have been for months. Not everyone who complains about them has been saying it, but there have most definitely been direct calls for their termination.

Agreed in general that much of it isn't sustainable, but I don't blame them for not sending someone down when they're actually performing well. I think they're doing pretty well cycling arms through right now and getting some young guys innings. Wouldn't have been mad if they made the move earlier, but I don't think there's anything egregious about how the last couple months have been handled.

The Twins bullpen has actually been the best in MLB since the deadline (11-0, 3.20 ERA, #1 in WPA, #3 in ERA). But I'm glad Moran is finally getting a shot and hope he provides more hope for the 2022 season.

That bolded sentence is an inaccurate description of the Twins pitching philosophy under this current regime. They hunt for elite pitches and get pitchers to throw them more. They also are invested heavily in biomechanics and use that to improve pitchers where they can. But the focus is most certainly not velocity. Joe Ryan and SWR were the big arms they added at the trade deadline and they both throw in the low 90s. The Twins helped Ober with his mechanics and added a couple MPH to him, but the movement and spin of his FB is what they targeted. Same with Ryan. They don't care about his velo, they care about his spin and movement. They brought in Wisler for his slider. Maeda for his split and slider. Pineda for his slider. They have almost nobody coming out of the pen throwing 100. Velocity isn't something they look for at all. They believe they can add some velo to certain pitchers with slight mechanical changes, but elite pitches is what they search for, not velocity.

The premise of this post/article/whatever-you-call-it is that Joe Ryan's scouting reports were wrong about how good 2 of his pitches were. The author states that the scouting reports are wrong and he's basing it on 34 combined changeup and curveballs between 2 starts. For that matter he's only thrown 25 sliders. Suggesting that dozens of people who scout pitchers for a living have misjudged the hundreds of curves and changes they've seen him throw because his first 34 in the majors went well is absurd. Click-bate headline without any real substance. But has produced some solid conversation on Ryan and potential. If Ryan is going to be as good as some people think the Twins should be in great shape pitching wise if 1/3 of their other prospects hit their ceilings. Brighter days on the horizon?

Guess I don't see the connection there. 2021 is the statistical outlier (I know some will be automatically turned off by the word statistically, but doesn't change the facts). The Twins team ERA improved every year since they took over, was the 9th best in 2019, and 4th best in 2020. In the totality of Twins pitching results since Falvine took over 2021 is the outlier. I don't get what trading Berrios has to do with the overall success of the Twins pitching the last 5 years. Trading Berrios was an asset management move in a lost season. Add more assets to help keep the window open going forward instead of putting all your eggs in the 2022 competition window. At some point it all comes down to the prospects performing. I think this is Falvine saying "we're all in on our system." Maybe it's a Pohlad mandate. Maybe they were told "put up or shut up" when it comes to developing the pipeline. But with the loss of 2020 most of their prospects are going to be hitting the majors at a more advanced age than you'd like, and it's time to see what they have. 2021 falling apart from game 2 on solidified things. The second half of 2021 has seen a return to the bullpen results they'd produced the last couple years and puts thing back in line with what they were establishing as their norm. 2019 gets pushed aside as "it's easy to win when you hit 307 HRs" as if the pitching was terrible, when in fact the pitching has been very good the last 2 years. I'm not saying I love Falvine, or Rocco, or that I'm predicting a 2022 World Series championship, but I think they earned a mulligan with their previous performance and the pipeline needs to be opened to see if it flows before we dump those that built it. At this point 2021 is an outlier. Don't make decisions on 1 data point. At least give them 2022 and see if adjustments are made and they get back on the curve they'd established before 2021 fell into a Colome lead sinkhole.

No argument can be made that the Twins pitching completely destroyed this season before it ever got off the ground. The Twins had the 9th best ERA in baseball in 2019 and the 4th best in 2020. Their team ERA had improved every season since Falvine took over. "Since the July 30 trade deadline — a span of 36 games, or roughly a quarter of the season — Twins relievers are 11-0 with a 3.20 ERA. They lead the league in Win Probability Added (by a wide margin, too) and rank third in ERA." That's a quote from Gleeman's Athletic article today. Doesn't make this season any better, but it falls in line with the norm that was established coming into this season, and one could argue adds another data point to the argument that they've actually done quite well on the pitching side. You're ignoring all the pitching results prior to this season and saying they're all the outliers while this season (which is actually the outlier) is what this FO can really produce. Now we haven't seen them produce the "pitching pipeline" that they need for sustained success, but they have about 10 guys who should be ready to debut next year. You seem to want them fired after this year. Based on all the information I just provided you're ready to blow up the FO and bring in new people based on 1 outlier 1st half of the season and right before we actually get to see if the pitchers they've been developing can actually provide the pipeline. Don't get why the strategy wouldn't be to at least give them next year to see if the young guys come up and succeed. Cuz if they do and they've developed their pipeline you want them to still be in place to keep it churning, not some new guys as you watch Falvey and Levine go elsewhere and start building a pipeline there.

The 2020 season numbers are much closer to the norm of the team since Falvine took over than 2021. Don't get why you'd choose the outlier season as the more accurate data set than a season that falls in line with the norm.

I got ya. I just don't think it's ever smart to take 1 outlier data point and make big decisions on it. Whether a good data point or bad one. Outliers are bad decision making points. To me it comes down to this being their 5th year in control, and in those 5 years the team has won 362 games. That's with this season not being over yet and last season being only 60 games. In the 5 years prior to them taking over the team won 344 games. I guess I feel like that gives them a mulligan for a 1 time total flop of a season. Quote from Gleeman article on The Athletic about an hour ago: "Since the July 30 trade deadline — a span of 36 games, or roughly a quarter of the season — Twins relievers are 11-0 with a 3.20 ERA. They lead the league in Win Probability Added (by a wide margin, too) and rank third in ERA." Now obviously that doesn't help save this disaster of a season after they blew up the season in April, but it's a sign that maybe this FO hasn't been a complete disaster this whole season and those numbers are much closer to the baseline of the previous 2 seasons than what we saw early.

Wouldn't the argument then be that it's not fair to call 2021 representative of the 2018-2021 window?

So the '16 team gets a break because of injuries, but the 2021 team doesn't and the FO needs to go? Don't follow the logic there. Also, don't agree at all that the core of Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Polanco, Berrios, and Rosario were going to win no matter what. That's 1 good, not great starting pitcher, 1 elite talent who took forever to figure it out and has never stayed healthy for a full season, the streakiest hitter in baseball who doubles as the biggest K machine in the league, a gold glove type RFer who's a slightly above average hitter, a top hitting SS who couldn't field the position, and a below average defensive LFer with a slightly above average bat who was prone to more than his fair share of mental mistakes. Twins win percentages since 2010: .580, .389, .407, .407, .432, .512, .364, .525, .481, .623, .600, .430. Since becoming the Twins in 1961 the team has won fewer than 40% of their games 6 total times. Twice in the last 10 years including the season before Falvine took over. They're going to end around 44 or 45% this year probably. You're so upset about this season that you want the FO fired yet it's better than all but 2 of the 7 years prior to them taking over.

Can the Twins afford to pay an "ace?" Yes. Any team can. The question is what can they surround them with. According to the contract numbers in the original post the average "ace" FA contract from each year is 27, 26.5, 26.5, 27, 27, 28, 28, 26.6, 25.4 29.75, 30, 30, 31.5, 31.5. The average annual money for all the "ace" deals is 27.75 per year (I didn't include the 2M per year deferrals for Scherzer as that isn't a typical deal and isn't what anyone is actually talking about when they talk about signing players to these deals). I think 150-160 is a reasonable enough payroll target for the Twins. We'll go with the top end 160. Having 1 of those guys takes up 17% of your payroll. Having 2 of them takes up 35%. Having 1 would leave you with about 130 million to spend and having 2 would leave you with about 105 left to spend on the rest of the team. The question isn't whether or not they can afford any of these guys, or even whether those guys are worth their money. The question is can you build a world series contending team (or division winning, or whatever your goal is) with 1 "ace" and 130M or 2 "aces" and 105M. There's 24 or 25 other spots to fill. Don't have time to run the numbers right now, but that's the discussion that should be happening. I think the answer to all of these questions is always that you have to develop minor leaguers. Whether you draft them, trade for them, sign them internationally, pick them out of Ubers, or whatever. You need to develop your own talent and have them be good from almost the jump to be competitive. Even the Yankees and Dodgers do. Walker Buehler being an "ace" on a pre-arb deal allows them to do so much more with their already significant financial advantage. Add in Seager, Smith, and Bellinger on pre-arb or arb deals and it's outrageous. The Rays and As compete because they have young guys who contribute more than their contracts say they should. Too much discussion is based around free agent signings. Free agents are the compliments to your young core, not the other way around. So, yes, the Twins can afford those big deals, but it doesn't mean anything if their cheap guys are garbage. Just ask the teams we ran out there with a cy young award winner, 2 MVPs, an elite reliever, and a young stud #2 arm that also couldn't win in the playoffs.

If I'm remembering correctly Simeon Woods Richardson was also struggling with walks for the first time in his career in Toronto's system early this year. Would be interesting to look at walk, and injury, rates amongst minor league pitchers this year. I feel like somebody around here could find some data.

I'd argue modern baseball is actually the exact opposite of what you just described. There are players that blow through the minor leagues all the time. And as for Blyleven and his curve, teams like the Twins would actually tell him to throw it more. The Twins hunt pitches like Blyleven's curve. They want elite pitches and they want their guys to throw it more. With the spin rate numbers and "by pitch" stats they track they're better than ever at having pitchers use the pitches that are the most effective. Mix that with the advanced knowledge of biomechanics and you see guys like Ober make a small tweak to their mechanics and start throwing 5 MPH harder while pin pointing where their pitches are most effective and teaching them to throw their pitches there (like his fastball up and in to righties, Joe Ryan is the same way actually). Baseball is getting smarter with pitch usage, not dumber.

Oh there's definitely pros and cons to their strategy. I think it makes sense to avoid signing guys for more than they're worth. I mean the Padres would love to have Eric Hosmer and his 20M a year off their books. So it helps them avoid those bad deals that weigh them down. But you also miss out on the players you identify as having the best chance to succeed because you won't go higher than a certain price. It all falls apart when 100% (Cruz was technically a free agent, but he was returning) of your signings fail. My guess is they break free agents into tiers and say "these guys are worth up $X" and "these guys are worth $Y." Then they want to bring in a certain number of guys from each tier and they engage with agents. They pursue their preferred guy until the price gets above X or Y then move to the next guy in that tier. It's a logical approach, but certainly has some holes. And when you miss like they did this offseason there definitely needs to be some reflection on what lead them to their decisions. Good news is they can't be any worse than missing on everyone!

I don't know that their strategy is signing FA late as much as it's not going over what they have decided a player is worth. They're "in" on plenty of players early, but they set hard lines on contracts and won't go above what they feel the player is worth. That can push them out of some negotiations and leave them to only getting guys later when the player's market has come back down. Think it's a solid strategy in many cases, but not all. The SS market this winter will be interesting to watch as there's a chance somebody will have that same sort of strategy and end up with an all-star SS for much less than expected.

Cavaco is still over a year younger than the average player he plays against.

That BA video is 2 years old. So BA would have him being 16 right now as well.

The Brewers are running out a pitching trio these days that nobody wants to see in the playoffs. Corbin Burnes (3rd), Brandon Woodruff (4th), and Freddy Peralta (not qualified, but would be about 5th with like 10 more innings) all rank in the top 10 in baseball in ERA. I don't know if any of you have been paying attention, but the Twins starting staff have been slightly worse than that. Want a couple silver linings that may give a little hope for the Twins future? Here's what I got: The highest any of the 3 were ranked on prospect lists (according to baseball-reference) is 46 (Baseball America ranked Burnes there in 2019). Woodruff maxed out at 61 in 2018 (again by Baseball America) and Peralta was never on a top 100 list. So you don't have to be a top 10 global guy to have a sub-2.50 ERA! In 2018 and 2019 Burnes had AAA ERAs of 5.15 and 8.46. In 2017 Woodruff's AAA ERAs were 4.30 and 4.04. So nothing insane there! (Peralta dominated AAA pretty well) Burnes was 25 before he established himself in the bigs. And he didn't lose a minor league season to a pandemic! This is Peralta's first dominant major league starting season and he's 25. Woodruff was also 25 when he established himself as a quality major league starter. So our guys, especially considering the pandemic mixed in, that aren't exactly 19 or 20 anymore aren't super old! That's about all I have, though. The Brewers are an organization that tends to go for velocity in their pitchers while the Twins go after elite pitches, whether it be a guy's slider, splitter, whatever, and aren't as big on velo specifically. I don't know if there's really a right or wrong answer there. The Brewers are more open to bringing guys up and letting them get experience in the pen before moving them to the rotation, though. I don't know if that would have been the Twins plan this year if nearly all of their top prospect arms hadn't been injured, but they feel like an org that prefers starters start and relievers relieve. I don't know what each team's feelings on inning increases are, but it feels like the Brewers don't care as much, but I don't have any hard data to present on that right now. I'm certainly not suggesting the Twins are going to have 3 "homegrown" guys with 2.50 ERAs in the near future, but not every superstar arm are top 10 global prospects or show up at 22 years old and slice the league up. So maybe not all hope is lost? Starting Pitchers: Mil- Adrian Houser: 7-5, 3.44 ERA Min- Charlie Barnes: 0-3, 6.56 ERA Starting Lineups: Mil Kolten Wong 2B Willy Adames DH Christian Yelich LF Avisail Garcia RF Luis Urias SS Lorenzo Cain CF Rowdy Tellez 1B Manny Pina C Jace Peterson 3B Min Luis Arraez DH Byron Buxton CF Jorge Polanco 2B Josh Donaldson 3B Max Kepler RF Miguel Sano 1B Brent Rooker LF Ryan Jeffers C Andrelton Simmons SS

Assuming this is just a "well he's on the 40-man and we suck anyways so let's just confirm he sucks at the major league level before we DFA him for Joe Ryan" move. Might as well. Think we're going to see basically every pitcher on the 40-man over the next few weeks and many will be sent on their way pretty quickly.

Correct. Was just pointing out that the other poster's concern that it's more complicated to call players up this year (you can't call guys up directly from AA this year) isn't really a concern as you only have to stop at AAA for a day. If Balazovic doesn't get called up it won't be because he was in AA instead of AAA and it was too hard to call players up from AA.