chpettit19

I mean, I guess it depends on the organization and how they treat their titles. Teams have a lot of titles these days. If you want to get hung up on the "top guy" and the title aspect of things, be my guest. The point was that Falvey isn't going to be unemployed long. He's going to get hired by somebody else pretty quick. I'd guess an assistant GM title. You can rank that however you want in an org. And have you seen how they talked about TR in Philly? Sure sounds like he was pretty high up over there, yes. "Terry’s involved in all the conversations we have now.” is a quote from Dave Dombrowski. That sounds like a "top guy" to me. But you can make your own decision on that.

Fangraphs and b-ref both still list him below the 5 year mark and I think they're pretty good at keeping that stuff updated, but I don't know. I agree that if he'd have to go through waivers they wouldn't likely do that, but each time he goes through one of these "needs a reset" spells he gets closer and closer to that being a possibility.

19 saves by 5 other players? Eck wasn't available a lot. Another guy with 12 saves and 3 other guys combining for 12 more the next season. In 1987 Eck appeared in the 4th inning 10 times, 5th inning twice, 6th inning 7 times, 7th inning 7 times, 8th inning 12 times. I'm sorry your assumption was wrong, but it was wrong.

Making final and definitive statements on guys based on their first 9 rookie year starts is a pretty risky move. Especially a gut who started that season in A+ ball. Corey Kluber was brought up on another article. ERA over 5 in 12 starts his first year as an MLB starter at the age of 26. His 2 Cy Youngs say he turned out alright. Berrios was younger than Zebby, but he had an 8.02 ERA in 14 starts his rookie year. I can keep going, but I think you get the point. Giving up on a guy because of his first 9 starts isn't a great move.

He's not at 5 years of service yet and has options left so they should be able to option him, right? I could certainly be wrong.

I'd like to see Festa or Zebby replace Alcala for a stretch and pair with Paddack as a piggy back. It's hard to run a piggy back as a long-term/season long core plan because it means you need to essentially have 6 MLB quality starters at all time, but to run it for a while here while Alcala goes down and gets himself straightened out I think would be alright since we have Festa and Zebby at AAA ready to go. It should essentially give the pen a day off once through the rotation and give one of those guys more experience at the major league level. I'd prefer to pair them with Paddack because I don't care about Paddack's future. And he's likely to break at some point anyways. So, I'd put Festa or Zebby into the rotation to go 5 or 6 (most likely 5) innings each time out and have Paddack be the guy to come in from the pen to do the 3 or 4 innings to close things out since I don't care about him continuing to build his stamina and work on getting through 5 or 6+ innings each time. But with Alcala struggling right now, I think it presents them an opportunity to try this kind of thing out. Get one of the AAA arms up here and let Paddack be a bulk innings eater out of the pen. Zebby and Festa both wasting bullets in AAA feels unnecessary to me.

Like Farhan Zaidi because well respected FO execs of even failed teams still get jobs? Sure, that's a good enough example.

WAR? I never even mentioned WAR other than it being in that screenshot. And who cares about his WAR there. His ERA was 4.42 while both Ryan and Ober are under 4.00. ERA+ under 100 compared to Ryan and Ober over 100. And Bauer had the lowest K% with nearly double the BB%. Sure, throw WAR out the window. Ober-Bauer-Ryan was the order there. Bauer was the middle one, and by far the worst performer. Suggesting Bauer was some sort of success story with Cleveland in his first 5 seasons there while Ober and Ryan aren't success stories here is an absolutely wild take. And the point of the Top 100 prospect comment wasn't at all to say Kluber wasn't great in the majors, it was to combat that Festa, Zebby, Lewis, and all the rest of the guys in the minors have little to no chance of being successes because they aren't highly rated prospects. I'm not banking on any of them being stars (as I said), but you've declared them as having essentially no chance while claiming Tanner Bibee as some sort of decent future Cy Young candidate. You had a nice rant. It made you feel better. But it was seriously lacking in context. You've written Zebby off as some back end starter with no chance of being great. Here's Kluber's 2nd year (technically, but his first year was 4.1 bullpen innings) vs Zebby's first year. Kluber was 26 years old. Zebby 24. This is the point of the Top 100 prospect comment. Kluber was a 25-30 ranked system prospect who wasn't good until he was 27 years old. That's the point. You're writing off all these 22-24 year olds and I'm saying you're making that declaration way too soon. Kluber won 2 Cy Youngs after this age 26 season. I think you can give Zebby maybe a few more starts before you declare him finished.

Not by me because I still don't really have a good guess at what's going on with him and what his professional goals were then or are now. And a bunch of people claimed Popkins wasn't qualified to be an MLB hitting coach and would never get hired by another MLB team yet he was unemployed for a whopping 20 days before Toronto hired him.

Yes, facts and actual information are often found to be boring compared to emotional reactions and just going with how something feels. Its the driving factor behind headlines and how many things are done online. Doesn't change the actual facts, though. Enjoy your day.

As I said in a comment later in the thread, it may not be another POBO job. The Twins are constantly voted one of the 8-15 best front offices in baseball in surveys of executives year after year. Falvey is well respected amongst his peers. He's not going to be unemployed long. He'll be one of the top guys in another front office real quick.

Well I think calling Ober a 4 is ridiculous so your entire rant loses a lot of it's credibility right there. And a lot of it is a matter of opinion and guess work on the future of what Festa, Zebby, and the rest become. It took longer than it should have (in my opinion) to establish, but the results haven't all been tallied to make the declarations you're trying to make. Bauer was mostly ok with Cleveland and didn't win a Cy Young until he openly started using "sticky stuff." He had a 4.32 combined ERA there his first 5 seasons. And they didn't get him as a minor leaguer, he'd already debuted for the Diamondbacks before he even got to Cleveland. But you left all of those details out of your rant because just putting "Cy Young" next to his name despite that it happened after he left Cleveland looks a whole lot better. Ryan and Ober haven't even gotten to the point of their career where Bauer got good yet. Tanner Bibee gets a "future Cy Young?" next to his name? Why? Because he had a nice rookie year? He wasn't anything super special last year. If Ober is a #4 then so is Bibee because they're essentially the same guy. He's not super young or anything. Kluber was never a top 100 prospect. So your assumption that none of the Twins current minor leaguers are going to do what he did doesn't carry any weight. He was a guy that came out of nowhere as a 4th round pick who debuted at the age of 25 and then had great success starting at the age of 27. Your rant is missing a whole lot of context so I'm glad it was cathartic because it wasn't all that accurate or meaningful when you actually dig into the details of the pitchers you named. Bauer, Ryan, and Ober listed in some order below. Their 2nd through 4th seasons since this is the start of Ryan and Ober's 5th season. See if you can pick out Bauer that was so much more dominant and "not comparable."

Agreed. And it's why I'd fire him. Appears to me (from the outside, and with admittedly limited knowledge) that he's better suited for a job a little lower down the ladder.

I literally said they wouldn't be stars but major leaguers. Hope that was cathartic, though.

Falvey is the head of everything now to save the Pohlads money. So he isn't going anywhere until a sale decision is made. If they decide to keep the team then it becomes a question of how long it takes them to decide he's costing them more than he's saving them. But he's the domino that matters (cuz we can't fire the Pohlads, unfortunately). I like what he's done with the pitching development system as he seems to have gotten the system he helped with in Cleveland in place here. Not sure it's going to crank out a bunch of stars, but it looks like it can develop major leaguers and thats vital. And I like that they've started to go after more athletes on the position player side, but there's something broken in the machine that they don't seem to be able to solve. He's had enough time and it's time to move on, but it won't happen with the sale on the table. Falvey is going to get another job almost immediately after he's fired. The Twins FO was voted in the top half of the league again this offseason by their peers in the survey on The Athletic. And after helping both Cleveland and now Minnesota develop pitching development programs he's going to have no problem getting hired. And we need to be prepared for the possibility things get even worse around here. But he hasn't shown he knows how to get this thing to a truly competitive place and you have to take the chance on finding someone who can. Hopefully there's some other folks in the org that have learned the pitching dev side of things that they can retain to keep that going and the new people can add the player dev side and get things really cooking.

1986 was La Russa's first season with the A's. No Eckersley. He had 9 guys record saves. 2 in double figures with saves. Not exactly ALWAYS having one guy in the 9th, huh? Sort of sounds like a closer by committee situation. But that can't be. Nobody would be that stupid. Especially not an "old school" guy like La Russa. '87 had Eckersley show up and record 16 saves. Same exact number of saves as Jay Howell. 7 total pitchers recorded saves that year for them. Dang, another closer by committee sounding season. But that's impossible because you put ALWAYS in all caps so it has to be true that La Russa would never even consider that idea even though you've already been proven wrong in just his first 2 seasons in Oakland. '88 saw Eck truly take over the closer role and record 45 saves. 5 other players recorded saves, though. 4 of them recorded at least 3. 19 total saves to other players. More unbalanced, but certainly not an ALWAYS situation. '89 Eck with 33, Honeycutt 12, 12 others between 3 more pitchers. Really not an ALWAYS situation. '90 Eck 48, 16 to other 4 other pitchers. Still not an ALWAYS situation. '91 you're actually right on this one as Eck recorded 43 saves and only 2 other pitchers had saves. 6 total. So you're at 1 out of 6 seasons so far, congrats. It's almost like you're completely and utterly wrong on your general premise, though. Good chat.

You completely missed the point. The point was that he didn't just do what the previous generations did like you were preaching. He actively rejected your stance of just doing what the managers before him did. And if you think LaRussa is just known for Eckersley, you've only read 1 chapter of the metaphorical book and there's no point in furthering this discussion.

"He controlled himself?" What does that even mean? People want Rocco to use his eyes and make decisions based on what he's watching. Well watching the ball rocket off bats all night should tell him his pitcher is in trouble. Your argument is to go with the stat line instead and ignore his eyes. Just use what the stats say. Just go by pitch count and inning and ignore the fact that over half the hitters he's faced have pissed on the ball. Is that what you want? You want Rocco to just use the numbers? No eye test? Not watch what's happening and just use pitch count and inning? Because anyone truly watching that game was seeing Paddack give up all kinds of hard contact. You didn't need Statcast numbers to provide that. But, hey, it was just 76 pitches and 5 innings so let him go, right? That's what you want? You going to stand up and say your belief is Rocco should ignore what he's watching and just use the numbers?

Weird that you cut out the part where I pointed out what they did differently. And weird that you can't point out any in game strategy (because we were talking about the strategies Rocco uses) that any team does that's different than any other team. And where I explain that the differences between teams is how they balance each strategy and combine them all into their own formula because each team has their own analytics that they use to personalize their use of each strategy. We're talking in game strategy. You seem to now be trying to move the goal posts to other areas. But there's only so many in game strategies to use. The way you're unique is the way you personalize your usage of those strategies. So, again, the Twins DID do something drastically different (about as close as you can get to not just copying what others do) the last couple years when it came to their use of platoons. They were the very clear outliers in their use of the platoon last year. What "strategy?" That's where nuance comes in. It isn't just one strategy. You don't think their pitching development strategies (again, more than one strategy at play there) are good? I don't think their platoon strategies were good. And I've been one of the most vocal critics of it for years. To the point where people call me out on boards for being a broken record, or send me private messages asking me to just shut up about platooning. I don't like that strategy. I didn't like their strategy of drafting slow sluggers early in drafts. They've changed that strategy and gone more athletic lately. What's mind blowing to me is the statement that there's one singular strategy or process to judge. There aren't a lot of people on these boards saying the results are good or that the Twins have it all figured out. I'm certainly not saying that and never have. I've been very critical of their position players and their roster construction strategies when it comes to the position player side of things. But I do think they have some very good strategies when it comes to the pitching side. See, nuance is important. I've said many times, including in this very thread, that I'd fire Falvey if I were in charge. And that's the key move. You have to start at the top. But this simplified idea of looking "at this organization and saying this is good. the process is good. the strategy is good." is the problem. All you're doing is putting things into the "good or bad, black or white" buckets again and ignoring that there is no 1 individual strategy to judge the entire organization on.

I don't disagree with every move he makes and that gets me labeled a "Rocco defender." And since there's a general lack of ability to have a nuanced conversation (point being proven by you right here, so thank you) there's only the options of "Rocco hater" and "Rocco defender." I've been one of the 2 most vocal critics on this site of the platooning decisions for 2+ years. I have complained on numerous occasions when he's pulled pitchers when I did feel it was too early. I've complained when I felt he left them in too long. I didn't like Gasper leading off. I don't like when he sits all his best players on the same day. I don't like scheduled days off. There's a lot of things I complain about. I just have this crazy thing where I can take individual situations and judge them and agree with some and disagree with others. I don't hate his bullpen management and you do and you've decided that means I "spend hundreds--thousands of words daily defending Rocco." Some days I do defend him because I agree with him. Others I don't because I don't agree with him. It's crazy, I know. No, I don't care. Because, as we've discussed numerous times, I don't think firing him changes anything significantly because the front office is intimately involved in how the team is run and they aren't going to put somebody in charge who does things drastically differently. So, I don't care if they fire him or not because I don't think it will change anything in a meaningful way so it isn't worth my time or energy to care about. I don't care what you think is debatable. I'm debating it so I guess you're wrong. You being unable to see any other options than the one you've decided is correct doesn't mean there aren't other options. Also, BTW, we've discussed managers mattering many times and you've never come close to showing they do. But you'll keep saying they do and I'll keep saying they don't and being able to point to all kinds of win-loss records that show they don't. Crazy that Tom Kelly and Bruce Bochy have multiple WS rings and career losing records, huh? Almost like their teams win when they're talented and lose when they're not. But go on about these managers mattering "a lot." My goodness, how talented were the Twins the last 6 years if even the awful, no good, terrible Rocco Baldelli could screw up constantly and still come away with a .521 winning percentage? I mean, are we talking 90+ win teams for 6 years? That would've been fun. And everyone around here was definitely looking at these rosters and seeing that kind of talent. Definitely. No question about it. Or, and hear me out here, maybe most people were looking at these rosters and seeing talent that put them in the low- to mid-80s in wins and that's where his mostly healthy teams finished in 2 of the last 4 years (with a third year not being mostly healthy). Almost like they finished essentially exactly where we saw their talent saying they should finish. Crazy.

You have an example of something only one team is doing? Give me 1 example of 1 in game strategy that only 1 team is using. Just one. I'm not picky. Don't need a lot. Just 1. Every team has their own unique combination of the same strategies. The Twins went crazy heavy on the platooning the last couple years. Pretty much all of us hated it. They stopped doing it. So, they were pretty unique there and we all complained. So, it was bad when they were unique, but now you're mad that they aren't unique as well? They learned from the data and adapted. They adjusted. Like they should. This year they have a different formula and combination. But I'm super interested to hear your example of a team doing something completely unique that no other team in baseball is doing. I watch a lot of baseball so this will give me something to keep an eye on.

I think a lot of it is the lack of actual in-depth conversation about these things and our society's tendency to put things in 1 of 2 buckets instead of discussing matters in the nuanced way they should be discussed. For example: Anybody telling you that no pitcher should see the order 3 times through isn't paying attention. Because not even the Twins follow that "rule." I do see a lot of anti-analytics people claiming that's a rule, but the people who actually follow the analytics and what teams are actually doing will point out that the good pitchers who are successful do face the order 3+ times while it's the bad pitchers who are limited in the number of times they see the order a 3rd time. Ryan, Ober, and Lopez see the order 3 times through when they're on. SWR and Paddack don't get as much leash, but Paddack just faced 24 guys (nearly 3 times through) 2 starts ago. A certain level of strikeouts are acceptable for hitters if it comes with a certain level of slug. But there is a limit to it. There's a balance. Like I said, there's nuance to things. And because hitters are looking to do so much damage with their swings it is then naturally important for a pitcher to be able to miss bats. Louis Varland is a good example. When he misses bats he's very good. But when they hit it they tend to hit it extremely hard and it goes a long way. That's very bad. So strikeouts become very important to pitchers. And the Twins can be doing things the "right way" and still losing. Talent still matters. You can put me out there to do things the "right way" and I'm still not going to win you a lot of Major League baseball games. I think saying Falvey has never considered his process is flawed is unfair. They've changed things. They aren't platooning nearly as much this year. They've stopped drafting the slow sluggers early and gone more athletic. That doesn't mean he's great, but it's those extreme statements that lead to the lack of middle ground, nuanced conversation I'm talking about. I'd fire Falvey if I owned the team. He's had more than enough time and he's failed. I like what he's done with the pitching development side of things, but it isn't enough. So, I'd fire him. But he's still about an average MLB POBO. And every team is doing most of this stuff.

Paddack was giving up rockets all over the field that night. Gave up 5 balls over 105 MPH off the bat. Last batter he faced was a 99.3 MPH ball he was lucky wasn't a HR. He gave up 16 balls in play from the 19 batters he faced, and 10 of them hit it over 90 MPH. 7 of them over 99. Maybe you don't believe in this stuff, but major league teams do. As a manager, when your starter goes 5 innings and gives up that kind of loud contact you thank the baseball gods you're still in the game and go to your fully rested pen. Almost half the batters he faced put the ball in play off him at nearly 100 MPH or better that night. He wasn't "cruising along." This is one of the many things major league teams are tracking during games to make decisions on when to pull starters. Arias was the next guy up. His last AB was a 106.7 single. Then it was Jose Ramirez who had a 99 MPH groundout his last AB. Followed by Manzardo who had a 106.2 MPH single in his last AB, followed by Santana, and then Noel who had a GIDP at 106.2 in his last AB after having had a 108.4 MPH single in his first AB. Those were the next 5 guys set to face Paddack. I'd say they were seeing him pretty well that night.

I'm not missing the point. You are. Rocco isn't the only one who uses these analytics, and he isn't doing anything that nobody else is doing (outside of the extreme platooning the last couple years). The Dodgers follow analytics, and it seems to work pretty well (they have 4 guys with saves this year, 2 with multiple saves). Tampa does. Cleveland does. Everybody's favorite manager Terry Francona does. The guy I see named around here frequently as the guy people hope would replace Rocco if he's fired, Joe Maddon, does. The White Sox do. The Giants do. The Rangers do. Pick a team, they all do. Bruce Bochy? Uses analytics. Dusty Baker? Go look at the Astros pen usage in the playoffs his last few years. Dusty Baker used analytics. The difference is talent. LaRussa relied on analytics to make those changes. Rocco, and the front office that helps drive these decisions (and that's the real point that you're missing), did stop some stuff. They stopped platooning so much this year. Like I said in that post, I don't care if they fire Rocco. It won't matter because the front office believes in this stuff. You're missing the point if you think firing Rocco leads to some manager who doesn't believe in any of this stuff. Falvey does and he isn't going to hire (promote, because that's what they'd most likely do) somebody who doesn't. "Stop relying on analytics" is a nonsense, ridiculous statement. Everybody uses analytics. Everybody. 100% of teams. And in game changes take place. They have with the pitching in the last week. It's not hard to see when Ryan and Ober go deep into games and Paddack went nearly 3 times through the order in his start before the one we're discussing in this thread. I'm not defending Rocco. I don't care if he's fired. I disagree with some of the things he does. I've been very outspoken on the extreme platoon usage the last few years. But they stopped that so far this year (weirdly, since this year's roster talent level makes more sense to me to try to squeeze every last drop out of through things like that). People just don't like that I don't shout "fire Rocco, that'll solve things!" I'm pushing back on this idea that analytics are the problem. Talent is the problem. The front office is the problem.

None of them do. None of them ever will. But that isn't people's argument, is it? The argument is "don't change. The old guys figured it out and did it all correctly so just keep doing what they were doing because it's the right way to do things." It's the argument to the point that they ignore the fact that the old guys changed the game multiple times. Tony LaRussa is even brought up by many as an example of an old school manager who wouldn't do these things while ignoring the fact that he was the "new guy" who changed how bull pens were used. He created the modern closer, but we should ignore that when discussing modern managers doing things differently because that's not how things were managed when people were growing up, and how things were done while I was growing up were automatically the right way to do things. He also was a pretty big fan of dudes who mash homeruns. And I already conceded the Gasper thing was nonsense. My argument has always been that managers make very little difference to wins and losses and are extremely overrated. Talent wins. The Twins scored 1 run in the game we're discussing, and people are upset that Rocco screwed things up with the pen and cost them the game. 1 run. 1 freaking run and Rocco's pitching decisions cost them the game? That's ridiculous and not a logical argument. It's an emotional one by people who dislike Rocco and the way the modern game is managed. I don't care about managers so I don't care if they fire Rocco. He's lived a charmed life and he'll be fine. I think people will be just as disappointed with the new manager because they won't manage things significantly differently and this lineup is not talented enough and no manager is winning games with a lineup that can't score more than 3 runs on a regular basis.