diehardtwinsfan

Speaking of which, I had to get one a few months back... That rain analogy is a pretty good way to describe the cleansing process... /:) Ducks

I don't know about that. They got pretty decent value for both Butera (technically a trade into the system by the way) and Herrman. I wouldn't write off Garver and Turner either, or even Murray for that matter. Yeah, there's not a hot prospect there, but all of those guys could be quality ML pieces. I think we tend to be a bit spoiled by the Mauer years that we forget that his time in behind the dish was at HOF levels. That said, I have me eyes on a couple of HS catchers that should be available with one of our picks in the second round. I'd grab one at least... if not both. We could certainly use some depth.

The 80s... the last great decade for the music industry. It was all downhill after that.

After reading your second thought, I assumed you had never been to Seattle. It's pretty much non-stop light rain for about 6 months. The summers there are very nice though.

Vargas actually might be one to add here. It might take a bit of work to make it fit, but there's little room for him here. I could see him being packaged with someone to potentially get a bigger return. It would have to be a good fit though. Otherwise, they have Mauer, Park, Arcia, and Vargas all on the roster next year for 1B/DH. I wouldn't mind Kennys as an occasional bench bat, but that really diminishes his value. As for Trades: Some of this sell high thing is rather ridiculous on it's face. You want to keep the guys performing as they are part of the core. Knowing which ones will fall flat on their face requires a crystal ball that I'm pretty sure none of us have, and if you sold high on everyone, you're always selling. That's not a good place to be either. Suzuki might be the obvious exception, but based on the rumors at the time, he wasn't going to net much, so I really don't understand the complaint. I trust Ryan in that he isn't going to let guys go without getting value. He certainly sold high on Revere, and I doubt he'd have gotten a better return on Span. Not really sure Plouffe had much value this offseason. It's not like it would have been selling high. Frasier got squat, and he was a much better chip. I'm guessing whatever Plouffe could have netted last December would still be an option next month, and it won't be much. I'd ship him off. Not expecting a return there though. Not certain I agree on Nunez. He's got arb years left (I think), which makes him attractive. His bat is a difference up the middle. Not so much on the glove, but for a team desperate for help, he's a nice short term plug in for a couple years. That is valuable. I personally wouldn't mind keeping him around as a bench bat/utility player, but I could see someone offering enough to make it work. I don't see why Abad won't be traded. yeah, he's going to get a C/C+ prospect, but that's exactly what you do with minor league signings such as Abad. If Boshers does well over the next month, he's on that list too. I'm not sure I'd part with either Rosario or DanSan at the moment. Neither have a ton of value and both I think are worth more to the org here right now. I doubt Rosario had a ton of value this offseason, and given the OF defense issues, trading him this last offseason would have been pretty short sighted anyways. Both have shown promise, and having a bit of a surplus here can be valuable in giving guys ML time but providing depth in the event a guy like Kepler comes up and does really bad at first. Baring a string of decent starts, Nolasco gets DFAd at some point. If he gets hot for June, I could see him being shipped off for something (again very little), but I'd take what return I could get as the alternative will be eating the full contract and watching him sign a make good deal elsewhere. Suzuki is cheap. Yeah, he's not good, but he costs pretty much nothing and his option won't vest. I think you could get a C prospect for him from a team desperate at C. Heck, Butera and Herrman got decent prospects. I would not trade Park. Sorry, he's looking like the real deal. I think the big thing to remember is that teams rarely dump 5 guys at the deadline. There just aren't that many deals. We should be able to declutter a few guys from the 40 man, and that's good. But just as I think it's unrealistic to expect to see a ton of guys moving. I'd say that trading 2 by the deadline and maybe a 3rd in August is a pretty reasonable expectation. Who those are, I have no idea. As for targeting, I'd probably go after guys in A ball/rookie leagues. There's more risk with them, so you can get a higher ceiling (to a point). We don't have a lot of near term 40 man slots and the lower minors are not as stocked as the high minors. Only exception to that is if someone had a blocked catching prospect in the high minors.

I don't think anyone can definitively answer that question, and if it decisions are made based mainly on a timeline, I think you run the risk potentially lengthening said time. I don't agree with the claims that we are in year 5 or 6 of a rebuild. This is really the start year 4, and most of that young talent in knocking on the door. While this season may be a lost cause, I don't think many of the components of this team are as much of a lost cause as some would think, and the last thing we should do is start trading off those young pieces (except where they are redundant) or simply letting them go. How long that takes, I don't think anyone knows as everyone matures at different rates. When you add the fact that guys are being rushed, that doesn't help. We brought up a number of those guys earlier than we should and we are paying the price for it to an extent. But there is a nice core in Arcia, Sano, Escobar, Park, Rosario, Buxton, Gibson, Duffey, Chargois, Meyer, and Berrios with more potential help in Kepler, Polanco, Walker, Vargas, Burdi, Reed, Jones, Murphy, Garver, and Turner. None of those guys (except maybe Gibson, a DH type eventually, and an OF eventually) should be jettisoned. I suspect just about everyone plans on using these guys anyways, which is why I'm arguing for experience in transitioning talent, b/c at this point, the talent is either in the majors or will be shortly. Rebuilding, like it or not, takes time. Whether Ryan is the right guy for the job going forward I don't know (I've said previously that this was in my opinion the last year where I thought he would be, and the results thus far have given me no other reason to doubt that statement). To be clear, I think changes should be made as soon as it makes sense to make them (probably after the draft, though I think there's a case to go all in internationally and I'm not sure how a new GM would improve the likelihood of this), but I really hope ownership doesn't demonstrate the impatience that I've seen here or we are going to see lots more David Ortiz type situations. And good Lord, that impatience is being fueled by a level of arrogance that I just don't understand. Everyone here is a fan. We don't live and breathe baseball. We don't do it for a living. We look at scores. We don't understand everything that a GM does. Truthfully, I doubt we understand a quarter of that job description. We can only guess. Most of us (myself included) don't manage much more than a team of people, much less an organization, and I've seen enough of dysfunctional organizations to know that its driven largely by impatience, arrogance, and ignorance. Making a change at this level will cause significant ripples in an organization, and as Old Nurse pointed out not that long ago, all that new blood can be just as bad as the old blood. Finding the right fit and the right balance is important, and I've seen little on TD to indicate that anyone here has the right skills to do it, especially if timeline is the primary metric.

Using that logic, a guy is either always ready or never ready. I think 14 more innings might be a nice litmus test of showing whether or not the guy is ready. SSS is a real thing. I don't think there's anything wrong letting Chargois spend a bit more time in AAA to make sure this simply isn't a nice couple of weeks. He will probably get the call at some point this year and there should be data points on him next year come ST. That's what we want, right?

Probably another one in the Mitch Garver type mold (not a bad prospect either).

To an extent you have a point (particularly the 11 year metric), but 29th in baseball over the last 5 ignores how long it takes to rebuild a franchise, especially since that really didn't start moving forward till 2013.

At this point, that is what it is. You can definitely remove some of them at some point, and even yet this year.

I'd leave Buxton down for a lot longer than a few weeks. That's just me. He needs to reinforce that approach. His K rate is still bad, but it's much improved in May (a good thing). But I think exercising impatience here is a mistake. Let him get some high minors at bats... and a lot of them. I'd probably slot him in as the 2017 guy with some sort of AAAA signing at CF in case he flops again.

I'm not saying I necessarily disagree with any of this, but I don't think it means what you think it means. You won't be going out and getting that 150M FA (and for the record, I'm not sure that's the right approach anyways as those contracts rarely work out). I've also noted that there's a huge contradictory view here on TD about FAs in general. No one respects the fact that when you guarantee a contract, that means the guy is going to be around. This isn't the NFL where we can just cut Rickey after two years of non-performance. He signed a 48M deal, and he's going to get paid that regardless. There's a time and a place for cutting loose (and I think we are getting very close with Nolasco), but one or two FAs, even well placed ones, won't fix this mess. And yes, to a good number of posters on this site, I really do think it's as simple as darned as you do and darned as you don't (to be PC). You may not be one of them, but let's not pretend that this is non-existent on these forums. There's plenty of it here, and it's pretty obvious. I have stated that the focus needs to be on drafting/development. The Twins haven't been that bad in the drafting/signing area really since Bill Smith. Development is a different issue, and I've been without question rather critical of Gardenhire in that area, and I'm really not a fan of how Molitor is doing it thus far either. I realize that those aren't the only two involved in the process, and perhaps there does need to be fundamental changes at the coaching levels all throughout the system. I don't really know; I'm no expert there. I do take issue with the idea that everyone is making better decisions. That's definitely true in some cases, but every team makes minor league signings. Only on TD do we complain about that. Just about every team does the dumpster dive/scrap heap signing. Only on TD do we complain about that. We ignore the ones that work (Abad) and complain about the process when it doesn't. Every team has people complaining about how fast/slow prospects get promoted, and somehow on TD we complain about both, despite the evidence showing that the Twins tend to be on the fast side of that. There's definitely some better decisions to be made here (I've stated on many occasions where I am with those), but based on all those plans we wrote out in November, we'd all still be looking at this same train wreck, with perhaps a few more wins at best. So yeah, I'll reiterate what I've said previously in that we really need to approach this with a little bit of humility.

I guess I find some of this amusing. On one end, we castigate the Hughes extension and Nolasco signing (side note, Nolasco was one of the more desired FAs of his class with the most coveted guy being our own Ervin Santana). On the other, we want them to go out and get guys. FA pitching rarely works. For that matter, big FA contracts rarely work. We were in that situation to begin with due to the farm system's failure to produce decent pitching, and I really think a replacement for TR goes back to finding someone who can draft and develop decent players, with a big focus on the development given the sheer number of young players in the majors or high minors right now.

The big thing with the Hughes deal is that moving out of that band box in NY to a pitcher friendly TF was supposed to help reduce his HR rate, making him a more valuable pitcher. In 2014, he looked like he took a step forward as well. His peripherals were also favorable, it wasn't like he did that posting a Joe Mays like 5K/9 while doing what he did. There was some dislike to the contract, but yeah, in general most of TD was pretty happy with both signings. Lest we also forget, pitching was pretty thin at those times as well. Tyler Duffey had a decent season in AA with a K/9 under 7 (no one expected his peripherals to continue to improve as he rose up the chain). Meyer was the closest to the bigs and even then he was a bit of a question mark with a high BB rate. May was in the majors after a surprise season in AAA, but was really bad. Berrios received a handful of starts in AA and watched his K rate drop pretty significantly. Like it or not, counting on all of those guys to progress (and not get hurt) is risky in and of itself. Hughes was the first decent pitching season we saw in MN in several years. This was, like it or not, a risk proposition. You can add 3 more years to a young pitcher at a reasonable rate. If he performs again, that contract is easily tradable. If he regresses, it's still tradable. Hughes fell flat on his face. That's the difference.

Not sure what is going on with May. Might not hurt to DL Jepsen. Wonder if he's going through some dead arm or something like that.

There's some truth to that, but most of the aces you find out there are first rounders for a reason. There's far more risk further down in the draft. I'll grant you that the risk for hitters is lower than pitchers, but I don't think that means you don't draft pitchers high, especially since good pitching prospects are the equivalent to precious metals in baseball.

I never said we did. I was addressing the idea that we shouldn't be drafting only hitters with our early picks due to excess risk. This has nothing to do with trading away a backup catcher, crying poor, or anything else. You've chosen to insert, yet again, your own pet issues into a conversation that has absolutely nothing to do with them. If you want to stir the pot, you're going to find yourself doing it somewhere else.

Yes, we got nothing of value recently for Butera, Doumitt, and Herrman. Oh, and TINSTAAPP certainly applies to any minor leaguer with the title "future ace." I've already been on record stating I'd do some things differently, but I'm really not sure what your point is given that the context I was specifically addressing is why I disagreed with the idea of not drafting any pitching in the early rounds of the draft.

Got it.... so he's being promoted on Thursday

Given that this is not a team with as deep of resources as the Cubs, I think not getting pitching in the early picks is just as risky as we won't be going out and handing out those 150MM ace contracts. I do think pitching and hitting should be mixed up, but refusing to draft a pitcher at #1 simply b/c of the risk smacks in the face of all that BPA talk I hear every day.

I like the premise behind this article. Not quite sure I can put everything down in a few minutes, but here's a start. I definitely want someone who continues emphasis on the scout/draft/develop side of things. I think the org as a whole probably needs a bit more work particularly on the development side, so if we are adding/removing staff, that would be side where I would likely start moving people and/or acquiring additional resources. On the money side, like it or not, it's going to be someone who can work under Pohlad's budget constraints, whatever those are exactly. I would like to see more creativity. If we need a 1/2 year deal, grab some upside/make good type contracts while using minor league FAs/AAAA guys in Rochester as filler in the event said guy gets traded, doesn't work out, or the prospect you want to fill the role isn't ready. Don't force a prospect up before he's ready. Please don't. We've seen enough of that of late to know that there's nothing but bad things that come out of that. I definitely want an executive that has an analytics bent. The team needs to modernize rather quick in that area. On drafting, honestly that really falls into a case by case scenario. I want someone who can be occasionally creative there, as there's a time when the org may say need higher risk higher ceiling HS guys, and has to draft someone underslot somewhere in order to maximize the return (this year is a really good example of that, whereas next year may not be). On international, this is probably the last year to go all in before a draft. I think the Twins should do this (though that will fall more on Ryan than whomever replaces him). I really don't care about player/offseason stuff. That really is governed by the CBA/players/coaches. Follow the rules, and make sure players do get an offseason. I do care about trades. I don't like trades for the sake of making them (we all saw how that worked with Bill Smith), but when there are guys that need to be traded, they get dealt. Terry Ryan is probably the opposite in that regard as he's not going to move someone unless he gets what he feels is appropriate value. The only obvious exception there is a bad contract like Nolasco. Either cut him or trade him at this point, and I don't care the value returned. I do care if they give up value to get rid of him. I like that (for the most part), but he ended up hanging on to guys like Tommy Milone, who was redundant, would have fetched something this offseason, and quite frankly was blocking better talent. On field staff for the short term needs to be able to develop talent. Young guys are coming up, and we need a staff that can manage that transition. I thought Molitor was a good fit there, but based on what I've observed this season, I don't see that. I don't want Gardy V2 here. We need an onfield staff that can be patient with rookie struggles. Also, we need a renewed emphasis on fundamentals. As for media, let's dump the passive aggressive stuff about players and the double standard that rookies/vets get. I do think there's value in trying to build from within, but there should be effort to occasionally bring from without. Both strategies to an extreme can be dangerous, but there is really good value in a hybrid approach.

And it costs 10 times as much

So they settle with 1?

I thought apartment life in downtown Chicago was pretty much the same thing... without the yard.

That one went right over your head.