Eris

From my perspective, the situation is worse than the list implies because it does not consider players who were released. RA Dickey (signed by the Mets and after a Cy Young year traded for Syndergard and Travis d'Arnaud). You will find threads on TD trying to address acquiring front line starters and what to do about the catching position. Pat Neshek pitched well for the Astros this year. Chris Colabella would have been great at DH (before Sano). I realize the situation with Colabella is slightly complicated because of his injury last April and his high BABIP, however keeping Doug Bernier on the 40 man roster and releasing Colabella made little sense for a last place team. Also, Sean Gilmartin pitched very well for the Mets after being selected in Rule 5 draft. The Mets, who have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball were picking from an organization with one of the worst MLB pitching staffs. The implication here is the Twins are doing a poor job of evaluating talent. Do the Twins have any commitment to sabermetric analysis? I think we have alot to learn from the Cardinals and Houston in that category. David

I came across this article that discusses the Twins futility in obtaining talent from outside the organization. I have not seen it referenced here. There have been a number of threads this years that touched on a similar theme. "There are two ways to build a baseball team, and the Twins are not good at one of them" written by Bryan Grosnick on SB Nation http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2015/10/9/9337965/minnesota-twins-good-at-drafting-and-developing-bad-at-everything-else

It is also likely that the Twins knew that Perkins was hurt as his performance nose-dived after the All-Star break.

In part, the Twins are doing this by playing better defense. In 2014 their team DRS was -73, 2nd worst in the majors. This year it is -10 (ranked 20th). Still not great, but that is a 63 run differential. The data is from Fangraphs. This should translate into a better record in close games (but I don't know how to find that data). With DRS the worst players on the Twins are D. Santana (-15 and no longer playing regularly at SS), Hunter (-8) and Dozier (-7). The DRS on Dozier doesn't match the eye test as he seems better than a slightly below average defensive 2nd basemen.

Last November the Yankees traded Francisco Cervelli to the Pittsburgh Pirates for left-handed relief pitcher Justin Wilson. Wilson is slightly better than a lefty only specialist appearing in 64 games (50 innings with a 3.20 ERA and 1.18 WHIP). Yes the Pirates got lucky in that Cervelli is having a career year, but decent back-up catchers are not that expensive.

Your comments reminded me of Jim Hoey (acquired from Baltimore in the J.J. Hardy trade). 98 mph fastball and a very good splitter. Like Pelfrey, his problem was poor control. Most MLB hitters can hit a good pitch if it is in their zone. A splitter that starts above the knees and drops to the ankles is almost unhittable. One that starts at the letters and drops to the waist, down the middle of the plate--well that can be hit along way. At the beginning to the season, Pelfrey did a great job putting his splitter on the outside edge of the plate (to left handed batters) and this pitch would drop down and outside. At that location, it was an almost unhittable pitch (If I remember correctly, there is a video breakdown of this pitch someplace on TD). Also, being behind in a count would lessen a pitchers willingness to throw a splitter, and Pelfrey always seems to be behind in his counts. It is almost painful to watch him. Link to article on Hoey: http://www.twincities.com/golf/ci_17417340

The Twins signed 16-year-old Dominican shortstop Wander Javier for about $4 million this past July. How does that fit into this discussion? Reality is that most GMs make both good and bad decisions and sometimes they are just lucky. Andy MacPhail was given a lot of credit for the success of the Twins two WS championship teams, but the core of the team was drafted by Howard Fox. The greatest failures of the Twins organization, which is shared by both Smith and Ryan has to do with the inability to draft and develop top tier pitchers.

Maybe. The best chance to win is to put your best players on the field. We have been seeing a lot more of Plouffe at 1st base during the past month. This is a indication that Molitor sees what we all see--Plouffe is a superior first baseman to Mauer. Moving forward, baring a significant increase in Mauer's performance, I would expect to see a lot more of Plouffe or Sano or maybe Kepler (next year) at first and Mauer at DH. The contract is sunk cost and should not guarantee Mauer playing time, especially if there are better first basemen on the team.

I would not trade Trevor Plouffe. This year he has been the second best player on the team (maybe third if you project out Sano to the end of the season). Additionally, his BABIP is 0.282 -- meaning he has not been especially lucky. He is the Twins best defensive player at 3rd base and at 1st base. In addition, he is a good character guy with a strong work ethic. The Twins have struggled for years (probably since Cory Koskie) to find an above average defensive 3rd baseman. Sano has not really played enough innings to judge his value as a defensive 3rd baseman. I would either play Sano at 3rd with Plouffe at 1st. Or convert Sano to a first baseman and play Plouffe at 3rd. Looking at positions of need, would the Nationals trade Ramos or the Padres trade Norris for Plouffe (insert other catchers of interest)? I think the answer is no and so other prospects such as Berrios or Kepler would need to be included in such a transaction.

Similar decisions have happened before. Les Straker in game 6 of the 1987 WS is an example. Sometimes teams are in a situation where all they can do is pray and hope for the best.

The last 2 games with Baltimore were won by the Twins by 1 run. As I was listening to the games I was expecting a defensive substitution in the 8th but especially the 9th inning, with Shane Robinson playing in RF or Rosario moving to RF and Robinson in LF. Both games ended with Tori Hunter in RF. Shane Robinson did pinch hit for Mauer in Thursday's 15-2 blow-out. This does not seem to be good defensive game management by Molitor. Am I missing something here?

From Fangraphs. For the 2014-2015 seasons Escobar has played 1072 innings (~120 games) at SS. His ranking is among SS with 500 PA or 1000 innings is 18th (of 37 qualifiying) WAR (2.5) 19th (of 33) in DRS (-5) 9th (of 33) in UZR/150 (4.3) This about league average, maybe just a touch below which would suggest that with Escobar at SS this is not the Twins greatest area of need.

Berrios is not on the 40 man roster and does not need to be put on the 40 man roster at the end of the season. By bringing him up to pitch a few games, one less person can be protected on the 40 man roster and subject to the rule 5 draft. This has been discussed elsewhere on TD.

At least two people have commented on the McCann home run on the 0-2 count last night. It seems that Twins give up a significant number of home runs on favorable pitching counts. (This is just my gut instinct here, it could be this opinion could also be due to remembering these instances more because of the negative emotion that giving up and 0-2 HR creates). Is this a parameter that one of the sabermetricians on this board could look at? On an 0-2 count, McCann should have been wiping the dirt off his fanny after the pitch. I just don't see that enough from the Twins pitchers.

That part is correct. Depending on which defensive metrics that are used hunter is the 7th (UZR/150) or 11th (DRS) ranked outfielder on the Twins. He should not be taking future playing time away from Buxton or Kepler or maybe even Shane Robinson. There is a different part of this discussion which is about the importance of values and leadership in an organization. From this perspective, Hunter has brought value to the Twins. There are many examples in baseball of acquisitions made based on character and leadership. Examples include Don Baylor, Raul Ibanez and Jim Thome. Mariano Riveria indicated that he would take the hard working Pedroia over the the very talented but lackadaisical Robinson Cano on his team.(http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/10889846/mariano-rivera-dustin-pedroia-preferable-second-base-robinson-cano). The Yankees made little effort to sign Cano as free agent. Hunter has value as a leader for the Twins. I would like to see this contribution continue preferably as a coach. Would I trade Max Kepler to make room for Tori Hunter on the roster? Absolutely not.

I can only speak for myself. Having worked for 3 multinational organizations, values (organizational and individual) and corporate culture are probably the most important attributes contributing to the success of an organization. I can't imagine why a baseball team would be different. What are the expectations and values players have? Is it OK to be out drinking at 4:00 a.m. before any game including 163 (OK, the Twins benefited from this). If you are a potential future power hitter, but are a lousy outfielder (Arcia) do you take extra fielding practice to improve your game. If the shift is killing your batting average, can you learn to hit to the opposite field? Hard work and dedication are probably more important than ever in modern baseball. The digitization of everything means that players weakness's are more easily discovered and disseminated. To overcome this, players have to make continuous improvements in their game. The history of baseball (and sports in general) is full of talented people and teams who never lived up to their potential and others who have exceeded all expectations. What normally separates these players is work ethic and values. As it relates to the Twins, the Twins-way of the Tom Kelley era seems to have been lost in the organization. Although I think that is now changing with people like Doug Mientkiewicz and Molitor playing a significant role in this. An article about the 2011 Red Sox (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/sports/baseball/red-sox-off-season-consumed-by-fried-chicken-and-beer.html?_r=0) attributes their late season collapse to poor work ethic and a bad culture. Whether coincidental or not, all these players are gone from the team. Here is an article about the current Red Sox team attributing their difficult year to the poor character of Sandovol and Rameriz (http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/boston-red-sox-pablo-sandoval-hanley-ramirez-trade-ken-rosenthal-061915).

Better players do not equal better mentors. Hunter's leadership and work ethic was well known and the team lacked good leadership and players had become accustomed to losing. Bringing Hunter back was the right decision and a great signing. The Twins were also competing with the Royals for Hunter (http://www.kansascity.com/sports/mlb/kansas-city-royals/article4251917.html). For next year, they should offer Tori a position as a coach or in the front office. However, if Tori wants to play an additional year, a team desiring veteran leadership will be willing to sign him. We need to remember that many of these young players are in there very early 20's and can be easily influenced both positively and negatively by who they hang out with every day.

I look forward to seeing the Twins prospects develop. It is one of the factors that has kept me watching the Twins the past 4 years. I think trading any of the Twins top prospects (long term benefit with risk of not living up to potential) for a current Ace (#1) pitcher (short term benefit) unless we pay big $$$ to lock him up to a long term contract is probably not the best move at this time. It might be a worthwhile trade if that one Ace pitcher meant the difference between being a World Series contender or being one and done in the playoffs. The Twins have too many holes (C, SS, SP) to trade 6+ years of Buxton for 1 or 2 years of an Ace pitcher. Also as a previous post mentioned, the risk for pitchers having a career ending injury is much greater. Several examples from the past. How did trading our #2 prospect for a closer in 2010 work out for the Twins? Capps was 16 for 18 in save situations with a 2.0 ERA in 2010. Would you feel better about the trade if Capps could have held down the closers role for 2 or 3 more years. The Twins would have still been a bad team in 2011-2014. (OK, this is not the best example because the Twins future outfield is a position of strength, but I doubt that trading Hick's (who would assume the future CF duties if Buxton were traded) would land anything close to a top of the rotation SP). In December of 2010, Kanas City traded Zack Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt to the Milwaukee Brewers for Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, Jeremy Jeffress, and Jake Odorizzi. The catalyst for this trade was that Greinke was unhappy playing for a loser (you can read about this at: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article2694012.html). The Brewers had 2 years of Geinke. Cain and Escobar are under KC control through 2017. For whatever reason, the Twins have seemed to be on the short end of too many trades in recent years. (Ramos, Santana, Revere, Span, Hardy). What is this a reflection of? Poor scouting? Poor GM? Being in the managers doghouse? Part of the discussion is about time frame. Trading top prospects now enhances the opportunity for 2016 and 2017, but reduces longer term competitiveness. I think it will take a couple of more years before this team really puts it together (similar to the '82 Twins). I would not be making any significant trades until then (although I would have like to see Pelfrey, Duensing and others who won't be on the roster next year traded at the deadline for whatever prospects could be obtained).

I don't like the idea of trading either Plouffe or Dozier. In addition to being the two (or close to it) most productive players on the team this year. Both work hard and hustle. These are the type of individuals that you want to build a team culture around. This is especially true with the significant number of young prospects that will be one the Twins major league roster in the next year or two. Character matters.

A 90+ win roster could be different from an advance to the World Series roster. Where the Twins are losing ground is in the arms race. They are well behind many teams on top of the line starting pitching and until they develop or acquire at least 2 front line starters they probably will not go far in the playoffs unless they are very lucky. With regards to the current glut of average pitchers, the Twins have been a bad team over the last 4 years and as a consequence needed to over pay for average FA talent. Why else would any FA want to come to a losing team. Now that they are turning the corner they ability to attract FA will be improved.

Fangraphs has Nunez as the only Twins shortstop with a positive UZR for this year. Some off these numbers are skewed by limited playing time. Nunez has been the best shortstop both offensively and defensively for the Twins this year and should be getting more playing time at SS. He is only 28 and at an earlier point in his life was considered Jeter's replacement. With the exception of 2011/12 when both Jeter and A-rod were hurt, he has had very little playing time with that split between 3B (1/3)and SS (2/3). He has always been a decent hitter. # Name Inn DRS UZR/150 Def WAR 1 Eduardo Nunez 103 0 9.7 1.2 0.7 2 Jorge Polanco 9 0 -31 -0.2 0 3 Eduardo Escobar 152.1 0 -14.5 -0.8 0.50 4 Danny Santana 489.1 -10 -9.2 -1.7 -1.0

I also agree with you. Even if the Twins were to make it into the playoffs, they probably don't have the hitting or pitching to go very far. The Twins should be serious sellers. Anyone who will not be considered part of this team in 2 or 3 years should be gone by the trade deadline, or at least offered up, to make room for the prospects. Pelfey for a top catching prospect, with how he is pitching right now might be doable.

I am not sure about comparable, but the earliest case that I recall reading about was that of Pete Reiser (Brooklyn Dodgers). You can read about him here http://www.thisgreatgame.com/1942-baseball-history.html (about 2/3 of the way down the page). Corie Koskie never played again following his 2006 concussion. We are all familiar with Justin Morneau's struggles and this might be the best comparison to Joe Mauer's current situation. Although this comparison is rudimentary, Morneau's BA dropped from about 0.320 to about 0.260 (20% decline) and SLG fell from slightly greater than 500 to 440 (slightly more than a 10% decline). Mauer's loss in production is very similar, his BA has dropped from about slightly more than 0.320 to 0.260 (about 20%) and his slugging has fallen from 470 to about 360 (slightly more than 20%). One aspect to keep in mind is that Joe Mauer played football in high school and it is possible that he experienced concussions predating his years with the Twins and this could effect the severity of any additional concussions. The impact of any of this is unknown, but what we know is that after his concussion the Twins moved quickly to get him out from behind the plate and that his hitting skills declined significantly.

I do not understand the fascination with Troy Tulowitzki. He is at best, having an average year at shortstop. From Fangraphs. DRS =-2 (17th), UZR/150 = -8.7 (19th) and WAR =0.6 (14th). For comparison, Danny Santana DRS = -9 (29th), UZR/150 = -13.5 (22nd) and WAR=-0.8 (22nd). Yes, he represents an improvement over the Twins current options, but is not worth giving away part of the farm, especially considering his salary. I would much rather the Twins bring up Polanco than make a trade for an average shortstop.

Shooter Hunt. Maybe. I am not really sure what his issues were, but his walks zoomed out of control. I would also say that his control was never great to begin with. He started off OK but not great. 3.86 BB/9 at Tulane. 5.9 BB/9 in 2008 and ~ 16 BB/9 in 2009. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=hunt--001sho CAREER NOTES: Two-time first-team All-Conference USA selection...originally enrolled as a pitcher/catcher at the University of Virginia before transferring to Tulane in the summer of 2006...in two seasons with the Green Wave, posted a combined 15-10 record, a 2.65 ERA and a .204 opponent batting average...started 31 of the 32 games he appeared in during his Tulane career, during which time he posted a 10.33 strikeout-per-nine-inning average and a 2.67 strikeout-to-walk ratio after fanning 230 batters and walking just 86 in 200.1 innings of work...