Alex

Still missing the point. We're looking at it PREDICTIVELY. Which stats can be used to predict success (not guarantee it -- nothing does that)? You're picking those that are less predictable. Not to mention that I pointed out which pitchers played in the NL. My point with Correia is that he's terrible in the NL....Oh, and how did the shift work out for Jason Marquis? I'm not saying it can't work, but it's not an advantage, whereas going the other way is.

You've sort of made the point, though, that pitchers have little control over the actual win stat. Worley could pitch well enough that the Twins win 10 or more behind him. Part of the point, though, is that wins aren't all that predictive of next season, and predictive is what you want when going after FA. So, Marcum and Blanton should have better chances to put the Twins in situations to win games than Pelfrey or Correia. Which brings about the ultimate concern that the Twins aren't even looking at a stat that is now considered a vary basic indicator of future success in their hunt for FA pitching. Or they don't value it enough to pay for it.

Yeah, Correia could easily end up losing a ton of games because he gets crushed by AL hitters, and the fact that he doesn't get to face pitchers means he could strike out less than four batters per game.

Most people now use different stats than these to evaluate pitchers because they rely heavily on the defense behind the pitcher and are not as predictive as other numbers but I'd start with K/BB and K/9. Pitcher wins are, frankly, very outdated even though some still value them. Look at the massive difference in these numbers (most are from last season): Correia: 4.7 K/9, 1.93 K/BB (also, by the way, he pitches in the national league, failing to account for league is significant. This signing is likely colossal failure) Pelfrey: 4.9 K/9. 1.62 K/BB last full season (oh, national league, too) Worley: 7.2 K/9, 2.28 K/BB (again NL, but I think most of us like this acquisition -- but he also wasn't a FA signing) Marcum 7.9 K/9, 2.6 K/BB (NL) Blanton 7.8 K/9, 4.9 K/BB (NL) McCarthy 5.9 K/9 3.0 K/BB BTW, Scott Diamond :4.6 K/9, 2.27 K/BB a lot of people wonder if he'll be able to sustain the success he had last season with those kinds of numbers. It's probably possible, but unlikely and rare. See the difference? Even McCarthy has significantly better ratios than either of the FA pitchers we picked up. Hard to tell with Harden but that's a nice high risk/high reward signing -- not a satisfying one. There's a huge difference in the talent of the two groups. IE, the pitchers some of us wanted and the pitchers the Twins signed in FA.

I think very few people are complaining about the fact that they haven't added bats (even if an argument could be made for one up the middle) or even relief pitching. Fine. However to say that they didn't sign at least one decent starting pitcher so they can see what Liam Hendriks or Cole Devries can do is a bit of a stretch isn't it? Especially when like so many arguments here, you can refute it with "Keven Correia." It's what I don't get at all about the signing. If they're throwing in the towel, they might as well have saved $9M and let Devries/Deduno/Hendriks,et all pitch the next two years. It's the same with any discussion here for those saying the Twins shouldn't spend more money because it won't help them. They're throwing $10M at Correia. Was there a worse overpayment for pitching this offseason?

Following this discussion on twitter and here I think Nick has been dead on while it's frustrating to see Mackey and others apologize and make excuses. You can both go after some free agents and rebuild for 2014. Heck, the right free agents will help you in 2014 even if you had to offer them 2 year deals. It's not like the pitching picture is going to have 5 rotation spots solved by then is it? 2-3, four if we're lucky but of Worley, Gibson, May, Meyer, Hendricks, not all of them are going to pan out. The argument that people want to spend money just to spend money is as ridiculous as low payroll = success. You can develop from within and sign FA and *gasp* have a better team and, as teams proved last season you can spend or not and still have a good team. Did anyone notice that the Nationals' payroll is over $100M this upcoming season, btw? Are people like Phil Mackey going to argue that they'll be worse because of it and shouldn't have spent it? Seriously?

With regard to #3, I'd think you could argue that not being willing to pay for something, especially when you have the money and it's their biggest need, is precisely the definition of not seeing value in it, ergo not understanding how important it is to a successful pitcher. If you think it is important, you pay for it. Their obsession with supposed inning eaters and their willingness to pay them is even more evidence to me that what they value in pitchers is misplaced.

They focused on pitchers who don't give up walks. That's important, obviously, but the important part of the ratio is the K part. This offseason was the first time they've tried to add prospects that have the potential to strike out batters. At the major league level, though, they continue to add pitchers that have some of the worst K/9 in the game. Worley may be the exception.

The fact that they've gotten so far away from it shows that they don't quite get which part of the equation is the important one, or for that matter, that they even realized what they had.

Probably not smart from a business perpective to put junk on the field for possibly the third season in a row either. Worst rotation in the league by a longshot last year...I'd call it necessary.

Brock's last couple of posts have been on the money...

I'd also be shocked if they win 75 with things as they stand, but to answer your question, maybe. But assuming you are correct that the current team wins 75 games, $10M could get them more than 5 wins. They could get around 7 if they spend as "well" as they did last year. The Twins paid $1.43M per win last season (bottom 7 in the league). That would put them at .500 (based on the above scenario). I'd certainly respect that. However, I actually think they are using their money less wisely this year and could lose more games, again, if things stay as they are.

I wouldn't mind this if this were in evidence by most of their moves. However, last year's presented a number of red flags in this area from the Jason Marquis signing (and now Correia) evaluation of players using spring training numbers (ex. Jeff Gray)....

Before the offseason, I'd have said that they should move him just for the salary and spend it on starting pitching. Since it looks like they're not really going to target interesting free agents, then unless they get a prospect back, I'd be disappointed if they traded him.

It bugged me that Ryan quoted his win totals in another article.

Can I get any props please? I'm not convinced you aren't Terry Ryan with that prediction...

He did not have balk in 2012. The new moneyball. Sorry, it's all I got...seems like we could have given someone from last year these innings. Or maybe Aaron Hicks. Or Drew Butera.

Every player is a different case. Benson had major strike zone control issues that made him a more questionable bet than Hicks to acclimate quickly to the majors. Dozier is a bad example, because he was never a top prospect -- arguably not even a very good prospect. You mention that the Twins haven't had success calling guys up directly from Double-A, but really they haven't had much success recently calling up players from anywhere. They just haven't developed a lot of good hitters lately. Guys are generally going to take a while to adjust to big-league competition regardless of which level they come from (see Plouffe, who had played 3 years in Triple-A and still struggled mightily as a rook). But the best way to learn to hit major-league pitching is to face major-league pitching. As much as people crap on the team's decision to bring Parmelee up directly from Double-A, who's to say his immense success at Rochester wasn't related to that experience? Either you hack it in the bigs, or you figure out what you need to work on, and that -- to me -- is the purpose of Triple-A. I completely agree with what you're saying about each player is an individual, and I'm not saying he should wallow in AAA. ML at-bats would be good for him, but handing him the starting job could be setting him up for failure. Regardless of whether or not Dozier was a top prospect (and I agree that's a big difference), he hit very well at AA and it sounded like they thought he was ready from a scouting perspective. He was older at the time, and one would have thought that would have allowed him to handle it, maturity wise. Good point about the Twins not really having success bringing anyone up from anywhere. It's a fair point though they've had more that stuck after a stint in AAA than directly. Whether or not that works for Hicks, who knows, but it's hard for me to trust the Twins judgement about a player being ready. They haven't talked about it with regard to Hicks, but moving Revere would indicate that. You mentioned that Hicks was more ready defensively, but I'm curious what is it that makes you so confident he's ML ready? Is it the single season in AA, his change in mechanics, the top prospect status he once had where he now gained ground again, or something else you've heard? Would you promote Arcia as well, too?

Fair enough., and I agree it was extreme, but I was referring the idea of what "best player in the organization" means especially in reference to major league ready (IE just because he might be the best CF prospect they have doesn't mean he's MLB ready). Prospect ranking is nice, but I'd like to see more evidence, personally. I'd just like to be convinced that he's ready by more than one season in AA. It's way too much like the Dozier argument (and no he wasn't a top prospect either) to me, but calling guys up from AA hasn't worked well for the Twins. Edit: A lot of people said the same thing about Benson after he played well in AA.

I'm not convinced Hicks is the "best" player or major league ready. Last year's injuries forced the Twins to put their "best" starters on the mound. How did that work? Their "best" starters were the ones that were hurt all season (Pavano and Baker), and the ones that they were counting on that were just plain terrible (Blackburn, Liriano, Marquis). Other than Hendriks, none of the other pitchers the Twins rolled out there were considered to be prospects. "Best" starters is relative considering the dearth of starting pitching depth. If the Twins dipped down to AA or even High-A last year for starters the results couldn't have been much worse. I actually think they could have. That's the point. "Best" is relative (even to injuries). They dipped down to AA for a SS, who had a similar season in AA to Hicks, that didn't work out either. As I pointed out in a previous post, the Twins have actually had very little success evaluating players in AA as major league ready in recent years and there's really no good reason to call Hicks up at this point.

I'm not convinced Hicks is the "best" player or major league ready. Last year's injuries forced the Twins to put their "best" starters on the mound. How did that work?

Of those on the list, I think the only one who was promoted from AA and "stuck" and that's Mauer. Revere spent plenty of time in AAA before becoming a "permanent" MLB player, and I assume he'll . Parmelee was sent back down to crush AAA before being called back up this season and while he should be able to stick around that remains to be proven. Benson got his first taste of the majors from AA but was that was just for roster expansion and he's struggled in the minors ever since. Dozier actually started in AAA before he proved what many of us said, that he wasn't ML worthy yet. So, of that list, only Mauer, one of the top 3-4 hitters this organization has ever seen, stuck from AA. I'm not sure Hicks is in the same category and I hope we don't see what happened to Dozier, a shattering of confidence happen to him.

They might believe it but I don't. Revere was clearly ML ready when he was called up. Parmelee was 24 and had to go back to AAA before getting what looks like a more permanent call-up, and we know how things went with Dozier, where they predicted his success based on AA numbers. Parmelee and Revere both showed success at AAA. If anything the Gomez comparison should be cause for hesitation. Hicks may be ready, but he should spend at least some time in AAA to make sure.

I don't understand why people think Hicks is MLB ready. He had a good season at AA, which is great to see and more positive than not, but that is all. This seems a bit like the Dozier movement last year.

The problem as I see it is they need a 4th OF that can play CF. You don't want Hicks there, so if Mastro starts, they need someone else.