KirbyDome89

I'm totally uninterested in minor league movement and reshuffling prospect rankings in the system. Did they contribute at the major league level, and if so, how much? Ryan wasn't a prospect. People need to stop acting like the Twins didn't trade for a MLB ready starter and plug him into the rotation. Great trade, not a product of the Twins system. This. Team. Did. Not. Develop. Joe. Ryan. The only thing Ober established is that his injury issues are always going to be a concern. He threw a whopping 56 innings and missed 4 months. Jax and Duran each ended up having pretty nice (great in the case of Duran) seasons. Winder with his 4.70 ERA and inability generate Ks looked legit? He's also been on the IL 3 times in the last year with shoulder issues. Ditto for Varland, he started 5 games, he's a total question mark going into next year. Megill? He was flat out unusable at times. Henriquez was battered as a starter in AAA, he threw 11 innings for the Twins, and now the hope is he has some utility in the bullpen. You're reaching so far on some of this. The Twins didn't have a single young pitcher graduate and hold onto a spot on the major league staff. Not one. We saw Chi Chi Gonzalez making starts near mid season, and Aaron Sanchez making starts in August & September when this club was trying to hold on atop the division. They also spent the trade deadline trying to plug pitching holes; that doesn't happen if the Twins had this supposed wealth of players establishing themselves.

Jim Pohlad has never been a hands on owner. Hell, it took a Total System Failure in 2016 to move on from a miserable TR reunion. He sets the payroll and that's it. If you want to bitch about how much this team is spending relative to revenue, go for it (and you might be right) but the FO controls every decision regarding personnel on and off the field.

This entire post could be a copy paste from the same time last year. 2022 was supposedly the development year, and very little of that happened, yet here we are, talking about "next year," and "potential."

Having a process is not the same as having a good process. No, Bailey Ober, Louie Varland, and David Festa have not broken through.

The same thing was said about Colome last year when his potential return was being floated about. You're right, move on, the payoff is minimal. He can be another team's reclamation project and their fans can be beaten over the head with redemption arc write ups that laud his "stuff."

The fact that we're using Gordon as a comp at all is pretty damning no?

Chefs kiss.

We're trying so hard to pin blame anywhere other than where it most obviously belongs. Team doctors operate the same as general physicians or specialists you and I see. To the best of their abilities they'll provide a diagnosis, recommend treatment options, and/or a referral. What anyone chooses to do with that information is up to them, i.e. the team doctors can tell the player and organization what they believe the issue is, they can provide multiple treatment routes, and they can be open and honest about which they recommend and why, but ultimately, the decision about playing time and the route moving forward is up to the player and those in charge. If Tyler Mahle for example, says he feels alright, and wants to pitch, and the FO is ok with taking that risk, he's going to pitch. Doctors are conservative out of necessity. If we're blaming the team medical staff for the injury issues, we're talking about an all time awful group of physicians, like lose your license to practice type of bad.

I really wish I had that kind of optimistic outlook, but if/when that day comes I certainly will enjoy following this team more than the last few years.

I'll take that top 5-7 staff bet right now I think trading arms because you can't get your AA or AAA arms to stick in the majors is scary, not successful. That rotation is the same one that torpedoed this year, except we've replaced Balazovic with SWR. 2 guys post TJ, one of whom won't be able to pitch for half the year, 3 guys with major injury concerns, Ryan, Gray, and the "pipeline." It feels like shuffling chairs on the deck of a sinking ship ya know?

I get what you're saying, and I concur, this season isn't just on the pipeline. Pagan and other bullpen cast offs, Bundy, Archer, Sanchez, ect all did their damage. We disagree on the "when they were," aspect of the utilization. If you have guys that are "more than effective," you're not trotting Archer out to melt down in 3-4 innings and burn out an already overmatched pen, you're not sticking with Bundy and his 5+ ERA at the end of July, and you're not trading for a SP in an attempt to stabilize a rotation that's in a tailspin. All of these things don't happen if the pipeline can be utilized as effectively as you've made it seem. One of them? Sure, maybe even two if we want to say Mahle was front end insurance, but in my mind it makes no sense to bemoan back end performance when there wasn't a single pipeline arm that could successfully fill either spot.

Preseason projections from 6 months ago, prior to the Twins having an 11 game cushion, and the division being an absolute dumpster fire, are irrelevant. It was in the post game thread last night, the Twins are 46-61 since May 24th. That's 90+ loss baseball for 4 months... A shakeup of mid to low level staffers is just scapegoating.

On the cusp of what? If you're trading prospect arms, because you're unable to graduate others is that really a success?

This needs to be pinned in every discussion where preseason projections are brought up.

I guess I don't see the distinction between "depth," and "banking on X pitcher to wrestle away innings." We know, whether it's injury or ineffectiveness, nobody makes it through a season with 5-6 starters. In the case of Bundy and Archer it was the latter, yet they were/are rotation stalwarts because there wasn't a single pipeline arm that could usurp them. To me, that's where introducing the term failure becomes appropriate.

Winder and Ober combined for roughly 100 IPs this year. Depending on how you want to cut it, that's somewhere between 12-15% of the starter innings. Isn't it just as easy to spin it the other way and say their lack of contribution is caused this team to sink? I'm not saying it was a sound strategy, but clearly the FO was banking on these two and others to step in and wrestle away innings from guys like Bundy or Archer.

Winder has a 5.19 FIP and has been shut down twice this season with a shoulder issue. That's a success?

What FA pitchers are turning down larger offers from the Twins to pitch elsewhere? Honestly, can you name a single instance where that has happened? Why perpetuate such an obviously false narrative?

"Those who constantly advocate for these types of assertive showings from the front office now sound rather toothless when criticizing them in hindsight. While we can all see the overall results have been unsatisfactory – albeit hardly disastrous for a reigning last-place team – this front office was audacious in shaking things up. Isn't that what we want?" The FO put the team, and themselves, in a horrible spot during the first half with injured starters, short outings, failed prospect development, and the worst bullpen in the league. Framing the failed deadline moves as "isn't this what we want?" is totally disingenuous. But hey, they tried, so no robust criticism to be found there... Also, it's weird that last year has now become the measuring stick.

Can we talk about how bad Jorge Lopez has been? Since coming over he has literally been the same guy Baltimore gave up on as a starter, except now he's imploding from the pen. From an opposing fan perspective the hissy fits on the mound have to be hilarious, from a Twins fan perspective they're also hilarious, but in a sad kind of way. Are we still happy/comfortable with him being locked into a pen spot next year? Yeesh....

The Twins had a share of 1st place just 2 weeks ago. Cleveland had lost 5 straight, and the Sox continued to be the Sox. Broken clocks being right twice a day yada yada, I believe the primary argument for the Twins hanging on was the general weakness of the division. I don't think that's has changed. The Twins have played like a 70 win team rather than an 80 win one the last few weeks and it has likely closed the door on them, but I don't recall that being prognosticated. If the over/under on Ws in 7 games against Cleveland in September was set at 1.5 were you taking the under in June, July, or even August?

I think it's easier to find multi inning pen arms than starters who can consistently go 6-7 innings. The Twins had the worst bullpen in baseball entering the trade deadline. Golf clap for getting a couple arms but to me that's isn't decent strategy. I'm not near as bullish on Alcala or Lopez either. They've set themselves up for failure with the turn and burn strategy without an actual top end of the pen.

It's almost certainly the former and the players might be too much of that big voice as well. Like any data point, medical info is all about how you're using it. I'd be shocked if any MD was comfortable/happy with their professional acumen being called into question just to squeeze a few extra weeks out of a clearly injured (insert player here.) I'd add bullpen construction to the list of adjustments the FO refuses to make. Their FA signings flopped and the castoffs performed like castoffs last year, but I guess second time was the charm right? Nope, for the second season in a row the pen is a major issue, and worst of all it's probably the easiest thing to fix.

I don't care how wiggle room placing "any," in front of culpability does or doesn't buy you, that's not really the point. The issue is we're papering over what has clearly been poor decision making with hyperbole and this woe is me list of injured players. The best part is nobody had to be Nostradamus to be anxious about the pitching coming into this season, but speaking of seeing into the future, aren't you using theoretical WAR to argue how much value the Twins lost to the IL? Interesting... There's a seismic shift; they're in 3rd place in the worst division in baseball, but not technically eliminated so I guess there's that. Gold star.

"I don't see much of a case for holding the manager or even the front office primarily accountable for what's gone down this season." Audibly laughed out loud at this. I mean yeah, can't be the fault of a FO who constructed a makeshift bullpen, placed immense importance on a "pipeline," that has failed spectacularly, signed two bargain bin starters prone to short outings that further exacerbated the already terrible pen situation, and traded for two more injured starters. Oh, and don't forget, we're still watching Emilio Pagan, the worst relief pitcher in baseball, trot out there and give up runs in crucial games while this team hangs on by a thread. Definitely not much of a case for holding that group accountable. Zero chance any of that has contributed to this being a sub .500 teams for the last 4 months right? The above poster is correct, this is high level cringe.... Lewis and Kirilloff: Losing Kirilloff sucks, no question. We're lacking a ton of context with Lewis. Coming into this year he hadn't played since 2019, and he wasn't exactly stellar in A ball that year. There were real questions about him. The Twins weren't banking on him, hence the Correa signing. It's a bummer he injured the ACL again, and he was hitting the s*** outta the ball before getting sent down, but when the season started this team didn't need or maybe expect Royce Lewis to come up and play the way he did. Mahle and Paddack: They traded for broken parts, not once, but twice within 4 months. That's not aww shucks bad luck. It just isn't. Buxton: He's never going to play a full season. We knew it before the year started. It's why the 4th OF topic was a hot debate. He basically made it to September before having to shut it down. We can quibble over how his playing time was handled, but you already said it, second most PAs of his career. We take that every time. Jeffers and Larnach: Jeffers was bottom tier offensively, even by catching standards and he was even worse than Sanchez at stopping the run game. Would I take him over Leon? Yeah, but that's a pretty low hurdle. He's ideally the short side of a catching split, i.e. a backup catcher. Larnach has been so streaky, Idk which version the Twins would've gotten, but yep, I'd definitely prefer watching him to Cave or Garlick. Winder and Ober: No clear red flags? Are we actually serious with this? Both ended last year on the IL, Winder with his shoulder issue that's now flared up 3 times in less than a year and Ober with a hip injury that I imagine is linked to the groin issue that's cost him most of this year. Ober also hasn't been able to stay healthy enough to handle even modest workloads 4 professional seasons now.... Alcala and Canterino: Canterino threw 23 innings in the low minors before missing the rest of the year. Zero chance he was supposed to be relied on. Alcala had a nice September last year, he was borderline unusable through July. We act like he was a solid set up guy, the reality is he was a question mark even if fully healthy. Coulombe, Stashak, Romero, Dobnak, and Maeda: Maeda was injured last August, they knew what his status was heading into the offseason. The rest are AAAA, waiver claim, minor league contract guys. Just stop with this nonsense.