Twins33

i think most people believe 85 wins isn't going to do it. And that was the thought before two AL teams added potentially big pieces. 85 wins doesn't do it in most years to begin with. So the Twins are going to have to add that pitching or be left behind. If the Twins don't add great pitching then I don't know what they're doing. Would seem like they don't want to win then. I want them to start winning now because the young core isn't getting any younger, but with your parameters, I'd say yes. It's the which players though. Santana, yes, unless he's pitching so well that his option vesting wouldn't be bad. Dozier, yes, unless he's already been extended. I'd also be fine with keeping him and giving him a QO. Gibson, yes (probably yes no matter what). I wouldn't do anyone else. This team can't win without better pitching. They need to knock about 100 runs off of their RA to compete with the big boys. Can they do that in one year? Might not be realistic, but I don't know. But they better start taking a big chunk out of it ASAP.

Correct. He also hasn't played any 1B yet in this org. I'd go year to year on Mauer, unless they go after Santana which I don't think they do.

We all obviously have nothing better to do, haha.

I don't know where to put this so I'm putting it here: http://www.startribune.com/twins-just-missed-on-coveted-baseball-prospect-kevin-maitan/462600173/ "Multiple sources have confirmed that the Twins were in the hunt for Maitan, considered the top international prospect in 2016 when he signed with the Braves in for $4.25 million. He's a switch hitting shortstop with a strong arm and good power potential. According to MLB.com, some early comparisons were to Miguel Sano. Maitan signed with the Angels for a reported $2.2 million. Indications are that the Twins offered significantly more than Los Angeles. But someone in Maitan's camp, either Maitan, his family, his agents or a combination of all of them, looked at the Twins farm system and decided to go elsewhere." There is also more words on the two new guys under the link.

i can't find the tweet, but I believe it was Wolfson who said that Marte came for a physical at the end of Sept and that is when he failed. And then later, I think in November, is when it was all of a sudden reported that the Twins had 3+ million and no one questioned why they had so much since they supposedly had signed Marte. Then it was reported that it was voided and someone said it was his vision.

The way I see it, the rotation is Santana, Berrios, open, open, open. I have no idea if the FO feels the same. So with possibly three spots open, there should be no worry about signing or trading for one guy. Gibson shouldn't be a lock. Mejia shouldn't be either. Hughes and May I expect nothing from. Anything is a bonus out of those two. Well, I should say anything good is a bonus. We've been worrying about the BP crunch for years now and those players keep getting hurt or are ineffective. Same thing can happen in the rotation. The Twins lost three guys from the MLB rotation last year, which is probably one too many to be prepared for, but there certainly wasn't a crunch last year. I don't think we have a problem yet. We just keep worrying about a possible problem. Improved health and pitching well would change that, but how often has that happened to the Twins in recent history? And someone like a Gibson shouldn't block a better pitcher if that situation presents itself. Based on how the season goes or how many pitchers are acquired Santana may not even be here for much longer either.

Which only brought them to a below .500 team once July was done. I still don't see how we can expect with certainty that this team would play .600 ball the rest of the season based on where they were and the pitching they had. And they only had one crazy month where they dominated, that was August. If they had played in August like the way most expected or as they had played in the first half (.500 ball or so), they miss the playoffs. They would barely miss it but still would have missed it. But then, again, you'd still have to be sure that the other teams would tank. They may have missed it by a lot more if that didn't happen. Fangraphs or not, this team was below .500 at the deadline and had to pass many teams. Some people on this board expected them to pass those teams but I don't think that's a fair expectation in most years. Most years that many teams don't falter. Yes, they should be smarter than any predictions/fangraphs but they don't have a crystal ball. Games aren't played on paper, we all agree on that. I just don't get the expectation that the easy teams are easy to beat. Any team can win on any given day even when they're terrible. If the Twins would have kept those players and missed the playoffs the conversation would likely be the very different: Why didn't we trade the free agents to be? Why do we always hang on to players for too long and watch them walk instead of getting something for them? That usually applies to players that are non-FA but I've seen it applied to both. I don't think Garcia contributes enough to completely change the outcome but I've never thought anything of him. Kintzler, might have helped more, but I'm ok with the trade. I'm ok with both of them.

To add I think the biggest problem we have is that we disagree with what contention is. The Twins were .485 with a negative 72 run differential. Granted 1-2 teams absolutely crushed us, but those are still the numbers. Of the AL teams ahead of us, only one had a negative run differential. It was the Royals at negative 1. To expect the Twins to completely turn that around and other teams to belly up is too high of an expectation, especially expecting/knowing both were going to happen.

The way I read this, is that with an easier schedule they were guaranteed to win those easier games. How can anyone assume that? I disagree because every team loses games they should actually be winning. There is no easy game in baseball. I don't care who's in the FO, I don't expect a team who's playing .485 to start playing .603 the rest of the way. Not with this rotation and bullpen certainly, even if you add back Garcia and Kintzler. It's great that they did, but to expect it like it's 100% guaranteed AND it's 100% guaranteed that every team ahead of you blows it? Seems a bit too crazy to expect. If the Twins had a great rotation and bullpen, then it seems more reasonable, but if they had those things I would guess they would have done better in the first half than they did. I don't think the FO deserves a grade one way or another yet. I'm fine with the incomplete someone gave them. I was completely fine with taking one year and seeing what you've got instead of firing and trading everyone like some wanted to do (not saying you're one of them because I don't know that). To me that seems perfectly normal and appropriate. It helped that the FA market wasn't good. I was fine with the deadline moves as well. I personally will be judging them from this offseason on.

Yes, they added and then subtracted but correct me if I'm wrong...at the time of the trade (Garcia and Kintzler), wasn't there only a four percent chance of making the playoffs? If there was, how can anyone call that contention? It's not even close. 50% can go either way. 4% you have to play way above and beyond what you have been AND have everyone else start playing worse or at least not add ground on you. They ended up doing that, but how can one be mad at a 4% chance? That run wasn't expected by anyone. If they didn't make the playoffs people would have thought they were crazy to not move those two and possibly Santana. They would have looked foolish for hanging on to the free agents to be, for sure. I'm perfectly fine with what they did because I didn't expect a miracle which is what 4% to 100% is with only 2-ish months to go and several teams to fight for the one open playoff spot. That was a miracle. I don't expect miracles and I'm surprised so many others do. I don't know what their percentage was when they acquired Garcia, so maybe that was a mistake and they corrected that mistake by getting rid of him when they had so little of a shot. So if people are upset about the quick pivot from adding to subtracting, I can understand that. But to think this team was a playoff contender when they only had a 4% chance, that confuses the heck out of me.

So you are going to assume the Twins talked to those three guys? I know TR kept things more quiet but I don't think he's so good that no one on the planet ever reported that the Twins talked to these players. Doesn't feel very likely especially when players love to use interested teams as leverage against each other. Certainly possible I suppose, but I don't think TR was a magician. It's way too hard to secretly talk to the best most talked about FA and never have the news leak. And to have it happen on multiple players? Those types of players always are the most watched/reported on until they sign. I think we all like results. I'd be surprised if someone said otherwise. If you really thought Ohtani was going to come here, then maybe you were fooled. If I had a choice of any team in MLB, the Twins wouldn't be my first choice either. And I'm from here and love the team. That's just how it is. It sucks. Until top players choose here and/or the Twins are a constant deep playoff contender that's how it's always going to be. Every team was going to try on Ohtani because he's not getting a big contract. Now if this was two years later and Ohtani was looking at a 200M contract then that's going to be limiting. We don't know what the Twins would have done then. I have a pretty strong feeling that TR wouldn't have gone after him because he didn't go after the other high priced foreign players (example: Matsuzaka posted at 51M and basically cost 100+ million to acquire). I didn't want him so I didn't care, but no surprise the Twins weren't near the top of the bidding. I don't even know if they bid at all. No idea what this FO would have done. I think everyone, except east coast biased people, believed he would prefer the west coast. It seemed rather obvious. It's closer to Japan and the weather is better. Maybe that's just an assumption too, like any other, but his list of teams that is now coming out sure is proving that to be true. And honestly, I'd take this FO way of going after guys by leaking the info or reporters finding out via digging. Why? Because at least we know. With TR, we didn't know. And honestly, like I said, since no reporter ever got a whiff of him going after top names...it feels safe to say that he never did. I do not think TR is that good where the player or agent never leak it or a reporter doesn't find out. We basically only have Castro as a measuring stick with this FO. They targeted him and got him. He's not a big fish obviously, but we knew of their interest in him and 2-3 weeks later he signed. We don't know how this offseason is going to play out, but personally I like to hear the names they are interested in. I prefer that to being in the dark. It's still up to the player if they want to come here.

I'd disagree on that. The "great" part at least. This is the first time I can recall the Twins being interested in a top SP available (Darvish). Never heard the Twins interested in Greinke, Price, or Scherzer when TR was the GM. Pretty confident that they never even talked to them at all. This is a change. They still may not get a Darvish and can pull the "we tried" thing (though this is a different FO), but no way TR would be talking to Darvish right now. This FO is. This is just my opinion but I'm not even sure TR would have went after Lynn this offseason if he was the GM. A Hellickson or Cashner seems more his top level.

Maybe Darvish loves Abe

This seems to bring truth to the rumor that he already has a top five since he's eliminating teams so quickly. Still many teams to drop, but that was the speculation out of Japan (though the Yankees were on that list so that part was wrong).

Twins out. Which I think most realistically expected

This wouldn't surprise me at all considering you don't have to fly over all or half of the US to get to Japan. My thought all along was the Mariners. And the Padres don't seem like too insane of a choice either since they have a top 5 farm system.

And Heyman with this:

Copy/pasting from another post I made: There is speculation going around out of Japan that he's already narrowed it down to five teams. https://twitter.com/devanaltman/status/937026619369230336 Not sure how true, link is from cubsinsider and the cubsinsider link includes the link to the Japanese article which supposedly says 5 teams. Anyone able to read Japanese? The Japanese article seems to suggest Padres, Yankees and Dodgers based on an image in the article. The other two are not known. Some are saying it's just his preferred choices and others think everyone else is already out of the running. Like I said it's all speculation, but if he signs rather quickly we may found out it was true. Then there is also this:https://twitter.com/cubs1611/status/936734985570091009 I don't watch MLB network and don't see that they've tweeted that. Just figured I'd pass that along too. Personally I'd trust the link from Japan before I would trust MLB network, but it could still be incorrect.

I'm on the side of keep him for now. If you get three starters in the offseason, then trade him. That is probably a less than 1% chance of happening. Look at it again mid-season depending upon how the team is doing. I don't expect him to be a Twin in 2019. Just a gut feeling.

i can see it both ways, it doesn't help that the last front office was so clingy to their players. I don't think they would have only protected three players in the rule 5. I don't think they would have removed Rosario or Tonkin. We don't yet know if this FO will be clingy to their own drafted players, but they don't seem to be with the previous FO players. If the Twins get Darvish and/or Ohtani or make a trade for a SP and they pitch well are people really going to complain that they are blocking Gonsalves or Littell? I know they will complain if the acquisition sucks, but you can't do anything about that except scout/analyze to the best of your ability and hope a player doesn't get hurt. If anyone is going to be blocking those two prospects it will likely be Gibson, Santana or Mejia. And they should have no problem ditching the first two for Gonsalves or Littell if needed. So this whole blocking thing shouldn't be an issue until three years or more from now since there is for sure one SP spot open now and could be 1-2 more depending on what they do with Santana/Gibson in the future. And it's hard to see what the pitching depth will be then since we don't even know what they'll be able to accomplish in the next couple of months. And just FYI, I'm not counting on May or Hughes in any of this. We don't know if they'll contribute anything meaningful or how soon they may be able to. Blocking may be the right word if the FO decides to not cut bait when it's obviously necessary but technically that's more mismanagement/stubbornness than a true block. At least that's my way of thinking about it. It's probably just semantics, but I can safely say that in my opinion no one was blocking Berrios and no one was blocking any one of the RP so the Twins have never had this problem. (Sorry about the Park thread hijack. I don't think the Park/Nishioka failures should stop them from going after Ohtani or any other Asian player)

We keep using the word "blocking" (I've done it too) but has a player ever actually been blocked? Berrios maybe, but that argument could go either way in my opinion. I was for him being up even earlier than he was, just for the record. Nolasco, Duffey and Gibson sure shouldn't have been blocking him as they were all terrible. That's the FO fault for not replacing one with Berrios sooner. They weren't blocking him by pitching well. And Berrios had a rough 2016, but I would have been fine with him taking his lumps over watching those other three. It's been said for 2-3 years now, we can't sign RP because we have all these stud RP prospects. Then they keep getting injured and we say the same thing the year after. It's a cycle that's happened for many years now. No one ended up being blocked. SP: Three SP (May, Hughes, Santiago) were lost to injury last year and another (Gibson) was terrible for a big chunk of time. No one in the rotation would have been blocked last year either. We keep worrying about players being blocked, but it seems like it never happens due to injury (mostly) or poor performance. I think we need to stop saying it and stop worrying about it until it actually happens. When it does happen, it's one of those "good problems to have." Too many healthy, good players is a good problem. The Twins haven't had that problem. I don't want to block say a Gonsalves either, but I also don't want to pretend like there won't be any injuries or any poor performances that he can replace. Both of those things are likely to happen. There's also the possibility that Santana and Gibson are not on the team by midseason or end of season.

Not exactly sure what you mean but you can lose as many guys as other teams are willing to take. There is no extra protection. So the Twins can lose every player they left unprotected, unless the other team returns them and the Twins want them back.

Right. I was just pointing it out in case you weren't aware. I think there are certain levels of seriousness of the injury, so maybe he'll be fine. There is small sample size of pitchers who have had the surgery, I think like five, and the results are bad. Personally I don't think the Dodgers are going to trade for a 2B again. They'll hope Forsythe is healthy and better in the regular season than he was last year. He did decently in the playoffs. Having a good 2B seems more like a luxury for them rather than a need. They won a lot of games without Forsythe's help.

Urias has the same injury as Johan Santana. I remember seeing reporters tweet that they fear his career may be over. Wish I could remember which reporters but it was mentioned during and after the season on twitter. So they may not be so clingy about him anymore.

Yes. A whole lot easier to convince a MN boy and a Wisconsin boy to come "home" so definitely yes.