The Twins are in a tough place. I cannot believe they will pay the price, plus the premium to get Darvish to come to the tundra. So that leaves trades. I thought they were of the right mindset trying to trade Dozier, and can't believe they could not get someone to give them enough to pull the pin. You can win a lot of games with a core of 2-3 level pitching and good defense. That is where the Twins need to concentrate. It's not flashy, but it can lead to legitimate competitiveness. Add to that draft, development, and flexibility and you can run a very nice orginisation within their budget "constraints". Hopefully the resulting playoff appearances will result in an occasional WS participation.

The Twins are in a tough place. I cannot believe they will pay the price, plus the premium to get Darvish to come to the tundra. So that leaves trades. I thought they were of the right mindset trying to trade Dozier, and can't believe they could not get someone to give them enough to pull the pin. You can win a lot of games with a core of 2-3 level pitching and good defense. That is where the Twins need to concentrate. It's not flashy, but it can lead to legitimate competitiveness. Add to that draft, development, and flexibility and you can run a very nice orginisation within their budget "constraints". Hopefully the resulting playoff appearances will result in an occasional WS participation.

I definitely agree on the Dozier trade - I was surprised we couldn't get enough for Dozier coming off a career year to pull the trigger on a trade. Dozier is the vocal leader/veteran presence of the Twins and supposedly the Front Office holds that into high regard. 

Twins do have constraints and yes, hopefully through the Draft, Development and Trades we are able to improve our ball club. 

I'm holding out that the FO is pulling their best game together for a play at Darvish, especially with their prior working relationship with the Texas Rangers but I'm not holding my breath either.

I agree, in that i like the moves.  I think we should get Darvish.  Payroll should be able to go up.  We are in a competetive window of around 4 -5 years and would like to see us advance in the playoffs for a change.  I am also in on a trade likely to occur.  I think i read that the Twins floated Sano around in trade talk and including him in an Archer trade and a Napoli signing to offset some of the power loss makes sense.  That would give us a super rotations which is better than a super bullpen....Archer and Darvish would make around 34-36 million per year combined or a 17-18 average for each.  Though i am a fan of Sano so i will sit back and see how the offseason plays out.  Though if we do not land a big starter then the offseason will be a let down.  Even if we do knock out the rest of our winter list of needs.  

I was posting this on another thread but will post it here. By the way, welcome! I saw in the other thread how you want to blog and you would have a lot to contribute with your background.

Anyway, I am very much a proponent of a trade (for a starter) rather than signing Darvish. I have been doing some digging for a blog post I wanted to do myself, about trading our prospect(s). The long and short is I think prospects -- any prospects below the top Mauer/Harper/Trout/Bryant/Buxton/Alex Gordon no. 1 or 2 level -- they are overrated, not to say bad players, just too much projecting of greatness that doesn't materialize. I have always felt this and now even more so. I think Nick Gordon will develop into a regular player with a couple good seasons here and there, but I think trading him for two years of Cole would be a good gamble to take. the Moneyball strategy of trading a good prospect is that you do not have a declining Darvish on the books for $20 million a season when it comes time to extend Buxton and Berrios. There is a load of talent in the AL coming up right behind the Twins (Boston, Houston, White Sox) and the Twins window with this core might be now, not three years from now. I am ok with the cheap signings they have made thus far if it is backed up by a trade for an established starter.

There's my long winded response, which blogs are good for.

I think the OP has made a good comparison of Levine's work to Beane. With a new FO none of us really know what to expect, so finding models to pattern decision making can help us all make better informed decisions. Good discussion starter. If I had the time to research it, I'd be interested to see a cross tab of the main MLB talent acquisition philosophies by major tenants and mark out what moves the FO has made by how they best fit. Kind of a Castro signing falls under the analytics tennant of the Rays, Rodney is a market inefficiency signing tenant of moneyball etc. 

On the hitting side, the money ball approach makes a lot of sense. There's a strong core and some depth coming not far behind the current ML team. Taking roster risks on market inefficiencies like Napoli or Adrianza can fill some gaps and mine additional value from situational usage.  If you can afford the roster spot, Napoli or Adrianza could be very valuable to the team to win a division or traded at the deadline. If they bust, you've got backup available if you need to cut bait.

On the pitching side, the issue with the money ball approach is depth. The Twins just don't have enough high level close to major league ready starting pitching, and the minor league relief pitching is looking more and more suspect.

If Duke or Fernandez succeed, great you've got something. If they don't, there's no one I'd feel confident in turning to for the 8th inning setup man. All of your bullets are currently loaded into the magazine.

If you need a pipeline of talent to backfill the free agent gambles, you can't very well trade them away for a front line starter, can you? SS, Catcher, and Pitcher are the prospect currency. They have a good supply of SS; but C and P are woefully thin.

The way to improve the ML roster and create depth is to add to the front of the queue via free agency. Sure, no one wants another 20 mil on the roster just soaking up resources, unable to move on because you've got too much invested. You can't have 10 guys on the 25 man roster making 1 mil or less each not providing value either; the 2014 Twins can attest.

Once depth is created via free agency, then trade some surplus for the mid rotation with some upside type, Archer and Cole are the big names, but there are others that we just don't know about that might come a bit cheaper in prospect capital.

I think the OP has made a good comparison of Levine's work to Beane. With a new FO none of us really know what to expect, so finding models to pattern decision making can help us all make better informed decisions. Good discussion starter. If I had the time to research it, I'd be interested to see a cross tab of the main MLB talent acquisition philosophies by major tenants and mark out what moves the FO has made by how they best fit. Kind of a Castro signing falls under the analytics tennant of the Rays, Rodney is a market inefficiency signing tenant of moneyball etc. 

 

On the hitting side, the money ball approach makes a lot of sense. There's a strong core and some depth coming not far behind the current ML team. Taking roster risks on market inefficiencies like Napoli or Adrianza can fill some gaps and mine additional value from situational usage.  If you can afford the roster spot, Napoli or Adrianza could be very valuable to the team to win a division or traded at the deadline. If they bust, you've got backup available if you need to cut bait.

 

On the pitching side, the issue with the money ball approach is depth. The Twins just don't have enough high level close to major league ready starting pitching, and the minor league relief pitching is looking more and more suspect.

 

If Duke or Fernandez succeed, great you've got something. If they don't, there's no one I'd feel confident in turning to for the 8th inning setup man. All of your bullets are currently loaded into the magazine.

 

If you need a pipeline of talent to backfill the free agent gambles, you can't very well trade them away for a front line starter, can you? SS, Catcher, and Pitcher are the prospect currency. They have a good supply of SS; but C and P are woefully thin.

 

The way to improve the ML roster and create depth is to add to the front of the queue via free agency. Sure, no one wants another 20 mil on the roster just soaking up resources, unable to move on because you've got too much invested. You can't have 10 guys on the 25 man roster making 1 mil or less each not providing value either; the 2014 Twins can attest.

 

Once depth is created via free agency, then trade some surplus for the mid rotation with some upside type, Archer and Cole are the big names, but there are others that we just don't know about that might come a bit cheaper in prospect capital.

Some really good stuff you brought up. I agree with your thoughts on Pitching. I think the Twins have some younger pitchers that have some high promise, just nothing close enough to the ML yet. The Twins have been a woefully thin in the catching ranks for years - that will take some time to continue to build up.

I'm with you - wish I had additional time to do research on Front Office Talent Evaluating Philosophies (Stats and Financial Resources not being considered). It will take some time to see what the FO has fully envisioned upon taking over.