Article: Where Are The Twins Getting It Wrong?

[Kelly Vance]

 

Honestly, I want a Terminator in the front office. This organization has for so long put emotions ahead of sound baseball decision. I'm not saying our current Terminator is making sound baseball decisions, but I wouldn't have approached Dozier about an extension just because he was asking for one, I'd only do it if I actually wanted him back. Decisions on Mauer and Buxton should be based on what's best for the team, not the individual players (not saying they got it right, just that I don't want the players dictating the decisions).

 

All this century we've been doing the "we are family" "aw-shucks" "let's just go out there and have fun" underdog bit. I've had enough. Maybe I'm a monster, but I want to win and at any costs. I don't think that starts with making concessions to players who aren't pulling their weight or aren't in the team's future. Let the field manager handle the human emotions, the motivation and the pep talks, that's supposed to be his job anyway. I want the guys actually running the show to make the best baseball decisions, even if it seems cutthroat.

Funny.  I think that is exactly the wrong approach. 180 degrees from what I'd do.  And the only two times we won the series, we did it the opposite of what you suggest. Those teams were brothers and won because their chemistry glued them together. Your approach treats these players like cattle. That is the Calvin Griffith way. It inspires nobody.  I mean, nobody 

[jctwins]

Remarkably, ownership hasn't come up in this thread at all, and I think it is at least a minor, if not equal factor in the disfunction so far.

 

The current ownership assumed the operation just as baseball evolved in a big way and got much more complicated than it was when Terry Ryan could pick guys with the eye test and make good decisions.

 

As the industry was moving to a systematic, technology and mathematical based industry, the Pohlads took over as "non-baseball" owners. They relied on the "baseball people" to make good decisions.

 

In a sense, I think they continue to do this to a fault, which can make them hard to work for. There is a sense that they want to conserve money, but I'm not sure they ever actually say it. I would be genuinely interested in whether they have told the new regime what they want, and what they expect, or if they just say "we trust you guys; you've blown us away already with how much more you know about baseball than we do." In a sense, they have handcuffed the new guys between reading between the "culture" and the "desire to win" completely on their own without giving them enough clear direction on where they are willing to make trade-offs. They certainly don't speak on behalf of the team publicly, which does them no favors as owners.

 

Also as others have said the outperformance in 2017 screwed up what should have been the beginning of a true rebuild.

 

TLDR; I think there may well be a culture problem, which starts at the top, and I'm not sure it's ever easily resolved under this ownership group.

 

 

[beckmt]

 

Did you say the same things last year when the Twins were on their way to the playoffs? Were you complaining about them being numbers?

 

I love how 90% of the board has swallowed "The Front Office Sees Players As Numbers" hook line and sinker with no evidence. Like we never even validated that claim. Being analytical is not the same thing as being inhuman. I'm pretty sure that Flavine are just as human as TR, who also made hard decisions like trading AJ and Dougie when the time was right.

 

A hint: when you sound like a gasbag retired player complaining about how these kids don't know how to play like you did in the old days, it's perhaps time to dial it back a notch.

 

No you misread the post.  TR could be seen around and according to other posters was approachable.  I doubt any of the current minor leaguers could approach either of the new FO and ask a question with the expectation they might get an answer.  My point is that if a player feels they are just a number in the orgainization, that it is much easier to decide (if they are good) to take the best offer after they put in their time, and that makes organization continuity very difficult.  what would the new FO do if every player at 2 - 3 years had their agent tell the Twins FO that they were outahere after 6 years. This would turn baseball into the same zoo that basketball and football (no loyality and only make choices based on player friendship and the dollars offered).  The result would be that most clubs that were told this would have to trade their best players in the year 4 or 5 season or offseason to get a return, and would any of the posters here like it if baseball became like basketball with teams being the have and the have nots, with maybe 6 - 8 super teams and the rest all hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.

[Mike Sixel]

Your last sentence is the only one that truly talks to next year. The 40 man as it currently sits is not what it will be next season...... Produce or we'll find someone who can.

How is... All they have to show is Austin and Castro...., not about next year. That's it. In two years that's what they've added to the MLB roster. Oh, and odorrizi!

 

They acquired wholly mediocre players last off season, and got mediocre results from them.

 

As Chief points out, Mauer is older, Dozier and Escobar are gone, Santana is gone, or should be. Who, on the roster, that this ffront office acquired, is their replacement right now? Because that 80 million isn't spent yet, and we don't know how it will be.

[yarnivek1972]

The negativity down the stretch is crazy. People wanted to play the young 'uns but are surprised when they aren't all-stars and when the Twins lose as a result. Not saying that Gonsalves will be the next Romero or that Astudillo is the next Al Newman but you're getting what you wanted and there is that chance. If it doesn't taste good, you shouldn't have ordered it.

What “young uns” are being played? Last night’s lineup had three guys under 27 on it. Polanco, Cave and Astudillo. Only one of them projects as a starter in 2019.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Instead of operating in good faith and working with him on an extension over the remaining 3 years he's under control, they elected 4 years of control and torpedoed their chance at extension talks any time soon.

The early season slump is on Buxton. The remaining 40 some ABs out of 90 total this year are him playing with a broken toe and obviously hindering his ability to play. It's a lost season.

P.S. I would love to be largely bad at my job and win a Platinum Gold Glove award along with receiving MVP votes.

 

We are past "early season slumps".  He's had over 1,000 at bats, it's time to stop these ridiculous characterizations.  His offense has been bad.

 

His defense is amazing.  His offense has been largely putrid.  Can we please stick to reality and not forget what doesn't fit our narrative?

 

And, as far as I know, they offered him an extension.  He refused.

 

To construe their decision as "short-term" is seriously mistaken.  Doesn't mean you have to agree with it, but you have completely missed the boat for why they did it if you still believe that.

Edited September 11, 2018 by TheLeviathan

[rv78]

Where are the Twins getting it wrong? That's easy to answer after this season....... EVERYWHERE!

[Shane Wahl]

Molitor and basically the entire coaching staff have to go. There is no alternative. Next year has to be the time of promoting 5-7 guys at the beginning of the season. Kepler has to figure it out. Buxton too. Sano too. My god. 

[Major League Ready]

 

There's a style out there for everyone. That style is not for me if I was an employee or player for them.

I worked for a cutthroat sales organization before and my Director was the Terminator. If you didn't close business that month and hit your quota, you were shown the door. The only way he knew how to motivate people was instilling fear of losing your job. It was awful.

 

Anyone that thinks that short-term has no business in a director position. Your example (IMO) has nothing to do with the original poster's position calling for decisions to be made based on sound business principals as opposed to emotion. Terminating sales people because they had one bad month would be the definition of incompetence and ironically an example of an emotional decision. If that director is making sound business decisions as suggested by the previous poster, termination or retention is based on ability. effort, competence, professionalism, track record, etc, as well as the cost associated with said sales person vs production.

[beckmt]

 

Not quite an apt comparison.

 

It's hard to respect work production when the production isn't there.

Production is usually there, in a work situation it is how things are perceived by you supervisor.  Guess you have never been in that situation.

[chpettit19]

How is... All they have to show is Austin and Castro...., not about next year. That's it. In two years that's what they've added to the MLB roster. Oh, and odorrizi!

 

They acquired wholly mediocre players last off season, and got mediocre results from them.

 

As Chief points out, Mauer is older, Dozier and Escobar are gone, Santana is gone, or should be. Who, on the roster, that this ffront office acquired, is their replacement right now? Because that 80 million isn't spent yet, and we don't know how it will be.

Having that money is progress. You complain that they acquired mediocre players, but that's what you get when you don't have money to spend. They turned those players into an even deeper stash of good young players and freed up a ton of money to go out and try to find better players. My point is that complaining about the 40 man roster at the very end of a sell of season that went terribly wrong is completely missing the big picture. This season went badly. If Dozier, Santana, Buxton, and Sano play the way they were expected to for the first half this article likely is about where things are going right. The Twins were a playoff team with young guys showing they were going to take a step forward to become the superstar core. The front office went out and got pieces to put around that core to compete while also maintaining flexibility. That's their job. Santana and Berrios were supposed to be your 1 and 2 in some order. Lance Lynn is a legit 3/4 guy. Gibson and Odorizzi are legit 4/5 guys. They had young arms in the minors ready to get their shot when any of them faltered or got hurt. And you hope 1 or 2 of those guys takes a step and produces more than expected. Which happened with Gibson.

 

They brought in veteran relievers who throw hard and strike people out like everyone was asking for. They supplemented that with veterans who can eat innings and had young arms waiting for their shot in the minors.

 

They had 2 young supposed stars looking like they were ready to explode. A handful of other youngsters who'd showed potential and that they were ready to be everyday guys. They had a couple old guys who still had a year or 2 of solid play left in the tank and added a power hitting lefty to supplement that.

 

They built around their young core with an eye on contending and everything fell apart. Is it the FO fault that Buxton and Sano both performed like AA guys? Is it their fault that Dozier was terrible the whole first half? Is it their fault Santana never healed? Is it their fault it took Lynn a while to get going? Did they know their young SS was about to get suspended for cheating? Everything fell apart and the FO shifted. They sold off guys who had expiring deals they weren't sure they could resign or didn't want to, just like every other good team does. The players failed. Miserably.

 

So, yeah, the 40 man looks terrible right now. A bunch of those guys are going to be shipped out. This is a lot like small sample size problems. You're picking the end of a lost season in the middle of a roster transition (that was happening to some extent no matter what the W/L record looked like this year) to and saying the sky is falling. This is what 40 man rosters look like when seasons blow up in front of your face. How the FO responds is what matters. If it's the same 40 man to start next season you can be pissed. But don't walk in in the middle of their work and say the finished product is a disaster. Let them get to the final product.

[Vanimal46]

We are past "early season slumps". He's had over 1,000 at bats, it's time to stop these ridiculous characterizations. His offense has been bad.

 

His defense is amazing. His offense has been largely putrid. Can we please stick to reality and not forget what doesn't fit our narrative?

 

And, as far as I know, they offered him an extension. He refused.

 

To construe their decision as "short-term" is seriously mistaken. Doesn't mean you have to agree with it, but you have completely missed the boat for why they did it if you still believe that.

I know the why and we don't have to discuss why they did it. What the people that are for this move don't want to talk about is the human aspect and the consequences with their decision.

 

As I mentioned before they didn't do anything illegal or beyond their prerogative. It's just a ****ty thing to do to a person. Especially a person that's thought to be a foundational player for the organization.

[Major League Ready]

 

Honestly, I want a Terminator in the front office. This organization has for so long put emotions ahead of sound baseball decision. I'm not saying our current Terminator is making sound baseball decisions, but I wouldn't have approached Dozier about an extension just because he was asking for one, I'd only do it if I actually wanted him back. Decisions on Mauer and Buxton should be based on what's best for the team, not the individual players (not saying they got it right, just that I don't want the players dictating the decisions).

 

All this century we've been doing the "we are family" "aw-shucks" "let's just go out there and have fun" underdog bit. I've had enough. Maybe I'm a monster, but I want to win and at any costs. I don't think that starts with making concessions to players who aren't pulling their weight or aren't in the team's future. Let the field manager handle the human emotions, the motivation and the pep talks, that's supposed to be his job anyway. I want the guys actually running the show to make the best baseball decisions, even if it seems cutthroat.

 

It's possible to do both but you have to communicate on a personal level. This might be a silly example but the conversation between Billy Beane and David Justice in Money Ball comes to mind. I have no idea If this was an accurate potrayal but this is a good example. You can't have a relationship with the players if you completely delegate communication. Players are treating this as a business and they will accept the F/O doing the same if leadership takes time on occasion to explain why they want a given action and how it will benefit the individual.

 

[chpettit19]

I know the why and we don't have to discuss why they did it. What the people that are for this move don't want to talk about is the human aspect and the consequences with their decision.

 

As I mentioned before they didn't do anything illegal or beyond their prerogative. It's just a ****ty thing to do to a person. Especially a person that's thought to be a foundational player for the organization.

I'm not for or against the decision. I understand why they did it. I also understand why people don't like that they did it. But saying the "human aspect" of it is all bad isn't correct either. Buxton hasn't performed, but because everyone saw him as the next Trout and franchise savior he kept being thrown out there and treated like he was already Trout. I think we can all agree the FO knows Buxton as a person better than we do. Maybe they've seen that he responds better to tough love and they believe this will light a fire under him. Does it strain the relationship now? Sure. But if he takes this anger and turns it into production moving forward and the team starts winning and everyone is happy maybe he doesn't look back in 2023 and say "F the Twins, they sat me for a month in 2018." The human aspect is much more than just "you have a player mad at you right now so you failed." At the end of the day, if Buxton doesn't figure out how to hit he's not a cornerstone player anyways and they don't care if he leaves at the end of his deal. The FO and coaches need to get him to start hitting above .200 or they don't care that he's pissed anyways cuz they move Lewis to center and move on from Buxton.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I know the why and we don't have to discuss why they did it. What the people that are for this move don't want to talk about is the human aspect and the consequences with their decision.

As I mentioned before they didn't do anything illegal or beyond their prerogative. It's just a ****ty thing to do to a person. Especially a person that's thought to be a foundational player for the organization.

 

I won't disagree it might have human consequences.  It might seriously upset Buxton and wreck any chance of him going back to July/August 2017 version.  The human toll here is hard to know from the outside, but I absolutely accept the possibility and acknowledge it.

 

But they did it for long-term benefits to the organization.  Your characterization of it was wholly inaccurate.

[Vanimal46]

I won't disagree it might have human consequences. It might seriously upset Buxton and wreck any chance of him going back to July/August 2017 version. The human toll here is hard to know from the outside, but I absolutely accept the possibility and acknowledge it.

 

But they did it for long-term benefits to the organization. Your characterization of it was wholly inaccurate.

I could have said it better but that's what happens when I work and type at the same time.

 

So far the human consequences are Buxton not returning phone calls from the Twins. He's probably not going to be apart of any off-season Twins PR events.

 

The relationship can be smoothed out over time ($$$$$) but I doubt it. Athletes have egos and hold grudges as well as anyone else. This decision stings and will linger for a while.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I could have said it better but that's what happens when I work and type at the same time.

So far the human consequences are Buxton not returning phone calls from the Twins. He's probably not going to be apart of any off-season Twins PR events.

The relationship can be smoothed out over time ($$$$$) but I doubt it. Athletes have egos and hold grudges as well as anyone else. This decision stings and will linger for a while.

 

Guys get jerked around a lot and still answer the bell when the money is right.  Hopefully he turns this into a motivating factor and the Twins can eventually make it up to him.   If not, they reap the benefit of three awesome years of Buxton and the opportunity to trade him when he has actual value.

 

But let's look at this as objectively as we can - the Buxton that feels so slighted is also the one that can't hit his way out of a paper bag and would be worth diddly in a trade right now.  The FO gambled that he'll be worth more than that at some point over the next three years and they know they at least have a chance to extend that longer if bygones are bygones.  The flipside is that the cost is on the front end in pissing him off.

 

But really...what's the downside from the organizational level?  He becomes less valuable?  Hard to imagine.  He becomes a permanent non-contributor?  Well, he's basically that now.  You can't put him in the field every day when he can't hit.  The upside?  He becomes what you want him to be and you get an extra year of him on the team.  I think the calculus on this is pretty easy, even factoring in the human toll.

 

Edited September 11, 2018 by TheLeviathan

[Blake]

 

Production is usually there, in a work situation it is how things are perceived by you supervisor.  Guess you have never been in that situation.

I was referring to the players on the field, not taking a personal shot at you, though I can see how it might have played out that way. 

 

Sorry about that.

[yarnivek1972]

I know the why and we don't have to discuss why they did it. What the people that are for this move don't want to talk about is the human aspect and the consequences with their decision.

 

As I mentioned before they didn't do anything illegal or beyond their prerogative. It's just a ****ty thing to do to a person. Especially a person that's thought to be a foundational player for the organization.

That seems moot IMO. It is highly unlikely that Buxton will be a “foundational player”. At this point I think the best that Twins fans should hope for is a competent hitter.

[Vanimal46]

That seems moot IMO. It is highly unlikely that Buxton will be a “foundational player”. At this point I think the best that Twins fans should hope for is a competent hitter.

Dohkay. 2017 never happened I guess.

[yarnivek1972]

Dohkay. 2017 never happened I guess.

Yes. Let’s focus on 150 at bats when he was a good hitter and ignore the other 850.

 

Dohkay indeed.

[Platoon]

Chief may be 2 or he may be 7? But only if you reverse the numbers, put them next to each other, and then add the 2 and the 7 to that number! .

[mlhouse]

I think the biggest failure of this front office regime is that they have not properly evaluated the overall talent level of the team and thus many of their decisions have been "wrong".  It is hard to understand this concept, because individually there are mostly solid arguments for most of the decisions.

 

For example, select any of the free agents this team has signed, from Jason Castro to Logan Morrison or Lance Lynn. While I do not think that they all were good decisions (I particularly think the Castro signing was a bad decison, amongst others), at least there is some level of merit to the argument for signing the guy.

 

But these guys just were just good enough to get to mediocrity and very few of them figured in the long term plans of the Twins.    Then came the consistent signing of every waiver wire cast off from other teams at teh expense of bringing up our own prospects and developing htem at the major league level.

 

What should have been done was to gut all of the pieces around the young core of Buxton-Sano-Kepler-Rosario etc and bring up players like Garver and Romero, get all of the growing pains taken care of with lots of losses in 2017, and maybe into 2018 and hope that this talent was good enough to be more competitive.  We would lose, get top picks, and hopefully be able to bring up solid prospects over the near term to fill in the remaining spots.  Some of the prospects would have been successful, some not.  You move on from the nots and find new talent.  FInally, as in 1987 and 1991 you bring in a few veteran pieces to fill in the holes when the players mature.

 

I think that the Twins need to do a complete rebuild were the only two players on the roster that are "safe" are Eddie Rosario and JJ Berrios.  I think they need to have just about every one of their prospects on the major league roster from day 1 next season, including Royce Lewis, Alex Kiriloff, Nick Gordon, Romero, Gonsalves, LeMonte Ward, Brent Rooker, and Luis Arraez.  

 

This team might lose 100 games, but if the talent is any good they will improve each game, and become an entertainingly competitive team by the end of the year.  Rebuilding takes time, so the next couple of years might show lots of progress and lots of weaknesses.  Hopefully, like the 1987 and 1991 squads, you can figure out how to fill in the weaknesses over those developing seasons, such as replacing Jimmy Eisenreich (unfortunately) with Kirby Puckett.

[Mike Sixel]

I think the biggest failure of this front office regime is that they have not properly evaluated the overall talent level of the team and thus many of their decisions have been "wrong". It is hard to understand this concept, because individually there are mostly solid arguments for most of the decisions.

 

For example, select any of the free agents this team has signed, from Jason Castro to Logan Morrison or Lance Lynn. While I do not think that they all were good decisions (I particularly think the Castro signing was a bad decison, amongst others), at least there is some level of merit to the argument for signing the guy.

 

But these guys just were just good enough to get to mediocrity and very few of them figured in the long term plans of the Twins. Then came the consistent signing of every waiver wire cast off from other teams at teh expense of bringing up our own prospects and developing htem at the major league level.

 

What should have been done was to gut all of the pieces around the young core of Buxton-Sano-Kepler-Rosario etc and bring up players like Garver and Romero, get all of the growing pains taken care of with lots of losses in 2017, and maybe into 2018 and hope that this talent was good enough to be more competitive. We would lose, get top picks, and hopefully be able to bring up solid prospects over the near term to fill in the remaining spots. Some of the prospects would have been successful, some not. You move on from the nots and find new talent. FInally, as in 1987 and 1991 you bring in a few veteran pieces to fill in the holes when the players mature.

 

I think that the Twins need to do a complete rebuild were the only two players on the roster that are "safe" are Eddie Rosario and JJ Berrios. I think they need to have just about every one of their prospects on the major league roster from day 1 next season, including Royce Lewis, Alex Kiriloff, Nick Gordon, Romero, Gonsalves, LeMonte Ward, Brent Rooker, and Luis Arraez.

 

This team might lose 100 games, but if the talent is any good they will improve each game, and become an entertainingly competitive team by the end of the year. Rebuilding takes time, so the next couple of years might show lots of progress and lots of weaknesses. Hopefully, like the 1987 and 1991 squads, you can figure out how to fill in the weaknesses over those developing seasons, such as replacing Jimmy Eisenreich (unfortunately) with Kirby Puckett.

Castro is the best signing. Who is your catcher otherwise?

[Champuckett]

We were promised the era of Twins Glory would commence once Sano/Buxton had a few years under their belt back when things were going south from 2012-2014.  So we had patience.

 

We saw the coach go, then the GM.  And had patience.

 

We got a new GM and many of the same problems and some new problems arose.  And we had patience.

 

Here we are now, both of these "marquee" players are floundering, and we have seemingly made no progress towards the glory years we were promised.  So we continue being patient.

 

I guess that is what it means in 2018 to be a good Twins fan, just sit down, be patient, and just enjoy the fact we have baseball in this Midwestern state that was lucky to even avoid contraction!  Yeah, just be thankful and appreciative.  No criticism or concern necessary.

 

The question I have is whether the problem is the lack of patience from Twins fans, the most often used attacking point against disgruntled Twins fans or is the problem the franchise and the MN sports media, that attacks and/or belittles the fans as they continue to wave a carrot on a stick in front of us for the last 7-8 years.

[mlhouse]

 

Castro is the best signing. Who is your catcher otherwise?

 

Who is our catcher now?   I would have pushed Mitch Garver in 2017 and found a younger backup type catcher.

 

I guess I disagree with our front office that the backup catcher should be at least 34 years old and hit under 200.

[Blake]

 

Castro is the best signing. Who is your catcher otherwise?

I questioned the Castro signing until he went down.

 

Castro may have shortcomings with the lumber but he made the rest look easy.

 

Found out quickly just how short the Twins are at the catcher position.

[IndianaTwin]

It feels like most of these threads have been going in circles, so I don't know whether to post this in the Buxton thread, the grading Molitor thread, or the grading the front office thread. So I'll do it here. 

 

I was concerned too with the "no people skills" comment, particularly after reading the response from Seth, who seems to be basing it on real conversations rather than on what we read and speculate on. 

 

In grading Molitor, however, I do wonder if "people skills" is one of the positive things he brings to the table, and that's something that is going to be really tough for us as fans to judge. I don't get to see games, only listen on the radio and read the esteemed words of TD posters. But my sense is that Molitor does seem to relate to the players. His excellent pedigree is going to get him off to a good start, but that will wear off soon. As I posted elsewhere, however, he doesn't seem to throw his players under the bus, and in his interviews, he always seem to have their backs as a person, even when he acknowledges their misplays or poor choices. As Exhibit A, I'll use this example from Sunday's game talking about DeJong: 

• “He asked about going back out for the fifth,” Molitor said. “Rightfully so. I had no problem with that. He was in the right frame of mind in terms of him saying he felt great and wanted to keep going. But no, we decided to set it up the way we did and went with it. And [Zack] Littell did a nice job coming in.”

As Exhibit B, I'll note that it would have been easy to let the wheels spin off when they were 22-30 and on pace for 69 wins, but he was able to right the ship enough to go 39-36 in the next stretch and get within sniffing distance of .500. Unfortunately, they've gone 4-12 with a trade-depleted September roster playing against a lot of playoff teams since then, so low-to-mid 70s seems like the most-likely ending point. But still, after the lousy start, there were a few of us at least thinking that there was a chance of closing on the Indians. 

 

We also complain that Molitor doesn't change, but as Exhibit C, I'll note the change in bunting patterns. Anecdotally, it's seemed like he's bunted less this year, and the stats bear it out. At present, the Twins are on pace for about 19 non-pitcher sacrifice bunts after averaging 27 the last three years. To me, that at least hints at him being told to knock it off by the Analytics Folks and generally following instructions. 

 

Those sound like "grading Molitor" comments, but I'm posting them here because so many of the "getting it wrong" comments have focused on Molitor's still being here. 

 

Others have focused on a perception of their mishandling the Buxton callup situation. In another thread, I said: 

• I think Levine was a straight shooter with his comments. I paraphrase his message as, "We made a tough decision, and Byron and his agent have their right to be disappointed. We would be disappointed if he didn't want to come up to the majors. We still believe Byron can help us, so we are going to do our part to make it a good relationship going forward." And I applaud them for not trying to force such a conversation right now -- those chats rarely go well when they happen in the heat of the moment.

I haven't seen anyone reference this article -- if they have, I apologize for the repetition. But this article seems to suggest that they have been doing due diligence in reaching out to Buxton.

 

http://www.startribune.com/twins-try-to-clear-the-air-with-byron-buxton/492822311/.

 

We haven't heard Buxton's side, but that may be okay. If I'm the Twins in this situation, if the conversation has indeed gone well, my suggestion to Byron would be to say, "Look, we've made good progress in this conversation. Let's agree to keep working at it, and let's agree to keep our conversations to ourselves -- we don't want either of us to get burned by being misinterpreted by the media. When can we talk next?" That's a mature response on the Twins side, and if Byron is on board with that, his "not able to be reached for comment" response is a good one.

 

All that to say that I'm in the "glass five-eighths full" category. After this season, I'm not quite as far as the person above who said it was three-fourths full, but I still think the trajectory is heading in the right direction.

 

This doesn't seem like a front office that's going to make the big splash. Rather, they seem like a group that is going to make lots of moves with the hopes of improving themselves incrementally and winning more than they lose. As Exhibits D and E, how many other teams signed six free agents last winter or traded seven guys since mid-August?

[KirbyDome89]

 

But really...what's the downside from the organizational level?  He becomes less valuable?  Hard to imagine.  He becomes a permanent non-contributor?  Well, he's basically that now.  You can't put him in the field every day when he can't hit.  The upside?  He becomes what you want him to be and you get an extra year of him on the team.  I think the calculus on this is pretty easy, even factoring in the human toll.

Agents of potential draft picks take notice. 

Players on the team that need to be extended (Berrios, Rosario, ect.) take notice.

Players around the league, including potential FAs, take notice.

 

The Twins are getting attention for all the wrong reasons right now. The downside to this decision goes beyond just damaging the team's relationship with Buxton. 

[Channing1964]

There is so much in this that is reflexively negative.

 

1.) The 40 man roster is bad now because the Twins sold at the deadline. It’s supposed to be bad after that. You try random guys, you bring in mid-season free agents. Judge the Twins 40 man by the beginning of the year (talented!) or the beginning of next year (TBD but talented and augmented!)

 

2.) Worst in your lifetime? Are you two years old? Because the Twins teams of the early 2010s were undeniably worse, top to bottom. The 2016 team lost 103 games with Robbie Grossman as their second best hitter. The starting pitchers had a 5.39 ERA. If you think this year’s team is worse, you’re suffering from delusions. Unless you have some actual evidence to back up the absurd claims?

 

3.) I think people overestimate the ability to sign long-term contracts for young players. Yes Evan Longoria signed a deal but that doesn’t happen every day. Most of the Twins better young players have already signed decent contracts when they were drafted/signed. They have a nest egg and have every incentive to wait for free agency. There’s also value in waiting – this year’s Buxton season would be way more disappointing if you were paying him $8-10 million. Same with Sano. I’m for signing long-term deals with guys but I’m not naïve enough to think it’s easy to do or to blindly criticize a process about which I have no information.

 

4.) Do you really think that the front office isn’t involved in lineup construction? Molitor makes the decisions but I’m positive that they are weighing in and having a dialogue. You’re trying to create a fire where there is none. Stop it.

 

5.) I predict that you will never have to answer for the absurdity of that Orioles prediction. I’m going to try to remember it for next year but will almost certainly forget. I wish I could bet large sums of money with you on this (and am willing to). The Twins are a team that was in the playoffs last year, had a down year but still a lot of great pieces, and have a top 5-10 farm system with top-end talent to augment the current core. The Orioles are a historically bad team that sold off its top-end talent, has terrible contracts to veterans, and has a bottom ten system that lacks any high-end talent. They will almost certainly be a bottom-feeding team next year.

 

6.) You think the Twins have no hope for 2019? Are you crazy? I’m not saying they’re going to be favorites but let’s take the negativity down a notch or nine. The Twins have a good core of young pitching, solid upside pieces at six different positions (RF, LF, CF, 3B, SS, C), the payroll to address areas of concern (pitching, DH, 2B, maybe 1B), and are still in a terrible division (KC will be worse, Detroit is bottoming out, Chicago is still a few years away). There is every reason to have hope for next year, even before offseason moves. C’mon.

 

You’re being negative just to be negative. This isn’t Sportscenter, we don’t need hot takes. We need reasoned discussion. Work in some figures or evidence or analysis to support your rantings. Otherwise it’s really hard to take you seriously.

ok now i was with you until you said we have a top 10 farm system. In who's opinion? I spend a lot of time on the site called roster resource and they always list all the rankings of the prospects AND each teams farm systems. There are 5-7 different ranking sites and only ONE has our farm system in the top ten(7th). and that was AFTER the blue light fire sale. If our farm system is so good where is our replacements for Dozier, Escobar, Lynn, Pressly, Duke, and Rodney?? That whole thing was short sighted and ridiculous. None of those guys are ready before 2022, 21 earliest. Gordon is two years away, there are no catchers even close and their top pitching prospect cant hit 90 on the radar gun or get major league hitters out. The only chance to sign free agents took a hit when they blatantly disrespected Buxton. Major League players wanna play for winners not fantasy league bean counters. When you take your rose colored glasses off you will realize it is what it is. We should have stuck with our traditions and hired a Minnesota man(or woman) for this job. I dont trust these guys and every time they open their mouths they make it worse and worse. Edited September 12, 2018 by Channing1964