ESPN's Schoenfield Twins Offseason Report Card

[jokin]

Swap Correia for Marcum and add a remotely decent infielder and I give them a B. But I'd say D+ with what actually happened. The Revere trade went really well, but in hindsight I'm not as sure if I like the Span one. You give a young 3.5 WAR a season player for a likely bullpen arm?! They dropped a lot of dead weight, but not all of it. And of course, I'm pissed about the salary cap like everyone else. Craig Leopold, please buy the Twins too!

 

Did you get your M&M boys mixed up? We'd all be sorely disappointed if the guy they have tabbed for future ace, Meyer, turns out to be the likely bullpen arm of the two.

[jokin]

You say this like it's bad, but I think the Indians made some terrible deals this offseason in the vain hope that they're just a player or two away (they're not). I would never pay mid-30s Nick Swisher up to $70 million for 5 years. That's just dumb. And I would be even less likely to pay Michael Bourn (a.k.a. Chone Figgins 2: Electric Boogaloo) $48 million for 4 years. 1) And on top of that, they gave up a draft pick to do it. Again, that's just dumb.

This probably has little to do with the philosophy of building a team, with regard to how much should be allotted to drafting, free agency, international, etc., and at what times the amounts should change. But comparing the Indians' offseason approach to the Twins, it's hard for me to see how they did as much better as some people here choose to believe they did. 2) I'm not even seeing how you could say they did I'm not even seeing how you could say they did better at all.

 

1) The Indians retained their top pick. Giving up a top 40 pick is far less risky than giving up a top 10 pick. That's smart baseball if you're trying to win and make a media splash and impact the fan interest sooner rather than later, which obviously is the intention of Francona and ownership.

 

2) Your screed reads much more like wishful thinking than objective analysis. Most, if not virtually every objective person that knows anything about baseball and followed this offseason's developments , didn't "choose to believe it", they just made objective comparisons of on-paper superiority in talent acquisition relative to the money available (of which, the Indians were in the same position as the Twins).