Pie chart of blame

[Major League Ready]

7 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

The Twins had question marks  in LF, CF, RF, 3B, 1B. Brantley would have helped batting at the top with Arraez. The offense hasn’t been so good this year except Polanco, Buxton when healthy, Arraez.

They had one of the best players in the game for CF (Buxton).    RF was taken by a proven player (Kepler).  Not a superstar but certainly not a question mark.  3B (Donaldson) was taken by the most expensive FA addition in team history.  Sano is not a question mark either.  If they are question marks you better just blow up the whole team.  Regardless, their top prospect was on the cusp of playing at the MLB level.  Bringing in a free agent to block him instead of using the money elsewhere would be rather gross incompetence. 

You still are ignoring the far more critical premise that the team failure was far more influenced by pitching.  The team would still have failed badly with Brantley.  Therefore, Brantley was not part of the solution and  assigning blame to this decision makes absolutely no sense.

[Squirrel]

9 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

The Twins had question marks  in LF, CF, RF, 3B, 1B. Brantley would have helped batting at the top with Arraez. The offense hasn’t been so good this year except Polanco, Buxton when healthy, Arraez.

I think you are doing quite a bit of 'hind sighting' in this statement. At the start of the season, none of those positions were question marks, per se. Yes, with both Buxton and Donaldson, there were injury concerns, but none of those positions were question marks. Maybe left field was a question mark of who, internally, was going to slot in there, but it wasn't such a question mark that we needed to sign anyone long term for that position. And, when the season started, they had a lot of outfield depth. The problem were injuries, not only to the starting players, but also to our depth. I think the FO can be criticized for this season, mostly with pitching, but not with the positions above. Unless you didn't like the Donaldson signing, I think you are hind sighting quite a bit of this.

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

They had one of the best players in the game for CF (Buxton).    RF was taken by a proven player (Kepler).  Not a superstar but certainly not a question mark.  3B (Donaldson) was taken by the most expensive FA addition in team history.  Sano is not a question mark either.  If they are question marks you better just blow up the whole team.  Regardless, their top prospect was on the cusp of playing at the MLB level.  Bringing in a free agent to block him instead of using the money elsewhere would be rather gross incompetence. 

You still are ignoring the far more critical premise that the team failure was far more influenced by pitching.  The team would still have failed badly with Brantley.  Therefore, Brantley was not part of the solution and  assigning blame to this decision makes absolutely no sense.

I agree with all of this, with the small caveat - and I said this at the time so it's not hindsight - that the team either needs to commit to Kepler in CF or go find a legitimate backup CF who won't be brutal in the field, thereby damaging the pitching staff. We all know Buxton won't stay healthy so a little insurance, at least defensively, was warranted.

But ultimately, that ended up worrying about the margins and trying to put out a stove fire as the house burned down around us.

[chpettit19]

11 hours ago, Greglw3 said:

The Twins had question marks  in LF, CF, RF, 3B, 1B. Brantley would have helped batting at the top with Arraez. The offense hasn’t been so good this year except Polanco, Buxton when healthy, Arraez.

I don't think you'd find a single Twins fan who would be against having Brantley in the lineup. He's one of the best pure hitters in baseball over the last 10 years. The questions are did they have a legit chance of signing him and would the $ needed to sign him have been better used elsewhere. I think the answers to those questions are an emphatic no and an emphatic yes.

Why would he leave the Astros for the Twins right after the Astros beat the Twins in the playoffs? He signed with them for 2 years $32 million dollars. How much more would the Twins have had to pay to get him to leave? $4M more to take him to $20M/year? Let's say he really, really, really wanted to be here and would've signed for only $15M had the Twins simply asked nicely. Where are you getting that $15M from in the budget? Who are you cutting or not signing? As others have said, pitching was the problem, not hitting (not to say the offense doesn't have room for improvement, but it didn't tank the season). Bringing Brantley in wouldn't have helped with what ruined the season, and likely would have made it worse as the upgrade his bat provided wouldn't have made up for the even worse pitching they'd likely have had (not to mention the negative defense behind that pitching with him in the OF) as most of the free agent money went to the arms this year.

Brantley has had a great career and is still a more than serviceable bat that we'd all love in the lineup. But he wasn't a realistic signing and wouldn't solve the Twins problems. Not to mention he should be a DH only now with his knees, age, and lack of speed (he's 23% for sprint speed and 11% for outfielder jump) and the Twins already had a pretty good DH for less money. Brantley would have been an improvement at the plate for LF and RF, but a downgrade in the field. Not sure how CF, 3B or 1B really play into this discussion at all as they aren't positions he'd play and the guys we have there wouldn't be covering the positions he does play so there isn't really a shuffling of players to be done that would make sense for those 3 spots with him on board.

[Squirrel]

15 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

I'm well aware you view this season as occurring in a vacuum. That isn't reality. You beat the same drum in other threads, go revive one of them....

 

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

So, in other words, you don't really want to offer a meaningful response.  If you had a response that disproves what I am saying you would be more than happy to point out the error in my point. 

Stop it ... this isn't discussing the topic at all. If you don't like how the other responds to the topic, then walk away and stop engaging. Seriously.