Is this front office borderline hostile to "not their" guys?

[Boom Boom]

2 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

This kind of comment always comes up when someone disagrees with anything the Falvine regime does and always seems to be related to more analytically-minded  FO's coming in and trying to advance the organization. That's an unfortunate bias creeping in.

Yes I'm biased, but the thread invites bias by asking if the FO is "borderline hostile to not their guys".  How would any of us know that?

The whole topic is about our outside impression of the FO.  Sorry for sharing mine.

[rv78]

I truely believe that they just could not get a deal done with Berrios. I think he had his mind made up to leave Minnesota one way or another because he didn't think this organization could put it all together and win another Championship. Why waste the best years of your career playing for an organization that is not totally committed to winning it all. Look at what they did last off-season when they came off of 2 division titles in a row. Did they really go out and bring in players that would put them over the top or did they continue to dumpster dive and go for cheap or aging veterans that were past their prime. There is the problem. Which is the same problem why they can't get top free agents to come play for the Twins. 

[Mike Sixel]

51 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Signing Randy Dobnak to a long-term deal instead of Berrios is not exactly an argument in favor of this front office.

Not at all the point of the post......

[Mike Sixel]

53 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

There's a few more comments in here about Falvey and Levine being full of themselves, or thinking they're the smartest guys in the room, or whatever other way you want to say they're overconfident in their intelligence. I find them interesting. Which front offices in any major sport do you think don't go into everything as incredibly confident people who think they're the smartest person in every room? Sticking to just baseball, there's 30 teams. That's between 30 and 60 GM/POBO jobs available depending on how each team structures their decision making trees. They're all full of themselves and think they're the smartest people in every room.

It's incredibly hard to get to the places they are and you have to be incredibly smart to get there. I'd rather have them have extreme confidence in their strategies than be constantly questioning them (not reassessing them, but being unsure of their choices). These people have far more information at their disposal than most people could even imagine. It's interesting to me that so many people are shocked by the confidence of FO personnel who have reached the pinnacle of an extremely competitive market. And being creative and finding the next "it" way to win is huge to each and every one of them. It's their jobs to outsmart the other teams. Of course they think that's what they're doing. The question is how good they are at it.

There is a lot of hostility toward intelligent people on this board for sure. Also toward math, science, change, and progress.

[cHawk]

2 hours ago, Mark G said:

.And yet they finished 163-161 in the first two years of this FO, the whole while they were selling off every major league player of any value, getting the 2nd wild card the first year.  Of course that was the year they began the selloff; they finished it the following year and won 8 less because of it.  The cupboards weren't that bare going into their time here.  

1) Like I said, not playoff caliber

2) They weren’t completely bare. I never said that. They had a solid young core, but it was entirely bat driven. They had a grand total of 2 halfway decent pitching prospects in the minors.

[Mark G]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

Ok. What is the overall picture then? Are you talking $50-75 million, $75-100 million, or $100-125 million? Each is possible and we have zero say in those decisions. The Twins can be competitive and keep Buxton at the $100-125 million budget. It is how the team is built that makes a difference and trades will bring in better players at a lower salary than free agency, although this will cost some shift in roster members. 

The post is about a perceived hostility or less fondness perhaps of our current management team towards those players signed by the previous front office. Professional sports teams see a ton of movement of personnel and it is mostly a business. However, it does seem human that a person would favor their choices over others. Hostility? That doesn't seem very likely, especially in the cold reality of our corporate culture.

Just a hunch, again, based on huge losses the last two years, but I would say the 100mil-125mil range.  He isn't likely to go a Tampa or Oakland route, but he has never started a season (based on my amateur sleuthing) with a payroll beginning with the numbers 14.  15?  Not likely.  less than last year?  Very possibly.  It all hinges on signing Buxton and not trading Donaldson.  He will have to spend money on pitching, so a large payroll is not forbidden, but it is also not likely based on history.  

I don't see hostility anywhere in the FO or ownership.  I see a business man hiring managers to run his business; but at the end of the day, it is still his business and he controls the checkbook.  And this business man has lost a lot of money recently; he may reign in expenses until the bottom line gets better.  Just my extremely humble opinion.  

[tony&rodney]

7 minutes ago, Mark G said:

but I would say the 100mil-125mil

Would the following work then, with one or two additions and an understanding of the incentive deal done with Buxton?

[Rosterman]

Target Field with all those taxpayer supported dollars was going to allow the Twins to keep their own players.

 

The franchise increased dramatically in value once they opened the doors to the new park with little investment (which has since been paid off I understand) by the team.

 

You can reward franchise players develooped thru your system and laboring under 5-6 years of team rule with a Big contract.

 

You give OTHER free agents a BIG contract because of what they MIGHT bring to the table. Not enough years, too little, I'm worth more than someone else, you guys are making money off me, we never see the books until Player's Union Contract time when ownership gives the cry of paying at least "50% of rvenue" and by a couple of seasons out, they have taken back an additional 8-11% of that.

 

 

But money is always the root of problems. 

 

There are few guarantees in baseball.

[Mark G]

2 minutes ago, cHawk said:

1) Like I said, not playoff caliber

2) They weren’t completely bare. I never said that. They had a solid young core, but it was entirely bat driven. They had a grand total of 2 halfway decent pitching prospects in the minors.

I would respectfully submit they were playoff caliber had it not been for a large sell off of good talent during the first two years.  Wild card caliber, at the least.  They fell off as the 2 seasons went along due to a sell off of talent for prospects.  Now you can make a case that this worked out in the long run or not, but it hampered a pretty decent team for 2 years.  I would submit the record speaks for itself during a period of rebuilding.

[Mark G]

23 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Would the following work then, with one or two additions and an understanding of the incentive deal done with Buxton?

Whoa, my man, if you could pull that off......er, if the FO could pull that off, I think JP would even smile as he approved the budget.  I know I sure would.  But just out of curiosity, some guys are not there in this scenario.  Trades?  AAA?  In particular, where did Garver go?  (I also noticed Dobnak over Ryan; interesting)

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, Boom Boom said:

Yes I'm biased, but the thread invites bias by asking if the FO is "borderline hostile to not their guys".  How would any of us know that?

The whole topic is about our outside impression of the FO.  Sorry for sharing mine.

the issue is over the "smartest guys in the room" crack. that's something that's always only applied to analytics guys in the front office, usually ones who are younger, and is a representation of how they behave on a personal level that that i question. Are they arrogant? I don't really know, honestly. I'm guessing not much more than any other POBO/GM pairing. but the smartest guys in the room crack feels personal.

[nicksaviking]

To be fair, Falvey probably is usually the smartest guy in the room.

But from my experience, smart people are just as afraid of looking foolish as the next guy, maybe even more so. And I think fear of making a bad decision is what's really going on here. I want boldness, but plenty of smart people will see boldness as recklessness.

[GoBlue48]

10 hours ago, Twodogs said:

I believe that you are correct about how people in the Midwest view their teams.  They need to be careful about turning them into the Tampa Bay of the north.  Because yes while Tampa has had some success, one should take a look at their yearly attendance and ask if they really want that for themselves also??

Tampa Florida a mixture of snowbirds, tourists is reason for attendance woes. Many fair weather fans  and many minor league teams around the area also. Who wouldn't want Twins to be similar to Ray's? Its about talent ,recruiting, talented baseball FO STAFF & Scouts, in my opinion. I like Josh D, only because I threw teamn BP @ Auburn University Tigers, but his best years are behind him..

 

 

[tony&rodney]

6 minutes ago, Mark G said:

Trades?

Trades indeed. It keeps the costs down. Sadly, some players had to go to bring back others to keep payroll down. Ryan went to Oakland with Arraez, Duffey, and others for Montas and Bassitt. Garver went with Larnach and several others to miami for Cabrera and Meyer. The idea was to reduce costs, bring in a few solid pitchers and let Ober, Winder, Duran, Balazovic, and others work in to the team. In this version, Lewis, Martin, and Celestino are still around and the Twins likely need to add someone like Mark Canha to bring the cost to @$110 million. It would be nice to budget at $140+ ..... hard to see this year.

[Mark G]

11 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

Trades indeed. It keeps the costs down. Sadly, some players had to go to bring back others to keep payroll down. Ryan went to Oakland with Arraez, Duffey, and others for Montas and Bassitt. Garver went with Larnach and several others to miami for Cabrera and Meyer. The idea was to reduce costs, bring in a few solid pitchers and let Ober, Winder, Duran, Balazovic, and others work in to the team. In this version, Lewis, Martin, and Celestino are still around and the Twins likely need to add someone like Mark Canha to bring the cost to @$110 million. It would be nice to budget at $140+ ..... hard to see this year.

This year, but if they win, next year would be a fair bet.  Kudos. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

6 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'm talking open market free agent money. They'e either retained guys for pennies or let them walk in free agency. They don't hesitate to pay the likes of Castro, Pineda, Cruz, Donaldson (which is great) or even the likes of Happ (not so much) but they won't give Berrios Donaldson money and they let the likes of Trevor May go to the Mets for not much money.

Brock--are you actually confused about why it takes less money to sign players with years of team control left and no ability to negotiate with other teams than to sign players with 0 team control, and the ability to negotiate with EVERY team?

Trevor May last year posted 0.5 WAR (tied for 73rd amongst qualified relievers, and identical to Jose Ruiz, Caleb Smith, and Anthony Misiewizc).  He was 61st in FIP, and 54th on xFIP--is that really the kind of production the Twins should be paying $7M+ for?

[Mike Sixel]

33 minutes ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Brock--are you actually confused about why it takes less money to sign players with years of team control left and no ability to negotiate with other teams than to sign players with 0 team control, and the ability to negotiate with EVERY team?

Trevor May last year posted 0.5 WAR (tied for 73rd amongst qualified relievers, and identical to Jose Ruiz, Caleb Smith, and Anthony Misiewizc).  He was 61st in FIP, and 54th on xFIP--is that really the kind of production the Twins should be paying $7M+ for?

Right. Where is the list of players they should have signed to big deals, and didn't? Berrios is one. That's it. Maybe Buxton will be another. That's hardly a trend. 

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 hours ago, Mark G said:

.And yet they finished 163-161 in the first two years of this FO, the whole while they were selling off every major league player of any value, getting the 2nd wild card the first year.  Of course that was the year they began the selloff; they finished it the following year and won 8 less because of it.  The cupboards weren't that bare going into their time here.  

Here's the MLB players that I can see they traded away (according to ESPN).

2017

• John Ryan Murphy (in the middle of a -0.4 WAR season, best remaining season was 2018, at 0.9 WAR)
• Jaime Garcia (in the middle of a 1.9 WAR season, 0 WAR in 2018, hasn't pitched since)
• Brandon Kintzler (in the middle of a 1 WAR season, 0.2 WAR in 2018, peaked at 0.9 WAR in 2019)

2018

• Eduardo Escobar (has been quite good since, with the exception of 2020; -0.5 WAR)
• Ryan Pressly (good since the trade, never quite elite)
• Zach Duke (in the middle of a 0.9 WAR season, -0.4 WAR in 2019, hasn't pitched since)
• Brian Dozier (in the middle of a 0.9 WAR season, put up 1.9 WAR in 2019, -0.3 in 2020, and retired)

The Twins traded nothing of value prior to or during 2017, so you can't argue trades is what drove that playoff run.  They traded no one in 2018 until July, and were 48-54 at the time of the trades; they finished 78-84, meaning they played to a better record WITHOUT the players they traded--please explain how the sell-off caused an 8 win decline in 2018 when the team was better after the trades than before them.

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 hours ago, Mark G said:

I am confused; Rosario meager offense?  He led the team in RBI's in both '19 and '20, including Cruz, totaling 151 in 194 games.  If that is meager, then Cruz was even more meager, and if anyone expected any of the young prospects to come within shouting distance of that, I would like to pick their brain as to how they came to that conclusion.  8 mil for an RBI leader is beyond cheap in todays game; it is a FO's dream, or at least it is to most.  Respectfully, what do you see that I don't?  

Using RBI as the only metric by which to judge offensive value is not a serious approach.  To wit--in 2019/2020 Eddie Rosario had more RBIs than Mike Trout despite having fewer PAs.  Are you prepared to argue that 2019/2020 Rosario was a superior offensive player than 2019/2020 Mike Trout?

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

The number 1 predictor of future attendance is wins and losses, not players. Fans want wins. The fans that buy tickets all the time, or watch the games all the time are not who the team needs to sell to. I doubt many casual fans give a rat's butt about Rosario winning this year. Heck, more than few serious ones don't. 

This.  A Twins team that wins 105 games and the World Series will have far better attendance the next year than a team that signed Berrios and Buxton, but proceeded to lose 85 games and miss the playoffs.

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

There's a few more comments in here about Falvey and Levine being full of themselves, or thinking they're the smartest guys in the room, or whatever other way you want to say they're overconfident in their intelligence. I find them interesting. Which front offices in any major sport do you think don't go into everything as incredibly confident people who think they're the smartest person in every room? Sticking to just baseball, there's 30 teams. That's between 30 and 60 GM/POBO jobs available depending on how each team structures their decision making trees. They're all full of themselves and think they're the smartest people in every room.

It's incredibly hard to get to the places they are and you have to be incredibly smart to get there. I'd rather have them have extreme confidence in their strategies than be constantly questioning them (not reassessing them, but being unsure of their choices). These people have far more information at their disposal than most people could even imagine. It's interesting to me that so many people are shocked by the confidence of FO personnel who have reached the pinnacle of an extremely competitive market. And being creative and finding the next "it" way to win is huge to each and every one of them. It's their jobs to outsmart the other teams. Of course they think that's what they're doing. The question is how good they are at it.

I don't get this either.  It's like being mad the Chief of Surgery at Mayo thinks he's the best surgeon in the room.  Why in the heck wouldn't he?  Furthermore, why would you prefer that he doesn't?

[Cap'n Piranha]

3 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

There is a lot of hostility toward intelligent people on this board for sure. Also toward math, science, change, and progress.

Sometimes I feel like certain posters on here are riding the Drunk Train from HIMYM.

[Doctor Gast]

On 11/17/2021 at 1:45 PM, IndianaTwin said:

Do you mean besides Polanco, Kepler, Sano and Dobnak? Or are you defining those contracts differently? 

Brock is talking about big contracts not those who settled for peanuts.

[Doctor Gast]

I agree with you Brock. I think it's a shame that this FO offer top $ to FAs and sometimes overpay them but yet constantly try to low ball our own home grown in extensions. I'd rather them not chase after FA with big contracts and focus on own and  trading for our big needs. 

[Mike Sixel]

8 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

Brock is talking about big contracts not those who settled for peanuts.

Like who? Who should have gotten a big contract? Berrios and Buxton are it. There isn't a huge sample size here.....

[IndianaTwin]

9 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Signing Randy Dobnak to a long-term deal instead of Berrios is not exactly an argument in favor of this front office.

To clarify, I was not suggesting that any of those deals were particularly good or particularly bad. In fact, in a later post you’ll see that I said that it’s indeed looking like Dobnak could turn out to be an overpay.

Rather, I was saying that the OP’s statement that the current front office has not signed any current players to multiyear contracts is inaccurate. There are four players on the current roster who have indeed received multiyear deals.

[IndianaTwin]

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

Brock is talking about big contracts not those who settled for peanuts.

Go back and read the OP. It had no such qualifiers. I also don’t see anything in the context that suggests such qualifiers. 

[Mark G]

7 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Using RBI as the only metric by which to judge offensive value is not a serious approach.  To wit--in 2019/2020 Eddie Rosario had more RBIs than Mike Trout despite having fewer PAs.  Are you prepared to argue that 2019/2020 Rosario was a superior offensive player than 2019/2020 Mike Trout?

True, but it is a pretty important one.  And, while Trout may be a superior overall player throughout his career, superior skills and superior stats are not the same.  To wit- Buxton is a superior player all around than Rosario.  Yet with 19 home runs and 23 doubles (in a limited number of PA's last year) he only produced 32 RBI's.  As much as I want Buxton as an all around player, I still want the guy who has a knack for getting that run across the plate, and Rosario did it better than any Twin for two years.  Just my extremely humble opinion.  

[adorduan]

20 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Eduardo Rodriguez (similar pitcher) got 5 years $80MM.

Zack Wheeler (similar pitcher) got 5 years $118MM.

MLBTradeRumors has 3 other pitchers who are viewed as better than Berrios with contracts expected on par or smaller at 5 / $110MM (Stroman), 5 / $130MM (Ray) and 6 / $138MM (Gausman).

 

Wheeler was 30 when he got his deal. Berrios is 27.  Since 2017 Berrios has significantly better numbers that Rodriguez.  They aren't "similar" pitchers.

[Mark G]

17 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

Here's the MLB players that I can see they traded away (according to ESPN).

2017

• John Ryan Murphy (in the middle of a -0.4 WAR season, best remaining season was 2018, at 0.9 WAR)
• Jaime Garcia (in the middle of a 1.9 WAR season, 0 WAR in 2018, hasn't pitched since)
• Brandon Kintzler (in the middle of a 1 WAR season, 0.2 WAR in 2018, peaked at 0.9 WAR in 2019)

2018

• Eduardo Escobar (has been quite good since, with the exception of 2020; -0.5 WAR)
• Ryan Pressly (good since the trade, never quite elite)
• Zach Duke (in the middle of a 0.9 WAR season, -0.4 WAR in 2019, hasn't pitched since)
• Brian Dozier (in the middle of a 0.9 WAR season, put up 1.9 WAR in 2019, -0.3 in 2020, and retired)

The Twins traded nothing of value prior to or during 2017, so you can't argue trades is what drove that playoff run.  They traded no one in 2018 until July, and were 48-54 at the time of the trades; they finished 78-84, meaning they played to a better record WITHOUT the players they traded--please explain how the sell-off caused an 8 win decline in 2018 when the team was better after the trades than before them.

Either I am missing something here, or we just disagree on the end results of what I would call a sell off.  You just listed 7 major league players traded in the span of a season (July to July, I believe), and I don't remember getting major league players in return, so young players had to replace them on a borderline wild card roster.  I would submit that most, if not all, were better than the young players that took their place, at least in those 2 years.  Again, we can debate whether or not the long term results, due to the prospects we got in return, were good, but it did take experience away from the roster at the time.  And your own figures state all but one were in positive WAR territory, so unless the replacements did better how do we say it didn't hurt those two particular teams in the moment?  Yet the first two years of this FO, as I said, was 163-161.  No one can prove a negative, so I can't tell you what the record would have been, but picture the team buying those two July's instead of selling.  I can only project the team being contenders, at least into late Sept.  And maybe we wouldn't have the up and coming players we have now, I won't argue that.  It just isn't possible to not wonder what could have been.