Falvine and Foresight? Do they have it?

[baul0010]

Falvey has stated the Twins are not rebuidling in 2022.  But many of our recent moves seem to point towards a slight rebuild.  We trade Berrios and Cruz for prospects.  We haven't used any of the dollars we saved to invest in any of the quality pitching that was on the market.   There is not much chance to compete with the starting rotation we have in place.  

I seem to remember Falvey stating that the speed of offseason signings took them by surprise.  You are the leaders of a multi-million dollar operation, shouldn't you be in tune with what is going to happen before and after a lockout?  I know they can't predict the future, but it seems that a majority of F.O.'s took a look and understood the lockout was not going to end before spring training, and acted accordingly before the lockout started.  There was not a better situation to pick and choose a couple starting pitchers to front our rotation, if we believed we could compete. 

The losses of some of our talent for next to nothing is sad.  We essentially received nothing for losing Wade, Baddoo, pitchers Ynoa, Reed, Anderson, and Littel.  I think Ynoa was sent to the Braves for Jaime Garcia, then traded to the Yankees for Littell...who is still gone.  That is some serious depth lost right there.  

I guess my long winded question is, does this front office have what it takes to evaluate our organization as a whole (or baseball as a whole) and lead us to success?   

[Mike Sixel]

27 minutes ago, baul0010 said:

Falvey has stated the Twins are not rebuidling in 2022.  But many of our recent moves seem to point towards a slight rebuild.  We trade Berrios and Cruz for prospects.  We haven't used any of the dollars we saved to invest in any of the quality pitching that was on the market.   There is not much chance to compete with the starting rotation we have in place.  

I seem to remember Falvey stating that the speed of offseason signings took them by surprise.  You are the leaders of a multi-million dollar operation, shouldn't you be in tune with what is going to happen before and after a lockout?  I know they can't predict the future, but it seems that a majority of F.O.'s took a look and understood the lockout was not going to end before spring training, and acted accordingly before the lockout started.  There was not a better situation to pick and choose a couple starting pitchers to front our rotation, if we believed we could compete. 

The losses of some of our talent for next to nothing is sad.  We essentially received nothing for losing Wade, Baddoo, pitchers Ynoa, Reed, Anderson, and Littel.  I think Ynoa was sent to the Braves for Jaime Garcia, then traded to the Yankees for Littell...who is still gone.  That is some serious depth lost right there.  

I guess my long winded question is, does this front office have what it takes to evaluate our organization as a whole (or baseball as a whole) and lead us to success?   

Cruz was in the last year of his deal, and they were out of it last year. Should they have kept him? Why? That would be an awful move by the FO. They chose wrong on which OF to keep (Cave or Wade), but Cave was more veteran and proven....so they were thinking 100% the opposite of rebuild with that move. I'm not sure what you are arguing? Same with Baddoo....you can't complain about not keeping young players with no MLB experience, while also complaining that they are only building for the future.....

[cHawk]

We trade Berrios and Cruz for prospects.

Those moves were asset management in a lost season. They were not “long term rebuild” moves. Moving Cruz was a no brainer. Berrios wouldn’t sign here for some reason. We may never know why, but unless we do we can’t draw conclusions about the trade.

You are the leaders of a multi-million dollar operation, shouldn't you be in tune with what is going to happen before and after a lockout? I know they can't predict the future, but it seems that a majority of F.O.'s took a look andunderstood the lockout was not going to end before spring training, and acted accordingly before the lockout started.

This would be a valid argument but you forgot about trades. No major trades have happened. If everyone knew there would be no offseason after the lockout, major trades would’ve happened. They happen every offseason.

The losses of some of our talent for next to nothing is sad.  We essentially received nothing for losing Wade, Baddoo, pitchers Ynoa, Reed, Anderson, and Littel.  I think Ynoa was sent to the Braves for Jaime Garcia, then traded to the Yankees for Littell...who is stillgone.  That is some serious depth lost right there.  

This is a fair argument. Their internal talent evaluation seems flawed.

I guess my long winded question is, does this front office have what it takes to evaluate our organization as a whole (or baseball as a whole) and lead us to success?

Technically they’ve already been successful. Three playoff births in five years, two division titles. They did that after inheriting literally the worst team in Twins history. Remember that they improved the pitching staff every year from 2017-2020 before last season happened. In addition, they have stocked the pitching farm. A big part of whether or not they’ll be able to take us to the next level is for the farm to produce. They have dealt with some injuries and a lost season in 2020, which has slowed the development down. 2022 is a critical year for them.

As for a World Series? Well, I think a lot of that comes down to the pipeline producing. If the pipeline can produce like Cleveland’s pipeline has (courtesy of Falvey) then maybe they’ll go all in then.

Will they do that? That remains to be answered.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

3 hours ago, baul0010 said:

Falvey has stated the Twins are not rebuidling in 2022.  But many of our recent moves seem to point towards a slight rebuild.  We trade Berrios and Cruz for prospects.  We haven't used any of the dollars we saved to invest in any of the quality pitching that was on the market.   There is not much chance to compete with the starting rotation we have in place.  

I seem to remember Falvey stating that the speed of offseason signings took them by surprise.  You are the leaders of a multi-million dollar operation, shouldn't you be in tune with what is going to happen before and after a lockout?  I know they can't predict the future, but it seems that a majority of F.O.'s took a look and understood the lockout was not going to end before spring training, and acted accordingly before the lockout started.  There was not a better situation to pick and choose a couple starting pitchers to front our rotation, if we believed we could compete. 

The losses of some of our talent for next to nothing is sad.  We essentially received nothing for losing Wade, Baddoo, pitchers Ynoa, Reed, Anderson, and Littel.  I think Ynoa was sent to the Braves for Jaime Garcia, then traded to the Yankees for Littell...who is still gone.  That is some serious depth lost right there.  

I guess my long winded question is, does this front office have what it takes to evaluate our organization as a whole (or baseball as a whole) and lead us to success?   

Things are looking bleak right now. I get the doubts of the OP, but thus far is one bad offseason, one bad season and a rocky start to an offseason that has yet to cost them any games.

I mean let’s see what happens before we run them out on a rail

[baul0010]

I don't want to be too hard on them.  The front office seems to do a good job with managerial hirings, I just want to see a winning playoff series before I die.  A majority of my life has been watching the Twins lose as soon as they get into they playoffs!

[Karbo]

14 hours ago, baul0010 said:

I don't want to be too hard on them.  The front office seems to do a good job with managerial hirings, I just want to see a winning playoff series before I die.  A majority of my life has been watching the Twins lose as soon as they get into they playoffs!

I don't know that I can really agree about the hirings. they have hired 1 manager and IMO the jury is still out on that hire.

[Doctor Gast]

I agree with you Baul that this FO has a problem with player evaluation which effects confidence in trading, putting players on waivers and who to put on the 40 man. They say they have a plan but are very unclear on what it is and how to do it. To me it's very unclear what are the responsibilties of Baldelli, Falvey or Levine. Who's responsible for iniating trades and who's responsible for letting Baddoo go or bringing up Cave, when Baldelli said they were taking the best with them from spring training. It's hard to nail the blame on anyone when everything is unclear.

[4twinsJA]

I am reserving judgement to see how these young pitching prospects perform this year. Twins need to develop pitching, have not had much success in FA market. 

[bean5302]

This year is a huge year for the front office in my opinion. They need their farm system to produce. Hard to do much of that when there is no baseball being played, though. 

[se7799]

Ok, so are you stating trades may happen?  If so I am good with that.  But if you are saying nobody saw this coming. Then we disagree.  Interested on knowing your thought.  I do disagree that 3 playoff births is successful.  I'd rather have a good run.  And last, you say it remains to be seen if they would go all in.  Our team had the most wins of any in the organizations history.  I feel they did not go all in at the trade deadline.  Missed opportunity. 

[baul0010]

7 hours ago, Karbo said:

I don't know that I can really agree about the hirings. they have hired 1 manager and IMO the jury is still out on that hire.

I guess I was more referring to all the coaches that have been poached.  I would think the more specialized coaches working with the players make the most difference.  Then it's up to the manager to put everyone into their best situation.

[baul0010]

I guess I don't understand why some think baseball will resume and we'll pull off some trades and be all set.  I guess that is why I think the smart teams looked ahead, knew this situation would drag on, and acted accordingly.  Knowing that when baseball resumed their teams would not be settling for the scraps or trying to pull off fast trades before the regular season.  

When I hear, sign Rodon and trade for Montas, I wonder if the twins can pull that off.   I'm guessing there is going to be teams that also sat around (Angels) thinking they will sign Rodon or trade for Montas.... And everything I've seen points to the Twins not getting into any bidding wars with anyone.  

 I think that when baseball resumes it's going to be a strong push to get the players in place ready to play.  There won't be winter meetings to b.s. about trades, no dead month of January to think about improving the team.  It'll just be a rushed spring training with a push to get games that matter starting ASAP.  

[cHawk]

1 hour ago, baul0010 said:

I guess I don't understand why some think baseball will resume and we'll pull off some trades and be all set.  I guess that is why I think the smart teams looked ahead, knew this situation would drag on, and acted accordingly.  Knowing that when baseball resumed their teams would not be settling for the scraps or trying to pull off fast trades before the regular season. 

The point I was making with the trades thing is that the fact that no major trades have happened anywhere in the league invalidates the idea that “smart teams knew there would be no offseason after the lockout.”

[Prince William]

On 2/8/2022 at 1:55 PM, baul0010 said:

Falvey has stated the Twins are not rebuidling in 2022.  But many of our recent moves seem to point towards a slight rebuild.  We trade Berrios and Cruz for prospects.  We haven't used any of the dollars we saved to invest in any of the quality pitching that was on the market.   There is not much chance to compete with the starting rotation we have in place.  

I seem to remember Falvey stating that the speed of offseason signings took them by surprise.  You are the leaders of a multi-million dollar operation, shouldn't you be in tune with what is going to happen before and after a lockout?  I know they can't predict the future, but it seems that a majority of F.O.'s took a look and understood the lockout was not going to end before spring training, and acted accordingly before the lockout started.  There was not a better situation to pick and choose a couple starting pitchers to front our rotation, if we believed we could compete. 

The losses of some of our talent for next to nothing is sad.  We essentially received nothing for losing Wade, Baddoo, pitchers Ynoa, Reed, Anderson, and Littel.  I think Ynoa was sent to the Braves for Jaime Garcia, then traded to the Yankees for Littell...who is still gone.  That is some serious depth lost right there.  

I guess my long winded question is, does this front office have what it takes to evaluate our organization as a whole (or baseball as a whole) and lead us to success?   

If you are complaining of losing Littel you can't complain of  losing Ynoa. It comes across as you really have no case. Ynoa had a season of an ERA+ of 109.  That same level of starting pitching has been called a 3-4 starter by others on this board. One group or the other is correct

Cry about losing the others when they become frontline players for a couple of years. Baddoo started hot and faded once teams had scouting on him.  A little better outcome than Larnach, but the same trend. Nick Anderson had 2 great part seasons then blew out his elbow. 

[Prince William]

There were plenty of 5 year pitching contracts signed last winter. The problem with chastising the team for not signing pitchers is that it is going to take a few years to find out if the signings were a good thing or a bad thing. When the signings go bad, the boo birds will have forgotten all about what they promoted

[baul0010]

27 minutes ago, Prince William said:

If you are complaining of losing Littel you can't complain of  losing Ynoa. It comes across as you really have no case. Ynoa had a season of an ERA+ of 109.  That same level of starting pitching has been called a 3-4 starter by others on this board. One group or the other is correct

Cry about losing the others when they become frontline players for a couple of years. Baddoo started hot and faded once teams had scouting on him.  A little better outcome than Larnach, but the same trend. Nick Anderson had 2 great part seasons then blew out his elbow. 

I'm Not crying about losing any of them.  The point is, we seem to overlook our own talent for a lot of minor league signings that don't pan out.  It's hard to look across the league and see guys playing in the majors and having some success, then knowing that the twins traded them for next to nothing or in some cases just released.  None of those players are going to win you the world series, but there is only so much depth you can lose like that before your farm system is deplete of talent.  

And some times you just have to tip your cap.  I'm sure not many could have seen Badoo and Wade playing as well as they did.  

[baul0010]

31 minutes ago, Prince William said:

There were plenty of 5 year pitching contracts signed last winter. The problem with chastising the team for not signing pitchers is that it is going to take a few years to find out if the signings were a good thing or a bad thing. When the signings go bad, the boo birds will have forgotten all about what they promoted

I'm sure a majority of the contracts won't look great in 3/4 years!  The Twins seem to have some good minor league pitching.  But it looks like they might be a year out from that depth being available. 

The twins have said we aren't rebuilding.  We don't really need a rebuild so much as a year to get our minor league talent to the majors.

[bean5302]

2 hours ago, baul0010 said:

I guess I don't understand why some think baseball will resume and we'll pull off some trades and be all set.  I guess that is why I think the smart teams looked ahead, knew this situation would drag on, and acted accordingly.  Knowing that when baseball resumed their teams would not be settling for the scraps or trying to pull off fast trades before the regular season.  

When I hear, sign Rodon and trade for Montas, I wonder if the twins can pull that off.   I'm guessing there is going to be teams that also sat around (Angels) thinking they will sign Rodon or trade for Montas.... And everything I've seen points to the Twins not getting into any bidding wars with anyone.  

 I think that when baseball resumes it's going to be a strong push to get the players in place ready to play.  There won't be winter meetings to b.s. about trades, no dead month of January to think about improving the team.  It'll just be a rushed spring training with a push to get games that matter starting ASAP.  

So does it matter at all if baseball isn't played who made what moves? No signing has any value unless games are actually played and trades typically don't happen until after the signing process because teams don't know where they really stand.

Discussions on trades can continue throughout the lockout meaning there aren't necessarily hasty moves. There could be dozens of trades which have already essentially been consummated and the moment the lockout ends, the signatures get added to the documents and all is said and done so there's no need for things being done hastily.

[baul0010]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

So does it matter at all if baseball isn't played who made what moves? No signing has any value unless games are actually played and trades typically don't happen until after the signing process because teams don't know where they really stand.

Discussions on trades can continue throughout the lockout meaning there aren't necessarily hasty moves. There could be dozens of trades which have already essentially been consummated and the moment the lockout ends, the signatures get added to the documents and all is said and done so there's no need for things being done hastily.

I hope that happens.  I'll be one happy camper if our 3, 4, and 5 starters aren't Bundy, Thorpe, and Dobnak.  

[Karbo]

16 hours ago, baul0010 said:

I guess I was more referring to all the coaches that have been poached.  I would think the more specialized coaches working with the players make the most difference.  Then it's up to the manager to put everyone into their best situation.

I can agree with you on most of the coaches that I know, but I'm still not sold om Rocco as the leader of the group, though I do think he should get another year to see what he can do with a much younger team. I would really like to see this team get back to fundamentally sound baseball. I havent seen this yet out of the Rocco regime.

[Number3]

At least they don't have to deal with the Gophers this year. They can't disappoint because there are no expectations from which to disappoint. How far behind Detroit will they finish is the big question.

[baul0010]

26 minutes ago, Number3 said:

At least they don't have to deal with the Gophers this year. They can't disappoint because there are no expectations from which to disappoint. How far behind Detroit will they finish is the big question.

That is a really sad question.   It's about as depressing as everyone asking who you think is going to win the super bowl.  My answer is, hopefully not the Bengals.  I don't know if I can live in a world where the Bengals win a super bowl before the Vikings!