New to here... opinionated, but respectful.

[DaveW]

Don't really want to go into necromancy on this thread, but wanted to reply to this since you took the time to answer my questions (always much appreciated!):

 

Starting from the bottom-I also know that you've been a fan long enough to remember the seasons surrounding 87 and 91... specifically 89 to 90, where MacPhail traded away his best pitcher and did nothing of note in FA to help out the horrid infield offense or to replace the recent World Series hero and Cy Young Award winner he dealt away.

 

I say this not because I think MacPhail was a bad GM (clearly, he was not, and the game will be lucky if he winds up replacing Bud), or because I disagree with his style-but because up until he signed Jack Morris, I can't think of (and some quick research backs this up) a major free agent signing by MacPhail that would qualify as "going out and getting what the team needed." He made trades and various other moves, but it's tough to look at TR's time atop the organization (somewhere around the 2 year anniversary now) and say he's been sitting on his hands when it comes to acquiring the power starting pitching that I think we can universally agree is the major issue facing the roster (Meyer, Stewart, Berrios, to a lesser extent both the college reliever experiment and May). I'm simply not sure that outside of Jack Morris, MacPhail is a particularly good model to use when the complaint is lack of free agent impact.

 

As far as willingness to pay goes, I think there's another way of looking at it (and I'm sure we'll disagree here, but bear with me. I promise that I understand where your complaint on TR's FA spending is coming from): Terry has, by my napkin math, offered a single pitcher 22% of the payroll on a 5 year deal (Santana was offered 80/5, adding his salary to the 2008 opening day roster would have made it a touch under $73m). Obviously, how applicable extensions are to new FA signings (assuming the 'cap' is still in the $105m range, that would make for a 115/5 deal) is a subjective matter and up for debate. Personally? I think it's a better insight into TR's philosophy than his parsimonious spending under a notably cheap owner in one of modern baseball's worst revenue situations. I'm not looking to change any minds or get into an extended debate over why MacPhail was/is more successful than TR (because I think we're on the same side of that), but I hope you'll consider the point.

 

Great, and I mean great post!

[Marta Shearing]

One of modern baseball's worst revenue situations? Not buying it for a second. Wasn't the new ballpark supposed to take care of that problem? The money is there. They can put it into payroll (even if heaven forbid they have to overpay), or they can put it in their pockets. There's a whole lot of deception going on here.

[TheLeviathan]

Wait, the insultingly low-ball offer for Johan is now evidence that Ryan is willing to spend money?

 

That's a new spin on it.

[Hugh Morris]

Marta-Sorry that I wasn't clear. I was referring to TR's spending habits in the Metrodome and under Carl Pohlad, not Target Field and Carl's heirs.

 

TheLeviathan- Not trying to spin anything. We have one solid, uncontested datapoint that's been put out there for TR's willingness to sign an elite pitcher. While I think the absolute number is too low-especially in 2013-I also recognize that the team's financial circumstances have changed and I think the idea of using that as a cap for portion-of-payroll he's willing to spend on a pitcher is at minimum an interesting thought experiment.

 

I suppose the concept is invalidated if you assume the offer was a bit of kabuki theatre and Terry never had any intention of resigning him-but to each his (or her) own.

[Guest USAFChief]

There are verified reports of the Twins offering Santana 80/5?

[TheLeviathan]

The problem is that you assume he capped Johan due to the percentage of payroll his salary would take when I see it more as his principles about risks of investing in pitchers. That offer, at the time (not relative to now, that's twisting the argument) was a slap in the face. Especially if we are talking about the actual offer presented by Ryan, not the 80 million Bill Smith offered. I believe Ryan's offer was substantially lower.

[Otto von Ballpark]

There are verified reports of the Twins offering Santana 80/5?

 

The report at the time was actually 4/80. But that wasn't reported until after Terry Ryan had stepped down, and trade negotiations were already reported to be underway. So not only was it likely Bill Smith's offer, it may have represented Bill Smith's best offer.

 

We all know that Mauer's extension came under Bill Smith, but interestingly, so did Morneau's -- just after the Santana trade, in fact. (Nathan's and Cuddyer's extensions came at the same time too.) I wouldn't have been surprised that, if Santana had accepted the Twins offer, these other players could have been dealt instead to "balance" the payroll.

[Otto von Ballpark]

TR's largest contract was Johan's first deal at 4/39.75. He also signed Mauer at 4/33, Hunter at 4/32, and Radke at 4/36.

 

The fact that the Radke deal, for a near-FA at the time, is nearly identical to the other contracts (which were all for first or second year arbitration players), suggests that might be the upper bound of TR's contract range -- 4 years at around $10 million annually.

 

And that's for players already with the organization and not on the open market. Largest outside free agent contracts are, of course, 3/21 (position player) and 2/10 (pitcher) (and both of those players apparently "left money on the table", told to us by TR or the player's agent to apparently assure everybody that those players were indeed better than the modest contract they signed).

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Great, and I mean great post!

 

Agreed :-)

[Otto von Ballpark]

As far as willingness to pay goes, I think there's another way of looking at it (and I'm sure we'll disagree here, but bear with me. I promise that I understand where your complaint on TR's FA spending is coming from): Terry has, by my napkin math, offered a single pitcher 22% of the payroll on a 5 year deal (Santana was offered 80/5, adding his salary to the 2008 opening day roster would have made it a touch under $73m). Obviously, how applicable extensions are to new FA signings (assuming the 'cap' is still in the $105m range, that would make for a 115/5 deal) is a subjective matter and up for debate. Personally? I think it's a better insight into TR's philosophy than his parsimonious spending under a notably cheap owner in one of modern baseball's worst revenue situations. I'm not looking to change any minds or get into an extended debate over why MacPhail was/is more successful than TR (because I think we're on the same side of that), but I hope you'll consider the point.

 

As noted above, I think the rumored offer was 4/80. Does that mean TR would be willing to pay a guy $27 million next season?

 

TR actually signed Radke for $9 million per year for 2001, when the Twins total payroll was $24 million. Does that mean TR would be willing to pay a free agent $40 million next season?

 

Even if you accept that TR (or more likely Bill Smith) once thought a particular pitcher was worth 22% of payroll, or 26%, or 38% for Radke, the question then becomes: how often do these players come around? If TR says once every 20 years, I'm not sure how "willing" that makes him.

 

Also, at the same time as Santana, Torii Hunter was apparently offered 3/45. I think that and the Santana offer were made with the full expectation that the player would refuse.

[ND-Fan]

Kyle Lohse has put together nice career since leaving Minnesota. His record since leaving the Twins 78-52 with 3.96 ERA, Whip 1.227 and strikeout per 9 of 5.7. Compare to the Twins record of 51-57 with 4.88 ERA, Whip 1.447 and strikeout per 9 of 5.6. His best years were with St. Louis where they seemed to get best results out of him of any team. It appears that ST. Louis has ability to develop pitching talent and get best out of them look at this years team again. The National league may account for some of better statistics for Loyse but he has had good career overall. The trade prospect we received for Loyse was not much and I think it was done out frustration from bad blood that had developed between both parties.

The Twins have had trouble keeping pitchers happy and wanting to stay in the organization like Loyse, Santanna, and Garza. It appears pitchers that want to challenge batters with their fastball and are aggressive have harder time fitting in with the Twins. Also Twins don't seem to get many of these pitchers in their minor league system hard throwing power pitchers so it must go against their philosophy of what they draft and sign in minor leagues. This is one of areas that I think Twins should be looking at seriously on how improve talent they are selecting for pitching and finding Short stops. They have excellent record on finding out fielders, Catching, and first baseman. To change philosophy of organization so they find talent to fill needs of what they are weak in takes time to move and add necessary people to the mix. I think Twins are light years behind on Sabermetrics not that I am totally sold on whole deal but I sure think it could help scouting system and developing talent.

 

I have been frustrated to point of its hard to sit down and watch A Twins game because of talent that they have put out on the field. The players they have played you can see they are not capable of competing ever at major league level to become winners. These are not young kids making mistakes and you can see that their going to get better this is what they got and you can see were over matched most nights. I don't see how any manager could win with this group of players. Yes there are some things they could improve some production of the players by platooning but if management is dead set against it its not going to happen. I sure hope the young talent coming up can compete but they are going to have to learn to win and that takes time. Look back at Twins in 80's it took time for that group to learn to win and compete they had few setbacks and poor years. It looked like in 84 they were on there way then 85 and 86 had few setbacks until 87. Then again it took until 91 and then it was accomplished by Free agency signing of Morris , Chili Davis, and Mike Paglirulo and bringing up rookie of Chuck knoblauck. Which today I doubt that Terry Ryan would have accomplished because of his philosophy and I like Terry Ryan I think he knows his baseball. Its that he's such principled man that he can't take short cuts or alter his long range plan he looks at being competitive year in year out. I believe he thinks that using free agency is short cut and will destroy moral in system of players they are developing and people in organization will get sloppy because they can use free agency as way to not work hard developing players for the future. That's why I believe that next year will be terrible year with us just seeing beginning of turn around late in year with young talent coming up just to get a taste of big leagues. 2015 will be development year where we still are going to loose a lot of games but you can see where we can become a pretty good team. 2016 will be year where we will begin to win and maybe make the playoffs and then we ge to 2017-2018 where we should be competing to get to the world series again. At least that's what I see.