Commitment Issues

The futures game invite isn't a guarantee of MLB success but it was hard to watch him throw and not feel a twinge of anger. I think the last 2 sentences perfectly sum up a good number of the decisions made the past few years. 

Jepsen's performance last year was a clear outlier and classic fools gold. Just as Hughes' performance was in 2014. Some, not nobody, are not so easily duped.

Ryan should have known the Twins of 2015 were not going to win the World Series. 

The plan has been to shoot for 2017 and beyond.

Trading away any 2017 asset for 2015 was stupid.

You have to know the timing of your team - Buxton, Sano, Kepler, Berrios, ......

The Jepsen trade was done by a GM who either feels the pressure to get into the playoffs for his ego or truely doesn't understand about team construction timing.

A few years ago Theo Epstein traded away his best pitcher who still had another year and a half on his contract to get a top prospect (who played last night at SS). He knew his team timing was for 2016 and beyond.

  On 7/13/2016 at 6:54 AM, shs_59 said:

Jepsen was realistically more than arguably better for much of 2014 while with The Tampa Rays than he was in the first half in 2015 with Tampa Bay, thus eliminating you're argument.

If you are looking for arguments, that is down the hall, second door on the right.

I am not going to pretend to know enough about the value of Hu and Jepsen to say this was a good idea at the time. But I was against the deal for another reason. I did not consider the Twins a playoff team in any part of 2015. So I didn't see a need for bull pen help. And from the needs that this team has, especially in SP, giving up one was not a good idea. The playoff run was a great story, but we were chasing too many clubs, and our own tails. We never caught either.

Let's give Ryan some credit, at least he learned not to give Jepsen a Suzuki/Hughes type extension after last year.

Relief pitchers seem to be up one year and down another.  That why I was okay with not signing a FA relief pitcher.  Of the big dollar signing this offseason of relief pitchers, it's about 50/50 on success.  The Twins minor league signing have been just as good as many of the FA signing.

But I hope they plan on giving some of the minor league relief pitchers a shot for the remaining of the season.  With the bullpen, I a fan of going young and 1 year contracts.

Agreed on Capps/Ramos.  Ramos also missed most of the 2011 season and almost half of each of the two following seasons with injuries.  Even if he'd been here he wouldn't have been a full-time replacement for Mauer (unless he'd stayed healthy because of clean Minnesota living or something).

I hated giving up Hu, but I also wonder if I am way too high on our prospects.  Having Jepsen this year pitching a little worse than last year would have been a lot better than having Jepsen the current train wreck.  We could have handled a little regression.

I am not so convinced that it's as much of a coaching issue as some argue.  Look at Hendriks.  He's been gone for 3 years.  2 of the 3, including this year, have been really bad.  We haven't missed much.  Manship has put together a good year and a half with Cleveland after two dreadful years with two different teams since leaving the Twins.  Not exactly an instant turnaround, a painful process other teams had to live with.

I'm more convinced by the argument that mid-level RPs are mainly lightning in a bottle.  Don't overpay, don't sign to extensions, just keep looking.  Heck, Joh Rauch had a good year and a half here.  

I'm wondering:

• what's the percentage of middle / setup relievers that become +closers
• what's the percentage of late season acquisitions that are successful in playoff push
• what's the percentage of late season acquisitions that stay with that team and are successful next year

"If you live in the past, you die in the past."  Mike Ditka, circa 2008

“The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."  William Gibson, circa 2003

From my recollection, most people seemed to be OK with the trade at the time it was made -- though not all. 

The trade seems to reinforce the idea that it's just a bad, bad idea to make any trade for a quality reliever because you have to give up too much. It's better to either risk making a big signing or going with a combination of scrap heap guys and young, up-and-coming players. 

  On 7/13/2016 at 2:36 PM, wsnydes said:

I think most people that were okay with it also expected more to be done.  I was in the boat that didn't want them to do anything because I felt last year was a mirage.  They needed to stay the course for the future rather than detour for the short term.  Stick with the long term plan (ha!), don't budge because you've somehow managed to find yourself within shouting distance of a playoff spot.  In the end, TR did what he's been doing for years.  He was stuck in neutral.  Not advancing enough to be worthwhile, yet not really going backwards.  In the end, I wonder how many of those that were okay with the deal were okay with it when they realized that's all that was done.  At that end, what was the point of the move at all?

I don't disagree with any of that. At the same time, however, I get that the team wanted to make a push for the wild card after years of 90-loss seasons. And that was the going rate for relievers on the trade market. Lots of people every year clamor for the team to do something, especially at the deadline.

At this point, I want to see this team focus on young players and make trades of veterans to get more young players and then sign top free agents once the team has demonstrated an ability to win that is not a mirage.

  On 7/13/2016 at 2:28 PM, wsnydes said:

I think the inverse of this is true as well.  TR has also committed to players he shouldn't.  Extending Suzuki, Hughes, and Pelfrey would be the primary examples.  As much as I loved having Torii around again from a fans perspective, it made little baseball sense.  

He deserves some criticism for the timing of some of the extensions after career years only if he was counting on that sort of production going forward.  We could argue as to whether or not it's smart to pay rewards or "bonuses" for past performance, and whether that is sign of encouragement to players looking for contracts.  But looking at the contracts at the time, I do not know if they really hurt the team much.

In general, I don't have a problem with the signings referenced for a few reasons: 1) Zuke has been a somewhat solid hitting catcher for much of his time with the Twins.  We really have few other options.  He was likely extended as a place holder.  Hughes was probably expected to contribute more than he has, and hopefully still can.  

2) It's pretty evident that prospects we have depended on weren't ready.  Pelfrey and Hunter were low risk and performed decently last season.  Someone has to pitch until the minor league arms are ready.  A playoff race changed the succession plan slightly, that's not a bad problem.  

3) It's not my money.

Regarding Jepson/Hu, I doubt we'll ever miss Hu.  Could be wrong, but I doubt he's more than a Slowey or Hendricks.  Jepson was fantastic last year, and with the arms we were projecting, Hu was expendable.  The team took a (hopefully) calculated risk and made a decision about which prospects were expendable.  The team needs more of that.  

 

  On 7/13/2016 at 6:35 AM, shs_59 said:

Going back to the Trade Deadine last year, frankly, I was happy the Twins made a move, additionally they probably could of made another one. 

 

Anyway did I like the Trade at the Time?  

 

HELL no!         most of us, as I re-call didn't. Hu + Tapia for Jepsen? yuck

 

But Then Jepsen went on to have one of the more dominant halves for a reliever in Twins recent history. (and was much needed as Perkins, somewhat predictably folded up)

 

SO was the trade worth it in the end? 

Absolutely and I nor should the Twins have any regrets.

 

Nobody could of forseen Jepsen falling off the face of a cliff so sharply after August / September of last year even at the Winter Meetings just months ago.

NOBODY could have seen it coming? That's a pretty bold statement. Maybe not to this severity but it shouldn't have been a total shock that he'd regress considerably and be thoroughly mediocre. His career ERA is 3.83 which is high for a supposed back-end reliever, and 2014/15 were clearly much better than his established baseline. Even his minor league performance was pretty rough until his call-up year. Sustained excellence shouldn't have been the expectation. I also found it interesting that he was 10 for 26 in save opportunities in his career at the time we acquired him. That may not be the best statistic but it speaks a little to his performance in high leverage situations.

I remember not liking the trade, not because I had an opinion about the players involved, but because it reminded me of the Capps for Ramos deal, which sickens me yet today.