Is The Twins System Broken?

  On 2/25/2016 at 10:02 PM, REPETE said:

OK, "abysmal" was over the top.  But can you honestly say, even 1/3 of the way through that season, that you thought that team was going to be as good as it turned out?  I'm the eternal Twins optimist, twice predicting correctly before they season they'd win the World Series.  I won't go into how many times I've been incorrect, but even halfway through that year, I was waiting for the 8 game losing streak, followed by a 10 game losing streak.  

They picked up some pieces,and had hope for some success, but did you honestly think that team would be THAT good?  In hindsight, we talk about what a great team it was, but there were a lot of guys that had great years, and continued it throughout the playoffs.  If the Twins in the 00's had that same luck (Morneau's MVP season, he couldn't buy a hit in the playoffs), maybe they win a WS, and this discussion isn't taking place.

While I'm not defending the lack of impact trades during the 2000s, this is a point worth making and is too often overlooked when people talk about the 1991 season. The 91 team started off abysmally and then caught fire. Sure, the team was constructed pretty well but there was a lot of luck involved with that squad. Jack Morris went into the 91 season having posted an ERA+ of 97, 79, 89 the previous three seasons. He wasn't a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination. Davis was a decent, not great, player who played out of his friggin' mind, posting the second best season of his career in 91. While there is no comparable to Davis in recent years, the Morris acquisition wasn't terribly different than the Santana (and even possibly Nolasco) acquisition.

Basically, the 91 season was the result of a few good moves that turned into great moves in hindsight, partially through dumb luck (particularly in the case of Morris). That happens and that's why it can be important to take risks occasionally. You never know when the stars will align.

On the other hand, the 2000s Twins had (mostly) the opposite luck. In 2006, they lost Liriano, their best pitcher and, at the time, an unstoppable force. Radke was pitching with... Well, I'm not really sure what was attached to his shoulder at that point but it wasn't an arm.

In 2010, they lost what may have been the best player in baseball in Justin Morneau, a guy on his way to a 10 WAR season (!).

Again, I'm not absolving the Twins for some of their past moves but winning it all takes some luck, often a lot of luck. The 1991 Twins had it; the 2000s Twins did not. Does the 1991 team win if Scott Erickson goes down after eight starts? No. Well, that's basically what happened to the 2006 squad. Does the 1991 team win if Davis receives a concussion mid-season? Well, that's what happened to the 2010 squad.

We talk about luck/unluck in its various forms on this board all the time... It's only fair to point out just how bloody unlucky the Twins were at times in the 2000s. In what were possibly their two best seasons - 2006 and 2010 - they lost an elite player. Not a good player, an elite one. Someone worth 8+ wins over a full season. And before we praise the 1991 offseason too much and use that as a benchmark from which to grade current offseasons, we should acknowledge that everything went right for that team. Not most things... Pretty much everything.

And before we say one more word about Jack Morris, take a moment to mull over the 2003 acquisition of Kenny Rogers. A guy with a career 109 ERA+ to that point, coming off a 123 ERA+ season. He pitched his way to one of his worst seasons with a 99 ERA+ in 2003.

1991's Jack Morris had a career ERA+ of 108 going into the season and was coming off an 89 ERA+ season (and hadn't posted an ERA+ of over 100 in three seasons). He pitched his way to a career year with a 125 ERA+ in 1991.

But but but! Rogers was old, right? Well, he went on to post four more seasons of better than average ERA+, peaking with an ERA+ of 133 in 2005. Jack Morris never completed a season with a 133 ERA+, FWIW. Rogers did it at age 40.

Morris? He posted one 101 ERA+ season with Toronto, pitched two way below average seasons after that, and was out of baseball at age 39.

Kenny Rogers, three seasons previous to 2003: 551 IP, 104 ERA+ (one bad injury season sandwiched between two very good >110 ERA+ healthy seasons)

Jack Morris, three seasons previous to 1991: 655 IP, 89 ERA+

Kenny Rogers, three seasons following 2003: 611 IP, 117 ERA+

Jack Morris, three seasons following 1991: 534 IP, 85 ERA+

So, luck.

  On 2/26/2016 at 1:34 PM, spycake said:

No doubt the 1991, the team got lucky, WS winners generally do, but they were fairly aggressive at patching holes and adding depth going into that season. And I have a feeling they might have sought significant improvements mid season had it been necessary, kind of like they did the following winter, dealing for Smiley when Morris left.

The 2006 club, not so much. They got lucky too, with Liriano pitching like Cy Young and Mauer and Morneau becoming sudden MVP candidates. Of course, they handicapped themselves early by starting Castro, and then by mid season it was abundantly clear we were contenders but our SP depth was non existent, and our DH pick up was dreadful. No adjustments made, however.

2010 had plenty of good luck too. Morneau played out of his mind, and Liriano re-emerged. Sadly, though, again no major moves made mid season after Morneau went down (except Capps, trading our only viable MLB catcher behind Mauer, setting up 2011...). In fact, we seemingly did very little to expect a different playoff fate than we had met the previous 5 trips. I have a feeling the MacPhail might have sealed the deal on a Cliff Lee trade sometime in 2009 or 2010, done something to address the Morneau situation, and finally have given us a puncher's chance vs NY.

I have no real idea what this discussion is about, but that's my post, and I am sticking to it.

Heheheheh.

Again, the lack of midseason moves were frustrating and I agree more should have been done. No arguments about previous trade deadlines and how little action was taken to shore up deficiencies.

But as I pointed out with the Rogers/Morris comparison, praising the Morris acquisition as some kind of "WE'RE GONNA WIN TWINS" move unrivaled in the history of Minnesota sporting clubs is a revisionist take on the deal. It was a good move but mostly because it worked, not because it was the modern day equivalent of signing Clayton Kershaw.

Because, on paper, the 2003 Rogers acquisition should have paid better dividends. It didn't and that's baseball.

  On 2/26/2016 at 2:01 PM, spycake said:

Certainly there was luck on Morris' side in 1991, but that was an aggressive expensive deal. Rogers was an uber cheap leftover at the end of spring training.

And Morris was only one of three aggressive, expensive top SP adds during the MacPhail era (with Blyleven and Smiley). Kind of dwarfing Rogers and Reed from the TR era. Making their own luck?

Possibly... But play that Morris season out ten times and I suspect the majority of the time it's condemned as a bad, maybe even terrible, deal.

And the inverse probably applies to the Rogers deal.

Money isn't everything. The Morris deal happened to work out and that's great, games six and seven were the greatest Twins moments of my life (even better than 87 for me)... But apply the Morris thinking to today and we'd absolutely crucify Ryan for giving a formerly good (not great) 36 year old pitcher a boatload of money. Half this board would have pitchforks in hand storming 1 Twins Way for that move (see Hunter, Torii).

With that said, I wish Ryan would have spent more money more intelligently in past years but it's unfair to apply a different standard to Ryan because a move didn't pan out than to MacPhail because a similar move did work.

  On 2/26/2016 at 3:21 PM, Mike Sixel said:

2. Sometimes, you get lucky because you tried to win, rather than settling for what you had.......the 91 team tried to win. Did they get lucky? Sure. Of course. But, they tried to win, and it worked. IMO, it is more likely that you get lucky and win, if you try to win, than if you don't try to increase your odds of lucky carrying you far. Not everyone agrees.

Sure, the 91 team tried to win. So did most of the 2000s teams... But the 91 team had a lot of luck on its side while the 2000s teams... Not so much.

The Morris/Rogers comparison illustrates that better than anything else, I think. Could some of the 2000s teams have done more to win? Yeah, maybe, especially midseason... But if luck ain't on your side, you're pretty much screwed. Remove one of Morris, Puckett, Mack, Davis, or Erickson from the 91 squad and they do not win the World Series. Add a healthy Liriano or Morneau and who knows what happens to the 2006/2010 squads. Hell, add a dead cat bounce (maybe a 120 OPS+) Torii Hunter to the 2015 squad and maybe they go all the way, as unlikely as that seems today.

Acquisition X was a good idea because it worked. Acquisition Y was a failure because it didn't work, even though it was more statistically likely to succeed than Acquisition X.

Not trying to take anything way from MacPhail or give Ryan undue credit, just trying to be fair here. Results-based judgment only works in hindsight.

  On 2/26/2016 at 3:59 PM, Mike Sixel said:

Ya, because NONE of us were clamoring for a trade during the 2000s, this is all hindsight.

I've mentioned several times that Ryan didn't do enough on the trade front, particularly in midseason (and he didn't have much free agent money in the 2000s)... But did the 91 team even make a trade at the deadline? I don't believe they did.

My point is addressing the free agent situation leading into 1991, specifically the lauded Morris acquisition. MacPhail threw what easily could have been bad money (maybe even likely to be bad money) at Morris but got lucky so people hold it up as some kind of gold standard. Coupled with the much more solid Davis pickup and a huge dose of luck, the team won it all.

Inversely, Ryan threw bad money at Hunter in 2015 (but threw very good money at Rogers in 2003) and has been panned for it by a huge segment of the fanbase.

Am no way am I absolving Ryan for some of those lackluster 2000s trade deadlines but it's only fair to judge both men and their actions by the same standard.

  On 2/26/2016 at 2:37 PM, spycake said:

Would be interesting to come up with a modern comp for that player and deal. Not sure it is Hunter, and I'm not sure TR would have been pilloried too much over it..

Thankfully, I think a modern comp is hard to find because front offices are too smart to give a 1991 Jack Morris the equivalent of $20m today.

I think the 2014 Bartolo Colon contract is a good example of what usually happens when you give an old pitcher too much money. He didn't kill the Mets but was below average (just as Morris was five out of his final seven seasons).

  On 2/26/2016 at 5:32 PM, spycake said:

Unrelated, but I just noticed the 1988 team broke camp with two 43 year olds, Joe Niekro and Steve Carlton, only to release both within a month.  Maybe that was MacPhail's "Bartlett and Kubel circa 2014" moment?

Yep, I remember the team breaking camp with those guys. Pretty funny in hindsight.

And to be fair about Bartlett/Kubel, Ryan wasn't in charge of the team at that time. They were horrible decisions but can't really be pinned on Ryan (and are a great example why I'm leery of Antony ever sitting in the GM chair).

  On 2/26/2016 at 6:21 PM, nicksaviking said:

Not that I agree with the same kind of move today, but we also shouldn't forget that to replace Morris in 1992, McPhail traded two of his top prospects, Midre Cummings and Denny Neagle for one season of one of the NL's best pitchers the previous year, John Smiley.

Absolutely. The stuff MacPhail did right shouldn't be overlooked.

  On 2/26/2016 at 6:13 PM, spycake said:

Again, not sure about that.  The 2000s teams got a 2-3 time Cy Young winner in the Rule 5 draft, almost hit on another one as a lotto ticket in Liriano.  We had two future MVPs come up at exactly the same time (Mauer and Morneau).  We got thoroughly fantastic returns on trading Knoblauch, AJ, and Milton, got surprisingly good seasons out of guys like Lew Ford, Boof Bonser, etc.  Joe Mays' peak.  The last hurrahs from Shannon Stewart and Jim Thome.  Obviously a lot of that we credit to good scouting and development, but the extent of those successes, and the timing, often involved a good deal of luck, the same "luck" that formed the core of the 1987 and 1991 teams (Puckett, Hrbek, Viola and his trade, Shane Mack, etc.).

Definitely. Any team that wins over 90 games has some luck on its side but overall, many of the 2000s teams were snakebit. They managed to win 90+ games multiple times and lost an elite player in two of those seasons.

In particular, the 2010 season still irks me. Man, that team could have been something else. They were stacked top to bottom in the lineup, lost their best hitter, and still won 94 games. What were they with a healthy Morneau? A 97-98 win team? It's hard to see that team get swept by the Yankees with Justin on it.

Hell, the same thing goes for the 2006 squad. Is there any way the Twins fail to make it out of the ALDS with Santana and Liriano pitching twice?