Twins Designate Oswaldo Arcia

At no point in time as a major  league ball player did Cruz have a K% approaching 30%,   If you are trying to make a case try to compare similar players at similar points in their career. Arcia is not even remotely similar to Cruz because he will never hit with a 30-40% K rate.  Again, this has nothing to do with the front office and everything to do with a player. It is really disingenuous to make it about the front office when I did not bring up the front office.

As noted, Cruz's K% was 25% in his first two+ years- better than Arcia, to be sure- but Arcia at 31% - and four years younger on the comp, isn't really that far away from Cruz's 25% for you to draw some definitive distinction. If we were to project their career timeline, just knowing what we know of their first two years in the league, Arcia shows superior power potential, a better BB rate, but more likely to whiff, as any typical power hitter would be expected to perofrm.

You seem to be going out of your way to ignore the significantly greater results of Arcia relative to Cruz in this exercise I illustrated... not sure why... ?  except, judging previous posting history, up to and including your most recent posts in this thread... it's all on the players... that is, all on them- once the Twins FO decides to part ways...

What is Kepler or Grossman's ceilings?  Arcia's ceiling is pretty much 25-30HR and the inability to play defense. Batting .200 with that many HR and no ability  defense when playing defense will net you very little value for a full season of war. Gattis played 11 games in lf last year, hit almost 30 hr and almost hit .250 for a sum total of 0 WAR.  Arcia was beaten out by 2 players

I'm not a WAR guy

I'm not a WAR guy

But you're a defense guy. Bad defense negates some portion of whatever offense is produced. Whether you espouse one particular formulation of the tradeoff, you surely have a mental format for doing the tradeoff, and surely Arcia's defense bothers you, doesn't it? He's way down from his ceiling on offense these past two years, but even if he comes back to that ceiling, his glove is giving back some of those runs.

I hate this DFA of Arcia. Santana wasn't off the 40-man, so only a 25-man roster move was needed to add him.

There are 3 guys who would be easy IMO to option to Rochester, leaving room for Arcia for the time being: Buxton, Kepler, Park. I would pick Park. But the argument given against sending ANY of them down is that they won't learn to hit major league pitching at AAA.

In that case, why didn't that argument get applied to Arcia the last two years, while he did still have options?

A puzzling double standard. (And I hesitate to open another tangent, but we're working toward a similar scenario with Polanco in 2017.)

Adding Park this past off-season was a good move - increasing the talent pool always has to be good. The problem is not making a corresponding move. TR stated that he was in talent acquisition mode, and wasn't looking to move any of the players he already had. Unless that was purely a negotiating tactic to keep the value of a trade chip like Plouffe high (didn't work!), the glut of corner/DH types stood out a mile at the time, and never was addressed.

And now one of those corner/DH types is about to be lost for pennies on the dollar (if we're lucky, otherwise for zero), and it doesn't seem like it had to happen.

I don't claim trading Plouffe was going to be easy, or return full value. But TR apparently was afraid of getting only 85 cents on the dollar by trading someone like him, and held on too long.

These things all tie together.

But you're a defense guy. Bad defense negates some portion of whatever offense is produced. Whether you espouse one particular formulation of the tradeoff, you surely have a mental format for doing the tradeoff, and surely Arcia's defense bothers you, doesn't it? He's way down from his ceiling on offense these past two years, but even if he comes back to that ceiling, his glove is giving back some of those runs.

Yeah I am and I get the concept... I just don't trust the methodology at this point. I hope to trust it later when it is stabilized somehow. The sample size swings are too much for any hat hanging. 

I'm a big defense guy and I look at it pretty simple. Did you take away or give an extra out. The answer to that is the difference between hanging a zero and leaving a crooked number and ball games can be won or lost right there. 

Arcia... He certainly wasn't a take away an out guy (maybe his arm on occasion). But then again... The Current Twins don't have a lot of take away an out types of guys after Buxton. 

Arcia... He certainly wasn't a take away an out guy (maybe his arm on occasion).

Everyone's pretty much agreed on that. But that's only a neutral statement.

Don't you want to take the additional step of saying he is a "give them an out" (or a base) guy on defense?

I've been one to give TR the benefit of the doubt. The Twins had better-than-average success from 2001-2007 considering the budget constraints he worked with and I think the organization as a whole was in much better shape at the end of last season than it was 4 years previously when he was rehired. I took that and his generally positive press as evidence that he was good at his job. Even through the major league team's struggles this season I was willing to accept the notion that it was at least in part just a patch of unforeseeable misfortune.

However, IMHO this transaction is the last facet of an indefensible blunder. Arcia has 30-HR talent. Obviously there are shortcomings elsewhere in his skill set but you don't just give up on such a player as young as he is as quickly as they did. It's beyond me to understand how the team did not have him in the lineup every day starting at about May 10. Knowing he was out of options and experiencing a season in which playing to win had become far less important than evaluating and developing prospects meant that it was in the best interest of the team and of the player to give him an extended look.

This whole fiasco has flipped me to the point of view that TR should be replaced as soon as ownership can identify a satisfactory replacement.

I'm with you

I've waited patiently over the years and told myself and others. Let the Man do his Job. 

I Can't do that anymore the mistakes are just too large and plentiful. 

You expressed my thoughts perfectly. Everyone knew he was out of options. Instead of giving him one last chance to show something with a ball club that has nothing to lose.

They decided to take away that one last chance.  

What is the timeline for the waiver wire? When will we learn whether he's cleaimed?

10 days I believe. So June 26th.

Everyone's pretty much agreed on that. But that's only a neutral statement.

 

Don't you want to take the additional step of saying he is a "give them an out" (or a base) guy on defense?

Considering that OF play is filled to the brim with routine plays. 

I'd answer that question with No. 

Arcia has probably missed about 3 balls this year on plays that would be made the majority of time.

That isn't good but you can absorb that as long as you don't have another guy like that. 

We got one who is even worse in Sano. 

We got one who is even worse in Sano. 

I'll go along with the other points, but an assemblage of poor defensive OF is no (ahem) defense of Arcia.

I'll go along with the other points, but an assemblage of poor defensive OF is no (ahem) defense of Arcia.

I have no defense of Arcia defense. I hope you didn't think I was actually trying. 

Molitor said he gave Arcia a chance? Wow.

Releasing Arcia is simply one step to "the Rebuild". Removing major league players that aren't in the future but are potentially blocking the advancement of those that might have a future is a necessary step--and one that has been advocated many time even by some of those complaining about this necessary move.

Arcia should be playing every day in RF.  The only reason he's not is the insistence of this general manager (and there were many here who backed this move) to keep Trevor Plouffe.

Maybe Arcia would've continued to struggle, but we should've found out.  Not turned him into a bench player.