Twins Need To Be Buyers Next Winter

Yep.  The Twins are 3 or 4 starters away from competition STILL and there is not much on the horizon that is remotely close and has proven a thing.  I was really hoping that this season would be big year for May, but as it stands now having TJ at 27....hard not to think that his career is essentially over after watching other guys taking  1 year and 1.5 years to come back.  Hughes is a shadow of his former self.  Duffey and Gibson are absolute train wrecks, Santiago is Nolasco light and Berrios can't handle major pitching.

 

Were do they go from there?  They are NOWHERE near ready to go out and spend big on premium major league starters when they have nothing else to pair it with.  If anything the new FO needs to purge guys like Hughes, Mauer, Santiago, Perkins, etc. over the next two years.  Guys who are not living up to expectations and are taking up large chunks of the payroll.  Clear some space so that in 2 years the club will have much greater flexibility to make meaningful moves and go after quality starters, to pair with some of the up and coming talent.  

 

The only hiccup is that there doesn't appear to be that many guys on the way up given how bad the team has been these past five years.  Who else is there besides Berrios, Gonsalves, Romero, Meija?.  Thorpe missed 2015 and 2016 with TJ surgery and a viral infection and is off the radar.  Kohl Stewart looks like a flop with the horrible K/9 rates.  Tyler Jay is struggling to convert to a starting role.  

Well hey there Mr. Negative. Let's get off the ledge ok?

May had a setback but Heezy was talking in another thread about how May's surgery is easier than other TJs (repair vs. replacement of the connection). TJ has become really common. Saying May's career is over is a bit ridiculous - he should be back next year so let's be excited for that.

Duffey may be better suited for the pen but he looks to be dominant there. So that's good.

Berrios is 22 years old. 22. He'll be fine, even though he struggled last year. Tons of pitchers (including a certain Johan Santana) struggle when they first come up. Position players too. No need to give up on Berrios. He may not be a #1 but he should be a nice little middle rotation pitcher.

Mejia looks like a solid back of the rotation lefty with some upside to become a #3 starter. That's good.

And the Twins do have guys like Hughes and Santana and Santiago leaving in the next year or two, just as they have a whole crop of young talent coming up. Stewart has struggled with the K/9 but he has the elite stuff and is very young for his advancement. Thorpe has had everything go wrong that can go wrong and is still only 21 and looking to attack A ball again. Tyler Jay is still stretching out but stuff-wise, he's been everything the Twins thought he could be when they drafted him. Romero is as good a prospect as anyone and looks to potentially be that #1 guy. Jorge is a nice back-of-the-rotation pitching prospect as well. Further down the ladder, the Twins have the #1 draft pick this year and Huscar Ynoa graduating rookie ball.

Not all of that will stick or make it of course and there is some concern about the lack of a dominant #1 but there's a lot of really fun pitching prospects working their way up the ladder. The Twins may not be amazing this year but if Santana, Hughes and Santiago can string together some good work, they become nice trade bait.

We don't need to go get Jake Arrieta but we also don't need to be negative. There's a new sheriff in town and he has both a plan and some nice horses to do the plan with. Let's keep on the bright side of life.

3-19 is not random. In fact, it's so one sided that it almost disproves a claim of randomness all on its own.
If it were just random, the expected result would be right around .500.

Sorry, as random in sports, not coin flipping. I never liked Billy Beane much but he's a pretty good baseball mind who talked about the randomness of baseball playoffs. The 87 Twins were a garbage team who went all the way cuz they got hot (Les freaking Straker was their #3 starter) while the 1991 Twins were objectively not as good as the 1991 Jays but beat them anyway.

In basketball, the best teams make it to the finals most years - you don't get a #6 seed going. Football is a bit more random with the sudden death format but again, the worst playoff teams don't have a chance (you could redo the 2016 NFL playoffs 100 times and the Raiders and Texans never make the Super Bowl). Baseball is a lot more random - better teams lose all the time and any team that makes it has the potential to go all the way. I'd say that hockey is more random since it seems like all you need is a hot goalie and you're capable of beating anyone.

The hitting core is here now. 

Oh man, disagree. The hitting core is on the verge but we'll only know after this year. If Buxton takes the step we all hope, Rosario rebounds, Sano rebounds, Kepler doesn't fall apart, Vargas shows it's for real etc., than we'll know it's here. And even then, you open a 5-7 year window with the hitting core. No need to panic and restrict your ability to sign guys like Buxton, Sano, Rosario or Kepler to longer deals by signing the huge contracts it would take to get elite pitching to come to a non-contending middle market like MN.

The Twins need to trust their young pitching prospects over the next two years while their hitting develops. It'd help to be able to trade Dozier/Hughes/Santana for more prospects during that period but they have the internal options to build a rotation that can consistently get them to the playoffs. 

I think refusing to compete for the best ML free agents is a mistake. No different than chosing not to pursue other talent, such as trades or int'l free agents. It's self limiting and short sighted.

But if everyone else is jumping off a cliff, we should too?
 

Signing 30 year old starting pitching to the 5-7 year contracts they get today is fraught with peril. The contracts almost never work out for the back half of the deal and often don't for the front. You only need to look at guys like Johan, Halladay, Sabathia, Zito, Shields, Cain, Lincecum, Hampton and even Verlander to see how those can become anchors holding a franchise back.

The Yankees can afford the back half of a Sabathia contract (though even in NYC it's tough) but the Twins need to be smart enough to know they can't do that. I don't call it "refusing to compete for the best ML free agents", I call it "being smart enough to avoid the mistakes that big franchises make."

I would be the GM that TD hates. I would rarely if ever spend big money on a free agent. Instead I would plow that money into scouting and international signings. Scott Bowman kept the Canadiens dynasty alive by trading popular productive players before they hit their decline. Free agency is mostly fools gold.

Scotty Bowman was never the GM of the Canadiens.  Its why he left for Detroit.  Sam Pollock was the GM during Scotty's tenure.