Twins Worst Free Agent Signing Ever?

Simmons was signed for his defense, and he stands at 1.8 dWAR at the moment, which is far from awful.

"20/20 hindsight" is pretty weak tea for a critique.

Simmons was hired to play defense, period.  Darn near everyone thought there was enough offense throughout the rest of the lineup to overcome his weaknesses at the plate.

Obviously, that's not how it's turned out.  The lineup's been considerably more anemic than was expected (injuries may have something to do with that), and the pitching's been so bad there's reason to doubt offensive performance "as expected" would be enough to overcome it.

You have a better argument for "The Twins overpaid Kepler when they extended him."  

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

With names like Phil Hughes, Matt Capp, Mike Pelfrey, Rondell White, Kendrys Morales, and I cannot even list all the FA BP pickups that we made this year.  I am not a fan of Simmons, but there is a lot to choose from.  

Phil Hughes extension was bad.  he wasn't signed as a free agent.

Does anyone remember the impact of the Butch Huskey signing?  How about that time we signed the hall of famer Steve Carlton?  (1-6 with an 8.54 ERA) Mike Pelfry was bad though I rooted for him cause he wanted to be here.  He was ok his last season here.  And who can forget the signing of Sidney Ponson?  

Had he been signed for say 3 years at 10.5 per and we cut the cord after this year he would be higher up that 'worst ever' food chain...given it was a 1 year deal and it was an horrible year at the plate and not great but not sub-par in the field I can't go with worst ever.

I wouldn't even rank him as the worst single year, positional player signed by this FO. Logan Morrison anybody?

My first thought when we signed him was, "I hope this doesn't turn out like Adam Everett." Its turned out like Adam Everett.

The opinion position players are signed for "x" part of the game isn't accurate. They're signed because they excel at "x" part of the game. They're always signed as part of an overall package. The Twins could just have their pitchers hit instead of Simmons has an OPS of .561 and pitchers have an OPS of about .250. Through July and mid-August, his OPS was .393. You're starting to get pretty close to using the DH to cover him instead of the pitcher...

Simmons has been worth -0.5 fWAR and 1.3 bWAR because Baseball Reference WAR defensive value is broken as it doesn't take into consideration shifts. Simmons has actually been a below average fielder this year according to Fangraphs UZR because of his higher than average error rate.

1 hour ago, Dodecahedron said:

Pedro Florimon is still playing in the minors.  Sign him and pay him the league minimum.  He will perform comparably to Simmons, both defensively and offensively.

Really now, hmmm:

Rdrs/yr SS Simmons  22

Rdrs/yr SS Florimon  7

WOW, they are the same if you are blind in one eye and cannot see out of the other.  LOL  ?

Nolasco was at least several orders of magnitude worse than Simmons, and he's just the first one that jumps to mind from recent memory.

Simmons' presence has moved Polanco to 2B where he fits much better defensively,  and his comfort might be part of his great offense.

Not even close. And as has been mentioned…not even that close to the worse this year.

10 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

To be fair, I don't think many people around these parts base a player's value on his batting average.  Most people around here use WAR, which has not looked good for him since 2018. 

Fwiw, not sure ‘most’ hold WAR as THE number, given how it can be significantly influenced by questionable and often just plain nonsensical defensive metrics. But, certainly not BA. Maybe OPS, wRC+…maybe WAR, but certainly not BA.

I don’t quite get the angst over Simmons. The contract was well worth plugging a defensive whole at SS for a team that figured to mash and figured to contend. And it was a 1-year contract for a reason. The Twins thought they had an answer for 2022. Meanwhile, the defensive production has been about what was expected. The offense? wRC+ of 58 with a 250 BABiP. In 2019 it was 79 with a 277 BABiP. (Inflated BABiP in small sample last year.) I mean the difference just isn’t that material for the club that the Twins were supposed to be.

Those that let things like his anti-vax stance color their opinion…well, that’s their prerogative. I don’t agree with Simmons decision in a team sport scenario, but it had zero impact on the season.

Also, some here are super frustrated that he continues to play. It is frustrating. But it’s not Simmons fault.

cant agree..Simmons may be the slickest fielder in the majors...makes plays all over the field..and he has abetter Avg than Kepler..Jeffers, Rooker. He is NOT the reason for the Twins failure this year...it's Pitching Pitching and Pitching...and the Twins batters flailing away at the plate ..... so hard to watch baseball anymore with all the strikeouts....swinging at stuff

in the dirt or watching it go right down the pike. 

People here not recognizing Simmons as the worst ever are disregarding (¿perhaps have never experienced?) the internal furor and havoc a bad and non-contributing teammate can cause. This guy GOT PEOPLE SICK and endangered players, staff, and their families with his Big Stupid.

On top of that, he’s the worst offensive performer in the league and, like Ted said, his errors always seem impactful. 

Yeah, he’s the worst Twins FA signing. Ever. Gerriddovm. 

Once again, Ted brings the satire. I'm gonna be laughing at this all day...maybe all weekend.

Looking forward to more.

On 9/10/2021 at 12:47 AM, Dodecahedron said:

Nishioka had a rude awakening just six games into his major league career, when a certain Yankees player essentially did a hit job on him.  One good thing that came out of that, eventually, was this play contributed to rule changes for sliding into second base.

From that day on, I suspect Nishioka just wanted to go home.  The only person he had to talk to was his interpreter.  Eventually, he cut his contract short, leaving money on the table, and went home.

In any case, it's not completely fair to pile it on Nishi.  He played extremely well in the minors before the injury, and he only played 5 games before his New York Welcome™ to the major leagues.  I don't think he was having fun or getting the support he needed after that.

I would call Byungho Park a bigger failure free agent signing, if we are counting international players.  The Twins signed him because he was smacking impressive home runs off of 86-88 mph fastballs and he was known to be a poor defender.  There was no chance he was going to do well in the majors.

Well-said. You can't just sign an interpreter and say, "OK, that's all he needs.'

Just the fact that he played a great SS which kept Polanco at 2B makes him a valuable acquisition. This provided Polanco to heal and find himself plus kept him from the damaging downward spiral they had him on.

My main concern was his ankles and proved he was healthy. We all knew he was a light hitter. In the beginning he was hitting well with a few HRs. I believe those HRs went to his head as to change his swing. That plus that extra time off, his hitting was pathetic. I don't blame him I blame the hitting coaches. They are there to point out the wrong approach and constantly help hitters to stay in themselves. If you remove that pathetic rut, he'd be one of our best hitters. Plus take in consideration he didn't play last year which would effect his endurance.

What would be the alternative? Keep Polanco at SS and totally wreck him and have a totally pathetic defense? That would really suck for years. I think Simmons has been an very wise acquisition. The problem is too many look at Simmons under a microscope with a negative filter.

Wow, I suspect I am putting myself square in the crosshairs here, but I couldn't disagree with this more.  As the article stated, we knew going in he had a light bat.  We knew he would give better defense.  And, again as the article said, he proved it.  We expected to be a good hitting contending team that could live with a light hitting good glove shortstop; the fact that the rest of the team fell on its collective face is the reason we are where we are, not Simmons.  From what I remember being told when we signed him he lived up to his billing almost entirely.  We did expect an average higher than .218, but we knew he was a singles hitter who was not going to make or break the offense and he has done pretty much what he came here to do, which was to give us a solid glove at SS while Polanco settled in at second and the prospects came around.  Not only do I believe it was, and still is, a good signing I would sign him right now for 2022 to give the prospects another year to mature.  And hopefully we won't have the 3rd worst (or close to it) ERA in the league and Kepler will hit more than .207.  And Buxton will stay on the field.  And Sano will learn how to play first and hit more than .214, And I could go on, but don't need to.  Simmons wasn't, and isn't, the problem.  A contending team not only can afford a light hitting gold glove caliber SS, it should want one (the glove, that is).  The team had a meltdown, not Simmons.  

I can't believe I just defended this FO's decision.  Maybe there is hope after all.   

Funny, this article produced the opposite affect from readers than it should have.  Because readers wanted to make a point that Simmons isn't the absolute worst free agent, they ended up sticking up for him, making excuses for him.

He is dreadful and shouldn't have been signed.  But the real crime is that we didn't cut him loose many moons ago.  That's on the team management and not on him.  

This move also forced Arraez out of position that didn't really work well. And this was SUPPOSED to help the defense. 

For me he is not the worst, mainly because he is not that far off of what he has shown.  Good defense and poor offense.  Yes, the offense is worse then expected but it is not like signing a guy you expect to carry your offense and they put up those type of numbers.

For me, Tsuyoshi Nishioka is by far the worst signing that I can think of.  The main reason is he did nothing for the position he was signed for and never really contributed.  The money was not crazy high, but it involved us sending a good SS to Baltimore for two pitchers that did nothing for us.  The signing made JJ Hardy expendable because we thought Nishioka would play there.  Well, he never did play there and he was trash the few games he played anywhere with the Twins.  At least the signing of Simmons did not result in trading someone away because we had him.  

Simmon was always expected to be a 1 year thing.  Was he worse than expected, yes, but for 1 year that is all we put into him.  Nishioka was years of issues connected.  

5 hours ago, Ruven said:

People here not recognizing Simmons as the worst ever are disregarding (¿perhaps have never experienced?) the internal furor and havoc a bad and non-contributing teammate can cause. This guy GOT PEOPLE SICK and endangered players, staff, and their families with his Big Stupid.

On top of that, he’s the worst offensive performer in the league and, like Ted said, his errors always seem impactful. 

Yeah, he’s the worst Twins FA signing. Ever. Gerriddovm. 

This is a very good point, but I still don't think he's the worst FA the Twins have ever signed. Worst teammate or worst employee, on the other hand....

5 hours ago, Ruven said:

People here not recognizing Simmons as the worst ever are disregarding (¿perhaps have never experienced?) the internal furor and havoc a bad and non-contributing teammate can cause. This guy GOT PEOPLE SICK and endangered players, staff, and their families with his Big Stupid.

On top of that, he’s the worst offensive performer in the league and, like Ted said, his errors always seem impactful. 

Yeah, he’s the worst Twins FA signing. Ever. Gerriddovm. 

WOW, I bet he farted in the club house too ! ?

Nolasco has to rank #1 for me.........signed offseason 2013......produced a 15-22 record across 56 games started with a 5.44 ERA....for a 4-year $48mill contract.  Literally did a dance the day we unloaded him to Angels for Hector Santiago, who I thought would be an upgrade...he wasn't.

My #2 would be Mike Pelfrey........don't remember the contract details......it was way too much.......across 3 injury riddled seasons he produced a 11-27 record with a 4.94 ERA over 64 games started.

My #3---which could be higher, but I rank him here because I don't think the financial investment was that much....the ballyhooed one and only-----Sidney "Pontoon Boat" Ponson.  Signed as free agent Jan 2007........started 7 only 7 game before being DFA'ed in May, but only after a 2-5 record, 6.93 ERA and a 1.88 WHIP.  He was beyond horrible.