drivlikejehu

Jim Pohlad is prone to dubious responses to reporter questions, I don't think too much should be read into this.

There's no reporting that suggests Buxton is looking for an epic guaranteed amount. When looking at the Twins' existing commitments, it's hard for me to see how extending Buxton could possibly interfere with any other plans . . . Even if he is fundamentally injury-prone (which I think is at least exaggerated, though perhaps not entirely fictional), it's still a no-brainer to me. I haven't lost faith in the FO yet but failing to extend Buxton might get me there.

Sano always does this. He's basically a league-average starting first baseman. Sure, he goes through these slumps - if he didn't, he'd be a superstar - but he's ultimately been pretty consistent throughout his career, once you account for swings in BABIP. He's keeping the spot warm for Kirilloff, Larnach, or Sabato.

Pitchers are going to find weaknesses and exploit them. It's a fun story but he's still probably a 4th outfielder.

Since the #35 pick almost never does anything in the Majors, "not liking" a #35 pick will almost always result in you being "right." It doesn't mean anything. You aren't a scout and have no ability to independently evaluate draft picks. You can certainly provide an uneducated opinion and, as noted above, negative opinions on draft picks will usually be correct, outside of the very top of the draft.

Rooker reached MLB last year and was playing fine until he got hurt. What other corner OFs has the front office drafted that you would expect to be ready, based on typical timelines, factoring in a lost season to Covid? Oh, and fun fact - the prior 18 players drafted at #35 overall, before Rooker, have combined for less than 6 total career WAR. So, yeah, what an epic whiff, when the guy might still turn into a contributor and, in fact, could *easily* wind up with more career WAR than any #35 pick since the White Sox took Aaron Rowand in 1998. But, you know, those facts sure aren't very fun when mindless criticism is available instead.

It wouldn't.

Criticism loses its weight when literally every decision is 'wrong', save maybe 1 every 5 years or so. That's just criticism for its own sake.

Astudillo is a great fit for the 26th roster spot. The only alternative use of it that would make sense would be adding another platoon bat, but aside from kinda-sorta Kepler, there's no need for it. With respect to Rooker . . . it seems like maybe he's just not that good, despite having posted good top-line stats in his career-to-date. The projection systems generally have him as a tick above replacement level, and as he gets older his defense will only get worse. He needs a major hitting breakthrough to hold down an MLB roster spot, and the Twins evidently want to work on that at the alternate site/minor league level.

Basing initial assignments on spring training would not be more effective than the current system of relying on a player's overall career. That's a pretty basic fact that has been demonstrated countless times.

I think the most understated factor here isn't so much that Rooker 'earned' a spot over Kirilloff - though one can certainly make a strong case that he did - but rather that the Twins need to find out whether Rooker is part of their future plans (as more than a last-guy-on-the-bench role). Rooker has had superficially good numbers pretty much throughout his pro career to date, but his strikeout rate is a red flag, and his lack of defensive value means he needs to be a superb hitter to someday start for the Twins. He's 26 and the computer projections are for production below the MLB average. Undoubtedly the Twins coaching staff has been working with him to optimize his approach at the plate, and by all accounts he is a hard worker. But unless he takes a significant step forward, he's a borderline major leaguer. If Rooker plays well, he could be a helpful trade piece (not to get a star, but say, to help pick up a 7th inning guy before the deadline). Alternatively, the Twins could look for ways to get both him and Kirilloff ABs during 2021. And, while I don't think this is the case, there's a possibility that Kirilloff is just overrated. Post high school, he has only demonstrated success in A-ball. He also lacks defensive value, so he could turn out to be a solid MLB hitter and still be a borderline starter.

Zero chance of Lindor or Seager, but the other three . . . are a little bit above zero, but not a lot.

My inclination would be to only buy out one or maybe two free agent years. Maybe something like (starting with this year) 7.5/12.5/15? He'd be locking in a nice chunk of change for just a one-year delay in hitting the market. I'd like another year of his prime but I don't see him being particularly valuable on the other side of 30.

I'm a huge Celestino fan. He of course has a ways to go, particularly on offense, but he has a broad skill set and has performed well in the lower minors. He definitely could be a 2.5 - 3 WAR guy in CF. There's an outside chance his power improves and he's even more than that in his prime. Given the risks inherent to prospects, the most likely outcome is probably 4th outfielder, but I have a good feeling.

I never said the Twins' 2019 bullpen was perfect. None are. But no, the information I requested is not readily available - I asked where you ranked the Twins' 2019 bullpen, and you refuse to answer. Truthfully, no facetiousness, I don't even know for sure if we agree or disagree. You won't share your actual assessment, and instead point to anecdotes that do nothing to evaluate the bullpen overall. I just don't see how someone can say a front office fell short in a particular area and then not even say whether that area was good or bad.

Compare them how? What if someone pitches well but is still sent down to AAA mid-year? What if someone gets hurt in August? Telling me to just "compare pitchers" does nothing to help me know which bullpen was better than another. If you don't want to use FIP at all, fine, no problem, I know it's just one metric among others. Not only am I at a loss as to how the Twins bullpen in 2019 ranked within MLB, under your view, but it seems like you don't know either. Were they #5? #10? #15? How can I evaluate how well the front office did with the bullpen if I have no idea where they even ranked?

All bullpens include pitchers that miss time, are called up during the season, etc., etc. To illustrate in another way that your take here is logically invalid (as opposed to merely a different opinion) - here is the problem - Say that I hit my head and start believing your take to be correct. But at the same time, I become curious about not only the Twins bullpen, but also about bullpens throughout MLB. For the 2019 season, what method would you advise me to use in order to rank all 30 bullpens? In other words, what fixed criteria could I rely on in order to determine whether one bullpen was better than another? Surely you must be able to explain this - otherwise you wouldn't even realize that the Twins 2019 bullpen wasn't very good. But while you've told me the various deficiencies within the Twins' bullpen, what if a White Sox fan says that the Sox had a better bullpen than the Twins in 2019? How would I tell if he was correct? What would be the counter-argument? Or is your argument that you just know a good bullpen when you see one, but have no idea what actually makes a bullpen good or not?

You said: "It wasn't rosy at the major league level that particular season" (i.e., 2016). The team lost 103 games, so I think if anything that was an understatement. But still you said it was a "fortuitous" situation to inherit, which isn't exactly the same as "great," but it's not too far off either. And, just to take a step back for a moment here - your original post was replying to me after I responded to another poster (and it was your first post in the thread). The post that I challenged - and that you defended - was strongly critical of the front office. In case you need a reminder, that post said that - [the front office hasn't] done anything to be anything other than a bully to the really crappy teams and can't win in the post-season. Do you agree or disagree that the current front office hasn't done "anything" except beat up on some bad teams? You've had numerous posts in which to clarify/distinguish your own view, and you haven't done so. It's not that your argument complicates anything, it's just that you are wrong as a mathematical fact. The #1 or #5 bullpen by FIP cannot only have 3 good relievers. It's impossible because of the number of innings that each reliever throws. In 2019, the Twins had *7* relievers that threw 20+ innings with a FIP under 4. In 2020, Rogers, Duffey, and May combined to throw 29.4% of the bullpen's innings. The highest MLB FIP rank for that trio was Duffey at #24. Again, the inarguable mathematical fact is that the Twins bullpen was not top heavy. I acknowledge there is some room to debate how good of a job the front office has done. But when you make claims like the #1 bullpen in MLB by FIP wasn't actually good, it casts a lot of doubt on whether you are being objective.

I clearly was paraphrasing. Your stated position is that the current F.O. inherited a great situation and has made a very small number of positive moves of their own, while making a notably larger number of poor moves or non-moves. So how exactly do you characterize a front office that mostly makes bad moves? Feel free to pick your own term. "Below average"? "Mediocre"? "Not good"? The idea is the same. So far as the specific players that the current F.O. inherited - How about the fact that almost all of those guys were starters/major contributors on the 2016 team that lost 103 games? How we can assume that core makes it so easy to field a winning team? In 2019, the Twins bullpen was #1 in MLB in FIP. It's simply not possible to say that 3 guys "masked" an ineffective bullpen. It wasn't an ineffective bullpen. It is mathematically impossible for an ineffective bullpen to be #1 in MLB in FIP, it simply can't be true under any circumstances. So your take here is objectively, inarguably wrong. Now, you *could* argue that the front office doesn't deserve credit for the bullpen's performance. This goes back to your overall argument that the front office inherited a great situation. But there are serious problems with that argument as well, going back to the reality that the current front office got much better performances out of the same players, and the front office is responsible for the field staff and organizational development strategy. So to remove credit from the current front office, you have to provide reasons to believe player performance would have been identical under the previous front office. So far as what is required to support one position versus another . . . I'm not making statements that fly in the face of objective reality. When I see that the Twins bullpen was #1 in MLB FIP in 2019 and #5 in MLB FIP in 2020, my baseline assumption is that the front office put together a good bullpen. No complicated arguments are required to support that position. If you argue that the bullpen with the #1 FIP was actually ineffective, well, you have more work to do. That's just common sense.

As much as I'm a fan of Trueblood, this one misses the mark pretty badly. Here are some facts to consider with respect to 2019 - - Of the 53 primary outfielders (per FG) that qualified, 20 were age 29 or older. - by RC+, a much better measure than OPS+, 8 of those 20 had an RC+ of 115 or more. - Choo just missed at 112, Merrifield was at 110, and Eaton at 108. Granted, this includes right-handed hitters and some CFers. But it's not clear to me why aging should only be evaluated against other left-handed hitters. If there's a clear reason for this, it should be noted in the article. Even if one were to accept the highly-misleading take on age 29+ outfielders, it still wouldn't support the argument. If Kirilloff isn't that good, then of course service time doesn't matter. Teams hold guys back *just in case* they turn out to be impact players, of the sort that are usually still good at age 29. The Twins are not going to start Kirilloff in the minors because he might turn out like Rosario or Schwarber. They are going to start him in the minors because he might turn out to be one of the best hitters in the league - something that is seen as quite possible by neutral third-parties (see, e.g., Keith Law, Fangraphs, etc.). That leaves basically nothing of the article intact except the notion of "goodwill." But as has been pointed out repeatedly, there is zero reason to believe that starting Kirilloff with the Twins in 2021 would do anything whatsoever to help retain him beyond the 6 years of team control. The article also is inherently contradictory on this issue, because if Kirilloff will be toast by 29 anyway, then buying "goodwill" has little value.

I don't really see the appeal of speaking in generalities when the specifics are readily available. In any case, the Twins strategy is clearly to keep the window open indefinitely, which is the Cleveland approach.

The problem with this statement is that, in 2019 and 2020, the Twins objectively had one of the best bullpens in MLB. So for you to simply declare incompetence with no evidence is much, much less reasonable than if, say, the Twins had one of the worst bullpens. What you really did throughout this thread was say 'Even though the statistics completely disagree with me, I say that the Twins front office stinks, and it would be a waste of my time to justify this outlandish claim, and the reason it would be a waste of time is because you would just ask for actual reasons behind my statements.' Discussion of the front office is not happening in a vacuum. There are real numbers that strongly indicate that the Twins' front office is competent. If someone is going to disagree with that, they should absolutely be expected to justify that position. Otherwise the criticism is pure trolling.

He did finish with 7.7 fWAR in his career, which honestly isn't that bad for a 2nd round pick.

Complaining at greater length without facts is not "detail." If you want to argue that the current regime has mishandled something - let's take the bullpen just as an example - here are some details you would need to include: - what the new regime inherited (Majors and Minors) - what the proper allocation of resources (i.e., payroll or trade assets) should have been for the bullpen, based on analysis of successful teams and considering payroll constraints - what resources were actually allocated - how the same resources could have been allocated more efficiently without reliance on hindsight bias That would be the absolute bare minimum for a cogent argument. Neither you nor any other critics have seriously considered these issues, beyond a blanket statement early in the thread that the current regime inherited a basically perfect situation. But that wasn't substantiated with facts. Saying the name "Matt Magill" doesn't constitute an actual argument. If you want to seriously address the issue, by all means, have at it. None of your posts have even touched on the points that would be required to do so.

Yes, every statement. Zero of the statements are supported by any actual facts or comparisons to other, presumably smarter/better MLB clubs. It's just meaningless, baseless, half-witted trash talk. If you want to get into a legitimate discussion on any of those points, feel free to make the case in a detailed manner. All good clubs beat up on bad teams. All good clubs have some mediocre pitchers in the back end of the bullpen. That's just how things are. Even an anecdotal measure of success is per se illegitimate if no club could pass the test, let alone one with payroll constraints.