S.

Go look at all the teams that have won the World Series. How many of them don't sign good players to long term contracts? How many of those teams that don't sign long term contracts also don't trade their prospects for established major leaguers?

If Gibson pitches as well as last year, or better, there is no way in hell he is signing a 2 year extension. And there is probably no way in hell he's signing a 3 year extension without testing free agency. He'll be 32, that will be his last chance for a significant multi year deal. If he regresses he is a 5 ERA pitcher and nobody gives a **** or offers more than a bag of balls in a trade.

And if Gibson is pitching really well to start the season, do you think he's going to take a 3 year extension and not test out free agency or hold out for more than 3 years? I don't know the answer to that, but I feel like if he starts the season pitching as well as he did last year, there is 0 reason why he wouldn't want more years, since its likely to be the last big contract he gets Edit: To be fair, I don't know if he would be successful in getting more years, based on how free agent signings have been the last few years, but I feel like a 3 year extension offer from the Twins probably isn't enough to stop him from at least looking at free agency. But I certainly can't speak for his thought process

Gibson will be 32 in 2020, and this board is full of people who say they wouldn't want Greinke because he is 34 and "on the downslope" of his career. We don't need to wait until the season to start to know the AL Central is up for grabs. Look at the other teams. This is likely the weakest the division will be for decades. Go get some good players now, don't wait until you're halfway competitive in July and trade for a reliever and a bench bat and think that is miraculously going to turn you into a legitimate playoff contender. And if they want to go out and acquire actual good players at the deadline? Its going to cost them a ****ing arm and a leg compared to what it would cost now. If you want a genuine high quality MLB caliber pitcher at the deadline, you're gonna be trading Lewis or one (or more) of our other top 5 or 10 prospects. If too few of the core players are successful and we start to build up the "next" core, that is effectively punting for 4 or 5 more years, unless you think the next core is the second coming and that they're all going to be highly successful major league players in the next 2-3 seasons. To me, this all seems like they are expecting to fail. If our players who underperformed in 2018 play well in 2019, our roster is still too weak to be a legitimate playoff contender. And the amount of prospects we would have to part with at the deadline to fill all of our needs to be a legitimate playoff contender would likely cripple our farm system for the next 5+ years. But if you go out now and get some other good players AND some of the players who underperformed in 2018 play well, all of a sudden you only need to make some smaller moves at the deadline to be a legitimate contender. It seems like the FO assumes they won't be a real contender, thus why even spend any real money.

Yeah, the 25 years wasn't meant as any sort of jab at the current team or current FO or coaching or any of that. Was more a statement on the idea of ignoring good FAs and not trading prospects. Obviously the game has changed a ton in 25 years but ignoring avenues of improving your team is just as much a problem now as it would've been 25 years ago. You're intentionally gimping yourself if you refuse to trade prospects and refuse to sign big contracts, because lots of other teams in the league are not putting those sort of restrictions on themselves AND are also developing their own good players. So to say you're going to compete with those teams only using 1 of the 3 ways to get top tier players, while those other teams employ all 3 ways is basically just praying for a miracle. Edit: And i think my pessimism over our rotation is reasonably well founded. We're going to need at least 7-8 starters for the year, probably a lot more. We were in the bottom third of every ranking for starting pitching in 2018 with Gibson and Berrios having career best years. Odorizzi didn't have an amazing season but he was adequate for what he is. Pineda is 100% a question mark. And after that on our pitching depth we have...nothing but more question marks. In order for this starting rotation to improve over 2018, Gibson and Berrios need to once again have career best years, Odorizzi needs to maintain or improve his level of play, and then we need 4-10 question mark pitchers to combine for average to above average numbers. While I certainly think this rotation could be league average, I'd say thats its likely ceiling, barring an unreal year from Berrios or a couple of those 4th and 5th slot question marks really surprising us. And if 1 or 2 of Berrios/Gibson/Odorizzi miss any significant time, what do we have? Basically a AAA pitching staff

While I'm glad they're improving their internal capabilities and all that, we're in like year 25 of trying to develop our players internally and not signing expensive FAs or trading top prospects. Why are we not allowed to sign good players, trade prospects for good players AND develop our own good players? If a team is just going to ignore 2 of the 3 ways to acquire good players, it shouldn't be a surprise that teams that take advantage of all 3 avenues will be significantly better.

I seriously do not understand why so many people are 100% confident that 2018 Gibson is just the new normal. Hell, even in 2018, his FIP was .5 over his ERA and his WHIP was 1.3. And the two years prior his WHIP was over 1.5 and his ERA was over 5. He has never put together two decent seasons in a row, he's 31 years old. Do I hope he repeats his 2018 performance or manages to improve? Hell yeah, and I think theres a decent chance he will. But it is absurd that people are acting like he is some paragon of consistency and it is a 100% chance that he's going to do so. Do you honestly believe this? Berrios should be good, Gibson is good IF we get 2018 Gibson, garbage if we get 2016 or 2017 Gibson. Odorizzi is a 4th or 5th starter on an actually good team (a good team would not have Odorizzi as their third playoff starter), and Pineda is a complete question mark. How does that constitute a solid top four? If Gibson or Berrios go down with injury or underperform compared to their 2018 numbers, this is arguably one of the worst rotations in the majors. In 2018, by ERA our starters were ranked 22nd with 4.54. By WHIP they were 22d with 1.39. 27th for K/BB. This is all with solid seasons by Gibson and Berrios. So even if our starters completely replicate the 2018 numbers, this rotation still is not solid, unless you're expecting improvements for Berrios, Gibson, and Odorizzi and you're expecting Pineda to come out of spring training in full swing and as a strong 4th man. And that is a lot of IFs to be counting on to even be a league average rotation.

Sano and Buxton were also considered to be legitimate superstars in our farm system a few years ago, and where are we now? Lots of stars in the minors don't become stars in the major leagues. Or don't become stars in the major leagues for many years. And the longer they take to develop, the older our current "core" becomes, and the more money they require, and the more of them leave in free agency. It seems like a lot of people (not you personally) will bring up not wanting to sign other good players to multi year deals in fear of blocking some prospect who might be here in a year. Or 2 years. Or 3 years. Or might never be above replacement level. Or might not even stick in the majors. Having too many good players is really not an issue. If you suddenly find yourself flush with multiple high quality players for the same position, then trade one to fill other needs. Too many good players at a position is a "problem" I'd love to have instead of a bunch of positions without any good players.

Well, I guess on the bright side, it looks like we're going to have a lot of money to (not) spend on good pitching.

We should be so lucky to have logjams of multiple good players at the same position, instead of having a bunch of positions with no good players.

I think it is more that many fans simply expect the ownership to be able to field a competitive team at some point. I'm sure there are some fans who expect the Twins to spend the same amount as the Dodgers and completely disregard any consideration of profitability, but I think that is probably a small amount of fans. I think a reasonably large amount of fans expect the FO to be able to make a profit while also fielding a competitive team. It isn't like the MLB is some league where only New York, Boston, and LA can compete because they spend the most money. Teams with our type of payroll have managed to win the world series in the last 15 years, yet we've only managed to win a combined 2 playoff games in those previous 15 seasons. I understand that fans span the spectrum in terms of their expectations, and many of those expectations are completely absurd and unrealistic. But i also think it is absolutely 100% reasonable for fans to expect the ownership to produce better results than the Twins have had in the previous decades. 1 playoff series win in 25 years just isn't cutting it for me and I don't think the Twins need to max payroll and entirely disregard profitability to do better. But I do also understand that simply spending money doesn't necessarily translate to better results. Signing some better players than a lot of the garbage we've trotted out there in recent years probably wouldn't hurt though.

They lowballed Darvish so hard that I have a hard time saying they were even remotely serious about pursuing him. And every single team in the league was interested in Ohtani. We were never actually a contender to get him. I'm not saying they've done nothing or haven't tried at all, but if their year 3 plan is to evaluate their coaches impact on the current roster, than they clearly have no real plan, because praying your prospects all pan out and every player on your roster improves drastically isn't a serious plan Edit: Also, getting crunched in a 1 game wild card doesn't really warrant calling the 2017 Twins a playoff team in my book Edit2: I should also add, that I'm not saying that is necessarily the FO's actual plan, this is all in response to the poster saying that it's a process and they think that is the FO's plan. For all I know, the FO is secretly wheeling and dealing and its just that there haven't been any leaks/rumors out there yet. This is all hypothetical, and predicated on the idea that their plan is to take 2018 to evaluate coaches impact. Which to be fair, I doubt is the plan.

What has the FO accomplished the last 2 years then? Edit: yes, I know the coaching staff hasn't been here two years but if you're a FO and you're on year 3 and you've accomplished nothing and your year 3 plan is to do nothing to improve your crummy roster and just evaluate your new coaches, then I think we've got a problem. A good team doesn't take a full year just to evaluate their coaches impact on their mediocre roster. Have you seen our current roster? If every pitcher on our team had their best season in 2019, we still wouldn't be a world series caliber team.

This is unintentionally the funniest post of the offseason.

This kinda just seems like planning for your starter to have a bad start where they can only go 3-4 innings, and then using a long reliever to wrap up the game. It also seems like a bad use for rookies who you intend to be actual starters at some point, because their total innings are going to be crazy low and it'd be unreasonable to expect them to double their innings the next year or whenever you want them to be an actual starter. You also are really screwing with their game prep when you're having them be a starter 1/3 of the time, a 2nd string "starter" that comes in in the 3rd or 4th inning 1/3 of the time, and a long reliever mop up guy 1/3 of the time.

This completely disregards any other changes to the rosters. And as spycake pointed out, it disregards any improvements or regression from existing players on those rosters. Basically, it proves nothing in any capacity.

I think the Morrison signing also looks worse due to the usage of him and our awful lineups. If everyone else was healthy and playing decently, it is likely he would've got less play time and been lower in the lineup when he did play, or at least that is a reasonable assumption. Granted, his numbers look bad anywhere in the lineup, but even still

If a manager cannot get professional players who have made it to the MLB to play baseball at a fundamental level that you would expect from high school players, then he is a bad manager. Either he is incapable of providing coaching to the players, or the players no longer listen to him. Either way, that is not a manager I want. Obviously, that is my opinion and people can argue it is all on the players and the manager has 0 impact, but these are pro players. They all know how to play at a fundamental level or they would not have made it to the majors. If they continuously fail to do so, then to me that implies there is a problem at the core of things. And the manager is the core of things when it comes to coaching and training and fixing problems. I guess we have different definitions of competitive, because in my opinion competitive means you can compete with good teams. In the last 15 years we've been 2-15 in the playoffs. That is not competitive. Edit: I assume it is a given, but since these types of threads tend to end up with opinions running pretty hot, I figured I'd mention that none of this is a knock on you, and lots of posters on this board have different goals, expectations and points of view, none of which are necessarily right or wrong. Probably doesn't need to be said, but figured it might be worth mentioning because I've seen plenty of other threads like this turn a bit more personal than they should. AKA, I disagree with you but I respect your right to your opinion.

The goal isn't to be a .500 team though. The goal is to win the world series or at the very least make a strong playoff run (getting swept in the first round or mashed in the wild card doesn't count as a "run"). Being .500 isn't an accomplishment. Are we supposed to be proud of the fact that we still suck but not quite as bad as we used to suck? Is that supposed to be a strong point in the argument of keeping Molitor? Well, we still aren't doing anything good but boy, oh boy, we almost were .500 in a division that is so bad that we're soundly in second place.

To be fair, the roster definitely plays into that too. And various other factors. But anyone who has watched a lot of Twins games this season knows that Molitor completely overuses some bullpen arms and completely neglects others. And its not like he kept going to some top tier RP in high leverage situations, he kept going to Matt Belisle.

The fact is he is the manager. If his team constantly makes stupid errors on the base paths and in the field, which they do, then he should be remedying the situation in practices. There is no excuse for the amount of embarrassing play we've had this year. These are professional baseball players. Yes, they make mental mistakes sometimes and that is to be expected once in a while, but the last 2 games have been full of plays that would be getting players on high school teams benched. And no where did I absolve any of the base coaches, but they aren't the ones running the show in practice and in games. They are base coaches. How are they to blame that our team is playing like a bunch of little leaguers and don't know how to do a basic run down? How are they to blame for Garver standing there and not throwing to any base today? If the base coaches are the ones responsible for base running management in practice, then they are absolutely to blame for that too. And this isn't absolving the players either because they're at fault too, but if a manager can't get his team to do simple **** that even a little league coach would expect their team to be able to do, then that is on him too. How many times this season has Rosario thrown to the wrong base? How many times have we made stupid mistakes on the bases? How many times in the last two games have our players looked like they have 0 clue what they're supposed to do with the ball in the field? If the manager isn't responsible for any of that, then what exactly is it that Molitor does besides give canned statements to the media?

I'd argue we've been seeing lots of awful base running and awful baseball in general the last few days. Am I to understand that is all intangible and the manager has nothing to do with making sure his team knows how to do a run down or knowing how to run the bases? Edit: Also, he is awful at making lineups and bullpen management. So, if we're only going by those two factors then he is an atrocious manager.

To clarify, I certainly think we can be competitive next year with some moves and some players getting their **** together. I also am absolutely 100% in support of us selling this year and trading our pending free agents for some minor league pieces. But the person I was quoting was also asking for a ton of things to all break right in their hypothetical situation, and while I think we can be competitive I would not be banking on us acquiring two top tier SP + two top tier RP + multiple other quality major league pieces, and my confidence in Buxton and Sano is not particularly high. I have expectations of improvement over this year, and I expect they'll be making a fair number of FA moves and trades this offseason, but that list was definitely more moves/lucky breaks than I'd be counting on. But that isn't to say I don't think we can be competitive in 2019.

Getting 2 very good starting pitchers alone in one offseason is a huge ask, assuming you mean actual top tier pitchers when you say "very good" You're asking for: -2 very good SP (I would assume very good means something in the range of an ace to a solid #3) -2 very good RP (I would say that would mean 2 RPs better than anything we have in our pen) -2 players who were 100% failures this season to be very successful next season -a catcher who has never been good defensively to become good defensively -sign or trade for multiple position players who all work out and don't require trading any of our good MLB players for -players like Berrios and Gibson to maintain or improve their level of play I don't think there is any perspective where your list isn't asking for a ton of things to all work out.

When was the last time we even sniffed .500?