S.

Bumgarner: 2017: 3.32 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 3.95 FIP, 128 ERA+, 3 WAR 2018: 3.26 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 3.99 FIP, 119 ERA+, 2.4 WAR Berrios: 2017: 3.89 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 3.84 FIP, 118 ERA+, 1.8 WAR 2018: 3.84 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 3.90 FIP, 114 ERA+, 3.9 WAR Gibson: 2017: 5.07 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 4.85 FIP, 87 ERA+, 0.3 WAR 2018: 3.62 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 4.13 FIP, 121 ERA+, 3.8 WAR Now, yes, he did pitch a lot less innings, but how are those numbers pedestrian? And prior to 2017, he had 6 seasons in a row over 200 innings. How would anything even close to those numbers not be a monumental upgrade over everyone in our rotation not named Berrios or Gibson, and possibly an upgrade over either of them? Also, Bumgarner is 2 years younger than Gibson, so the age argument doesn't really hold up with him

Greinke isn't going to cost any sort of decent prospects at all. Arizona wants his contract off the books. No team is going to give them top end prospects and eat his entire contract. I'm guessing a team could get him by eating the contract and parting with one or two of their 10-30 type prospects. The actual hold up with him is his 15 team no-trade clause, and I'm doubting he'd waive it to come to the Twins, which likely makes all my Greinke discussions irrelevant anyways, if I'm being honest. You may be correct on Bumgarner but I can't say I've really read anything on what the Giants are looking for. I'd imagine he'd cost more/better prospects than Greinke for sure but to what extent I don't know.

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

How do we know Gibson will have a good year even though he's only had 2 good years out of 6? How do we know any of the guys in the minors will be serviceable MLB pitchers? How do we know if Pineda will be a decent pitcher coming off of his injury? There is always risk with any player, and it isn't linear with most of them. How many pitchers just steadily improve year after year, plateau, then steadily decline when they're 35+? I'm guessing not many pitchers have a smooth trajectory like that without having any off years or gems in the midst of bad years. For all we know, Gibson's 2018 was just a Scott Diamond year and he's going to turn back into 2016/2017 5ERA Gibson. However, someone like Greinke or Bumgarner has a large history of success. And even if they tacked on .5 ERA (or more) over their 2018 numbers, they would still be a valuable piece of our rotation. Of course, they could also blow out their arm in spring training and never pitch again or completely collapse. But so could Berrios. Or any other pitcher. Of course, an older guy is more likely to get hurt or decline, but on paper would you rather have a rotation of Greinke, Berrios, Gibson, Odorizzi, Pineda or Berrios, Gibson, Odorizzi, Pineda, and a bunch of AAA guys? Yes, there is a money angle to it too, but you can't just ignore players because they're 30+. Most top tier pitchers aren't even going to see free agency until they're close to 30

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.

If the guy in decline is still a significantly better option than anyone on your roster, why would you not want to pursue them? You wouldn't want to drastically improve your starting rotation with Greinke or Bumgarner instead of doing nothing and shuffling through 10 different AAA guys for 2 spots, who will likely combine for a 5+ ERA?

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.

Even if they all pitch their absolute best and there are no injuries, that rotation still isn't very impressive. And the chances of that happening are pretty much 0 to begin with. If Berrios or Gibson go down for any significant amount of time (or Gibson returns to his 2016/2017 form), you're probably looking at the worst rotation in the majors.

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.

Not really sure where else to put this: I wonder what it would take to get both Greinke and Ray

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.

All I said was that the risk we would take with Greinke is primarily a money cost and not a prospect cost, which is factually correct. Obviously money is still a cost and being effective with payroll is important to success. And yes, spending big money on Greinke means less money to spend elsewhere. My point was that trading for another pitcher who is somewhere in the ballpark of Greinke's skillset is going to cost good prospects, where as Greinke will not require nearly those same level of prospects due to his contract and the fact that Arizona is looking to shed some payroll. Whether or not you value the money or the prospects more is open for debate (and also depends on the prospects and who the other pitchers would be), but the simple fact is that if Greinke was on a $10M a year contract, or if Arizona decided they wanted to eat most of the contract, they'd be asking for good prospects. Thus my statement that there absolutely is risk but its mostly in the form of money. I wasn't saying that spending big money isn't a risk in its own right. Extending Odorizzi does nothing to improve this team's starting pitching. I want to be competitive in the post season. Odorizzi does not move the needle at all in that regard.

Honest question then: if his stats from the last year or two are irrelevant for projecting his 2019 performance, how would one go about projecting his future performance? I understand if people don't care about his numbers from 5 or 10 years ago, but how would you gauge his projected future performance if you're not going to use his numbers from the last year or two? And perhaps you aren't all on the Gibson train (sorry, no offense meant - I have a hard time keeping track of who said what in some of these threads), but if you're a Gibson guy, why is it fair to assume his 2018 numbers are the new normal when he is 31 years old and his only good seasons of the last 6 seasons have been 2018 and 2015? Anyways, to be completely honest, I'd say the chance that we actually get Greinke is probably close to 0 so this is more just an exercise in forum discussion/debate regardless. I certainly don't think Greinke is a sure thing but we have plenty of money. And we aren't going to be getting Kershaw or Eovaldi. And we aren't going to be trading Lewis and our other top prospects for an ace. And doing some low risk/low reward 4th and 5th starter signings isn't going to move the needle on being competitive in the post season, where as I think IF Greinke could be solid for even 2 of those 3 years, that could be a big boon to us. There absolutely is risk (mostly just in the form of money since he isn't going to cost top prospects), but the potential reward could be good. Or we could extend Gibson, sign another 4th man, and go the low risk, low reward route, which is probably the most realistic scenario.

He could add a full 1.00 to his 2018 ERA and he'd still be a top 3 pitcher on our team even IF (and that's a big if) Gibson can maintain his 2018 numbers. Show me where I said he has to keep pitching at the same level to be a worthwhile investment? He put up a 3.21 ERA last season. Even if he added a full run to his ERA, I think most fans would've been ecstatic to have another pitcher on our roster puting up a 4.25 ERA and giving us 180-200 innings and I don't see why I should just assume Greinke is going to immediately implode and turn into trash. Yes, he is in his decline phase, but his decline phase is sure as **** going to be better than every pitcher currently on our roster not named Berrios or Gibson, and it would not surprise me if their numbers are comparable or Greinke outperforms one or both for some of those years. As I pointed out earlier, "In 2018: Greinke - 135 ERA+, 3.70 FIP. Gibson - 121 ERA+, 4.13 FIP. Berrios - 114 ERA+, 4.22 FIP. Or any other stat you prefer, Greinke still outperformed both. And lets not forget that Gibson's 2017 and 2016 seasons he put up 5.07 ERA and 83/87 ERA+." So you extend Gibson and that somehow improves our pitching staff over 2018? What FA are you getting for $15-18M that is better than Greinke? When you say "invest the difference" do you mean the Pohlads pocket some more cash or what exactly are you investing in that is going to improve our pitching staff?

A better pitcher than anyone on our roster?

If Greinke were in his late 20s, we wouldn't be having this conversation because we would have to trade Lewis and some of our other top prospects.

You mean you don't love all of those logjams where a mediocre player is "blocking" some another mediocre player?

I don't think there is any doubt that Greinke is going to be on the downside of his career, but I think there are plenty of reasons to question whether Gibson is going to be able to repeat his 2018 performance. And I also think it is highly likely that the downside of Greinke's career is still better than any of the current pitchers on our roster. Now, he may not hit his career averages, but based on the pitchers the Twins have trotted out the last decade, he could add on close to 1.00 ERA over his career averages, and he'd still be one of the best pitchers on the Twins. And I certainly don't think it is a safe assumption that he is going to become that much worse this year, or even in the next three years. He very well might, but even then he'd still be valuable to the Twins. And if the Twins are still on their "veteran clubhouse presence" kick, I'd sure as hell like that veteran to be someone like Greinke instead of someone like Beslisle. I won't argue that there aren't concerns with Greinke, but in terms of pitchers we could potentially acquire in FA or trades, I think he is a very worthwhile consideration. And as you said, he can likely be had for pretty cheap, especially when compared to other pitching options of his caliber. Edit: And to be fair, I did also mention that his 2018 numbers were a lot better than both Gibson and Berrios, if you're not too keen on looking at his career numbers. In 2018: Greinke - 135 ERA+, 3.70 FIP. Gibson - 121 ERA+, 4.13 FIP. Berrios - 114 ERA+, 4.22 FIP. Or any other stat you prefer, Greinke still outperformed both. And lets not forget that Gibson's 2017 and 2016 seasons he put up 5.07 ERA and 83/87 ERA+. While I certainly think (and hope) that Gibson can maintain the numbers he put up in 2018, we have to remember he is 31. He is not a some young prospect and I'm hesitant to just assume that 2018 is going to be Gibson's new normal. I hope it is, but we all should be no strangers to pitchers who have a solid season and then turn back into pumpkins (anyone remember Scott Diamond?)

Greinke's career numbers are better than any single season that either Gibson or Berrios has had. And that isn't even cherry picking stats, he is better across the entire board for his career numbers than anything they've put up in a season. His 2018 numbers were significantly better than both as well. I'd say it's more likely that Gibson turns back into a pumpkin than it is that both Gibson and Berrios outperform Greinke in 2019.