Should the Twins stand pat? Pick up Torii Hunter's $12M option? Re-sign
Carlos Silva? Add a pitcher? Add a bat? What would you do?

I'll start.

I think the Twins need to get a free agent right handed starting
pitcher. Radke is gone, and so in his $9M salary. The prize out there
is Jason Schmidt. Other names are Woody Williams, Mike Mussina, Adam
Eaton, Cory Lidle, Vicente Padilla, Aaron Sele, Chan Ho Park.

I'd like to see them re-sign Rondell White. He showed flashes of his
former self after the AS break, batting .321 with 7 HRs. Have White and
Kubel trade off time in LF and DH.

Silva is a big question mark. Is he worth $4M? If you pickup a FA
righthander, you could let him go and give Perkins a shot. I say let
him go.

Let's get over this fantasy that Punto is #2 hitter. He had a nice peak
there mid-year, but he's reverted back to his usual ways. Truly a bell
curve performance. The Twins need to get a real hitter (read: guy with
some power) to play 3B. Either trade or pick up a free agent and put
Punto back in the utility role where he belongs.

Anybody else want to chime in?

powrwrap wrote:


I like your idea of keeping Hunter and White. The Twins need power and
those guys can help Morneau supply it. Mauer will also develop power,
in time. I know people these days don't think of a power hitting team
as 'Twins baseball'. But when they first came to Minnesota, that was
the name of their game. I think they should try to find a nice balance
between the two. If that means signing a piower hitting third baseman,
I won't complain. (As long as his defense fits the bill, too.)

I don't think Silva is worth $4M, either. He's just been too
inconsistant this year. I agree he should go if they can pick someone
else up. And I think they SHOULD pick someone else up. They need
another starter they can count on to get them a quality start and win
14 or 15 games. It would have been nice if they had done that this
year, but, oh well. Personally, I thought -- and still think -- it was
a huge mistake to let Kenny Rogers go. He pitched well for the Twins
and they could have used his presence on the staff last year and this.
Now, he's probably gonna win a ring with the Tigers. And what about
another lefty in the pen? What about Rincon and Crain? They were both
inconsistant this year, as well.

My greatest fear is that the Twins will be in a Boone/Batista frame of
mind in the off-season. Those are the kind of veterans they definitely
do not need. They need a veteran who's playing well, and wants to win a
World Series ring in the next two years.



DES

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, DeeEss57@aol.com wrote:

Mark me down for some hitting at 3B and the outfield, please.

As a small market team, I think the Twins have to look at timetables
and cycles and windows of opportunity. Considering the amount of
talent that is locked up for the next couple of years, I'd say the
window has arrived, maybe a year ahead of schedule. (I didn't double
check contract statuses and free agency on the horizon for the
frontline talent.) No way do I stand pat.

I haven't been one of those crying for a loosening of the purse
strings in the past, but I think now is the time to expect the team
to be at least in the middle of the pack on salary. The overall
budgetary constraint shapes all of the arm-chair GMing we want to
do here, and I am going to assume a willingness to go a *little*
beyond what may be sustainable in the long haul - I'm thinking $80M
for the next two to three years. Make some upgrades now, some more
for '08, and accept that the third year of this plan will be kind
of locked-in, moneywise. The move to a new ballpark ('10?) factors
in, and I would think also is a good reason to increase the spending
to this level, to ensure that the move coincides with happy times.

The pitching looks good going forward. Sure, you can never have too
much pitching, and we're losing a mainstay of the starting rotation
to retirement. In a perfect big-market world you'd go after all you
can get. But the pipeline of young talent has been very impressive,
and it isn't exhausted yet, in terms of who might arrive in '07 or
maybe '08. I can't see pitching as the pressing need.

To me, the playoffs exposed the strategy of trying to get by with
AAAA players like Punto and Tyner. I love guys like that to pieces,
but you can not build your team with starters of that caliber.
Punto is your super sub for the infield; Tyner likewise can be
plugged into the outfield where needed for injury and spot starts.
That's the most that should be asked of them. You can *not* be
satisfied with a hitter of Tyner's caliber as your DH in even one
game of the playoffs. There is the school of thought that the
playoffs are a crapshoot - but I think the weak offense the Twins
put on display was systemic.

You want to aim for no worse than ML-average performance at each
position (allowing for a margin of inevitable error), with stars
at a couple of positions at least. We've got better than average
production set at C and 1B, to say the least. RF seems like a
strong point now (offensively, acceptable defensively), though by
a smaller margin. I would judge 2B to be slightly above average
and highly acceptable, and SS likely (though less certain) to be
about average as well. I think Rondell White is worth another shot -
in the playoffs Gardenhire seemed to consider him the LF incumbent,
but I'm going to slot him at DH for this discussion, and treat LF/DH
as a joint issue - if you get a mighty DH then, sure, Rondell may
be good enough in LF.

That leaves CF, LF and 3B as the obvious issues to address. Unlike
pitching, I don't know of any minor league help on the horizon.

CF is hard. Torii is not a lot better than average, all things
considered. And he makes a ton of money. But he would be hard to
replace and maintain league-average production. I saw Eric Byrnes
suggested as a possibility, but he would be a definite downgrade at
the position, at the savings of some money. I'd go for a tradeoff
like that *if* that money is used for a big upgrade in LF or 3B. In
years past, the tradeoff by itself would have been more acceptable.
Now, the team may need to be prepared to overpay just to get average
production at one crucial spot. All in all, though, I think the
chances are that the Twins will be better off to let Torii go.

I haven't really looked to see who is available for CF/LF/3B. Free
agency signings are not the only place to turn - for the reasons I
stated at the outset, I would strongly consider trading away minor
league talent to obtain major league talent. I might pick about
three high-ceiling minor leaguers as untouchable, and package any two
or three of the next best ones to bottom feeder teams in return for
one top line talent. Ryan Church at Washington? Andruw Jones?
(Atlanta isn't quite a bottom feeder but may still want to move him.)
Baldelli at Tampa? Matthews at Texas? Ibanez at Seattle? Freddy
Sanchez at Pittsburgh? Ramirez at Chicago? Just throwing out
names, here - but aiming high in some cases. No more bargain
free agent signings, at least not as cornerstones of the plan.

So much of this depends on pinpoint accuracy at scouting and talent
assessment. I think the Twins have a good track record on these,
so while in years past I've been happy they didn't trade away
anyone with potential, I'd be content to trust their judgement
on doing things that move the talent pipeline forward a notch.
Keeping that pipeline going with astute drafts and the occasional
trade is also a must - it would be nice to accomplish what Oakland
has done, retooling without a major down year.

Back to the pitching. Silva, again that's a hard decision, because
I think he played hurt this year. He's no star, but he could bounce
back and be a good 4th or 5th starter and be worth the money. Liriano
is an injury risk - I'd have to be part of the Twins' braintrust to
possess the inside info on whether they think he'll be himself when
he comes back. With a rotation of Santana Liriano Bonser Silva Garza,
this doesn't make rash assumptions that the other young pitching
(Baker, Perkins, Durbin, who else?) continues to progress, though
I think it's reasonable to expect they will.

--
John Gregory ashbury at skypoint.com http://www.skypoint.com/ tilde ashbury
Thought for the moment:
If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points.

John Gregory wrote:


Hello,
The most important thing (imo) would be for the Twins to get a serious
dh. Someone scary, that the opposing team would not want to see in a
key situation or series.
MagikLair

On Oct 9, 2:31*pm, John Gregory <ashb...@skypoint.com> wrote:

Yep, the Cy Young award winner, the batting champion, a legit MVP
candidate, plus the best closer in the AL is a great foundation.



I do, especially if Liriano is questionable. If he's 100% healthy, it
isn't that big of a deal, maybe a 2nd tier free agent, instead of a
Jason Schmidt or Woody Williams.



Totally agree. The pirahnas were fun but they can't keep that intensity
going for months at a time.




Is .278, 31 HR, 98 RBI league average for an outfielder? I guess it
depends on what stats you value. Anyway, that production is going to be
difficult to replace. This is another weak spot for the Twins' farm
system. There isn't any help on the farm in the OF.


I'm leaning to keeping Hunter, if only because it would cost almost as
much to replace him and the Twins have no help in their system.


There aren't a lot of CF and they are older guys, like Edmonds, Mike
Cameron, Kenny Lofton, Steve Finley, Darin Erstad.



Baldelli is signed through 2008 and has a $4M buyout in 2009. (ouch!)
Curiously, he's only making $750K next year and $2.5M in 2008.

Ibanez is intriguing but he's not a CF. He doesn't have much speed.

Matthews is 32 and just had a career year. I have to believe it's a
fluke.

Andruw Jones would be too expensive.

Church is a free agent, but he has an injury history.



Ramirez is set to make $11M in '06, $11.5M in '07.

I doubt the Pirates would give up Sanchez.

What about Garciaparra at 3B? He's a free agent. He made $6M last year
and would probably get at least that again.

There's always free agent Shea Hillenbrand, he's a virtual clone of
Garciaparra last year and made $5.8M.

Do you do something creative in the trade department? Trade Luis
Castillo and a prospect(s) to the Cubs for Aramis Ramirez? (Punto would
be your 2B then).

Drop Hunter, trade for Vernon Wells? He'll be a free agent after 2007.

There's a lot to consider. Should be fun to speculate.

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, powrwrap wrote:


We seem to be on the same page. In fact, it's probably overkill to
have laid it out as I did, but I was trying to get across that to
decide what to do in this offseason, we must first decide where we
are in the cycle. It's probably a no-brainer that, if you aren't
prepared now to go all out to fill in the missing pieces to a
contender, when would you ever be? Master of the obvious, am I.


No disagreement that he's a big risk factor. And indeed, given
big-market resources, I'd address it with some "insurance" in
the form of a signing. I'm mainly prioritizing, and given the
young pitching in the pipeline, versus the lack of a pipeline for
the needs of the offense, I'd be prepared to push pitching to about
my fourth priority. And what a luxury that is to be able to say!


I may be going against the sabrmetric grain in saying this, but I
don't think the problem with the piranhas is quite as you say; to
me it's more the case that talent really does step forward at
playoff time, no matter what intensity a scrubeenie may try to bring.
Not for any woo-woo mystical reasons about the biggest stars "wanting
it more" or whatever, but simply that in the playoffs the approach
becomes subtly different - for instance the pitchers may go after
the Puntos just as hard as the Mauers in every plate appearance.
Maybe someday I'll try and interview some players, and do a good
statistical study, to try to sharpen up the cause-and-effect, and
to double check my guesstimate that for every Mark Lemke who goes
nuts in a postseason series there are multiple Nick Puntos who
perform like the backup players they are. (Yeah yeah, Lemke was
more or less a regular for several years, but he still holds a
special place as "that little f*ck" we couldn't get out in '91. )


I meant "not a lot better than" more kindly than it may have sounded.
I based my comment just on a quick and dirty check of Nelson Lu's
park adjusted run created numbers - Torii comes in 11th of all
major leaguers. A couple of others came after him and then Lu's
arbitrary "Average Regular" line appears. It's a very very good
thing to be even an "average" *regular* player at any position,
and to be "some" above that is remarkable. Still, there are
10 other guys who came out on the list above him; if you're in
a playoff series with one of those 10 teams and a position by
position comparison is made, CF won't be a strength for the Twins.
That's OK, if it wasn't for the money; if he were making Granderson
or even Baldelli (two guys in his neighborhood on Lu's chart) money,
then there would obviously be no issue. He's not a top-5 CF and
he's kind of making top-5 money.

I agree he's difficult to replace, and I'm leaning back from what
I said about thinking it might work out best to let him go, and
instead I'd go add up the final $$$ numbers and see if I couldn't
make a last ditch effort to make it work to keep him.


Runs. Park adjusted, bien sur.

Torii's an asset. It's a real knife-edge decision for me whether
he's an $11M asset.


Yep, we hashed this all out when talking about The Great Lew Ford.
It's a sad commentary that Ford was about the best option they
had for the (presumably) last position player spot on the roster.


The buyout clause sure puts a high fixed-cost on whatever replacement
they'd go after, yep.


You mean among free agents. Yeah, I see little hope there. Really,
free agents are getting to be a poor strategy, what with the sacrifice
of a draft pick. If FA worked, the Yankees would win the division
every year. Oops, I mean win the World Series.

No, for these holes to fill, I'm talking about bold trades. Ones
that don't simply open up holes elsewhere. For a small market team,
trading away good prospects qualifies as bold.


I think I remember him being mentioned in trade talks. Dunno why
TB would like to move him, but if your scouts like him then you'd
have to think about making TB a fair offer for him.


Trades sometime involve cash considerations. I'm just throwing
names out there, of guys I'd invest a phone call about.


Oops.


Probably so. We just need to find one such team/player, and you
never know what a GM conversation might lead to.


I thought you were the one averse to injury risks. Not a
chance, in my book.


I do like a *little* defense from my 3B, and teams have been
very reluctant to play him there. Him I'd avoid also.


Punto would not be a starter for me. This would be one of those
trades that simply opens up another hole. But Ramirez would be
worth the trouble (of finding another 2B). And, worst case, Punto
+ Ramirez > Castillo + Punto. So yeah, sure, if the Cubs would
go for that.

BTW, the trade *for* Castillo seems to be another nice one for Terry
Ryan that I haven't heard much comment about lately - I don't think
the upside on the two guys Florida got will make anyone regret this
one. It would be nice if *every* trade could be as productive as the
A.J. Pierzynski one, but solid ones like for Castillo are more than
welcome every year or so. In fact, that's exactly the kind of trade
I'm hoping for, giving up on the guys with the lower ceilings in
exchange for something proven - though now we need to think bigger
than just Castillo, and the cost will be more painful this time.


I don't like Wells much as a CF - he's said to be fast but the
times I have watched him he seems to be timed with a sundial instead
of a stopwatch. The guy can hit, no question. If he wouldn't sulk
over being my *left* fielder, I could see going after him - though,
he's a one-year solution, as he's signed only through '07 and will
likely command Torii Money after that. Guess that's why you have
to drop Hunter to get him, if you want to sign him.

Mmm, Wells/Hunter/Cuddyer... *that* outfield might scare the
opposition a little. Hey, an armchair GM can dream a little.

--
John Gregory ashbury at skypoint.com http://www.skypoint.com/ tilde ashbury
Thought for the moment:
Nostalgia: When you find the present tense and the past perfect.

powrwrap wrote:

Baldelli and Woody Williams are two intriguing players I'd like to see.
They would seem to fit the Twins style of play.
MagikLair

"powrwrap" <powrwrap@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1160413280.860605.107520@e3g2000cwe.googlegro ups.com...

Sign Soriano and Freddy Garcia. Sign Maurer and Morneau to long term deals.
Keep Rondell White.