48 thoughts on “Brainstorm”

1. I don't ever recall hearing that Denny Neagle was a headcase when he was a Twin, but of course he had issues later in his career which wouldn't rule that out. Scott Erickson, on the other hand, definitely was in TK's doghouse when he was dealt.

   How many years did Matt Lawton have left when he was traded?

2. Someone I trust talked to Cuddyer for quite a while at a Twins fan event. He said Cuddyer was cordial and friendly, but seemed like the biggest jerk in the room. Getting on someone's nerves is pretty subjective. At my last job, there was one lady who got on EVERYONE's nerves and is a complete and total cancer (and no, not the lady who actually got cancer). But the boss thinks she's awesome and misunderstood, so she never gets disciplined. Meanwhile, he'll discipline other staff, not in private, but in front of everyone else.

   Baseball is a unique sport, in that you can be a cancer in the clubhouse, but still be extremely valuable to your team. Baseball is so predicated on individual events that it's feasible one could never talk to a co-worker and still be effective. Now, I do believe teams work better when everyone gets along, and a happy clubhouse can be a more productive clubhouse, but it seems less important in baseball than it does in football, soccer, or NASA.

   What gets my goat in any situation is not keeping such matters private. I hate it when players do it, and I hate it when teams do it. Throwing someone (or a team) under the bus is disrespectful while you still work together.

   1. It's disrespectful, and it costs the team money in the long run.

      1. or a decent return. he's a headcase? fine. send him down or trade him. don't do everything you possibly can to destroy any little bit of trade value he has when you're already going to get pennies on the dollar anyway.

   2. I've met and chatted with quite a few of the Twins (at least the team a few years ago, not so much the newbies now) and Cuddyer was hands down the friendliest guy I met. I was astonished by how genuine and friendly he seemed. Small sample size and all that, but the media stuff really does back up my impression.

   3. Throwing someone (or a team) under the bus is disrespectful while you still work together.

      Tell me about it. My clothes all have tire track stains on the back.

      1. You're just like crosstown traffic.

         1. I can see you had your fun.

3. in this instance, i can't help but believe that there's the added angle of, whether consciously or not, a bit of blame shifting going on. BS and the FO did very little to address the bullpen needs in the offseason. the twins have been playing absolutely wretched as of late (and not just for them). gardy has no answers. so, let's create a pariah out of slowey. again, consciously or not, no one seems to mind the finger being pointed at someone else.

   can i say this with any degree of confidence? no. i have no idea what's going on in that clubhouse. only the people involved with the situation know. and i really wish people would take the company line with a grain of salt, because lord knows no one in the public has ever tried to spin something in their favor.

4. What to think of Delmon Young? He has a media reputation as someone that doesn't take coaching, he doesn't do the "little things" right, etc. It seems like he'd be a favorite for being run out of town.

   1. He's my favorite candidate for being run out of town.

      1. Matt Capps excepted.

   2. I think the fact that Delmon is still around shows that he has a likable personality. If he didn't, he would have been gone long ago.

      1. Or perhaps somebody isn't yet prepared to admit he was hosed.

         1. I dunno about that, they certainly didn't seem to have any second thoughts about trading away Gomez.

            1. Or Phil Humber or Harris or Pridie or Mulvey.

               1. Yeah, but people doubted their talent.

         2. I think it's as possible that somebody still doesn't realize he was hosed, what with all those shiny RBIs and lack of understanding of advanced defensive metrics.

            1. The best part about that? People will look at the seasons of a lot of these guys after this year and say "yeah, but the whole team wasn't hitting very well; can't get RBIs with no one on base". In their heads the logic works when the baserunners are scarce, it just doesn't kick in when the opportunities are plentiful.

            2. Last year and for his career, Delmon has been better in RBI and "clutch" situations than with no one on base. There's nothing really "shiny" about his RBIs. Yes, he has had the opportunities, but he has cashed in at a better rate than you would expect given his overall batting rates. As for defense, UZR and Total Zone both say he has been better than average this year. Prior to this he was awful his first year in Minnesota and showed steady improvement of about 5 runs per season. I wonder if getting out of the Metrodome and getting a full season under their belts at Target Field has helped the outfield defense, because it is vastly improved across the board this season.

               1. You keep harping on his good looking TZ and UZR after 26 games as if it's significant. 209 good innings by those measures means very little compared to the 3000+ of terrible previously established.

                  1. As I pointed out before, he's shown steady improvement since coming to the Twins. He probably won't be as good this year as he has been to start, but he certainly could end up around average, which is certainly an improvement and would be in line with his career UZR.

            3. and lack of understanding of advanced defensive metrics

               does one really need advanced metrics to understand what kind of defensive player he is?

               1. Gardy has taken Delmon out to upgrade defense when holding a small lead, so I'm pretty sure they are aware of his defensive shortcomings. At first, there was a lot of buzz about how Delmon was hard to coach, but I think that he and the coaching staff have come to an understanding, and for all I know, he works hard in practice.

                  1. I think Delmon has understood that there's a difference between $1.2 million a year and $10 million a year.

                     1. That is a sound theory.

                        1. I'd like to test that theory personally.

                           1. Okay. Post even better than you have to date and we'll increase your pay here eightfold.

5. Like a lot of cases, Tampa Bay's handling of Bartlett and Garza is instructive in this case. Maybe Tampa had personality issues with either or both of them, but there were also on-field and financial justifications for trading them both at the time they did. Before they were, however, there was much less, if any, of a "personality clash" media push initiated by the Tampa organization compared to any of these Twins situations. And considering the returns they got for those guys compared to what the Twins got for them, in conjunction with their contracts statuses at each time, it looks like some more evidence in favor of avoiding 1) making obvious your organization hates a guy and 2) making obvious you want to trade him as soon as possible.

   1. In fact, the Rays might have been able to sweep that all under the rug by announcing that they were going to cut payroll and then dealing them.

   2. The Rays have few fans, though, so even if this stuff was reported locally, no one noticed.

   3. Agreed. It's not entirely clear that TB had any personality conflicts with Bartlett or Garza (though the conventional wisdom seems to be that Garza can let his emotions get the best of him), and there were definitely other really good reasons for the Rays to deal them. There aren't always good ways to handle a situation, but there are always options and some of them are less bad than others.

      In terms of how this might have been handled better, I didn't realize that Slowey had an option year left on his contract. Had I known that, I think I would have suggested from the beginning that it would make more sense for him to be starting in Rochester than to be in the bullpen in Minnesota, especially since the Twins, at least publicly, were ramping Slowey up to start in the regular season, under the pretense that he was competing with Baker for a rotation spot. Someone in the rotation is going to get injured or be ineffective and then Slowey's just a call away and you don't have to worry about "stretching him out." He'd get paid just the same, and he'd be able to keep his career as a starter in tact.

6. The Twins also overvalue speed and contact ability and undervalue power and defensive metrics. Hardy does poorly in the former and great in the latter. I think the Twins didn't realize how slow Hardy was and didn't realize he was still a good shortstop defensively. I don't think it had anything to do with is personality as much as they just didn't appreciate his strengths. They equated good shortstop play with speed and suddenly you have Casilla at shortstop.

   1. I don't disagree, but it's weird that Bartlett (who had good speed) was criticized so roundly for his defense, even though his only shortcoming was that he could be somewhat erratic, while Casilla is practically the definition of erratic.

7. This is my pet theory on Hardy: The Twins decided that they did not want to keep him as a free agent after this season (for whatever reason, probably money-related). They also decided that this was the year (2011) to try and fill the shortstop job internally and try to find a long-term solution. They didn't really think that Casilla was such a great option, but decided to give him the first shot at it, passing it off as a decision based on injecting more speed into the lineup. But they also thought that they needed to see what Plouffe could do if Casilla predictably failed so they cleared the way for him as well by moving Hardy. So we're stuck with Casilla and/or Plouffe this year as make or break years for them to see if they can emerge as cheap starters for the long-term. If not, then it's back to the drawing board after this year.

   So they were dead-set on trading Hardy and getting something in return for him now, as opposed to keeping him and just getting draft pick compensation after 2011.

   1. That seems reasonable.

      1. And I do think the move had at least something to do with payroll. The Twins are up to $113M this year according to Cot's, and Hardy's $5.9M contract would probably have meant no Nishioka. And at this point, we don't have a great handle on how good Nishioka will be.

         1. Definitely agree. And I think people are too quick to disregard the return for Hardy. They didn't get "equal value" but not that many teams wanted to trade for him. Hoey could figure it out and be a key reliever on the cheap in years to come.

            And if it's a choice of Hardy or Nishioka, I think I'd take Nishioka while admitting to not knowing what he can do. He's at least cheaper and younger for the next few years. I have a feeling he's going to end up our SS and ??? at 2B (Cuddyer? Is that insane?)

            1. Only if Cuddy is cheap. Otherwise, move Plouffe to 2B. He seems to be slightly below average at SS but should be average or better on the other side. Also, he can fill in at short when giving Nishioka a break.

               1. My dream scenario is that they get a shortstop and use Plouffe & Hughes as super subs around the infield. Plouffe at SS & 2B, Hughes at 3B, 2B, & 1B. Then they can give Morneau 40-50 starts at DH, and let Mauer play 1B 30-40 times to try to keep them healthy.

                  The roster right now isn't terribly flexible, I'd love for them to have guys they can plug in everywhere who aren't going to be an automatic out in the lineup or brutal in the field (for example, Cuddyer starting in CF).

         2. My thought on the Hardy deal all along was that he was traded to make payroll room for Pavano. Pavano is fine, but I don't think that he will be worth 1-2 wins more than Slowey over 2011-2012.

            It seems to me that the Twins aren't very flexible when it comes to what they perceive as needs for the team vs. depth. The Twins have very little middle infield depth in their system yet they traded away Hardy and Bartlett for positions on the team that are fairly easy to fill (relief pitching, corner outfielder) both from within their existing system and on the Free Agent market. They wanted "speed" so they traded away Hardy since he wasn't fast enough (despite the fact that they are carrying 4 players on their roster who should primarily be DH). They wanted a right handed power bat so they traded for Delmon. They wanted a "proven closer" so they traded for Capps. They were too focused on those needs and didn't worry about the other holes they were about to create.

            1. My main knock on Bill Smith is that he doesn't seem to put enough of a premium on up-the-middle talent (and I'd generally include starting pitchers and not relievers here.) When TR made his big moves (Knoblauch, Pierzynski), he got up-the-middle guys (Milton, Guzman, Liriano, Bonser, even Nathan was more or less a starting pitcher when we traded for him) in return. Especially if you consider relief pitchers to not carry a premium, Smith's had a couple significant moves where he's traded up-the-middle talent (Bartlett, Garza, Ramos) for corner/utility/relief guys (Delmon, Harris, Capps), in which case you have to be really, really sure that those corner/relief guys are special, but they really weren't.

               And when you have excess up-the-middle talent, you can spill it over into the corners without losing a lot of value (moving Jacque Jones from CF to LF to make way for Hunter, for instance.) But if you have excess corner talent, you have to start platooning players or cutting them, which is generally less effective.

               You saw Hardy's payroll as making way for Pavano, but you could also see it as making way for Nishioka (posting fee + salary), in which case the Hardy move could sort of be considered Hardy for a couple of relievers and Nishioka. Then it's a kind of middle-for-middle trade that I can generally live with. But this illustrates you can't always associate the payroll freed up from a salary dump to a particular acquisition.

            2. Seeing it as Pavano for Hardy makes sense, but I didn't have much of an issue bringing him back instead of counting on health from Slowey and/or rushing Gibson into the rotation. And it's not like our other rotation options have been perfectly healthy the last few years either.

   2. If this is accurate, it doesn't strike me as a very sound plan for a team in the Twins' position going into this season. It feels like a long time ago these days, but this was a team in a "win now" situation, and intentionally playing musical chairs with shaky shortstops to find out who'll stick around in future seems like a really bad idea when it's not a rebuilding year. Especially when all you have to do is keep the arb-eligible, perfectly serviceable SS already on the team. I suppose it's arguable that they really did anticipate this year being a down/rebuilding year given the Morneau situation, the rebuilt bullpen, etc., but then why would they resign someone like Pavano if they're re-tooling for future years?

      My take from a payroll perspective is that it may have come down to Capps or Hardy, and the Twins went with Capps because they value experienced closers (I agree that the Bill Smith administration has left no doubt that it likes relievers), the bullpen was in flux and they wanted some stability, there were concerns about Nathan, and they had already invested a lot in Capps by giving up Ramos for him. I also think the Twins tend to like durable guys, and Hardy had the "often injured" tag applied to him.

8. Looks like Brian Fuentes might be available.

   1. Do they want Danny Rams?

      1. headline in the Sac Bee today was something to the effect of "Fuentes loses game for A's again". (his fourth loss in his last four appearances).

         Technically, yes. He walked the leadoff batter in the 8th inning of a tie game, then induced a fielder's choice grounder and was replaced by Michael (Spamtown) Wuertz.

         Wuertz then gave up a double off the wall and a two-run single in the inning. So, Fuentes got charged with the loss for walking a guy and getting a ground ball that could have been a GIDP.

         1. Almost as bad as the A's starter allowing a hit to the first guy and getting hurt and then the bullpen gives up 10 runs plus the guy he allowed to reach and he gets charged for the "loss."

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