A Small Market Response

Disclaimer: I am more of a football guy.  Now, having said that, I am a passionate Twins fan who lives in the heart of Hawk Harrelson Country™ and that fact has only increased my love for the Twins.  While the past four years have been tough I take solace in the White Sox sucking too…

I don’t have MLB Extra Innings, I went to precisely two MLB games last year (both Cubs games), I would rather attend the local Low “A” game than commute to The Northside, and I struggle to recite the past five World Series champions (only half kidding).  However, I religiously check my “Batter’s Box” app every night and every morning during baseball season to check the Twins box score and highlights.  I believe I know a fair amount about the Twins, not as much as Adam, but I feel I can hold my own.  It is because of this knowledge I am apprehensive about the Twins going forward.   So, here it goes… my response to Adam’s Royals and Twins small-market formula.

Yes, it is well documented; the Twins have a consensus top five farm system.  They play in a terrible division.  They are in a honeymoon period with a new manager.  The stars are aligning.  My problem, nothing has changed in the one spot that matters the most, the front office.  The fact that Bill Smith still has a job (albeit a made up one) is surprising and associating Terry Ryan with success, at this point, is kind of laughable.  The Twins seem to be successful in spite of management not because of it.  Looking back at the ESPN Transaction page you can see what the Twins have done.  For the sake of time and word count I only went back to 2010.  Since 2010, the Twins do not have a lot of “winners”.  Glen Perkins, Phil Hughes, initial signing of Josh Willingham, Kurt Suzuki all seem like winners with Hughes being a steal.  But a quick rundown of the losers is pretty amazing.  Jason Bartlett, Jason Kubel, Ricky Nolasco, Carl Pavano resigning, Matt Capps trade AND resigning, Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Letting Hardy go, letting Vance Worley go, and the granddaddy of them all… Tsuyoshi Nishioka.  I am sure I am missing some on both sides and I realize some are minor signings but the fact that the front office even tried to fleece the fans is annoying and par for the course.  The jury is still out on the Denard Span and Ben Revere trades but by trading both the Twins left a void in centerfield that Aaron Hicks hasn’t been able to fill.  That blunder has helped propagate one of the worst defensive outfields in the league.  An outfield which plays its home games in the pitcher friendly Target Field.  I think this furthers the point; they seemed to have lucked into Byron Buxton fitting a huge need, not planned for it. 

To their credit, the Twins have seemed to pivot towards “toolsy”, high upside, position players and power arms in the draft and that has helped position them for a possible run at the division in a few years.  However, associating the drafting profile and the 40-man roster management with a blueprint or anything similar to other organizations… I just don’t see it. 

And lastly, for a team that moved into a tax payer funded new stadium six years ago and then almost immediately imploded, it is annoying to see Terry Ryan publicly state he is comfortable with where the payroll stands.  There has to be a middle ground between going after Jon Lester or signing Kevin Correia (like Phil Hughes contracts).  Heck, the 2015 opening day roster doesn’t even have that many “holes” they need to fill.  They are set at 1b, 2b, SS (Santana), DH, C, RF with placeholders at 3b and CF.  The Twins have the money for a few, targeted, middle to upper tier free agent signings and the fans have been more than patient.  Based on MLB Trade Rumors 2015 payroll estimate, they are projected to be 35% below their high water mark and 13% below 2014’s opening day number.  No one goes into business to lose money, I am not asking for that, but the Pohlad’s certainly didn’t have enough to buy the Twins by being bad at business.  That is why I have a hard time believing there is no margin at the bottom line to expand the payroll.  It seems to me the model, if you have been terrible for a long stretch is be patient, develop talent, and selectively sign free agents (a la the Cubs).  This all is based on the assumption you are correctly identifying talent which is an entirely different post.

I hold out hope that Paul Molitor will continue his more stat friendly ways and for a front office that decides to find a middle ground between bring the Dodgers and well... the Twins. I might even settle for a healthy Sano and Buxton. Here's to 2015.

Seeing the Future

I had the pleasure, this Memorial Day, to take in a Kane County Cougars game here in the Chicagoland area and was pleasantly surprised to find that their opponent today was the Twins' Single-A affiliate Beloit Snappers of the Midwest League. I had nice seats, 3 rows from the field on the 3rd base side and witnessed a donnybrook of a game; a 41-hit, 24-run affair that featured 2 homeruns, 4 errors and a total of 11 different pitchers.

It was a hot one at Fifth-Third Bank Stadium today (95 degrees) but that didn't scare away the fans which included many families out there enjoying some Minor League Baseball. The wind was blowing straight out and the players came to the park with their good bats. It was 5-4 Snappers by end of the 3rd inning and the two teams played see-saw until the bottom of the 9th when Cougar Orlando Calixte hit a 2-run HR to left field which tied the game up at 9 a piece. The two bullpens then pitched a couple of scoreless innings each before the Snappers blew it wide open in the top of the 12th, plating 6 runs, capped off by a monstrous center-field moonshot off the bat of Miguel Sano, his 12th of the season. I'm telling you, this homerun hit off the top of the scoreboards in center, he absolutely mauled it.

One cool sidebar from the game: a row in front of us and a few seats down was a kid sitting with his dad. He was wearing a Yankees hat, but as the game went on I noticed that he was rooting for the Snappers. Eventually he and I realized that we were both cheering for the road-team and for the rest of the game I had a cheering buddy. Every time the Snappers would do something good, he would look over and give me a thumbs-up. It was cute. When I left I gave him a high-five and a "Go Twins".

Getting back to Sano, he was pretty unimpressive for most of the game. Up until his HR in the 12th he was 0-for-6 and committed an error at 3rd. His body type reminds me of Hanley Ramirez. He has a big athletic figure, but he also has speed evidenced in the game by a close play at 1st when he grounded to the shortstop. I knew that he had been slumping of late at the plate so I didn't have a whole lot of expectations but was very happy to see him hit a homerun. A couple of other players that caught my eye were Eddie Rosario (2B) and Adam Pettersen (SS) who went 3-for-7 in the game with a triple, 3 runs and an RBI. He has good energy and though he is small, he has a quick bat and plays a decent shortstop. In looking at his numbers on Baseball-Reference he doesn't have a very impressive resume and lacks any real power, but he's only 23 years old and has good energy. I know that last remark isn't all that informative but hey, I only saw one game.

Pitching-wise there was nothing all that impressive. Snappers starter Matt Summers pitched pretty well (5IP, 4R, 1ER, 7H, 8K, 1BB) but didn't look overpowering or as dominating as those 8Ks would suggest. His fastball looked to be topping out at about 92mph. After having himself a nice season in Rookie ball last year, he has failed to translate that success into the Single-A level, carrying a 4.21 ERA into the game with a paltry 5.1 K/9 ratio.

All in all, it was a great time. If you haven't had a chance to see some Minor League baseball, I highly recommend it. It's very family-friendly stuff and it's cool to see players like Sano and Rosario who might make it to the Bigs one day. Kinda like getting a glimpse of the future...or at least the potential that the future may hold.

Sano "The Future" in the foreground, Rosario in the background.