Santana rips Twins organization for deadline inactivity

[Bruce Ciskie]

Linky.

 

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"I'm not surprised. That's exactly how they are. That's why we're never going to go beyond where we've gone."

 

The Twins acquired two minor league prospects for Castillo, saved $2 million in payroll and did nothing to bolster this year's chances.

 

"It's not just about hope," Santana said. "In a realistic world, you have to really make it happen and go for it.

 

"You always talk about future, future. ... But if you only worry about the future, then I guess a lot of us won't be part of it," Santana said.

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Interesting stuff. Clearly, Santana appears poised to walk after next season, and I cringe at the thought of what he'll command on the open market.

 

But for now, I guess I'd tell him to "Shut up, take the ball every fifth day, and do your job". I'm not comfortable with him telling a pretty accomplished GM how to do his job.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

I'm a big fan of Santana, and GM Ryan as well, but I have to agree with Santana here. Hunter is having a career year, the ChiSox are in disarray, and despite Cleveland/Detroit being in great shape, Minnesota is usually a 2nd half team.

 

With Joe, Justin, Cuddyer, Santana, Nathan, Hunter, and others, we (Twins) have a great core now, but that window is starting to close.

 

I have to admit I'm pretty disappointed more moves weren't made. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Bruce Ciskie]

The Twins don't have much position player depth in the farm system, as referenced by the schlubs they've called up at various points this season.

 

Do you really think it would be smart to mortgage the future for a two-month rental of Jermaine Dye?

 

Frankly, I think it was borderline dumb not to trade Hunter, considering the haul they could have netted for him in such a horrible position player market. This team isn't going to make the playoffs unless at least two teams who have better records start playing worse.

[Ennder]

Twins are the 3rd best team in the division so I'm not too surprised they didn't make a move.

[endaround]

This year they shouldn't have done much. In the past however they refused to when adding a decent player would have made their team really good. If you go into a season expecting Punto, Bartlett, and Tyner to get significant playing time though you are handicapping yourself.

[Bruce Ciskie]

I just find it funny that the guy making $13,000,000 this year (Santana) and the guy making $12,000,000 (Hunter) are frustrated with the fact that an organization that has a long-standing reputation for being pretty tightly-budgeted isn't spending money.

[JoeHova]

Good for Johan. I'm sure it's frustrating for a guy who is clearly the best pitcher in the majors to be on a team that doesn't seem to be willing to make the moves it needs to to improve. The KG situation with the Wolves is somewhat analogous. Players careers are finite, so I can understand where he's coming from.

 

As an aside, if he stays healthy through next year, he is going to get paid. I could see him getting an unprecedented (for a pitcher) $200 million contract or more. Zito got $130 and he isn't nearly the pitcher Johan is.

[Bruce Ciskie]

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Good for Johan. I'm sure it's frustrating for a guy who is clearly the best pitcher in the majors to be on a team that doesn't seem to be willing to make the moves it needs to to improve. The KG situation with the Wolves is somewhat analogous. Players careers are finite, so I can understand where he's coming from.

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Um. No.

 

Santana had a highly-paid Brad Radke behind him in the rotation until last year when Radke got tired of his shoulder hurting and retired.

 

Outside of David Ortiz, who the Twins let go because he couldn't stay healthy enough to play every day, who have the Twins lost as far as position players go in recent years? And who are they going to sign on a pretty tight budget?

 

What is killing the Twins is that their position player development has, for whatever reason, lagged way behind their pitcher development. They don't have a single guy high in their system who would remind us of Braun/Fielder/Weeks, and while they have some nice defensive infielders, I'm not sure they have anyone with Hardy's upside.

 

Well, that hurts, and so does the fact that until this week, they were paying almost 8% of their total payroll for a slap-hitting second baseman. Oh, and that 8% of the payroll being spent on Ramon Ortiz and Rondell White isn't helping matters much.

 

As much as I respect Terry Ryan, I will admit that many of his acquisitions in recent years have been questionable in nature. But that's not his fault. He's handcuffed because the young guys aren't developing like they should, and the money isn't there to replenish the system in one fell swoop, nor is it there to stack the major-league roster while you wait for the young guys to come around.

[Loopee]

I think this is the biggest news to come out of yesterday long term. I don't think the Twins are in a position with their current plan to beat the Tigers and Indians in the near future. Santana being unhappy with the Twins creates a real possibility they do something next year or the year after to move him for other long term help.

 

So, we have a bidding war for the best player in baseball on our hands. Will the Yankees Red Sox or Angels put up enough to get him? Or will a smaller market team with a good farm system *cough* manage to beat out their offers?

 

Something to watch for sure.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

"Outside of David Ortiz, who the Twins let go because he couldn't stay healthy enough to play every day, who have the Twins lost as far as position players go in recent years?"

 

Shannon Stewart, AJ Pierzynski, Matt Lawton, Jacque Jones, Chuck Knoblauch, Ron Coomer, Pat Meares, Marty Cordova...

 

While you can debate how some of these moves eventually turned out, Bruce (especially the Pierzynski deal! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif ), the fact remains that the trillionaire Carl Pohlad, lender to Bud, has never invested proportionately to what he's worth. I'm not saying he should go all Steinbrenner on our asses, but it woudn't have killed him to augment the talent they're developing, or unleash the funds to fill a roster hole or 2, over the past few years. If Pohlad did, they could have won at least one pennant since '92, maybe a title.

 

Santana Claus has every right to be frustrated. He's a world class pitcher, still arguably the best in the majors, and he's forced to watch other teams bolster their rosters, as his organization sits on the sidelines.

[Bruce Ciskie]

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Shannon Stewart, AJ Pierzynski, Matt Lawton, Jacque Jones, Chuck Knoblauch, Ron Coomer, Pat Meares, Marty Cordova...

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OK. Now how many of those guys would you have paid to keep? In pretty much every one of those cases, Ryan made the right move.

 

The one guy who's been pretty good since leaving Minnesota is AJ, but you can't argue with a move that nets you a starting pitcher, a phenom pitcher (if he can come back healthy), and a top closer.

 

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the fact remains that the trillionaire Carl Pohlad, lender to Bud, has never invested proportionately to what he's worth. I'm not saying he should go all Steinbrenner on our asses, but it woudn't have killed him to augment the talent they're developing, or unleash the funds to fill a roster hole or 2, over the past few years. If Pohlad did, they could have won at least one pennant since '92, maybe a title.

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A $71 million payroll is probably spending beyond that franchise's means, considering the horrific lease they have at the Metrodome.

 

I'm all for having Billionaire Uncle Carl spend money, but how much money should he be sinking into the team on an annual basis with little or no financial return?

 

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Santana Claus has every right to be frustrated. He's a world class pitcher, still arguably the best in the majors, and he's forced to watch other teams bolster their rosters, as his organization sits on the sidelines.

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I'm almost certain that this isn't about the Castillo trade, and is instead about guys they COULD have signed over the last couple of offseasons. If that's the case, then Santana has a legitimate point, because the offseason action hasn't been very good.

 

But if Santana thinks they should have kept Castillo and gone after some offensive help, I'd suggest that some enterprising Twin Cities reporter ask him who he thinks the team should have coveted, and who he would suggest they give up in return, given their non-existent farm system depth at the moment.

[igor67]

I think most accurately Johan iggest complaint i not with resigning players. It has been that in the last 7 or so years of the Twins respectability they have only made one trade at the deadline of any consequence Shannon Stewart. I can't particularly think of any great offseason moves either. But at times when they have had excellent prospect depth they have stead fastly hung onto Designated Line-up Stooges like Luis Rivas and Christian Guzman. It's one thing to give a prospect sometime but these guys stunk it it up offensively with no great glove for the better part of their 6 pre-arby years. If i tried I could probably come up with some other examples, but by and large Ryan has worshiped at the altar of Pat Gillick and really missed some low hanging fruit type opportunities to field a better ball club.

[JoeHova]

Bruce, I said that they aren't making the moves they need to in order to compete. I didn't elaborate, but you felt free to insinuate that I thought they had let people go who they should have kept. That's not what I'm saying.

 

What I am saying is that all throughout Johan's tenure with the team, the Twins have had glaring weaknesses at one or more spots and have done little to address those. So, despite having a great bullpen and 2 excellent position players, they haven't done as well as they maybe could have.

 

For all the talk about how great the pitching prospects they have developed are, they could easily trade a few to get an upgrade or two in the lineup. The Twins have been absolutely dreadful at 3rd, SS, LF, and DH this year and their top reserve is Jason Tyner. Those positions (with the exception of SS) are pretty easy to upgrade and there is freely available talent that would improve what they have at those spots. Given that, if they were to trade a couple pitchers, they could make an even larger upgrade.

 

So, to think that Johan is unaware that 4/9ths of the lineup is dreadful and would be easy to upgrade is bizarre. I think his frustration is 100% justifiable in ways that maybe it wouldn't be if he was on another team.

[TooLiveBrew]

I think Ryan is overrated as a GM, personally. He's good, but not great, imho. I don't think the comments from Santana are 'telling him how to do his job' as much as they're simply frustration that nothing got done. I guess I don't blame him, but players simply feel the need to vent this stuff through the media....sounds like a long-bubbling cauldron of frustration here, culminating in the quiet trade deadline.

[Tbadder]

These guys are competitors and sometimes frustration gets the better of us all. I think Santana's comments were explainable and real and honest. Why shouldn't he let his feelings be known?

 

Now, I see the other side as well, and the twinkies are going nowhere this year because of the Tigers and Indians. Trade now if the young guys represent true value. Santana doesn't really appreciate long term viability at this moment. If management makes their position clear to him, and respects Johan's position as well, this should blow over.

 

What's really scary is thinking about Johan in pinstripes, and 200 million does seem within reach. Gulp.

[Bruce Ciskie]

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Bruce, I said that they aren't making the moves they need to in order to compete. I didn't elaborate, but you felt free to insinuate that I thought they had let people go who they should have kept. That's not what I'm saying.

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Fair enough. My bad. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

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What I am saying is that all throughout Johan's tenure with the team, the Twins have had glaring weaknesses at one or more spots and have done little to address those. So, despite having a great bullpen and 2 excellent position players, they haven't done as well as they maybe could have.

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Outside of the draft, the options are limited. They really don't have any money to go out and spend on free agents. Like I said before, I think $70M for a payroll is actually well beyond their means because of their revenue problems. And outside of the inadequacies in drafting and developing young talent (some of these issues also revolve around the budgetary problems), they have done about as well as possible in building the team.

 

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For all the talk about how great the pitching prospects they have developed are, they could easily trade a few to get an upgrade or two in the lineup. The Twins have been absolutely dreadful at 3rd, SS, LF, and DH this year and their top reserve is Jason Tyner. Those positions (with the exception of SS) are pretty easy to upgrade and there is freely available talent that would improve what they have at those spots. Given that, if they were to trade a couple pitchers, they could make an even larger upgrade.

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Sure.

 

But then who pitches when Radke retires, Silva walks, and Santana eventually walks?

 

They have one extra major-league-ready starter right now (Slowey) who isn't in the Twins' rotation. They're probably going to lose Silva after this season, and Santana is definitely gone after 2008. Even if you add Liriano back into the mix for 2008, they're still not in a position to trade a starter because they really don't have an extra starter available.

 

Like I said, the biggest organizational weakness has been in the development of young position players. You're right that it could be solved via trades, but those are only a patchwork solution.

 

I wish Santana would have walked into Ryan's office, shut the door, and handled this like I would expect him to. I don't think that it was right to go to the media. Perhaps if he had talked to Ryan, he could have learned a few things about the structure of the organization that render Ryan handcuffed on a lot of this stuff.

[Diskono]

With the Castillo trade, the Twins saw the opportunity to get more (s)crappy battlers like Nick Punto and Jason Bartlett into the lineup. Its the Twins' way, I don't see why anyone should be surprised...Santana included.

[RobertR]

Admittedly, Castillo is something of a (s)crappy battler himself.

 

But I agree that the biggest issue is that Ryan has never made a big move to indicate that he's serious about winning a title. There's no excuse for a supposed contender to be trotting out what the Twins are at DH, LF, and 3B. They have four really good offensive players in Mauer, Morneau, Hunter, and Cuddyer. Bartlett and Castillo are passable, low end players, and not much of anything else. I love Cirillo as much as the next Brewers fan, but he's not a difference maker at this point in his career.

[Lil Dummy]

I was surprised the Twins didn't make a play for Carlos Lee last year when the Crew was shopping him. I thought he would have been a perfect fit for the Twins playoff push. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part, though.

[Oldcity]

Shannon Stewart, AJ Pierzynski, Matt Lawton, Jacque Jones, Chuck Knoblauch, Ron Coomer, Pat Meares, Marty Cordova...

They "lost" Pierzynski? I wish I could lose something I was only going to have for one year and end up with Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser, all for long-term. I know you mentioned the Pierzynski was good, but that may be one of the most lop-sided trades in the history of the league.

 

The Chuck Knoblauch deal paid dividends also. Jacque Jones has stunk since the Twins let him go, Shannon Stewart is always hurt, and none of those other guys are any good.

[brettac1]

They "lost" Pierzynski? I wish I could lose something I was only going to have for one year and end up with Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser, all for long-term.

Well, I wouldn't say they've been missing him.

http://images.wikia.com/openserving/entertainment/images/thumb/3/3d/PeterGibbons.jpg/190px-PeterGibbons.jpg

Especially since they have that Mauer guy.