someone who doesn’t really get it.

“we’re not going to pay for our stars or reward our veterans who have earned their keep.”

That’s right Dave. That’s why Morneau, Cuddyer and Nathan were signed to long-term deals.

Sabermetrics and scientific stats are used to evaluate players and give a better indication of their worth, but teams like the Minnesota Twins use this strategy to kiss their superstars goodbye at the trade deadline or the first day of free agency.

Yup. That’s why we kiss them goodbye—we can’t afford them, and/or we have a much cheaper in-house replacement who can replicate their performance. That’s sort of how sports (and business, actually) works.

The Twins constantly sell proven veterans for prospects and draft picks, but when those youngsters finally develop, they get shipped away to start the cycle again.

Hi, I’m the basics of business economics. Have we met?

The Twins incessantly look to the future and winning now is not a priority. Translation: the Twins care more about the dollars than about winning.

Wonderful opinion, seeminly based upon a superficial idea of how the team operates.

Puzzling personnel plays: Trading Johan Santana and failing to re-sign Torrii [sic] Hunter.

Sure, why didn’t the Twins cripple themselves financially by signing these two guys to risky long-term deals? Hmm…..

when those youngsters finally develop, they get shipped away to start the cycle again.

Branch Rickey made himself a baseball legend with this approach.

Also, the guy isn’t even smart enough to know they are no longer the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. They are just the ‘Rays’

baseball franchises worse than the minnesota twins

‘Sabermetrics and scientific stats are used to evaluate players and give a better indication of their worth, but teams like the Minnesota Twins use this strategy to kiss their superstars goodbye at the trade deadline or the first day of free agency’

but the Twins do not employ a Sabermetric strategy, right?
I thought Sabermetrics involes playes taking a lot of walks and such. Throw batting average out the window. all that jazz. right?

Over the span of the Twins run this decade, what is one player that the Twins let go that didnt turn out good for the Twins. Obviously David Ortiz, but I would argue that he needed to move on, just didnt fit well in this system and its not like teams were lining up to get him. He had been a dissapointment with the Twins. Guzman, Koskie, J. Jones, Lawton, and whoever else has been let go all had their prime with the Twins and havent done much since. I think most knowledgeable fans would agree letting Hunter walk was the right move financially for the Twins. Same with Santana, especially with the talent they got in return for Santana. It’s not like the Twins didnt find ways to keep most key players like Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbeck, and so on. If this guy ripped the Twins this hard how did he rate the Athletics. The only player they have held onto has been Eric Chavez, which is a lot of the reason they are able to contend year after year. Clearly this writer is either joking or just plain ignorant and lazy.

I remember when Dayn Perry was the village idiot over there. He’s actually improved some. But I still don’t get half of what he says. Apparently Golokhov has won Perry’s old title. If it wasn’t for Ken Rosenthal, I would never go to that site.

The main flaw Golokov’s argument is he talks about losing high-profile players whom we can’t afford, but he never talks about the guys we get in return. It’s tough to argue with the Twins’ scouting of other team’s systems. All you have to do is look at the Twins system and you’ll find 10 guys in the top 20 prospects who came to the team in trades. The current roster has several key players acquired in astute trades. Whatever the Twins are doing, it seems to be working.

And how can a team that has had winning records in six out of the last seven years be considered one of the worst franchises in baseball? The Pirates have not had a winning season in 15 years. The Rays have never had a winning season. The Royals have three 100-loss seasons this decade. The Nationals nee Expos are perennial losers. Ditto the Orioles, and they do it with way more revenue than the Twins.

Translation: the Twins care more about the dollars than about winning.

The Twins know that these two things are related. If you don’t win in this town, you won’t get dollars. It’s that simple. If the 90’s taught this team anything, its that you have to spend money to make money. Cause if you do everything on the cheap, you won’t win and you’ll not get fannies in the seats. Now, the Twins have to invest wisely. They can’t overpay for aging veterans. They have to develop within. They have to follow Bill James’ principle of developing guys who have six years in the majors during their peak years (23-29 give or take). They make some mistakes. But few franchises rebuild on the fly as well as the Twins because they play younger players and they trade older players. Apparently this guy hasn’t read much Sabermetrics. If there’s one principle of Moneyball, it’s just that.

I’m forced to conclude that either Dave Golokhov has no idea what he’s talking about, or that this is a prank designed to rile up Twins fans.

I believe that it’s that latter. Golokhov seems to be living by the old Oscar Wilde edict, “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” He’s throwing chum to the sharks with this one.

Hey Jesse, I sent you an e-mail via the Blogs system, if you could respond at your leisure that would be greatly appreciated.

“Moneyball” is to baseball what frugal is to cheap

I cannot figure out what in the world he’s trying to say with this quote. “Frugal” and “cheap” are basically synonyms (albeit with different connotations); “Moneyball” and “baseball” are nothing of the sort. I’d sort of like to read the rest of the article largely to see how bad it is, but if this is any indication what it’s like, I’m worried that my brain will crawl out of my head and hang itself.

I (and apparantly many other people) emailed this article to firejoemorgan.com, and they wrote about it. It’s good to know its not just twins fans who know that this is rediculous.
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/05/cold-war.html