Twins: Five things to know
FORT MYERS, Fla. -- I've seen boobs, and the man I'm staring at right now sure doesn't look like one.
Nor does he resemble the classic caricature of a moron. Or a retard. Or a dummy. Or someone recovering from a panic attack, or a man who has some explaining to do. ...
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| Kevin Mulvey, part of the Santana trade, gives the Twins a bright future. (AP) |
What I saw from blogs, columns and spray paint on the bathroom walls (OK, I made that last part up) made me shudder. Judging by some of the language used ("retard" and that other word that started with an "f", for starters), there's a crossover between some of the nitwits I hear from and the drivel that passed for punditry in the aftermath of the Santana deal.
"Aw, I've been called lot of the same names in my own house," Smith says, chuckling.
Fine, comes with the territory, but let's cut to the chase.
Following the mental picture of Debbie Clemens taking HGH injections into her posterior, this notion that the hillbilly Twins were snookered by the city slickers from Queens is the most ludicrous baseball image to emerge all winter.
This is an organization commonly viewed in the industry as having some of the best scouts and smartest baseball men in the game. This is an organization that does not get, in the word of one critic, "fleeced."
This is an organization that spends far more time scouting and crunching statistics than schmoozing with the national media, so when it comes to knee-jerk reactions, the Twins usually don't get their side of the story out.
Fact is, sitting behind that big ol' desk here at Minnesota spring training headquarters, Smith could point to a long, familiar pattern when it comes to Twins trades if he wanted to.
He didn't, of course.
So I will.
The Twins generally were ripped in November, 2003, when they traded A.J. Pierzynski to San Francisco for a sore-armed middle reliever (current uber-closer Joe Nathan, a central figure in the Twins winning two AL Central titles in three seasons beginning in '04), a former first-round high school pick (current rotation member Boof Bonser) and a rookie league pitcher who had missed all of '02 with arm problems (Francisco Liriano, who was sensational in 2006 for the Twins with 12 wins and a 2.16 ERA and will be back this year after missing 2007 following elbow surgery).
The Twins were shredded in Feburary, 1998, for not obtaining any major leaguers in the four-player package they received for second baseman Chuck Knoblauch. But left-hander Eric Milton, who would go on to pitch a no-hitter, and shortstop Cristian Guzman were instrumental in helping the Twins end years of humiliatingly bad play and win the 2002 AL Central title.
The Twins were roundly criticized in July, 1989, for not getting enough from the Mets for Frank Viola. But while pitcher David West was the centerpiece of what the Twins received and never lived up to his billing, a couple of kids the Twins received in the five-player package -- Kevin Tapani and Rick Aguilera -- helped them win a World Series two years later.
And though Smith was the man who ultimately pulled the trigger on the Santana deal, most of the same infrastructure remains in the Twins' front office.
Smith has been in the organization since 1986. His key assistant, vice-president of personnel Mike Radcliff, has been around since 1987 and was the game's longest-tenured (and maybe most respected) scouting director until his promotion last September. Another of Smith's top lieutenants, Rob Antony, has been in the organization for 21 years.
Maybe Terry Ryan, the club's scouting director back when the Twins acquired Tapani and Aguilera, has stepped aside as GM, but he's still around and contributing daily. He isn't sipping pina coladas in the Carribean. I don't think Ryan even knows where the Carribean is. He's too busy looking for the next high school phenom.
"Part of the game," Smith calmly says of the club's icy winter that, in addition to dealing Santana, also included losing Torii Hunter and pitcher Carlos Silva to free agency. "We've been going through it for 20-some years. It's not a change in philosophy. You look at our '87 and '91 World Series teams, there were big changeovers. A lot of good players left Minnesota.
"And from the '90s to the mid-2000s, a lot of other good players left -- Pierzynski, (Doug) Mientkiewicz, Guzman, Hunter, Corey Koskie, Jacque Jones, Eddie Guardado, La Troy Hawkins."
The key is to maintain the farm system's talent and keep the waves of young players flowing.
That was the thinking in acquiring five-tool center fielder Carlos Gomez and pitchers Deolis Guerra, Philip Humber and Kevin Mulvey.
No, there are no proven major leaguers in that package.
But some of the packages clubs were offering for Santana that did contain big leaguers were severely misconstrued.
No, the Yankees did not offer pitcher Phil Hughes and outfielder Melky Cabrera together. If they had, the Twins would have jumped at it.
No, the Red Sox did not offer pitcher Jon Lester and outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury together. Keep dreaming. It was either-or, and the prospects attached to either Lester or Ellsbury were deemed by the Twins to be nowhere close to what the Mets were offering.
"In any trade, you always want to get players to help your major league club right now. That's ideal," Smith says. "Sometimes, the best deal involves a little more risk. There's higher risk and higher reward.
"Our scouting staff and our minor league staff has been very good at identifying players at the Class A level over the past 10 years. David Ortiz, Kyle Lohse, Johan Santana, Jason Bartlett ... we have confidence in our scouting department, and we really like these four guys."
This might sound really, really elementary, but in 20-some years of covering baseball, here's what I've found when it comes to trades: A few folks, like those at Baseball America and Baseball Prospectus, actually have a good working knowledge of the minor leaguers. As for the rest, it's pretty basic:
When people have heard of the player(s) coming to their team, they generally give the deal a good review. When they haven't, they rip the trade.
In the '98 Knoblauch swap, the Twins could have had an infielder who had been in the majors, D'Angelo Jiminez. Public sentiment favored him over Guzman. Because Guzman was coming off of a season in which he split between high-A and low-A ball (another kid spotted in Class A and correctly projected as a big leaguer by the Twins' scouting staff).
Obviously, the Twins made the right choice even though they were questioned, and harshly.
"We've followed a lot of these guys for a long time," Smith says of the prospects the Twins were engaged in with the Mets. "We knew a lot about Deolis Guerra when he was a 15-year-old in Venezuela. And Mulvey has always been highly thought of."
Guerra, now 19 and a hard thrower (mid-90s) with a great change-up, and Gomez, now 22 and a wunderkind who could become a superstar, are the two high-ceilinged guys in the deal. They were four of the Mets' top seven prospects according to Baseball America, though none of them was listed among the publication's top 50 overall prospects.
"They all were difficult to trade," Mets GM Omar Minaya says. "Gomez, I think they got themselves an All-Star center fielder. Mulvey, because he was recently drafted (the Mets' second-round pick in '06) and he's from New Jersey, that was difficult. Guerra could be a front-line starter down the line.
"A lot of people said they didn't get a lot, but look at that organization. They've got a great eye for talent. I have a lot of respect for Terry Ryan, Bill Smith, Mike Radcliff, all of them."
What I regret, after speaking with both Minaya and Smith, is that I never did get cleared up from either man exactly who, or what, was outsmarted.
Oh, I know Minaya wasn't. But cruising along on the Web the other night, I read that "Smith outsmarted himself" and that "Smith was outsmarted by Minaya." I assume that his family room couch and the potted plant in the corner outsmarted him, too.
I read that it was a "panic move", that Smith was "fleeced", that he "stinks" and that "he should be fired."
I read that Minaya "schooled" Smith and that Smith's career as a GM is "off to a disastrous start."
The one thing I read that has a pretty good chance of being true is that, by sending Santana to the Mets, Smith will be "persona non grata in Philadelphia this year."
The one thing I didn't read that also has a pretty good chance of being true is that, based on their history, five years from now, this trade will have worked out just fine for the Twins.
And somewhere else, someone else will be looking like a boob.
