The qualifying offer is irrelevant. The Twins will be the highest bidder if they offer Jeffers $23M. That’s an overpay by about $8M.

13 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

The qualifying offer is irrelevant. The Twins will be the highest bidder if they offer Jeffers $23M. That’s an overpay by about $8M.

No one is going to offer a one year deal. I am assuming you get that 15 by comparing to an AAV. Any long term deal is going to have decline phase seasons built in. Maybe he gets offered 5/75 or 5/85. A good part of that value is buying his age 30 and 31 seasons. While it is an overpay compared to an AAV that will include his decline, I don’t believe it is out of line with his value for age 30 season.

The point of the blog is that you can’t compare a one year deal to AAVs of longer deals that include either arbitration or decline phase seasons. I think that is what you are doing when comparing to 15. The Braves can pay Murphy 15 next year because they overpaid in his arb years. The Phillies paid Realmuto 23.875 million at the end of his first long term deal at ages 33 and 34. He wasn’t worth it those years. He was more than worth it earlier in the deal. Now he gets paid 15 million ages 35 to 37 in clear decline.

1 hour ago, jorgenswest said:

No one is going to offer a one year deal. I am assuming you get that 15 by comparing to an AAV. Any long term deal is going to have decline phase seasons built in. Maybe he gets offered 5/75 or 5/85. A good part of that value is buying his age 30 and 31 seasons. While it is an overpay compared to an AAV that will include his decline, I don’t believe it is out of line with his value for age 30 season.

1/$23M is probably worth more than 5/$75M. He would only need another contract at 4/$45 to break even, considering how front loaded it is.

Jeffers is more likely to get traded by the Twins than getting an extension from them. With the potential trade suitors for Jeffers they would all be in a spot to give him that extension barring whatever comes from the new CBA this winter. 

3 hours ago, wesnewy said:

Jeffers is more likely to get traded by the Twins than getting an extension from them. With the potential trade suitors for Jeffers they would all be in a spot to give him that extension barring whatever comes from the new CBA this winter. 

I agree but my post was not about an extension now. It was about not extending early and then offering a QO as compared to extending early as he entered arbitration. I think they should set a high bar for return knowing that they will make a QO. 

I think that is very interesting analysis.  Doing it the Twins way you don't get locked into an overpay situation if the performance isn't there.  Still if you bet right and the player exceeds expectations then the extension is a genius play and the team that didn't extend gets burned in the end.

I haven't really looked at it like that before.  In the example above the Twins come out just fine if he accepts the QO if he doesn't though they lose that last year.  It's a gamble both ways. I thought they should have extended him three years back, but catchers are tough to evaluate.  His defense has never been great and the bat has fluctuated with one .800 OPS year until this year.

The Twins played it safe so now have a decision to make.  Trade him in for more years of another player or try the QO route and get him for one more year or get some draft pick compensation.

Has it been reported that Jeffers was open to an extension? One of my pet peeves is the idea that teams can just extend guys if they want to. Not every player is open to an extension. I don't remember seeing anything saying he was or wasn't open to one, but that's the first question to ask. Was Ryan even open to the idea? If he wasn't, then, no, the Twins couldn't have extended him earlier.

36 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Has it been reported that Jeffers was open to an extension? One of my pet peeves is the idea that teams can just extend guys if they want to. Not every player is open to an extension. I don't remember seeing anything saying he was or wasn't open to one, but that's the first question to ask. Was Ryan even open to the idea? If he wasn't, then, no, the Twins couldn't have extended him earlier.

I think every player is open to an extension if the number is high enough. The Twins should have had some discussions two years ago. If they didn’t, that is a huge mistake.

20 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I think every player is open to an extension if the number is high enough. The Twins should have had some discussions two years ago. If they didn’t, that is a huge mistake.

Well, right. If you're willing to overpay everyone, you can extend everyone. My question is around statements like "The Twins did not choose to extend Ryan Jeffers as he was entering arbitration." Did they choose that? In the sense that they chose not to overpay him, sure. But do we have any reason to believe they never talked to him about it? They've successfully extended other players pre-arbitration. Kepler and Polanco being the best results. They extended Pablo Lopez.

People make a lot of statements about the Twins "choosing" not to extend people. Jeffers and Ryan the 2 biggest examples right now. I don't know why the default seems to be that they don't even try. They extended Buxton before he hit the market. Why isn't the default to assume they tried and there wasn't a number both sides agreed on? It was pretty widely reported they tried with Berrios before they traded him. It sure appears that they try to extend most of their better players.

2 years ago was Jeffers coming off a 133 OPS+ season followed by a 103 OPS+ season. I'd bet it's very likely there wasn't a number both sides agreed to at that point. The difference between a 130 and 100 OPS+ from your catcher is some pretty massive bucks. I'd bet they have discussed an extension with him multiple times. Just wasn't a deal to be made. Like the situation in an overwhelming number of cases.

The concern is something we really never know, and it's how reasonable they were being in their discussions. I think the assumption should be they "try" to extend all of the guys we wish they would, but how hard that effort is will always be in question with the Pohlads. The reported Joe Ryan ask was 7/210. If that's what he was demanding, I'm glad they haven't extended him. If Jeffers was demanding similarly above market numbers, I'm glad they didn't extend him either. But we'll never know that stuff for sure.

8 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Has it been reported that Jeffers was open to an extension? One of my pet peeves is the idea that teams can just extend guys if they want to. Not every player is open to an extension. I don't remember seeing anything saying he was or wasn't open to one, but that's the first question to ask. Was Ryan even open to the idea? If he wasn't, then, no, the Twins couldn't have extended him earlier.

I can't find anything online and searches are just bringing up recent results.  All I have to go on is memory, but I feel like I remember an interview where Jeffers pretty much wanted to bet on himself and get to free agency.  I don't remember what year, but if I had to guess it was likely the year after he had that .800 OPS.  

Not that I get every scrap of Twins news but usually you see or hear something about the Twins wanting to extend a player and I don't remember any news like that about Jeffers.  Ryan is a pretty smart guy I'd think he realizes the rare talent he is and wanted to bet on himself and get to the market.

I would also add that as this article points out when a player extends they are likely taking less money long term for the safety of getting guaranteed life changing money.  Jeffers isn't young and hitting the market before 30 is a shrewd move that should help him gain a longer term deal at higher dollars.  The Twins aren't known for over pays in any aspect of player contracts.  They would have never over paid for Jeffers.

I can't say for certain it was never discussed, but I don't think Jeffers is the kind of person to fall for the lessor payday an extension brings versus getting to market ASAP.  For him it seemed like once he hit his arb years or close to it there was no way to extend him IMO. I'd say that's why so many of these deals seem to come as players move from the minors to Majors.  If not done soon it rarely happens.