Twins Front Office Talk Payroll, Twitter Sounds Off

[jay]

It would be nice that, when they spend more money, they actually do a good job and sign/retain/trade for the right players. How's that working out lately?

 

I'd reply to that with logic, but it won't change the emotions anyway... so I won't waste my time. 

[nicksaviking]

 

4. Their ability to manage this message is awful, and does not seem to improve over time. It's like they can't help themselves. St. Peter should never be allowed to tweet again.

 

There's lots of things St. Peter should not be allowed to do again.

[Winston Smith]

St Peter just needs to stop talking about it.

[nicksaviking]

Your math is off there... divide by 6, not 5.  Average payroll in TF assuming next year is flat = 17th.

 

I don't think the "Target Field promise" included higher payroll relative to other teams, but they have.  In absolute terms, even accounting for inflation, there's no question the payroll has increased.

If that 17th place finish was a reflection of their revenue sharing or market size, then the Twins should have been getting some pretty sweet 1st round compensation picks the last few years.  I might even prefer those prospects over free agents. Who'd we get? I can't wait to see them!

[jay]

It would be nice that, when they spend more money, they actually do a good job and sign/retain/trade for the right players. How's that working out lately?

 

But since I can't resist logic...

 

The Twins spent about $31M on 5 external free agents in 2014.  Those 5 generated roughly $60M of value using $7.5M/win for external free agents.  (http://www.hardballtimes.com/methodology-and-calculations-of-dollars-per-war/)

 

That's not so bad, but also a reminder that free agency is a terrible place to look for value.

[tobi0040]

The fallacy there is that you're basing your judgment on payroll levels during rebuilding.  Context matters.  We saw in 2011 that they have the ability to push payroll higher than that when they think the team can contend (oh, how wrong that was...).  That's what matters to me. 

 

I agree to an extent.  But I aslo thought the cycle of high payroll when we think we are going to contend, followed by 5-6 years of low payroll with the oh goodie, we may add mid-season if we are in the playoff race thing would change with the stadium.

 

I agree overall with Mike, the Twins need to hire a good PR firm and coach them.  The first thing they would do is some fan polling.  They would find a skeptical/dissapointed fan base, based on the last 15 or so years.  Start with contraction and work your way to this point.  Given that, they should not be making comments about how they don't have any money, the payroll decline should "not be much", etc.  Hopefully their consultants would also question the credentials of Dave St. Peter.

[Mike Sixel]

Nor sure I'd do the calculation that way, but it was a nice return on the dollar in terms of WAR. Did you count Pelfrey? 

[tobi0040]

But since I can't resist logic...

 

The Twins spent about $31M on 5 external free agents in 2014.  Those 5 generated roughly $60M of value using $7.5M/win for external free agents.  (http://www.hardballtimes.com/methodology-and-calculations-of-dollars-per-war/)

 

That's not so bad, but also a reminder that free agency is a terrible place to look for value.

 

What percentage of that relates to Phil Hughes?  What was the return on Twins that we low-balled that left?  Cuddy, Morneau, etc.

[Mike Sixel]

BTW, I'm not really into arguing about specific decisions in this thread, I'm much more into the general payroll topic........and even more on the PR and overall actions than yearly decisions.

[Shane Wahl]

I would be happy with just signing Ervin Santana and letting it ride for the time being. When the Twins get to 80 wins with youth, THEN spend mightily. I know that Gleeman's point is pretty accurate though, so, well . . . I don't know. I like the idea of buying free agents to trade in the season.

[nicksaviking]

I would be happy with just signing Ervin Santana and letting it ride for the time being. When the Twins get to 80 wins with youth, THEN spend mightily. I know that Gleeman's point is pretty accurate though, so, well . . . I don't know. I like the idea of buying free agents to trade in the season.

You'd think the Twins would have invented this tactic seeing as you then only have to pay the guy half of his salary.

[tobi0040]

You'd think the Twins would have invented this tactic seeing as you then only have to pay the guy half of his salary.

 

Or about a third.  Then they could say...aw shucks.  We were willing to pay Morales abut we weren't in contention.

[TheLeviathan]

You want to know why there is bitterness?  Because for a decade we were playoff contenders and never did it feel like ownership invested in that opportunity.

 

Some of this is justifiable sour grapes because we've watched self-imposed restrictions by this club hold them back time and time again.  Coming out to talk about those self-imposed restrictions and spinning them is just dumb.  This fan base is long past listening to the excuses and justifications.

 

I was happy to see the team be more aggressive last year, I'm cautiously optimistic those past sins are in the past.  But there is a lot of built up equity in this fan base's sour grapes.

[tobi0040]

You want to know why there is bitterness?  Because for a decade we were playoff contenders and never did it feel like ownership invested in that opportunity.

 

Some of this is justifiable sour grapes because we've watched self-imposed restrictions by this club hold them back time and time again.  Coming out to talk about those self-imposed restrictions and spinning them is just dumb.  This fan base is long past listening to the excuses and justifications.

 

I was happy to see the team be more aggressive last year, I'm cautiously optimistic those past sins are in the past.  But there is a lot of built up equity in this fan base's sour grapes.

 

I completely agree.

[Mike Sixel]

You want to know why there is bitterness?  Because for a decade we were playoff contenders and never did it feel like ownership invested in that opportunity.

 

Some of this is justifiable sour grapes because we've watched self-imposed restrictions by this club hold them back time and time again.  Coming out to talk about those self-imposed restrictions and spinning them is just dumb.  This fan base is long past listening to the excuses and justifications.

 

I was happy to see the team be more aggressive last year, I'm cautiously optimistic those past sins are in the past.  But there is a lot of built up equity in this fan base's sour grapes.

 

Great post.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Reasonable based on what?  Bar napkin interpretation of their quotes and internet estimates?

 

It definitely sounds mandated.

Reasonable based on, they've spent this (or more) before, and it's the median MLB payroll.

 

"Mandated", as you use it, seems to say "you have $X to spend right now, so spend it."  That's not quite what folks are suggesting here, I don't think.  I read it as more like, "we have had $X to spend for Y years, and will for the next Z years -- why is the front office suggesting payroll is any kind of limiting factor?"

 

I understand your overall point -- that 2010-2012 payrolls might represent the high side rather than the expected norm, and I am fairly OK with that.  But even when they have spent, this front office has done a pretty poor job of it.  Even if payroll isn't really a limiting factor, it looks like this front office may still have the same MLB talent identification/acquisition problems that caused the 2011-2012 disasters, and dooms us to 5 year rebuild cycles if we have a few poor draft cycles.

[Otto von Ballpark]

But since I can't resist logic...

 

The Twins spent about $31M on 5 external free agents in 2014.  Those 5 generated roughly $60M of value using $7.5M/win for external free agents.  (http://www.hardballtimes.com/methodology-and-calculations-of-dollars-per-war/)

 

That's not so bad, but also a reminder that free agency is a terrible place to look for value.

30+ year old domestic free agents in particular.  Yet TR has sunk over $100 million on them over the past 3 offseasons, and just ~$28 mil into under-30 domestic FA, and zero spent on international free agents (outside the slot and cap system).

[tobi0040]

Why is Dave St Peter still employed as president of the Minnesota Twins,honestly really does someone have a logical answer? Isn't his job public relations and managing the message. The last couple of years he has been far from on point when it comes to the advertising and marketing image this team and franchise has presented in this town. Right now he does a better job of alienating potential ticket buyers and season ticket holders than he does in helping retain them. I get the honesty about payroll and all and it is a natural progression of having younger, cheaper players enter the system.  Putting it out there in the Phil Miller article and the conference call that the team is already at it's 2015 payroll limits, they had to know it was going to anger a lot of fans, which is the last thing you would think they would want to do is tick off the fanbase more than they already have the last four years. Chances are if the GM and the president had been better at there jobs this team would not be in a position of having to project huge decreases in ticket revenue and in game stadium revenues.

What does he St Peter bring to the table that has improved the Twins operation, from a public relations or marketing stand point? Isn't marketing and promotion supposed to be what he is good at?

 

I get that they "blame the fans for decresed attendance" that is natural attrition of having a bad baseball team and poor entertainment value for four years now, but where is the mea culpa from ownership, and front office management that we need to do better and we will, besides firing the manager and making him responsible for the bad team and bad use of payroll those two St Peter and Ryan really have not taken much ownership of the dumpster fire that has become the Minnesota Twins franchise.

The more St Peter tweets the bigger holes he digs, he should just stay away from it really. Look at the comments section to the Miller article, yeah there are mutliple posts from the same users but he really riled up the natives with that article and really was it necessary to do that at this point in time. Why do the Pohlads keep him, because he is a good yes man for protecting their image? He certainly isn't that and if anything, with the way he tweets and tells fans things he could not be a worse PR man for ownership. 1991 and 1987 never seem like we will see the Twins atain those levels again, they kind of stink at just about everything they do these days.

 

I can't answer a single of these questions.  I think 90% of the problem he last few years have been communication.  They knew payroll was going to come down, they certainly knew after the 2011 and 2012 seasons that they weren't going to spend any money......but they should have just been honest about where we were in the cycle. 

 

"We had our runs and we are devastated that we did not win the world series, but given where we are we have to re-tool our roster.  What that will mean in the interim period is we are going to promote some people from the farm team in order to field the best team in the future.  Replacing veterans with young talented players will mean a lower payroll the next few years"

 

Instead we got "we are not rebuilding, we are going to field a team that can win next year and payroll is no limitation". 

 

This communication miss is on Dave St. Peter, unless the ownership group would not allow him to be honest.

 

Now I know someone is going to say the problem is wins and that is right.  But at the end of the 2011 season, knowing we won 65 games, veterans were bolting, and we weren't going to spend......this was very predictable and the fan base should have been told that.

[jay]

Nor sure I'd do the calculation that way, but it was a nice return on the dollar in terms of WAR. Did you count Pelfrey? 

 

Suzuki; 2.1 fWAR; $2.75M

Pelfrey; -0.6 fWAR; $5.5M

Hughes; 6.1 fWAR; $8.0M

Nolasco; 1.2 fWAR; $12.0M

Morales; -0.8 fWAR; $3.0M

Total; 8.0 fWAR; $31.25M

 

We vividly recall the flops, but <$4M/WAR from free agents is incredible.

[Mike Sixel]

And Bartlett and Guerrier and Kubel?

[jay]

"Mandated", as you use it, seems to say "you have $X to spend right now, so spend it."  That's not quite what folks are suggesting here, I don't think.  I read it as more like, "we have had $X to spend for Y years, and will for the next Z years -- why is the front office suggesting payroll is any kind of limiting factor?"

 

I think that is definitely suggested.  Comments about not spending this year's payroll, lining the owners pockets with profits, etc... all indicate that $X should have been spent.

 

 

 

I understand your overall point -- that 2010-2012 payrolls might represent the high side rather than the expected norm, and I am fairly OK with that.  But even when they have spent, this front office has done a pretty poor job of it.  Even if payroll isn't really a limiting factor, it looks like this front office may still have the same MLB talent identification/acquisition problems that caused the 2011-2012 disasters, and dooms us to 5 year rebuild cycles if we have a few poor draft cycles.

 

I completely agree with you that the Twins success model is reliant on quality draft cycles.  That's true for probably the majority of MLB teams though.  No team with that model can expect unending success... or at least it hasn't ever happened yet.  Does the bottom of that cycle mean the front office has fundamental flaws?  Maybe, but I'm not so sure we can determine that with much certainty (although it feels good to lay the blame somewhere).  A well regarded farm system when given better draft positioning tells me they're doing something right.

 

I also agree with questioning where the Twins have spent their money, but I don't think we'd find an exhaustive analysis to say the Twins' external free agents dollars have significantly underperformed other teams.  It all goes back to the draft.... not payroll.

[jay]

And Bartlett and Guerrier and Kubel?

 

They played for the Twins this year?  I was trying to forget that.

 

I think that expands the definition a bit since they weren't guaranteed roster spots (although some would say they essentially were).  Include them and it bumps the numbers to $34M for 6.6 fWAR and $5.2M/win.  Still only 70% of the expected cost...

[Shane Wahl]

Haven't read through the thread at all.

 

The Twins should really go after a second-tier FA pitcher, preferably throwing more money per year to lessen the years total. I mean try a 2-36 for Ervin or a 3-45 for him. No four-year deals for anybody.

 

The payroll issue really stems from this past season as well. You can't expect them to actually go back to 100 million bucks this coming year. You CAN expect them to try, though, clearly.

 

Adding Ervin and maybe somebody else in the OF are the only real additions . . . I mean, I am a stickler about this organization, but I just don't know what they should do beyond getting serious about their prospects and *then* figuring it out.

 

Put it this way: Let's say that you eventually in 2015, the potential OF situation is Rosario-Buxton-Arcia-Hicks, and the DH situation is Vargas-Arcia-Pinto. You add in 1B as the Mauer-Vargas spot and the catcher spot at Suzuki-Pinto (all this time with Fryer is a complete waste) and you now have some actual legitimate depth for the first time since 2010. That's 8 players for 6 starting spots (3 OF, DH, 1B, C). This is a very manageable situation.

[tobi0040]

Suzuki; 2.1 fWAR; $2.75M

Pelfrey; -0.6 fWAR; $5.5M

Hughes; 6.1 fWAR; $8.0M

Nolasco; 1.2 fWAR; $12.0M

Morales; -0.8 fWAR; $3.0M

Total; 8.0 fWAR; $31.25M

 

We vividly recall the flops, but <$4M/WAR from free agents is incredible.

Take out the outlier and you have 24m for 2 wins.

 

Terry even acknowledged Hughes sought the twins out as much as we sought him out.

[jay]

Take out the outlier and you have 24m for 2 wins.

 

Would you call that a fair analysis?

[Steven Buhr]

All of this payroll talk has an unfortunately familiar ring to it. Here's something I dug up from my archives - from almost three years ago:

 

http://knuckleballsblog.com/2011/12/27/the-twins-are-taking-a-huge-risk/

[Dman]

I'm at the point where I want to see the young guys play.  The free agent market looks like crap this year, anyone of any value is going to get a QO, meaning even if I had a slight urge to go after a Melky Cabrera, (who will be out for an entire year next time he fails a PED test), I'm not giving up a draft pick for him and a likely four or five year commitment.

 

I guess assuming the team doesn't make a magical trade, I don't want a high payroll this year.  Don't get me wrong, the team absolutely put themselves in a position where spending money might not make a ton of sense right now and they should be absolutely gutted for this underhanded tactic.  But now that we're here, I want to see the youngsters.

 

Of course saying crap like Sano isn't going to get called up in 2015 goes against the idea of seeing the young guys play.  F this BS. This organization can't get anything right these days.  They're like the bad guys in a Sci Fi movie that end up dying becaue they lost control of the evil device/monster they created.  Gardy got the vivid on-screen bloody death, the rest look like they're going to die in the giant fireball that is soon to blow up their lair.

 

I think your post sums up my feelings best.  I want to see the young guys get their shot.  I wish we didn't even have Nolasco as I have buyers remorse now.  For the most part I don't care what the payroll number is this year and I prefer the flexibility of being below it right now.  

 

The brutal thing is that 2015 is likely another rocky year and they could lose 90 games yet again.  It does get hard to watch and stay interested when the team is definitely out of it half way through the season.  So I get where people are coming from when they want the team to spend more money to field better players.

 

There is definitely a part of me that gets angry knowing that the money not spent simply goes into the owners pocket.  If they would over spend in years where the team has a chance to be special I guess it wouldn't bother me but since they never do it does feel like they cheat the fans here.  Just my two cents.

[James Richter]

I read the Miller article, and I have a couple of problems with it:

 

1) The headline implied that the Twins have already spent nearly their whole budget for 2015. In somewhat smaller print is the caveat: if they bring everyone back.

 

2) It is implied that parting with arb and option eligible members of the bullpen and bench in order to create more payroll space will constitute "tough choices."

 

They should not (and will not) bring everybody back, and several of the choices aren't tough at all. Burton's option is an easy decline, and Duesning and Swarzak should be non-tenders - there are multiple players from Rochester's excellent pen who could exceed their 2014 production for $500K. Is Nunez going to give them a lot more for $1.2M than Beresford could for the league minimum? Cut him.

 

They'll have $10-12M available once they clean out the 40-man. That's enough to grab the 2015 version of Hughes and Suzuki. Of course, they can't afford to make any mistakes in their evaluations...

 

Friends, because I care about your mental health, I urge you all to measure the Twins' success next season by one simple metric: get the run differential into the black. With the players they have under control and another $10M wisely spent, that's a goal they can reach for around $85M.

[Mike Sixel]

James, thanks for calling us friends. 

[KGB]

$7.5 million per WAR - so according to Fangraph the Twins overall WAR is 17.9 which makes our 90 loss club a $134 million roster.  From what I saw, something is very wrong in this calculation.

 

It's time to concentrate on building for the long term instead of just signing players.  We wasted money on Morales because Ryan thought we could contend.  Ryan missed on that one - those AB's would have been better used to develop Pinto. 

 

The biggest problem with these 4 years of losing, is we have not begun to build a young base of players.  Bring up young players, will mean a lower payroll but it's the right thing to do.  It's not what anyone wants after building a new stadium, but they have screwed up and it's time to admit it and start rebuilding.  If they keep signing marginal players to fill up the roster, we are looking at a 10 year rebuilding plan.