Will the Twinkies follow the lead?

[Westgaard66]

The Wild made a splash in free agency, the Vikes aren't afraid to spend $.

 

Will the twins follow the lead and sign some big name FAs this winter?

[kab21]

The Twins have had the two largest payrolls in team history during the last two seasons. They haven't signed a big FA but they are spending. Whether or not they go after a big name will probably have more to do with whether they think adding a 20M Greinke/Hamels makes them a contender. Right now there are so many holes to fill that signing one big name won't be the difference maker. The issue is that they have about 30M to spend and they need several starters and a middle infield (possibly more). Spending 2/3rd's of that on one player means getting Carroll and Marquis types for the other holes.

 

FWIW - I am all about signing Greinke/Hamels and hoping you can find decent players to fill those holes.

[jctwins]

The Twins have had the two largest payrolls in team history during the last two seasons. They haven't signed a big FA but they are spending. Whether or not they go after a big name will probably have more to do with whether they think adding a 20M Greinke/Hamels makes them a contender. Right now there are so many holes to fill that signing one big name won't be the difference maker. The issue is that they have about 30M to spend and they need several starters and a middle infield (possibly more). Spending 2/3rd's of that on one player means getting Carroll and Marquis types for the other holes.

 

FWIW - I am all about signing Greinke/Hamels and hoping you can find decent players to fill those holes.

Pretty much agree with all of this. JR knows he needs to fill holes before worrying about making a splash. I'd guess he'd rather have 3-5 Doumit/Carroll equivalents than one FA, unless it's a Torrii Hunter/Terry Steinbach/Dave Winfield type move to draw fans and/or build goodwill.

[Highabove]

As stated above, 3O Million dollars will be coming off the books after this season. Unfortunately, the Pohlad's may choose to pocket a large portion of that Money as they did this year.

I agree that the Twins do not need to sign one big splash free agent. They do have a large amount of money to rebuild the pitching with solid mid price players.

The Twins do risk falling into the forth spot of irrelevance, which has been held by the Wolves for a number of years. The Wolves are building to win too.

[spideyo]

If you add Grienke, make Diamond your #2, you probably still have enough left to pick up a pavano-esque veteran to compete with Hendricks/De Vries/Walters/Duensing/Swarzak/Manship/Maloney/Gibson/Baker/Blackburn and whoever else is down in the minors that I forgot about. That does give us a fair amount of options, and if our offense hits next year like it's hitting now, we could easily be talking about getting that one last piece to win the division a year from now.

 

From a PR standpoint too, signing a big FA like Grienke makes a ton of sense, because it tells your fan base you want to win NOW, and aren't committed to 3-5 years of rebuilding until our latest draft picks show up. From a stats standpoint, it might make more sense to save the money and invest in prospects and grow a championship team for 2015 and beyond, but let's face it, sabrmetric nerds and stat geeks are not the ones paying Joe Mauer's salary. The average baseball fan doesn't give a rat's ass about some 20 year old kid in Florida and how we should be patient and wait for him to lead the team to future championships. They paid $40 for their seat, $20 on parking, and $10 for a beer, and they want to see a win TODAY.

[Highabove]

Twins Fans pay Major Market prices for Tickets and Food. They are not going to pay that Money for a bad product much longer. Totally stripping the Team for prospects is not going to happen.

It is possible to put a competitive Team on the field and restock the Farm system at the same time. Draft Smart, develop and make a great trade when the opportunity arises.

Its been done before. Again, the Twins have priced their Tickets to where they are now the 5th highest in Baseball. This is a very relevant issue.

[PseudoSABR]

The Twins have no business spending that kind of money on free agency. Buy some better medical personal and some scouts familiar with advanced statistics. Also, buy more pie.

[Mike Sixel]

Nope, they'll sign some mediocre, fringy guys. I have no faith that Ryan and the Pohlads will spend big money on other team's free agents in their prime earning years. They've never done it, don't see why they'd start all of a sudden next year. I hope they do it, but I'm certain they'll say that the contracts those top pitchers got are just too long, for too much money, and they don't want to be hamstrung. They'd rather have an awful team, than awful contracts.

[edavis0308]

The Twins have no business spending that kind of money on free agency. Buy some better medical personal and some scouts familiar with advanced statistics. Also, buy more pie.

 

You bring up a very good suggestion. What kind of pie?

[spideyo]

Twins Fans pay Major Market prices for Tickets and Food. They are not going to pay that Money for a bad product much longer. Totally stripping the Team for prospects is not going to happen.

It is possible to put a competitive Team on the field and restock the Farm system at the same time. Draft Smart, develop and make a great trade when the opportunity arises.

Its been done before. Again, the Twins have priced their Tickets to where they are now the 5th highest in Baseball. This is a very relevant issue.

 

You're kind of making my point. They aren't going to want to pay for a bad product much longer, but that only makes it MORE likely that the twins won't stockpile prospects. If this team loses 99 games again, they aren't going to fix it by loading up on hotshots down at Beloit and E-Town. We could have the best prospects in baseball, but if our major league team sucks, it doesn't matter. Prospects don't sell major league seats. NO ONE that was drafted this year will have any impact on attendance in 2013. Sano, Hicks, Rosario, Michael, and Arcia will NOT sell a single ticket at Target Field next year, unless they buy one themselves.

 

I'm not saying the Twins should be completely depleting the farm system, but they MUST be willing to pay for a team that's going to do better than 3rd place in a weak division. They have far too much invested in Target Field to allow it to fall to Tampa Bay or Cleveland type attendance numbers.

 

And you are right, that first and foremost the Pohlads are interested in making money. That's how running a business works. If you aren't interested in making money and you own a MLB team, you won't own that team for very long. That's why I think they'll be willing to go get a Grienke or Hamels type. It would pretty much guarantee a bump in attendance for 1/5 of your games, and also mean that your Brand gets talked about more on the national sports shows, which drives up TV watchers (and revenues), generates more T-shirt and jersey sales, increases the number of "baseball tourists" coming to minneapolis. You've got to spend money to make money.

[diehardtwinsfan]

If you add Zach, you still need two more pitchers.... that's the big problem for making a splash... This team would be decent if it had a decent rotation, but it doesn't, and counting on Diamond to be a #2 is stupid as stupid gets.

[spideyo]

You bring up a very good suggestion. What kind of pie?

We totally do need more pie.

[Mike Sixel]

I prefer cherry, but apple is also quite good. I'd be happy if we had more pie also.

[kab21]

As stated above, 3O Million dollars will be coming off the books after this season. Unfortunately, the Pohlad's may choose to pocket a large portion of that Money as they did this year.

I agree that the Twins do not need to sign one big splash free agent. They do have a large amount of money to rebuild the pitching with solid mid price players.

The Twins do risk falling into the forth spot of irrelevance, which has been held by the Wolves for a number of years. The Wolves are building to win too.

This is not true. They pushed the payroll higher than they wanted in 2011 because they had a contending team. They were comfortably in the 100-105M range until they couldn't resist pavano. I don't think they planned on signing him and I don't think there was anyone other than a cheap bullpen arm that would have been signed. In 2012 they realistically looked at what they had and rightfully cut spending. they also had the highest draft budget which they have so far spent most of and they have signed two high priced int'l FA's. They are spending and they are actually spending on what they should be spending on.

 

Also just because the money is there doesn't mean that a team should spend all of it since it will impact future payrolls. Usually decent FA's require an extra 1-2 yrs to sign them and they usually aren't productive near the end of the contract. They should approach the next offseason like they did this year. 3 yrs, 2 yrs, 1 yr, 1 yr, 1yr, NRI, NRI type contracts. It wasn't an impressive haul but they didn't hurt the future either.

[Mike Sixel]

kab21, but they didn't help the present either. This team is as bad as last year's, and not really much younger (not by choice anyway, if Pavano and Baker were healthy....). If you don't have players in the minors, and you won't sign FAs that are really good because at some point the contract "will be bad contracts", how do you get better, other than luck?

[nokomismod]

This is not true. They pushed the payroll higher than they wanted in 2011 because they had a contending team. They were comfortably in the 100-105M range until they couldn't resist pavano. I don't think they planned on signing him and I don't think there was anyone other than a cheap bullpen arm that would have been signed. In 2012 they realistically looked at what they had and rightfully cut spending. they also had the highest draft budget which they have so far spent most of and they have signed two high priced int'l FA's. They are spending and they are actually spending on what they should be spending on.

 

Also just because the money is there doesn't mean that a team should spend all of it since it will impact future payrolls. Usually decent FA's require an extra 1-2 yrs to sign them and they usually aren't productive near the end of the contract. They should approach the next offseason like they did this year. 3 yrs, 2 yrs, 1 yr, 1 yr, 1yr, NRI, NRI type contracts. It wasn't an impressive haul but they didn't hurt the future either.

Very well said. Long term is where the Twins Mgmt should focus.

[nokomismod]

kab21, but they didn't help the present either. This team is as bad as last year's, and not really much younger (not by choice anyway, if Pavano and Baker were healthy....). If you don't have players in the minors, and you won't sign FAs that are really good because at some point the contract "will be bad contracts", how do you get better, other than luck?

I know numbers don't lie, but I would take this team over last year's team any day. At least they are playing defense and starting to show some life. Last year was hard to watch for me because of the Mauer cloud, awful defense, and revolving door at shortstop.

 

Wouldn't you agree the bullpen, defense, and offense have all shown improvment? Wouldn't you agree that signing Doumit, Carrol, Burton, Capps, and Willingham were all good moves?

[Guest USAFChief]

I don't see any reason Twins payroll shouldn't be $20m more than it is.

[spideyo]

I know numbers don't lie, but I would take this team over last year's team any day. At least they are playing defense and starting to show some life. Last year was hard to watch for me because of the Mauer cloud, awful defense, and revolving door at shortstop.

 

Wouldn't you agree the bullpen, defense, and offense have all shown improvment? Wouldn't you agree that signing Doumit, Carrol, Burton, Capps, and Willingham were all good moves?

 

It's a whole lot more fun to watch for sure. Hammer and Babe Plouffe are certainly swinging hotter bats than Delmontello and Valencia ever did, Burton is far better than all those RHP in the bullpen last year, most of whom I don't even remember, Carrol is a better fielder than Tolbert/Hughes/Nishi combined, Doumit is a better hitter than Butera/Rivera/Holm combined, and when he was healthy, Capps was a far better closer than our closer last year. He has one fewer save right now than he had ALL of last season.

 

So yeah, it might not seem like we are a better team based on record, but we really are. We've made significant improvements, and have gone a long way towards setting up a team that could make the post season in 2013. If Pavano hadn't been hurt, Baker hadn't been hurt, Marquis and Blackburn had at least managed to pitch at a mediocre level, and we never put Swarzak or Duensing in before the 6th inning, we wouldn't be the worst team in baseball right now. Wouldn't be the best, but we'd be in the middle of the pack at least.

[woolhouse]

Twins front office staff should at least make it know that they are going after Greinke and/or Hamels. At least make it look like they are trying. As a sign of good-faith. And they should do it early in the off-season; no waiting into the early-spring to see if San Diego lets Jason Marquis go.

[DPJ]

Hockey doesn't even count as a real sport.

[James]

Hockey doesn't even count as a real sport.

That's a pretty daring statement for a MN sports website. Prepare to have angry comments directed towards your last statement.

[DPJ]

That's a pretty daring statement for a MN sports website. Prepare to have angry comments directed towards your last statement.

 

Until some minority group takes the game over, I will never consider hockey anything more then a bunch of Canucks having a circle jerk.

[IdahoPilgrim]

Until some minority group takes the game over, I will never consider hockey anything more then a bunch of Canucks having a circle jerk.

At last - a message board filled with intelligent, enlightened discussion with open-minded participants.

[jm3319]

Until some minority group takes the game over, I will never consider hockey anything more then a bunch of Canucks having a circle jerk.

 

So if that's how you describe hockey, I'd love to hear how you describe baseball, basketball, and football. Please enlighten us.

[Tcrose3636]

Here is the offseason splash that the Twins will make:

Anibel Sanchez (SP)

Jeremy Gutherie/Aaron Cook (SP)

Kelly Johnson (2b)

 

Kelly Johnson is wishful thinking.

[DPJ]

So if that's how you describe hockey, I'd love to hear how you describe baseball, basketball, and football. Please enlighten us.

Pretty simple...baseball, baseketball and football are real sports and hockey is a joke.

 

It's just not a real sport...it's more of an activity.

[drjim]

I don't see any reason Twins payroll shouldn't be $20m more than it is.

Why stop at $20 million more?

 

I would still argue the payroll is about where it should be relative to other teams in similar sized markets. This is especially true going into this season as they knew it would be a transition year. They spent plenty on the draft and international free agents.

[one_eyed_jack]

Barreiro was claiming on the radio that what the Wild did raises the bar for the other local sports teams.

 

I don't know that I buy that, except for maybe the T-Wolves because the competition there is more direct.

 

If Parise and Suter lead the Wild to a cup in the next couple of years, it might be different.

[Mike Sixel]

Transition year to what, exactly? What are they transitioning to next year, that will be different than this year? It only raises the bar for other owners if they, you know, care about spending the most money they can to be the best they can. The Twins have not shown that. The Vikings have. The Wolves have just been awful at drafting, but they've spent money (proving that spending money doesn't guarantee winning, but I'll argue all day long that it increases the odds....).