Article: An Updated Look At Twins Payroll

[drjim]

That's not very true.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/relationship-between-spending-winning-remains-low/

 

And, hi.

I also suspect that if you took out the teams that are clearly rebuilding (and would thus be in the bottom 67 percent for payroll) that would eliminate all the difference.

 

I personally think the worst scenario a team can be in is to lock good money into players who are just good enough not to get dfa'ed - like 3 years for a decent but not great reliever.

[DaveW]

If the Twins wait 7-8 years to sign those guys, they're as good as gone, unless they aren't very good.

They still are fine in that scenario even if they lock them up early. They basically will be buying out their arbitration years in that scenario along with a couple of the initial free agent years. Even if they overpay for a couple arb years to earn the FA years part of the contract there still will be plenty of money to go around.

 

I'm not saying go out and sign 4 guys to huge contracts, I'm saying, go out and sign one impacts guy to a large contract. None of that would stop the twins from locking up any player they wanted to.

[DJL44]

Terry Ryan likes having room in the payroll in case he wants to make a move to fortify the team at the trade deadline.

[Don Walcott]

I totally agree that the Twins should have and could have afforded to sign Cueto, Zimmermann, Price or Greinke.  But they didn't.  No use crying over spilled milk.

[GACbaseball]

They still are fine in that scenario even if they lock them up early. They basically will be buying out their arbitration years in that scenario along with a couple of the initial free agent years. Even if they overpay for a couple arb years to earn the FA years part of the contract there still will be plenty of money to go around.

I'm not saying go out and sign 4 guys to huge contracts, I'm saying, go out and sign one impacts guy to a large contract. None of that would stop the twins from locking up any player they wanted to.

Realistically looking at the Twins management and ownership, I just don't think it's a good idea to put all of our eggs into one superstar. If that guy bombs we are screwed because the Twins ownership is not about to call it dead money and eat the contract. He will continue to play for us, block better and younger players, and inhibit us from signing free agents.

 

Obviously that's pretty pessimistic but with the Twins current ownership, I think management is following the best strategy by signing multiple above average players with the hopes of one or two of them outperforming their contract like Phil Hughes did in 2014. If Hughes can bounce back to that level, Santana pitches like he did at times down the stretch, we have an ace-caliber pitcher without the risk associated with a monster contract.

 

Although Nolasco might be used as an example as why we shouldn't pay mediocre players, I think it's a good demonstration of what happens when we pay for above average players. For every Santana and Hughes, we are going to have a Nolasco contract. But the difference is, we can afford to stash him on the bench/DL or cut him without it really affecting the construction of our team. If the one megastar we sign tanks, we don't have other options and don't have the money to pay for another try at a good pitcher.