Article: On The Twins' Cheapness And Showing Your Work

[bird]

 

I think 4-5 years is reasonable. I believe the Astros required five, the Cubs four, and the Pirates six.

 

 

I'm thinking an important variable affecting the timetable for a "rebuild" is the asset value in place. What are you getting in return for the players being sold off? Is it Kubel, Nathan, and Pavano, or is it Cespedes, Soria, and Price?

[USAFChief]

Good post bird.

 

If I could add a perspective from the "spend!" side: something that also gets ignored, from the "don't tie up future payroll" side, is that money unspent today, is just as wasted tomorrow as money that's already spent.

 

Not pending in 2014 is an opportunity that is gone, and we can be reasonably sure it won't be put in an account and spent in 2018.

 

So there's cost to both methods. Either way, you're tieing someone's hands, sometime.

[bird]

 

Good post bird.

If I could add a perspective from the "spend!" side: something that also gets ignored, from the "don't tie up future payroll" side, is that money unspent today, is just as wasted tomorrow as money that's already spent.

Not pending in 2014 is an opportunity that is gone, and we can be reasonably sure it won't be put in an account and spent in 2018.

So there's cost to both methods. Either way, you're tieing someone's hands, sometime.

 

 

Yeah, good point. Sure would be sweet if they made a public commitment to have such an account, and I'd suggest it would be a helluva brilliant PR move. Therefore, because this org is allergic to good PR, it'll never happen.

[old nurse]

 

With a K/9 over 9?  I think you're underselling May a bit.  I'd put money on May being a better starter than Meyer at this point.  Radke was a good pitcher and in a different era, but you really undersell May on this one.

When did May ever have a season with a k/9 over 9 besides the minors?

[drjim]

Good post bird.

 

If I could add a perspective from the "spend!" side: something that also gets ignored, from the "don't tie up future payroll" side, is that money unspent today, is just as wasted tomorrow as money that's already spent.

 

Not pending in 2014 is an opportunity that is gone, and we can be reasonably sure it won't be put in an account and spent in 2018.

 

So there's cost to both methods. Either way, you're tieing someone's hands, sometime.

In my mind that money would have been better spent eating money on a trade, taking on a bad contract to acquire a better asset, popping the international spending limits on occasion or pumping money into one year flyers that could get flipped.

 

While I personally don't think signing free agents at the level suggested is the answer, I hope that isn't seen as full agreement in what they did. In addition to not really pursuing the policies I suggested they probably still tied up too much money in middle of the road pitching.

[drjim]

I think there is a decent argument that if you are going to have money tied to diminishing players, the best time is as the competitive window is opening up. The Twins maximum payroll flexibility should be the next three years, where the production-to-dollars ratio for Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Duffey, Rosario, Kepler, et al is a its absolute highest. Maybe Sanchez was a little too early for this window, but I'd definitely argue that going after Russell Martin a year ago certainly would not have been. And as my little exercise (surprisingly, at least to me) showed, the payroll situation right now between my moves and the status quo is practically zero. It is just as easy to clog payroll with multiple small moves as it is with a handful a big moves, and the small moves have the added downside of clogging the roster as well.

My two quibbles here would be I don't think you can just plug in the free agent contracts signed, you have to add a year and some salary. Second, you are operating with perfect hindsight, would be impressive to pull it off similarly in real time.

[old nurse]

 

Except he wasn't.  

Yup, that is why Duensing and Swarzak were in the bullpen and starts were given to Albers, Pedro Hernandez and the like were being given starts, Duensing and Swarzak were better pitchers than Correa. Pitchers that year that did not work out one  or two year contracts: Meyer, Marcum, Jurrgens, Lannan, Baker, Shawn Burnett, Roberto Hernandez, Blanton  and Haren.   Karstens had a half season and has not pitched since.  Correa  was signed to fill a slot, not carry the team. Pitch every 5 days

[Otto von Ballpark]

In my mind that money would have been better spent eating money on a trade, taking on a bad contract to acquire a better asset, popping the international spending limits on occasion or pumping money into one year flyers that could get flipped.

 

 

First of all, this plan was just a general outline of the biggest money moves to stay under a certain salary level. There is still plenty of room to do some of these things on the side if you want -- note that the author didn't address Correia, Capos, etc. Feldman, Kazmir, etc. would all still be options in his scenario, just as much as in more of a rebuilding scenario (actually some guys even more so -- guys like Madson may have been more inclined to sign here if we already had a record near .500).

 

As for the bigger financial commitments you mention, any specific examples from the past few years? Feel free to use hindsight. While in theory the alternatives sound nice, in practice I think you might see they are not actually clearly better than Sanchez.

[Otto von Ballpark]

My two quibbles here would be I don't think you can just plug in the free agent contracts signed, you have to add a year and some salary. Second, you are operating with perfect hindsight, would be impressive to pull it off similarly in real time.

At least with Sanchez, I know the author added $5 mil and perhaps removed the Tigers backloading, although maybe it wasn't intentional. Generally I agree with you, and when the plan gets to Martin, I consider that a bit of a stretch, although Hunter and Buehrle may have signed for a comptetive offer here without much cajoling.

 

By the time Martin comes around, you could substitute Montero as a worthy investment anyway.

Edited February 24, 2016 by spycake

[markos]

 

My two quibbles here would be I don't think you can just plug in the free agent contracts signed, you have to add a year and some salary. Second, you are operating with perfect hindsight, would be impressive to pull it off similarly in real time.

These are valid quibbles, especially the first one. I totally agree that it wasn't completely fair to just claim that free agent X would have signed here for the exact same amount as they ended up signing for somewhere else. I just didn't have a good handle on what the proper adjustment should be, though your "add 10% and an extra year" is a solid suggestion, and if I had saved my spreadsheet from yesterday I would try to rerun the scenario with that factored in. However, another factor that prevent me from making any adjustments is that the numbers just worked really well given the parameters I was working under, and frankly I was too lazy to go into the weeds and start making secondary moves like "In order to keep the Sanchez signing under budget, they couldn't sign Correia or Pelfrey" in order to keep everything under budget. But without going through the work (again, I'm lazy), my gut feeling is that there is enough slack with the Correia/Pelfrey/etc signings that a bump up in free agent prices is still manageable. 

 

To your second quibble, I wouldn't say it was "perfect" hindsight. To pull back the curtain a little bit, I was intrigued by the challenge put out, and I decided to start out with a framework built around 5 moves that I wanted at the time: keeping Hardy, signing Sanchez and Martin, not signing Santana and not extending Hughes. Those 5 were my starting point, and I was definitely surprised by how much payroll was still available (from the $125M limit), especially if I dumped Nolasco. Then I looked through the 2012-2014 teams to identify major weaknesses, and decided that I really needed another starter and a corner outfield/DH bat. From there it was pretty easy to cherry-pick the Beurhle and Hunter contracts. So yes, there was definitely some benefit from hindsight, but a good chunk of these moves were picked "in real time".

[drjim]

Thanks for the feedback. I want to emphasize the minor in minor quibble. It was great work and a very worthwhile thought experiment to consider what an alternative path might have looked like.

[drjim]

First of all, this plan was just a general outline of the biggest money moves to stay under a certain salary level. There is still plenty of room to do some of these things on the side if you want -- note that the author didn't address Correia, Capos, etc. Feldman, Kazmir, etc. would all still be options in his scenario, just as much as in more of a rebuilding scenario (actually some guys even more so -- guys like Madson may have been more inclined to sign here if we already had a record near .500).

 

As for the bigger financial commitments you mention, any specific examples from the past few years? Feel free to use hindsight. While in theory the alternatives sound nice, in practice I think you might see they are not actually clearly better than Sanchez.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking in the second paragraph.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking in the second paragraph.

Just specific examples from that time frame to support the following statement you made: "In my mind that money would have been better spent eating money on a trade, taking on a bad contract to acquire a better asset"

[drjim]

Just specific examples from that time frame to support the following statement you made: "In my mind that money would have been better spent eating money on a trade, taking on a bad contract to acquire a better asset"

That I won't be able to produce without more work than I'm able to do.

 

But certainly a fair point, it is possible those opportunities didn't exist.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

That I won't be able to produce without more work than I'm able to do.

But certainly a fair point, it is possible those opportunities didn't exist.

That's my feeling.  Well, I am sure opportunities existed and I too would have entertained them, but in most cases, I'm guessing the net benefits weren't necessarily greater than those of the Sanchez contract, and/or those other opportunities weren't necessarily mutually exclusive from an investment in Sanchez (i.e. most flyer contracts).

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I'm mostly just thinking outloud here, so don't think that I'm against rebuilding. I have, at times, definitely been a strong advocate of the total rebuild like you suggest, so don't hold it against me if I argue for rebuilding in a different thread at a later date. I just feel like the last year changed my perspective as a fan a little bit. Maybe it has been all the losing, but it was shockingly fun to actually care about the results of the team for the entire season. It has definitely made me reconsider the value of just muddling along as a .500 team. Though I'm sure that would get old after a while, too!

Yeah, I think "muddling along as a .500 team" gets under-rated.  The Twins have finished around .500 in 2001, 2005, 2007, and 2015, and those were fun, interesting years.  I would be very cautious about any plan that would deliberately sacrifice that for 3+ seasons.

 

It's easy to look back at the White Sox recent years and say, they haven't made the playoffs, they would have been better off blowing things up for 3-4-5 years. But that feels like more of an abuse of hindsight than your exercise (which actually doesn't require much hindsight at all, the core moves of Hardy, Buehrle, Hunter, etc. were easily justifiable in real-time).

 

The White Sox lost big one year (and got Rodon from it), otherwise they've been in the mix most years with a couple spikes to 85-88 wins.  They didn't get enough luck and/or didn't make the right moves to put them over the top in any of those years, but they'd probably still face the same luck/judgment issues after tanking for 3-4-5 years too.

 

A deliberate long-term rebuild/tank job should probably be limited to fairly extreme circumstances, like having a more thoroughly awful MLB roster AND farm system (in which case you probably don't have to do anything "deliberate" to lose ).

[Mike Sixel]

 

In my mind that money would have been better spent eating money on a trade, taking on a bad contract to acquire a better asset, popping the international spending limits on occasion or pumping money into one year flyers that could get flipped.

While I personally don't think signing free agents at the level suggested is the answer, I hope that isn't seen as full agreement in what they did. In addition to not really pursuing the policies I suggested they probably still tied up too much money in middle of the road pitching.

 

Agreed on all of this.

[Mike Sixel]

Also, with the 2nd wild card, muddling along at 81-84 wins has REAL value now.......and with luck, you have a chance to be a playoff team and continue your luck.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Also, with the 2nd wild card, muddling along at 81-84 wins has REAL value now.......and with luck, you have a chance to be a playoff team and continue your luck.

this is reality. Time to take the Wild Card game seriously.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Also, with the 2nd wild card, muddling along at 81-84 wins has REAL value now.......and with luck, you have a chance to be a playoff team and continue your luck.

I wonder if we're seeing the effects of that in the standings too.  Since the second wild card was added in 2012, it has taken fewer and fewer wins to earn it: 93, 92, 88, and last year 86.

 

In the AL anyway.  I guess the NL skews differently (the 88 win Cardinals snuck in for 2012, and of course the Pirates and Cubs both won 97 games last year).

Edited February 24, 2016 by spycake

[tobi0040]

You've been asking for bullpen upgrades all off season, how were Stauffer's 2013-14 numbers really much different than the guys you wanted this year?

 

Stauffer wasn't any good last year, that happens all the time with free agent relievers, more so than any other position.

Well, I am not sure one year is a great guide, especially for a reliever.

 

I do know that Steve Cishek's career ERA plus is 139. Stauffer is at 92.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I wonder if we're seeing the effects of that in the standings too. Since the second wild card was added in 2012, it has taken fewer and fewer wins to earn it: 93, 92, 88, and last year 86.

 

In the AL anyway. I guess the NL skews differently (the 88 win Cardinals snuck in for 2012, and of course the Pirates and Cubs both won 97 games last year).

Yeah, I think that's a byproduct of one league scrapping it out with several good-to-mediocre teams while the other has a large gulf between good and bad.