Terry Ryan- I am not a fan

[Minniman]

 

I just want my GM's to be a little more hungry, look at Speilman and Fletcher, both have made some tough decisions because they know their job is not guaranteed and both are early enough along in their careers where they want to win a championship/continue to grow.

 

Rick Speilman has given up far too many mid round draft picks, and Chuck Fletcher has overpaid many players and given up many second and third round picks as well. They have both made moves, but some of those moves were not very good.

 

[The Wise One]

 

First off, I didn't say he would be a failure if he didn't hit .880, try again. I also didn't say 35 HR, so try again as well.

And yes, if you are a "DH ONLY" type you should certainly be able to hit .820 and a "top 40 hitter" That isn't some ridiculously high bar. Just because the Twins have had terrible teams the last few years doesn't mean that suddenly a .760 OPS DH is a "good thing"

The Mets, who have been referenced before as a "similar" team to the Twins had FIVE guys last year with .820 or better OPS. .820 should be the bare minimum for a DH. Also if you are a DH you should be able to hit 25 HR

From your post.

 

Park needs to be a 25-35 HR guy with a .820-.880 OPS   From your own post. The range of hitter he needs to be.

 

Do I need to old the .880 and 35?

 

If he isn't what he needs to be, then is that not a failure? 

 

.820 bare minimum for a DH. If Only 40 players could manage an .820 OPS. I was looking only at the players who qualified for batting titles. After all, it has been said that a 3 million dollar a year player should not be a part time player. So counting the players, including the pitcher, is bogus.

[The Wise One]

 

For the Twins to sign a FA, we'd need a FA who wants to sign w/ the Twins (i know - "duh!!!").

 

I suspect the Twins would have to pay a premium to lure the type of FA which could "fix the problems" - those guys first interest will be in New York, Boston, Chicago, LA . . . huge markets where there are significant off field opportunities too.  Being "just as good" isn't going to be enough.   You guys think the Twins have that kind of money?

 

I suspect the answer is "no."  - not to the extent that they can build a championship roster through free agency.

 

Which means "farm system."{  

When the Mauer contract is done there will be plenty of money. Morneau came off the books, they signed pitchers.    Nolasco comes of the books, there is some money.  

 

Grienke showed the team does not have to be a winner nor even really look like it is going to be a winner.  Phoenix is not a large market.  Not to insult Chief, but how to you convince anyone to live in 100 degree weather?  Must have been one heck of a sales job. The Twins have to sell players on the franchise a little better

[beckmt]

 

When the Mauer contract is done there will be plenty of money. Morneau came off the books, they signed pitchers.    Nolasco comes of the books, there is some money.  

 

Grienke showed the team does not have to be a winner nor even really look like it is going to be a winner.  Phoenix is not a large market.  Not to insult Chief, but how to you convince anyone to live in 100 degree weather?  Must have been one heck of a sales job. The Twins have to sell players on the franchise a little better

Some of the better players will take the most money and they do not care from whom, some of them want a location.  Grienke was going to be on the west coast, Arizona was a surprise.  Twins are never going to be a top flight destination to players who have grown up on the coasts.

Top players are always going to get paid for the first few years of their contract and the last few teams only hope will be decent.  Big money teams can afford that approach, mid and small market teams cannot.  You have to build your teams in different ways.

I will be disappointed if the Twins do not blow by their allotment and sign a bunch of Latin American players this year.  This is where the Twins can win, without totally breaking the bank.  It is also why some of the big money teams have done that, because with their draft positions they do not get the same chance at top flight players at the young age,  it will be interesting to see what the CBA is after this year. 

[DaveW]

From your post.

 

Park needs to be a 25-35 HR guy with a .820-.880 OPS From your own post. The range of hitter he needs to be.

 

Do I need to old the .880 and 35?

 

If he isn't what he needs to be, then is that not a failure?

 

.820 bare minimum for a DH. If Only 40 players could manage an .820 OPS. I was looking only at the players who qualified for batting titles. After all, it has been said that a 3 million dollar a year player should not be a part time player. So counting the players, including the pitcher, is bogus.

Park isn't a $3 million a year player.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Interesting thought experiment on Park vs Colabello.

 

3 years into Park's deal, if he has Colabello's current 109 career MLB OPS+, I wonder if we would consider the Park deal a success?  That would be less than Willingham's career here (121 OPS+), a little more than Doumit's (104), a hair more than Mauer's 2014 (107).

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Interesting thought experiment on Park vs Colabello.

 

3 years into Park's deal, if he has Colabello's current 109 career MLB OPS+, I wonder if we would consider the Park deal a success?  That would be less than Willingham's career here (121 OPS+), a little more than Doumit's (104), a hair more than Mauer's 2014 (107).

That wouldn't be good enough for me, as OPS+ is not position adjusted. Going by that stat, I'd want to see something around 115 before calling the deal a success. Over 120 is "resounding success" territory and a great return on the investment.

[DaveW]

 

Interesting thought experiment on Park vs Colabello.

 

3 years into Park's deal, if he has Colabello's current 109 career MLB OPS+, I wonder if we would consider the Park deal a success?  That would be less than Willingham's career here (121 OPS+), a little more than Doumit's (104), a hair more than Mauer's 2014 (107).

Doumit had some "value" as a backup catcher, as a DH Doumit is/was a poor option.

Park is a DH, he needs to hit like Willingham at minimum to not be a disappointment.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

.880 ops? Top 15 hitter or he is a failure. .820, top 40 hitter or a failure. 35 HR, top 15 in home runs, 25 top 30. or a failure. Tough crowd for a player earning less than league average salary. Sano was the only Twin with a couple hundred at bats last year to OPS greater than .760. If Park produces 20 hr and an OPS over .750, people will be happy ani

see? I wasn't the only one to get platoon candidate out of the Cola comp. Park in 2016 hitting .750 ops w/ 20 dingers, I might not have a cow, but not happy. 2017? I'm calling for the rail to ride him outta town on.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

 

For the Twins to sign a FA, we'd need a FA who wants to sign w/ the Twins (i know - "duh!!!").

 

I suspect the Twins would have to pay a premium to lure the type of FA which could "fix the problems" - those guys first interest will be in New York, Boston, Chicago, LA . . . huge markets where there are significant off field opportunities too.  Being "just as good" isn't going to be enough.   You guys think the Twins have that kind of money?

 

I suspect the answer is "no."  - not to the extent that they can build a championship roster through free agency.

 

Which means "farm system."{  

Yeah, that excuse will not fly with me..Why does Arizona have cash all of a sudden?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Yeah, that excuse will not fly with me..Why does Arizona have cash all of a sudden?

Well, according to SpoTrac, Arizona's payroll is still $12m lower than the Twins. The info might be somewhat outdated but Greinke is listed for AZ so it's not completely out of line.

 

Also, the Phoenix metro is considerably larger than the TC metro (4.5m vs. 3.5m).

 

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

 

Double also, the Diamondbacks just signed a new TV deal worth something around $80m per year.

 

The Twins? Under $30m per year.

 

http://www.azsnakepit.com/2015/2/23/8097375/arizona-diamondbacks-tv-deal-1-5-billion

 

So maybe Diamondbacks fans should be really mad right now.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

 

Well, according to SpoTrac, Arizona's payroll is still $12m lower than the Twins. The info might be somewhat outdated but Greinke is listed for AZ so it's not completely out of line.

 

Also, the Phoenix metro is considerably larger than the TC metro (4.5m vs. 3.5m).

 

http://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/

 

Double also, the Diamondbacks just signed a new TV deal worth something around $80m per year.

 

The Twins? Under $30m per year.

 

http://www.azsnakepit.com/2015/2/23/8097375/arizona-diamondbacks-tv-deal-1-5-billion

 

So maybe Diamondbacks fans should be really mad right now.

I am shocked we do not have a better TV deal than them

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I am shocked we do not have a better TV deal than them

The MSP area - and Minnesota in general - has a low cable subscriber rate per capita. The Twins are going to have a lousy TV deal in comparison to other teams for that reason.

 

Also, the Twins' deal was inked in 2012 while the Diamondbacks received their new deal less than a year ago.

[glunn]

 

The MSP area - and Minnesota in general - has a low cable subscriber rate per capita. The Twins are going to have a lousy TV deal in comparison to other teams for that reason.

 

Also, the Twins' deal was inked in 2012 while the Diamondbacks received their new deal less than a year ago.

I wonder why they cannot find a better deal with some local broadcast stations.

[Otto von Ballpark]

I wonder why they cannot find a better deal with some local broadcast stations.

Local broadcast stations have very little money. Way behind a mid-market RSN.

[The Wise One]

 

Park isn't a $3 million a year player.

4 year contract for 12 million equals 3 million a year. When he hits 25HR with an OPS of 820 he will not be a be a 3 million a year player, but that is what he will be paid on average

[Otto von Ballpark]

4 year contract for 12 million equals 3 million a year. When he hits 25HR with an OPS of 820 he will not be a be a 3 million a year player, but that is what he will be paid on average

Park gets $3 mil a year from us, but the team averages a $6 mil yearly commitment to him when you include the posting fee. I think the latter is more fair way to represent it.

 

Of course, the first $12 mil was paid upfront almost like a signing bonus, so if we get to the point where we are considering trading him, other teams would only have to pay him $3 mil a year going forward. But we're probably nowhere near that point yet.

[The Wise One]

 

Park gets $3 mil a year from us, but the team averages a $6 mil yearly commitment to him when you include the posting fee. I think the latter is more fair way to represent it.

Of course, the first $12 mil was paid upfront almost like a signing bonus, so if we get to the point where we are considering trading him, other teams would only have to pay him $3 mil a year going forward. But we're probably nowhere near that point yet.

Every player has a cost to develop/procure. Do you count 1/2 of Ben Revere's signing bonus against Trevor May's contract? It cost Revere to get him. When does Sano's bonus cost  count against his contracts?   How about the costs of developing and scouting? It cost money against operating costs to get Park. He is still only paid 12 million. for 4 years.

[Champuckett]

I think it just comes down to this.  

 

TR is amazing at spotting talent, drafting, building up a fantastic farm system, and overall redirecting a team that is going nowhere, to being prominent again.  He has now done this twice.  Franchises like the Pirates and Royals who struggled for decades would have given anything to have a GM like this ages ago.  He has a lot of value in that regard and I will personally always be grateful to him for doing this.

 

What he is not so good at, is making important major decisions on a bigger market team that has money to spend, players to buy in free agency, and making key trades with players when they have maximum trade value.  Where would we have been going into the 1991 season if we had not traded our ace Frank Viola for a bunch of mediocre players and unknowns?  Who knows, but we did it, and the rest is history.  Crazy trades are apart of this industry and can make or break a team, but playing it safe and not having any participation in this sense will certainly not give you any reward, because you never took any risk.

 

He would be better remaining in the scouting department, and as personal counsel to whoever our GM is when we are in the process of drafting or scouting Hispanic and Asian countries.

[alarp33]

 

Every player has a cost to develop/procure. Do you count 1/2 of Ben Revere's signing bonus against Trevor May's contract? It cost Revere to get him. When does Sano's bonus cost  count against his contracts?   How about the costs of developing and scouting? It cost money against operating costs to get Park. He is still only paid 12 million. for 4 years.

 

You are free to count it however you would like, the Twins count the posting fee as part of his cost. 

 

"For accounting purposes, St. Peter said, the Twins will count the pro-rated portion of the $12.85 million they gave the Nexen Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization to win exclusive bidding rights for Park. That’s an additional $3.2 million over the next four seasons that wouldn’t be counted against the luxury tax but indeed goes toward player costs."

[spinowner]

 

Every player has a cost to develop/procure. Do you count 1/2 of Ben Revere's signing bonus against Trevor May's contract? It cost Revere to get him. When does Sano's bonus cost  count against his contracts?   How about the costs of developing and scouting? It cost money against operating costs to get Park. He is still only paid 12 million. for 4 years.

I imagine that someone somewhere has tried to quantify how much it costs to scout, develop and pay a player over the course of his career. It would be interesting to see the breakdown for a borderline major leaguer (someone like Matt Tolbert) compared to a journeyman (someone like Luis Castillo) compared to a major star (someone like Joe Mauer).

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Every player has a cost to develop/procure. Do you count 1/2 of Ben Revere's signing bonus against Trevor May's contract? It cost Revere to get him. When does Sano's bonus cost  count against his contracts?   How about the costs of developing and scouting? It cost money against operating costs to get Park. He is still only paid 12 million. for 4 years.

Normal scouting and development expenses are negligible (scouts and minor league coaches get paid very little).

 

Sano's bonus was 26% of Park's posting fee.  Revere's bonus was 6%.  And both of those figures bought 10+ years of team control (~3.5 minor leagues, ~6.5 years MLB), making the potential annualized value even lower.  Park's posting fee was a much greater amount, and our control of him limited to 4 years.  (Also, post-2012, draft/international bonuses are much more fixed and less discretionary than a posting fee.)

 

If you are doing Park's taxes, the $12 million total, $3 million average figure is appropriate.

 

If you are talking about the Twins short-term financial investment in Park, the $24 million total, $6 million average figure is much more appropriate.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I imagine that someone somewhere has tried to quantify how much it costs to scout, develop and pay a player over the course of his career. It would be interesting to see the breakdown for a borderline major leaguer (someone like Matt Tolbert) compared to a journeyman (someone like Luis Castillo) compared to a major star (someone like Joe Mauer).

It wouldn't be that interesting, because it would be 99% player salary and bonuses.  Scouts and minor league coaches earn very little, and their job responsibilities cover many players.  Even the "big" development costs, the facilities at Ft Myers and elsewhere, are of course leveraged over many players and many years.

[bird]

 

Take a look at the Cubs roster and get back to me.  Loaded with young talent, supplemented the major holes w/ FA signings.  

 

 

When the Twins are so loaded with talent that the experts are picking them to win the division instead of predicting (projecting?) them to win 70-some games, get back to me. 

 

We're not where the Cubs are....yet.

[alarp33]

 

When the Twins are so loaded with talent that the experts are picking them to win the division instead of predicting (projecting?) them to win 70-some games, get back to me. 

 

We're not where the Cubs are....yet.

 

Huh? They signed Zobrist, Heyward, Lackey, Fowler and Lester in the past 2 years... to go with the young talent they have.  And now they are projected to win the division... you know, kind of my point?

[DaveW]

 

Every player has a cost to develop/procure. Do you count 1/2 of Ben Revere's signing bonus against Trevor May's contract? It cost Revere to get him. When does Sano's bonus cost  count against his contracts?   How about the costs of developing and scouting? It cost money against operating costs to get Park. He is still only paid 12 million. for 4 years.

Signing bonuses for draftees don't come out of the major league payroll, you can bet that the Twins are viewing Park as a 6 million a year player, and that is 6 million less they won't spend on other players in the market. It's still not a lot of money, but if he becomes a platoon or bench type its a bad contract.

[bird]

 

Huh? They signed Zobrist, Heyward, Lackey, Fowler and Lester in the past 2 years... to go with the young talent they have.  And now they are projected to win the division... you know, kind of my point?

 

 

Huh? The Cubs' nucleus of home-grown talent is on average almost two years ahead of the Twins in terms of hitting stride, and there's more top-end talent to begin with. I'm a big fan of what the Cubs are doing. Let's hope that Buxton, Sano, Berrios, and company give us as much to get excited about and that maybe as early as next year, they will be projected to win the division.....you know, kind of my point? 

[old nurse]

There was an expectation posted of what Park should produce.  Cespedes averaged an .800 OPS and 25 HR. Look at the contract he received.  If one official on any team thought that Park would produce near those numbers there would have been more generous bidding.  Chris Young got 2/13. Half the length, same average annual value. Career OPS near .750, HR 16    If Park hits like Cespedes, Ryan made a great deal. If in the end he produces ike Young, he got what he paid for. Even if the player didn't see the money

[Major League Ready]

 

It wouldn't be that interesting, because it would be 99% player salary and bonuses.  Scouts and minor league coaches earn very little, and their job responsibilities cover many players.  Even the "big" development costs, the facilities at Ft Myers and elsewhere, are of course leveraged over many players and many years.

They also generate revenue from minor league games that offsets a portion of the cost. 

[alarp33]

 

Huh? The Cubs' nucleus of home-grown talent is on average almost two years ahead of the Twins in terms of hitting stride, and there's more top-end talent to begin with. I'm a big fan of what the Cubs are doing. Let's hope that Buxton, Sano, Berrios, and company give us as much to get excited about and that maybe as early as next year, they will be projected to win the division.....you know, kind of my point? 

 

Last year Bryant, Schwarber, Russell all made their Major League debuts - they signed Lester last winter before any of that happened.  Soler and Baez had very minimal experience heading into 2015.  

 

I'm aware the Cubs talent is a little more high end than the Twins, which is why I wrote that it was earlier. 

 

I pointed out an example of a team who went to the NLCS with a bunch of rookies, and is favored to win the World Series with a bunch of 2nd year guys... because they supplemented their weak spots via free agency.  Something the Twins refuse to do