A case against signing the top free agents

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, jorgenswest said:

They have no established starting pitchers for next year. I am excited by Joe Ryan but his best comps (Ben Lively, Yusmiero Petit and Freddy Peralta) according to his delivery and mix were not difference makers in a rotation. Are we sure he will stay a starter? Can Ober hold up over a full season? Will home runs be a problem for Ober? Who else do they have? They are eons away from a perfect situation. 

They need to expect that a good chunk of the free agent value comes the first year with the contract being a burden in later years. I don’t think a big signing can move the needle enough to contend for a World Series this year and I don’t want the burden of this contract when it can.

I don't think they're legit contenders in 2022 unless a bunch of things go really, really right but that doesn't mean they should punt on signing good players. A key component of not waiting for the "perfect time to strike" is not trying to shore up a bunch of holes in a single offseason, which is basically impossible. One has to incrementally move forward and this is the deepest pitching class we'll see in years. The Twins would be downright foolish not to pluck at least one good player out of that pool and start building toward being a legitimate contender again.

The Twins have PLENTY of money this offseason and can easily afford to give one player a $20-25m AAV contract. I wouldn't give out two of those contracts - and thereby likely syncing the decline phase on $40-50m at once - but I'm going to be mad as hell if the Twins aren't well over $120m in payroll come April. And really, the easiest way to get there is to sign at least one guy to a pretty large contract.

In two years, this contract will simply replace the Donaldson contract so it's not even that large of a burden through its decline phase.

[TheLeviathan]

If you trust the near ready players this team has (boatload of arms plus Miranda and Martin) then there is plenty of reason to load up.  Especially in a FA class that fits organizational holes.

IMO there is no reasonable case against opening the checkbook.

[yeahyabetcha]

3 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

If you trust the near ready players this team has (boatload of arms plus Miranda and Martin) then there is plenty of reason to load up.  Especially in a FA class that fits organizational holes.

IMO there is no reasonable case against opening the checkbook.

How much do you want them to spend?

[TheLeviathan]

22 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

How much do you want them to spend?

There is absolutely no reason they can't give out 40M in allocations for next year.  Personally, I think it's more like 50.

[yeahyabetcha]

2 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

There is absolutely no reason they can't give out 40M in allocations for next year.  Personally, I think it's more like 50.

It sure is easy to spend someone else’s money 

[TheLeviathan]

5 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

It sure is easy to spend someone else’s money 

Actually, it's our money that we choose to give to them.  Plus the stadium they profit off of that we paid for.  And, best of all, I'm only holding them to the spending amounts they have authorized in the past.  Not even an increase.

If they won't spend their fan's money to improve their product....they don't deserve fans.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, TheLeviathan said:

There is absolutely no reason they can't give out 40M in allocations for next year.  Personally, I think it's more like 50.

What if they project revenue to be significantly lower?  Would that be a reason.

[TheLeviathan]

1 minute ago, Major League Ready said:

What if they project revenue to be significantly lower?  Would that be a reason.

Only if I'm looking to make excuses.  And I'm not.  They can spend.  Sometimes you invest to turn your product around, not wait for it to magically happen.

[yeahyabetcha]

7 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Only if I'm looking to make excuses.  And I'm not.  They can spend.  Sometimes you invest to turn your product around, not wait for it to magically happen.

I guess we will just have trust them to use our money wisely.

[TheLeviathan]

4 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

I guess we will just have trust them to use our money wisely.

Well....at least those of us that want them to actually, you know, use it.

[yeahyabetcha]

18 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Well....at least those of us that want them to actually, you know, use it.

So they aren’t using any of it?

Also, the statement that they should be able give out $40-$50 million allocations next year is a bit misleading, because signing two long term free agents this off season probably means a 5 year commitment of $200 million.

[Brock Beauchamp]

19 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

So they aren’t using any of it?

Also, the statement that they should be able give out $40-$50 million allocations next year is a bit misleading, because signing two long term free agents this off season probably means a 5 year commitment of $200 million.

Based on previous payrolls and statement from ownership and the front office, the Twins should have as much as $60m to spend on contracts for *this season*. 

[yeahyabetcha]

4 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Based on previous payrolls and statement from ownership and the front office, the Twins should have as much as $60m to spend on contracts for *this season*. 

Maybe they should off Correa a 1 year/$60 million dollar deal

[TheLeviathan]

26 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

So they aren’t using any of it?

Also, the statement that they should be able give out $40-$50 million allocations next year is a bit misleading, because signing two long term free agents this off season probably means a 5 year commitment of $200 million.

If they start cutting payroll they are pocketing fan money.  I don't care how long the deals are, the amount of money they are taking in from fans isn't going to radically decrease.  I'm not sure what your goal is here unless your last name is Pohlad or you're on the payroll.  Seriously, this line of questioning doesn't make any sense.

As fans who contribute to the team we are absolutely entitled to expect them to spend money on the product.  It's literally the least they can do.

[yeahyabetcha]

11 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

If they start cutting payroll they are pocketing fan money.  I don't care how long the deals are, the amount of money they are taking in from fans isn't going to radically decrease.  I'm not sure what your goal is here unless your last name is Pohlad or you're on the payroll.  Seriously, this line of questioning doesn't make any sense.

As fans who contribute to the team we are absolutely entitled to expect them to spend money on the product.  It's literally the least they can do.

The title to the article is “A case against signing the top free agents”.  I don’t think it means that they should spend no money.  I guess I don’t think that every time the Twins lose out is free agent it was because ownership was cheap.  And no, I am not a Pohlad , nor do I work for them.

[TheLeviathan]

21 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

The title to the article is “A case against signing the top free agents”.  I don’t think it means that they should spend no money.  I guess I don’t think that every time the Twins lose out is free agent it was because ownership was cheap.  And no, I am not a Pohlad , nor do I work for them.

And I stated there is no such case to be made.  The team has ample budget room relative to past budgets they have authorized.  This free agent class is ripe with players that would dramatically help this team and address organizational weaknesses.

If the Twins are unable to sign a player the number one reason is unwillingness to sign that player to a term or contract value that exceeds their competitors.  Whether that is ownership's fault or not I don't care, but there is simply no reason this team can't spend 40-50M this offseason.  None.

[yeahyabetcha]

35 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

And I stated there is no such case to be made.  The team has ample budget room relative to past budgets they have authorized.  This free agent class is ripe with players that would dramatically help this team and address organizational weaknesses.

If the Twins are unable to sign a player the number one reason is unwillingness to sign that player to a term or contract value that exceeds their competitors.  Whether that is ownership's fault or not I don't care, but there is simply no reason this team can't spend 40-50M this offseason.  None.

But it simply isn’t spending 40-50M this offseason, it likely means a commitment of hundreds of millions over 5 plus years.  That seems to me to be a case made for the article topic.

[TheLeviathan]

2 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

But it simply isn’t spending 40-50M this offseason, it likely means a commitment of hundreds of millions over 5 plus years.  That seems to me to be a case made for the article topic.

Since that is always what spending in FA entails, I don't see why that distinction is relevant.  The team has virtually nothing on the long-term books.  

[yeahyabetcha]

41 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Since that is always what spending in FA entails, I don't see why that distinction is relevant.  The team has virtually nothing on the long-term books.  

There may be current players to be resigned and free agents to go after in the next 5 years.  Will signing 2 or 3 huge contracts now , allow for that?  There are many posters already advocating eating many millions of Donaldson’s contract to get rid of him.  How many contracts like that do you want the Twins to take on?

[TheLeviathan]

2 minutes ago, yeahyabetcha said:

There may be current players to be resigned and free agents to go after in the next 5 years.  Will signing 2 or 3 huge contracts now , allow for that?  There are many posters already advocating eating many millions of Donaldson’s contract to get rid of him.  How many contracts like that do you want the Twins to take on?

Whatever 40-50M buys you.

[Seth Stohs]

The Twins have made two $100M+ signings... 

Both players did well when they were healthy... Immediately after signing, many Twins fans started hating them... So, Twins fans want top free agents and to keep top talent... until they do. 

[Major League Ready]

4 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

Only if I'm looking to make excuses.  And I'm not.  They can spend.  Sometimes you invest to turn your product around, not wait for it to magically happen.

Because revenue never goes down?

[TheLeviathan]

58 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Because revenue never goes down?

And when revenues have gone up the purse strings still stay tight.  So using that excuse doesn't fly for me.

[USAFChief]

3 hours ago, yeahyabetcha said:

There may be current players to be resigned and free agents to go after in the next 5 years.  Will signing 2 or 3 huge contracts now , allow for that?  There are many posters already advocating eating many millions of Donaldson’s contract to get rid of him.  How many contracts like that do you want the Twins to take on?

Your point is they shouldn't sign free agents, because they may need money in the future to sign free agents?

That seems rather circular to me...won't you be here in the future arguing against signing THOSE free agents, because doing so would tie up money for free agents even farther into the future? 

IOW, you'd NEVER sign free agents.

[USAFChief]

4 hours ago, yeahyabetcha said:

But it simply isn’t spending 40-50M this offseason, it likely means a commitment of hundreds of millions over 5 plus years.  That seems to me to be a case made for the article topic.

The Twins should easily be spending hundreds of millions over the next five years plus, no? 

You have no point.

[Major League Ready]

7 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

And when revenues have gone up the purse strings still stay tight.  So using that excuse doesn't fly for me.

Prove your point.  Show us a source that verifies spending has not gone up.  Even better show us data that illustrates that the Twins spending rank is not consistent with their revenue rank.  These numbers have been posted here before.

Do you understand the impact of a strike on the bottom line or do you think that the odds of a work stoppage or so low that a competent management team would just ignore it?

Does revenue generally go up or down after a team has a terrible season?

[yeahyabetcha]

6 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Your point is they shouldn't sign free agents, because they may need money in the future to sign free agents?

That seems rather circular to me...won't you be here in the future arguing against signing THOSE free agents, because doing so would tie up money for free agents even farther into the future? 

IOW, you'd NEVER sign free agents.

No. My point is not to sign any free agents.  More so, it is that because of baseball economics it is necessary for the Twins to use other avenues of players acquisition than trying to outbid the Yankees for “top” free agents.  It would be great to sign Correa to some large 7 year deal, but doing so will impact the roster now and for future years.

[Brock Beauchamp]

13 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Does revenue generally go up or down after a team has a terrible season?

Frankly, revenue will likely increase this season because they started last season with no fans and later had an attendance cap through the midpoint of the season. 

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Prove your point.  Show us a source that verifies spending has not gone up.  Even better show us data that illustrates that the Twins spending rank is not consistent with their revenue rank.  These numbers have been posted here before.

Do you understand the impact of a strike on the bottom line or do you think that the odds of a work stoppage or so low that a competent management team would just ignore it?

Does revenue generally go up or down after a team has a terrible season?

This is your schtick.  It's not fun:

http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm#2010payroll

https://www.statista.com/statistics/196669/revenue-of-the-minnesota-twins-since-2006/

I see basically no non-pandemic drops in the last 20 years.  Additionally, revenue jumped by 50M in 2010 and by 130M from 2009 to 2019.  Pray tell....did the payroll jump by 130M?  (That seems hard to do given the current payroll is struggling to be 130M total)

Go ahead and look at what the payroll has done since 2009.  Hint: It hasn't gone up by 130M.  So get off the excuse making.  This team has plenty of revenue to increase their spending significantly.  (Best part?  I am not actually calling for an increase!  Just previously established high points!)

[rv78]

Twins fans and Minnesota tax payers have been fleeced. The whole purpose proposed to us fans and the tax payers who payed for a lot of the new ballpark was getting out from under the burdensome lease of the Metrodome to free up extra revenue. Which it has. Now, how many years will it take before they put their money where their mouth is?