Intro to Twins Payroll 2025: Twins Will Need to Increase Payroll (or Dump More Core Players)

[stringer bell]

Plenty of 40-man room and no money to spend.  I would expect they don’t non-tender anyone and bring in a bunch of questionable arms and bats. Given the rosy future of three other teams in the division, if the struggle early next year, anyone with a decent salary will be on the block. Sad. 

[bean5302]

On 10/1/2024 at 3:49 PM, DJL44 said:

I think they could get an equally effective reliever who makes half as much in return for Paddack. That frees up enough cash to bring back Carlos Santana.

Paddack would be taking a MiLB deal if he was a free agent. Why would any team give up anything of value for him without the Twins eating a ton of salary?

I think people believe Paddack was good, but he never was. Doesn't strike many guys out, doesn't generally issue a lot of free passes, but gives up a ton of hits. He's like a less talented version of Kyle Gibson, but if Gibson was hurt 1/2 the year or more every year.

[DJL44]

36 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Paddack would be taking a MiLB deal if he was a free agent. Why would any team give up anything of value for him without the Twins eating a ton of salary?

Every year at least a dozen starters worse than Paddack end up with a spot on an opening day roster.

[bean5302]

13 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Every year at least a dozen starters worse than Paddack end up with a spot on an opening day roster.

I don't disagree with you there, but mostly they just wind up there because a team got stuck with them or those starters signed MiLB contracts with invites.

Alex Wood - I suppose a good comp for Paddack to support your position would be Alex Wood (pun recognized while typing, I now claim it was intended), who the Athletics signed to a 1 year $8.5MM deal.
Cal Quantrill - The Rockies locked down Cal Quantrill for 1 year $6.5MM, but he was excellent in 2021-2022 before his terrible 2023.
Spencer Turnbull is a pretty fair comp IMHO, signed with the Phillies for $2MM.

A terrible team who has trouble recruiting / signing pitching might be interested in Paddack (Rockies/Athletics), I suppose, but that's not a lot of market. If Paddack is going to have much market other than the Abyssal Plains, the Twins are going to need to eat contract.

[RpR]

I don't play with money I do not have nor a real idea who will or how it will be spent or not spent but dumping Lee, Lewis, Martin, Julien and Jeffers will probably result in a better team, as they were supposed to explode on the diamond like a Silver Salute but went off barely as Lady Fingers.

[stringer bell]

22 minutes ago, RpR said:

I don't play with money I have nor real idea who will or how it will be spent or not spent but dumping Lee, Lewis, Martin, Julien and Jeffers will probably result in a better team, as they were supposed to explode on the diamond like a Silver Salute but went off barely as Lady Fingers.

As a whole, the players listed haven’t taken off, but OTOH all are relatively young and only Jeffers has reached 1000 plate appearances. 
 

Lewis and Jeffers both had extended periods when they looked like All-Stars and Lewis looked like a Top 20 position player. 
 

Giving up on players when their value is down is a recipe for disaster for a mid-market team. I expect most of these players will be better in 2025, and if they aren’t, the Twins won’t be relevant. 

[RpR]

24 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

As a whole, the players listed haven’t taken off, but OTOH all are relatively young and only Jeffers has reached 1000 plate appearances. 
 

Lewis and Jeffers both had extended periods when they looked like All-Stars and Lewis looked like a Top 20 position player. 
 

Giving up on players when their value is down is a recipe for disaster for a mid-market team. I expect most of these players will be better in 2025, and if they aren’t, the Twins won’t be relevant. 

Lewis and Jeffers had BRIEF periods of success, and LONG periods of, why are they not still in AAA.

Jeffers, Lee and Lewis fielding numbers in AA/AAA were poor, they still are.

Kyle Garlic went from GOOD to OK to ARHH; Gordon went from Blech to WOW to BLECH. Both are now GONE, for  their bats and their fielding showed it was probably Never going to get any better.

Gordon is now in Miami AAA; Garlick was named Player of the Week once this year, but is still in AAA.

Martin right now looks a lot like Gordon for talent.

The gents I listed have not shown their future is not in AAA or some where else.

[stringer bell]

27 minutes ago, RpR said:

Lewis and Jeffers had BRIEF periods of success, and LONG periods of, why are they not still in AAA.

Jeffers, Lee and Lewis fielding numbers in AA/AAA were poor, they still are.

Kyle Garlic went from GOOD to OK to ARHH; Gordon went from Blech to WOW to BLECH. Both are now GONE, for  their bats and their fielding showed it was probably Never going to get any better.

Gordon is now in Miami AAA; Garlick was named Player of the Week once this year, but is still in AAA.

Martin right now looks a lot like Gordon for talent.

The gents I listed have not shown their future is not in AAA or some where else.

Disagree totally with your characterization that Jeffers and Lewis had brief periods of success. Jeffers was excellent for the second half of 2023 and even better for the first six weeks or so of 2024, a stretch of about 100 games started. Lewis' first 150-160 games were also excellent. I don't consider that to be a brief period of time. 

Why you bring up Gordon and Garlick in comparing them to current Twins young players is a mystery to me, particularly Garlick, who was not a young player when acquired and absolutely no one ever saw him as more than a role player for a competitive team. IMHO Gordon was never particularly highly regarded by the current field staff or front office and on balance I think they were right.

Finally, minor league fielding statistics are pretty close to meaningless. While I concur that none of the players you have singled out were good on defense in 2024, the guys with range and arms can develop into above-average defenders