What Do Early Moves Across MLB Tell Us About the Twins and Their Capabilities?

[Russ]

As for some of the recent free agent catchers signing it shows more and more that the Twins over paid for Vazquez and that was almost 3 years ago.  Poor decision making and player/salary evaluation

[sweetmusicviola16]

10 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Provide some Boyd context to his stats. That was in 39.2 innings last year. 8 starts. He hasn't thrown over 78.2 innings since 2019. Hasn't made more than 15 starts since 2019. Don't say people are living on the 2019 version of Chris Paddack and then bring up a bunch of innings pitched numbers for Boyd that are 2019 and earlier. Paddack has thrown 283 regular season innings since 2019. Boyd has thrown 263. Teams should, and do, question Paddack's ability to hold up. But they should, and do, question Boyd's as well. His "upside" in 2023 looked like a 5.45 ERA and 4.35 FIP in 71 innings with 9.3 K/9. That's in the same realm as Paddack. And the season before that was 13.1 relief innings. You left out all context when talking about Boyd.

And his performance before 2019 had a bunch of 4+ ERAs and FIPs. His career ERA is 4.85 and his FIP is 4.58. His career K/9 is 8.8. Paddack? 4.38, 3.98 and 8.9. Boyd has had 2 seasons with K/9 over 10 and 2 others over 9. They're actually quite comparable when you don't ignore all context and just look at incredibly small sample sizes that include 1 season that was 13.1 innings of relief work and another that was an entire 8 starts. 

Other than dumping salary what do we actually gain by trading Paddock? A minor league flyer that we don't need? For 7.5 mil this is one of the lowest risks on the team. I would gamble with him and move him in late July.  You never know he may give you 20 starts and 115 quality IP. If things are so tight for our ownership group that we have to be at 130mil instead of 140 mil then the Pohlads shouldn't be owning a team at all. Just my 2 cents on the trading of Paddock and Castro. Might even apply to Vazquez as well.

[chpettit19]

6 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

Other than dumping salary what do we actually gain by trading Paddock? A minor league flyer that we don't need? For 7.5 mil this is one of the lowest risks on the team. I would gamble with him and move him in late July.  You never know he may give you 20 starts and 115 quality IP. If things are so tight for our ownership group that we have to be at 130mil instead of 140 mil then the Pohlads shouldn't be owning a team at all. Just my 2 cents on the trading of Paddock and Castro. Might even apply to Vazquez as well.

It's not my money so as far as I'm concerned the payroll should 160+ million. But everything I've seen is that the Pohlads say it has to be 130ish. So, what is gained by trading him is that it gets you to your payroll mark. That's not exciting or encouraging for us fans, but it's important for the people whose jobs it is to hit their payroll mark. No, they wouldn't bring back anything more than a low-level flier, but this is the situation they've placed themselves in. Or the Pohlads have depending on what your belief is on what Falvey knew about future payrolls when he signed Buxton, Correa, and Lopez to their deals.

[sweetmusicviola16]

7 minutes ago, Russ said:

As for some of the recent free agent catchers signing it shows more and more that the Twins over paid for Vazquez and that was almost 3 years ago.  Poor decision making and player/salary evaluation

Vazquez was a terrible move/signing two years ago. But based on Camargo holding a roster spot in 2024 and not playing the organization has no confidence in him. So here we are......

[bean5302]

28 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Provide some Boyd context to his stats. That was in 39.2 innings last year. 8 starts...

You mean like all those innings Paddack pitched? Boyd has huge upside. Paddack does not. 

[bean5302]

13 minutes ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

Other than dumping salary what do we actually gain by trading Paddock? A minor league flyer that we don't need? For 7.5 mil this is one of the lowest risks on the team. I would gamble with him and move him in late July.  You never know he may give you 20 starts and 115 quality IP. If things are so tight for our ownership group that we have to be at 130mil instead of 140 mil then the Pohlads shouldn't be owning a team at all. Just my 2 cents on the trading of Paddock and Castro. Might even apply to Vazquez as well.

First, his name is Paddack, not Paddock.

The risk is he's hurt all year and doesn't pitch for $7.5MM or he pitches worse in the rotation than David Festa, Zebby Matthews or Simeon Woods Richardson for $7.5MM or he even loses some games for $7.5MM.

What's the upside? Best reasonable case scenario, Paddack is only as valuable as Festa/Matthews/SWR, but at 10x the price.

[chpettit19]

10 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

You mean like all those innings Paddack pitched? Boyd has huge upside. Paddack does not. 

I provided the innings they've each pitched. Paddack has thrown more since 2019 than Boyd has. Huge upside based on 40 innings? He's 34 and has never performed like that over a full season. You're arguing that a 34-year-old who hasn't thrown a full season's worth of innings in 6 seasons has huge upside despite him never having done it even when he was younger. Yeah, sorry, going to go ahead and disagree with that. His 10.4 K/9 is the 2nd highest of his career. At age 33. And, again, it was in 8 starts and 39.2 innings. Nothing about his career says that's sustainable over a full season. Nothing. In 2019 he had a complete outlier of a season with an 11.6 K/9 but still a 4.56 ERA and 4.32 FIP. Other than that he was a 7.5 to 8.5 K/9 pitcher. Do you have a lot of other pitchers you can tell us about who went from 8 K/9 to 10.5 in their mid-30s after missing the majority of 6 straight seasons?

None of that is to say Paddack has huge upside. But Boyd doesn't either. It's why they're comparable.

[Doctor Gast]

4 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Nobody is trading for Randy Dobnak. Unless you're advocating for the Twins to throw in prospects or money to get rid of him which would defeat the purpose. Every team has passed on multiple opportunities to take him for nothing. Nobody is trading for him.

That's probably the same attitude that Falvey has & he doesn't give trading Dobnak a thought, he's just an albatross around our necks. It's easier to trade players we need to obtain players we don't so we don't have to use redundant prospects to help unbloat our farm system. We can easily move redundant prospects (players) capital to move Dobnak. A team like CO could use him, if incentivized they could take him on. LAD didn't even in any way want Margot but took him to acquire Glasnow. So what purpose am I defeating? Saving $4M? Trading away redundant prospects/ players that a different team needs?  Is anybody coming knocking on the door for Dobnak with $4M price tag? no. Can we be actively creative to come up with a trade that is mutually beneficial? the answer is yes. The choice is do we want to be active or passive? So far Falvey chooses to be passive. Passive you are left behind.

 

[chpettit19]

28 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

That's probably the same attitude that Falvey has & he doesn't give trading Dobnak a thought, he's just an albatross around our necks. It's easier to trade players we need to obtain players we don't so we don't have to use redundant prospects to help unbloat our farm system. We can easily move redundant prospects (players) capital to move Dobnak. A team like CO could use him, if incentivized they could take him on. LAD didn't even in any way want Margot but took him to acquire Glasnow. So what purpose am I defeating? Saving $4M? Trading away redundant prospects/ players that a different team needs?  Is anybody coming knocking on the door for Dobnak with $4M price tag? no. Can we be actively creative to come up with a trade that is mutually beneficial? the answer is yes. The choice is do we want to be active or passive? So far Falvey chooses to be passive. Passive you are left behind.

First off, there's no such thing as a redundant prospect. Prospects fail at far too high a rate to think the Twins, or any team, have redundant prospects. If the Twins had redundant prospects they wouldn't need to worry about anything because they'd winning constantly by just replacing each injured or struggling player with the next prospect sitting around waiting to succeed because they have so many redundant prospects. People have been talking about log jams and too many infielders and outfielders around here for years. It wasn't true then and it isn't true now. There's no such thing as a bloated farm system. Moving prospects just to clear Dobnak's 3 mil off the payroll this year is an awful idea.

Second, Dobnak isn't a major league quality player. Colorado couldn't use him. Could they be "incentivized?" Sure, by giving them a legitimate prospect. Trading a legitimate prospect to get off 1 year of Dobnak's contract is horrible asset management. Giving up legitimate prospects to save money you can't spend on legitimate help for the 2025 team defeats the purpose of trading Dobnak because all you've accomplished is weakening the system without improving anything. Margot is a bad player, but still better than Dobnak, and who's the Glasnow type player the Twins are trading away with Dobnak in this scenario? You keep talking about not breaking up the core of the team, but now they're attaching somebody of that caliber to Dobnak just to get out of the "albatross" that is his 3 million in 2025? A Glasnow level prospect is Jenkins, Rodriguez, or Keaschall. You dropping a top-100 prospect to save 3 mil in 2025? That's the kind of proactive creative you want Falvey to be? The Twins need their prospects. They're their life blood. Should they never trade them? Of course not. But are they overflowing with them so much that they should be moving them to drop 3 mil of a non-MLB caliber pitcher? Absolutely not. Paying a prospect premium to get out from the last year of Dobnak's deal would be awful asset management. What a waste of a prospect.

[Doctor Gast]

2 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Second, Dobnak isn't a major league quality player. Colorado couldn't use him. Could they be "incentivized?" Sure, by giving them a legitimate prospect. Trading a legitimate prospect to get off 1 year of Dobnak's contract is horrible asset management. Giving up legitimate prospects to save money you can't spend on legitimate help for the 2025 team defeats the purpose of trading Dobnak because all you've accomplished is weakening the system without improving anything. Margot is a bad player, but still better than Dobnak, and who's the Glasnow type player the Twins are trading away with Dobnak in this scenario? You keep talking about not breaking up the core of the team, but now they're attaching somebody of that caliber to Dobnak just to get out of the "albatross" that is his 3 million in 2025? A Glasnow level prospect is Jenkins, Rodriguez, or Keaschall. You dropping a top-100 prospect to save 3 mil in 2025? That's the kind of proactive creative you want Falvey to be? The Twins need their prospects. They're their life blood. Should they never trade them? Of course not. But are they overflowing with them so much that they should be moving them to drop 3 mil of a non-MLB caliber pitcher? Absolutely not. Paying a prospect premium to get out from the last year of Dobnak's deal would be awful asset management. What a waste of a prospect.

A worthless player on one team can be an asset on another. I won't debate who's better Dobnak or Margot. Dobnak fits into their ballpark. Is he going to light the world on fire? probably not but he can be an asset. What you are saying is ridiculous. We are not offering a Jenkins or any other high prospect just to unload Dobnak in a minor deal. Dobnak is insignificant to us as we are blessed with a few SPs better than him yet an unfortunate budget deficit & CO has poor SP depth and GB pitcher fits better in Coors. 

I agree with you that the farm is the life blood. But I prefer quality over quantity. That means very good player evaluation, drafting & development. I strongly disagree with you that no prospect (or player) is redundant & should not be traded. The great majority of MiLBers never make it to the MLB & even less when hoarded (that's why we have the Rule 5 draft). Each team has different needs, One of our needs is overcoming a budget crunch. And that means moving a trade value difference lotto ticket in order to take $3M off the books w/o trading a player we need, then so be it. I can't understand why you want to keep an insignificant lotto ticket difference & willing to trade a needed player to try to resolve our over-budget.  

[IndianaTwin]

4 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

It's not my money so as far as I'm concerned the payroll should 160+ million. But everything I've seen is that the Pohlads say it has to be 130ish. So, what is gained by trading him is that it gets you to your payroll mark. That's not exciting or encouraging for us fans, but it's important for the people whose jobs it is to hit their payroll mark. No, they wouldn't bring back anything more than a low-level flier, but this is the situation they've placed themselves in. Or the Pohlads have depending on what your belief is on what Falvey knew about future payrolls when he signed Buxton, Correa, and Lopez to their deals.

@chpettit19, I'm not disputing the $130 million, but where have you actually read anything using that number? All I've seen is the end of the year statement saying, "We won't slash payroll any further" and a later statement to the effect of "We have to be creative," which I'd like to think any FO would say.

Beyond that, the things I've seen have all been other people (mainly on TD) interpreting those two statements, making declarative statements the max is $130M, necessitating a reduction from the $140M that is projected by (smart, but without all the information) people on the internet.

I'd open this to anyone. Are there actual statements from the FO saying things like, "We're hoping to be about where we were this past season?" 

[chpettit19]

17 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

A worthless player on one team can be an asset on another. I won't debate who's better Dobnak or Margot. Dobnak fits into their ballpark. Is he going to light the world on fire? probably not but he can be an asset. What you are saying is ridiculous. We are not offering a Jenkins or any other high prospect just to unload Dobnak in a minor deal. Dobnak is insignificant to us as we are blessed with a few SPs better than him yet an unfortunate budget deficit & CO has poor SP depth and GB pitcher fits better in Coors. 

I agree with you that the farm is the life blood. But I prefer quality over quantity. That means very good player evaluation, drafting & development. I strongly disagree with you that no prospect (or player) is redundant & should not be traded. The great majority of MiLBers never make it to the MLB & even less when hoarded (that's why we have the Rule 5 draft). Each team has different needs, One of our needs is overcoming a budget crunch. And that means moving a trade value difference lotto ticket in order to take $3M off the books w/o trading a player we need, then so be it. I can't understand why you want to keep an insignificant lotto ticket difference & willing to trade a needed player to try to resolve our over-budget.  

Good ground ball pitchers fit well everywhere. The key word there is GOOD. Dobnak is not good. He's not an asset just because you want him to be. The Twins can't call Colorado and tell them they should have groundball pitchers so take a non-MLB caliber pitcher for 3 million and have them just say "ok." No, we wouldn't offer Jenkins with Dobnak, but the Rockies wouldn't buy a nothing prospect for 3 million. That's the point. You had to dig for Glasnow and Margot to prove your point but you think the Twins can just dump Dobnak with some random minor leaguer to get out of 3 million. It took Glasnow to get rid of Margot in your example, but it takes a random minor leaguer to dump Dobnak? Nonsense. That's not how it works. If the Rockies wanted Dobnak for 3 million they could've taken him multiple times over the last couple years when the Twins have DFA'd him and worked out a deal. They didn't. Because he's not an MLB caliber pitcher and there's no prospect the Twins reasonably put with him that the Rockies would want for 3 million. $3 million buys you a late first round draft pick. That's the level of prospect you're talking to dump Dobnak. Are you willing to trade Kaelen Culpepper or Kyle DeBarge to dump Dobnak? Cuz that's what it'd take. That's an absolutely awful trade for the Twins.

The rule 5 is a good example to prove my point. Hardly any players are taken in it, and even fewer are actually kept. 6 total prospects kept last year. Because teams aren't just overflowing with MLB talent. Guessing which player you need because the other guy at their position is going to succeed is a fools errand. Thus there's no redundant prospects. I never said prospects shouldn't be traded. In fact I actively said that wasn't the case. What I said was that in order to get out from under 3 million for Dobnak you're going to have to give up a much better prospect than would make it worth it. It wouldn't be some low-level flier lotto ticket. It would be a legit prospect. And that is awful team management. Because that prospect isn't "insignificant." Your misevaluation of Dobnak is skewing what you think he's worth. No team would put him on their 26-man roster. He had a nearly 1.5 WHIP in AAA last year after having a 1.65 WHIP the year before. He'd be pitching in Japan or Korea now if it wasn't for the horrible extension they signed him to. Colorado has no use for him.

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

@chpettit19, I'm not disputing the $130 million, but where have you actually read anything using that number? All I've seen is the end of the year statement saying, "We won't slash payroll any further" and a later statement to the effect of "We have to be creative," which I'd like to think any FO would say.

Beyond that, the things I've seen have all been other people (mainly on TD) interpreting those two statements, making declarative statements the max is $130M, necessitating a reduction from the $140M that is projected by (smart, but without all the information) people on the internet.

I'd open this to anyone. Are there actual statements from the FO saying things like, "We're hoping to be about where we were this past season?" 

Pretty much all the beat writers are reporting that their sources are saying that the "no further reduction in payroll" was in reference to what it was last year and that the team intends to have the payroll be what it was last year at about 130. I would think they'd be smart enough to word things as a payroll increase if they're willing/able to move up to 140ish this year, but that hasn't been the messaging at all. That may be giving them too much credit, but since it'd very clearly be an increase I'd hope somebody around there would get that messaging out instead of having another offseason of fan moral being very openly negative about payroll being around 130.

[dxpavelka]

On 12/8/2024 at 5:02 PM, tony&rodney said:

The Twins will not have any difficulty whatsoever in reducing payroll to $130M or less. The challenge will be in creating deals that improve the team.

 

On 12/8/2024 at 4:59 PM, tony&rodney said:

This has been a thought in the past. One must be careful to remember that Minnesota and Los Angeles exist in different stratospheres financially, which means it is best to stay far away from examples that use the Dodgers practices when attempting to examine or suggest a plan for the Twins. Wish it were different.

 

13 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Dx says it more concisely than me.
 

Why trade Lopez and set yourself up for “Wow, we sure could use an ace*”? Why trade Correa and set yourself up for “Wow, our infield defense isn’t what it used to be and we sure could use another RH bat”?

Said another way, if Correa’s and Lopez’s contracts are attractive for other teams, why wouldn’t they be for us?

*Though it would generate more TD copy as people argue over the definition of an ace and whether or not Lopez is one to begin with. /s 

We traded Berrios which necessitated subsequent trades for Tyler Mahle, Sonny Gray and Lopez.  Jury is still out on the return.

 

[tony&rodney]

4 minutes ago, dxpavelka said:

 

 

We traded Berrios which necessitated subsequent trades for Tyler Mahle, Sonny Gray and Lopez.  Jury is still out on the return.

 

Not sure what all those links had in common or what you were responding to .... but Berrios was traded because the Twins and Berrios could not agree on a long term deal. The Twins wanted a return beyond the draft choice and Toronto obliged by offering Martin and Woods Richardson. I guess you see it as a Kevin Bacon kind of situation. I don't see that but if it works for you, then ok.

[DocBauer]

3 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

@chpettit19, I'm not disputing the $130 million, but where have you actually read anything using that number? All I've seen is the end of the year statement saying, "We won't slash payroll any further" and a later statement to the effect of "We have to be creative," which I'd like to think any FO would say.

Beyond that, the things I've seen have all been other people (mainly on TD) interpreting those two statements, making declarative statements the max is $130M, necessitating a reduction from the $140M that is projected by (smart, but without all the information) people on the internet.

I'd open this to anyone. Are there actual statements from the FO saying things like, "We're hoping to be about where we were this past season?" 

Indiana, I know your question was aimed at @chpettit19, and he offered an answer, but if I may, id like to respond as well.

Basically, the Twins payroll for 2024 was $130M. When the season was done and the existing roster was presented, with potential arbitration numbers included, the Twins were sitting at $135M from what I saw/read. No Kirilloff means that number drops a little bit. FWIW, the TD "you're the GM" format has the Twins about $134 not including the $1M that Tonkin was signed for. Again, there's a baseline of $135M give or take a little. 

Paraphrasing the comment from ownership was: "we're not going to cut payroll. But we're not looking to add payroll either".

The problem there is the comment is ambiguous at best. Does that mean not less than $130M and no more, relatively speaking. OR, does that mean no cuts but nothing more than final, end of season, run it back, arbitration numbers included at $135M?

$5M SHOULDN'T make a difference, but with ownership running things this tight, that $5M difference DOES make a difference if Falvey makes a couple moves to free up $ to play with.

Just something to consider.

[DocBauer]

Regarding Nick's OP as to "what early moves are showing..." I have a few thoughts/opinions.

1] While early moves are just that, we're seeing more than a few interesting/questionable deals being made for backend SP. This tells me, IMO, that Paddack is going to have value if the Twins decide to move him. He'll be 29yo in 2025, is more than a year removed from his 2nd TJ surgery, and should see more consistent velocity. The "feel" for his change should be back, and the Twins worked hard with him on his new slider/sweeper. I could see Boston, Baltimore, and more than a few other teams looking for depth and love a 1yr $7.5M additon with upside for a low level player back in return. 

2] I've heard various pundits believe the Twins could move Vazquez for his full $10M with a small lower level prospect in return. I've never bought in to that. But we're also seeing teams looking for catchers and grabbing a few of them already. And a couple have been signed for around the $8M mark. I'm not going to debate the value of those signings or Vazquez directly, but teams are looking for catchers. It appears to be a need. (Surprise!). At some point, possibly soon, there's going to be a few teams still wanting and Vazquez is going to look good to them, IMO. I thought the Cubs were a perfect fit, but it looks like they may have found their man.

I don't believe the Twins are anxious to trade either Paddack, or Vazquez, but I think they might. What's remaining to be seen is whether they can move Vazquez cleanly, or if they will have to include a semi-decent prospect, or eat a couple $M to do so. But I think there's a market for both that would free up anywhere from $14-17M to allow the FO some flexibility to add to the margins for a solid bat and LHRP to at least augment the 2025 roster.

[Blyleven2011]

12 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

As teams fill their holes in the back end of their rotation, the Twins are sitting & waiting on Paddack & Dobnak, losing out on opportunities.

Trading Vazquez is going to hurt no matter what you do. TB, LAA & CO are backfilling their catching, again losing out on opportunities to move Jeffers.

Edman's extension shows how valuable a player like Castro is to a serious team. 

Falvey's creative approach of putting up a Fire Sale sign, waiting for crappy offers to flood in & at the very end choosing the least crappy one. Trading away needed players so Falvey can dabble in FA to pick up players we don't need. Continue to compromise the '23 core affecting the chemistry that advanced in the postseason to a miserable AL Central 4th place. What we needed last offseason was a FO who was proactive, efficiently  trade away our fat, initiate essential trades to fill real holes. That didn't happen & still need a proactive FO, not a passive "creative" one (what an oxymoron). 

The core doesn't need to change. Falvey needs to change. We have been lucky with players falling into our laps. But our future based on luck & hope won't cut it, we need to see better player evaluations & action. This creative approach won't work, 

If Falvey can't fill simple necessary holes via trade to build off from our core. Then I see a worse fate than we faced last season, I have total faith in this core but I have no faith in Falvey. If Falvey isn't going anywhere, then I regret to ask why pay Correa & Lopez these big salaries if Falvey has no idea in how to field a competitive team from this core? Come deadline when we are no longer in the wild card race. Trading Correa & Lopez will become a sad reality. Adding prospects to our already bloated farm.

 

Cùt him no slack  , thank you doc ...

[old nurse]

9 hours ago, Russ said:

As for some of the recent free agent catchers signing it shows more and more that the Twins over paid for Vazquez and that was almost 3 years ago.  Poor decision making and player/salary evaluation

Player A  coming off a 2WAR season.. Player B is coming off a 0.2 WAR season. Which player do you sign ?

[dxpavelka]

1 hour ago, tony&rodney said:

Not sure what all those links had in common or what you were responding to .... but Berrios was traded because the Twins and Berrios could not agree on a long term deal. The Twins wanted a return beyond the draft choice and Toronto obliged by offering Martin and Woods Richardson. I guess you see it as a Kevin Bacon kind of situation. I don't see that but if it works for you, then ok.

We traded Berrios and a year later we needed a Berrios so we made the Mahle trade.  That didn't work so we made the Gray trade.  Lopez was gravy.  For a year.  A very successful year.  Until this year This year he fills the Berrios spot.  The number Berrios signed for was NOT totally out of our wheelhouse for a frontline SP.  What kind of holes are we looking to fill right now if we still have Steer, Hajjar, Encarnancion-Strand, Arraez & Chase Petty?

[IndianaTwin]

12 hours ago, DocBauer said:

Indiana, I know your question was aimed at @chpettit19, and he offered an answer, but if I may, id like to respond as well.

Basically, the Twins payroll for 2024 was $130M. When the season was done and the existing roster was presented, with potential arbitration numbers included, the Twins were sitting at $135M from what I saw/read. No Kirilloff means that number drops a little bit. FWIW, the TD "you're the GM" format has the Twins about $134 not including the $1M that Tonkin was signed for. Again, there's a baseline of $135M give or take a little. 

Paraphrasing the comment from ownership was: "we're not going to cut payroll. But we're not looking to add payroll either".

The problem there is the comment is ambiguous at best. Does that mean not less than $130M and no more, relatively speaking. OR, does that mean no cuts but nothing more than final, end of season, run it back, arbitration numbers included at $135M?

$5M SHOULDN'T make a difference, but with ownership running things this tight, that $5M difference DOES make a difference if Falvey makes a couple moves to free up $ to play with.

Just something to consider.

Doc, thanks to both you and @chpettit19 for the responses.

Where I pick up most is the phrase that I highlighted in your response. I've often made the point on TD that we as fans don't have all the info. However, we tend to read as gospel and inject a level of precision on comments that were made with vagueness and ambiguity.

In reality, there is almost always a sense of responding to context. A couple of years ago, for example, I'm guessing the original budget didn't allow for a Correa signing, but when things played out the way they did, they found a way to make it work. While to (I'm assuming 😀) most of us on TD, a paltry $5M increase or decrease in our take-home pay is pretty significant, they are working with different levels of magnitude. At this level, for example, a $5M difference is about 4 percent -- not insignificant, but not necessarily insurmountable either. 

In that context, I'm with you in thinking that $5M SHOULDN'T make a difference. And I agree that if we could somehow guarantee that a $5M spend would lead to a Santana-like addition, that would be tremendous.

So within the context of what we've heard, and to borrow a recent catch-phrase, I think there's a "non-zero chance" that the fuller message from (and I'd say "between," because these conversations almost always have some level of give-and-take) ownership to FO is something like, "Let's assure the fans we're not going to cut further. Last year we told them we planned to cut and it created backlash. I also don't want fans to assume we're going back up to prior years' levels, so a message like that heads off that idea. I don't want to increase significantly, and I'd prefer to keep it the same. Depending on how arbitration plays out,* we might have a slight increase. I'm okay with that, because I think we have a good roster. If possible, be creative and try to free up a little money. Depending on how much you free up, we could try sign a Santana-like person. Free up more and we can do more. And as always, if something comes along that you think blows us out of the water as an opportunity, let's talk. Meanwhile, could you ask Doris from HR to stop in? I've got some tough news for her."

Overall, my plea to TD readers is to walk over to the bathroom drawer, find a tweezers and gently pull our shorts out of a wad**, recognizing that a) we don't have all the info, b) circumstances change, and c) things will play themselves out in ways that we don't yet know.

*Using arbitration estimates is another area where we as fans ascribe a level of precision that simply isn't there. I appreciate that these estimates are generally in the neighborhood, and this year's players are generally on the lower end of the scale, so they are likely closer than if there were a bunch of studs in their S3 year. But they are still estimates.  

**And Doc and chp, that last paragraph isn't directed at you. I find you to be two of the more reasoned, thoughtful and helpful folks on TD. 

[Eris]

The original this offseason Correa to the Yankees was written by Joel Sherman conjecturing the the Twins were so desperate to dump salary that they would be willing to trade Correa for nothing of value in return. He was not proposing a trade make both the Twins and Yankees better. 

[bean5302]

On 12/9/2024 at 1:34 PM, chpettit19 said:

I provided the innings they've each pitched. Paddack has thrown more since 2019 than Boyd has. Huge upside based on 40 innings? He's 34 and has never performed like that over a full season. You're arguing that a 34-year-old who hasn't thrown a full season's worth of innings in 6 seasons has huge upside despite him never having done it even when he was younger. Yeah, sorry, going to go ahead and disagree with that. His 10.4 K/9 is the 2nd highest of his career. At age 33. And, again, it was in 8 starts and 39.2 innings. Nothing about his career says that's sustainable over a full season. Nothing. In 2019 he had a complete outlier of a season with an 11.6 K/9 but still a 4.56 ERA and 4.32 FIP. Other than that he was a 7.5 to 8.5 K/9 pitcher. Do you have a lot of other pitchers you can tell us about who went from 8 K/9 to 10.5 in their mid-30s after missing the majority of 6 straight seasons?

None of that is to say Paddack has huge upside. But Boyd doesn't either. It's why they're comparable.

If you're arguing Boyd's performance year didn't matter to teams, knock yourself out.

[chpettit19]

6 hours ago, bean5302 said:

If you're arguing Boyd's performance year didn't matter to teams, knock yourself out.

It mattered to 1 team, and that's all it takes cuz it got him paid. And Profar's will get him paid. O'Neill's got him paid. Outlier platform years get guys paid all the time. And those contracts got bad all the time.

But if you're going to bash Paddack for his lack of innings and performance since 2019 and call out the people on this site for having faith in Paddack based on the 2019 version while ignoring everything since then throw Matthew Boyd out as the rebuttal their lines since 2019 shouldn't look like this:

Boyd: 263 innings 4.65 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 8.9 K/9

Paddack: 283 innings 4.90 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 8.4 K/9

Boyd went on a heater for 8 starts and got himself paid. Good for him. You threw around a bunch of pre-2020 Boyd numbers while bashing other posters for their Paddack stances then got mad at me for pointing out that you were using pre-2020 Boyd numbers. Boyd got paid for 8 starts. I hope it works out for the Cubs and he has his first full season of starts ever with an ERA under 4.39 or FIP under 4.32. Cuz if it was a Twins pitcher putting up those numbers you'd be calling them a number 5 starter, not telling us they have "huge upside."