Is the Ty France Deal Riskier Than It Seems for the Twins?

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

The number of home grown Twins isn't horrible. 7 offensive players projected to break camp with us that were drafted and developed by this front office. 7 is actually kind of impressive compared to other teams. 

However... As you astutely point out. The Elite player is missing from the offensive side and it's the elite player with years of control that every team in the world wants. Lewis was the 1st pick overall... injuries have probably held him back... We have high hopes for him but we should have high hopes because he was the 1st pick overall. Wallner, Larnach and Julien development have been capped (self imposed) to requiring a right handed compliment and the roster filling space this requires to compliment them. Jeffers and MIranda are decent enough to be better than that roster filler... and of course Lee... who we have those high hopes attached that go with a top ten overall pick but ???    

Then if you look around the league. Projected 2025 Opening day Rosters: 

Cleveland 16 Pre-Arb Players

Milwaukee 15 Pre-Arb Players

Tampa 15-Pre-Arb Players

Detroit 13 Pre-Arb Players

Royals 12 Pre-Arb Players

Astros 12 Pre-Arb Players

Jays 10 Pre-Arb Players

Twins 8 Pre-Arb Players

These are teams that won games last year.

You start to realize that development is not where it needs to be amidst budget constraints. Budget constraints amidst significant financial commitment to 2nd tier roster filler.

You stop and think about Milwaukee and... you gotta ask... What is going on in Minnesota. 

These teams are successful because they continually come up with inexpensive talent.  The disconnect where the Twins are concerned is that you only identify players "drafted and developed" by the Twins.  Roughly 40% of the prearb players you have identified for these other teams were acquired through trade and the percentage is even higher for Cleveland and Tampa.  Part of what is going on in Minnesota is they have not been as skilled as Cleveland and Tampa in acquiring prospects. 

[Mike Sixel]

5 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

These teams are successful because they continually come up with inexpensive talent.  The disconnect where the Twins are concerned is that you only identify players "drafted and developed" by the Twins.  Roughly 40% of the prearb players you have identified for these other teams were acquired through trade and the percentage is even higher for Cleveland and Tampa.  Part of what is going on in Minnesota is they have not been as skilled as Cleveland and Tampa in acquiring prospects. 

They've largely refused to move on from veterans (see Kepler, Max) early and get prospects. Cleveland and Tampa do that a lot.....

[sweetmusicviola16]

16 hours ago, Cory Engelhardt said:

Because Miranda hasn’t ever shown he can hold up for a full season and be productive? Plus he is only 3 years younger than France.

If Miranda can show he can be productive there is a place for him. Hopefully he goes out and proves it

OK, so Miranda has to prove something.  But based on the verbage from the Manager France doesn't.

[sweetmusicviola16]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

They signed him because if he can hit he hits both handed pitching and no platoon split. I would expect a positive response out of Baldelli otherwise there would be no reason to sign him. Even if they cut him, there is not a great risk. The win is that France gets a chance.. 

 

once again I would like to thank Twins Daily for crashing once and reloading once in the time I took me to post the above lines 

twins daily crashes my Chromebook  all of the time. 

[jmlease1]

3 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I understand this doesn't address the main concern of the article (mainly the opinion that the Twins give too long a leash to veterans that aren't performing).  The bigger issue right now is that the Twins have absolutely nothing in the way of 1B prospects in the minors.  They continue to patch that position because they do not have great options there.  I understand and accept the argument for Miranda, but who is after him on the organizational depth chart?  A bunch of guys being forced into that role?

 

What's the context on this, though? How many teams are running deep prospect lists at 1B? And is it "being forced into the role" or "played themselves off other more demanding defensive positions"?

I suspect a lot of outrage will be found on this board if the Twins start drafting guys who are already locked in at 1B...

[Fire Dan Gladden]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

The number of home grown Twins isn't horrible. 7 offensive players projected to break camp with us that were drafted and developed by this front office. 7 is actually kind of impressive compared to other teams. 

However... As you astutely point out. The Elite player is missing from the offensive side and it's the elite player with years of control that every team in the world wants. Lewis was the 1st pick overall... injuries have probably held him back... We have high hopes for him but we should have high hopes because he was the 1st pick overall. Wallner, Larnach and Julien development have been capped (self imposed) to requiring a right handed compliment and the roster filling space this requires to compliment them. Jeffers and MIranda are decent enough to be better than that roster filler... and of course Lee... who we have those high hopes attached that go with a top ten overall pick but ???    

Then if you look around the league. Projected 2025 Opening day Rosters: 

Cleveland 16 Pre-Arb Players

Milwaukee 15 Pre-Arb Players

Tampa 15-Pre-Arb Players

Detroit 13 Pre-Arb Players

Royals 12 Pre-Arb Players

Astros 12 Pre-Arb Players

Jays 10 Pre-Arb Players

Twins 8 Pre-Arb Players

These are teams that won games last year.

You start to realize that development is not where it needs to be amidst budget constraints. Budget constraints amidst significant financial commitment to 2nd tier roster filler.

You stop and think about Milwaukee and... you gotta ask... What is going on in Minnesota. 

I think there are multiple pieces to this issue.  Identifying talent doesn't seem to be one of them.
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/which-mlb-teams-drafted-the-most-big-leaguers-in-2024/

[Fire Dan Gladden]

3 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

What's the context on this, though? How many teams are running deep prospect lists at 1B? And is it "being forced into the role" or "played themselves off other more demanding defensive positions"?

I suspect a lot of outrage will be found on this board if the Twins start drafting guys who are already locked in at 1B...

While they don't have a prototypical 1B guy in MiLB, they really don't even have someone defensively capable there that is close to coming up.  Has there been any discussion of moving a bat-first prospect to 1B to speed up their path or fill a hole?  As I have seen mentioned in other posts, there seems to be a lot of discussion regarding the lack of organizational depth at Catcher, but nothing about 1B. 

[jmlease1]

6 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

While they don't have a prototypical 1B guy in MiLB, they really don't even have someone defensively capable there that is close to coming up.  Has there been any discussion of moving a bat-first prospect to 1B to speed up their path or fill a hole?  As I have seen mentioned in other posts, there seems to be a lot of discussion regarding the lack of organizational depth at Catcher, but nothing about 1B. 

right, but that's because it's very difficult to move someone to catcher, and historically not that difficult to move someone to 1B. I mean, Kal'ai Rosario isn't much of a fielder in the OF, but he's not a disaster out there...are we better off moving him to 1B now while he's still a functional OF? How about Carson McCusker? Both are bat-first players...but also might not hit enough or have enough flaws in them that they might not make it anyways.

Heck, we've got people campaigning every day here to just move Royce Lewis over to 1B.

[Riverbrian]

5 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

These teams are successful because they continually come up with inexpensive talent.  The disconnect where the Twins are concerned is that you only identify players "drafted and developed" by the Twins.  Roughly 40% of the prearb players you have identified for these other teams were acquired through trade and the percentage is even higher for Cleveland and Tampa.  Part of what is going on in Minnesota is they have not been as skilled as Cleveland and Tampa in acquiring prospects. 

Agreed

I only listed those who were drafted and developed in the first paragraph. 

The next paragraph was all about the inexpensive talent that other teams are utilizing regardless of how they were acquired and this is where the Twins are... well... inadequate.

And I use the word inadequate relative to the budget constraints that the Twins have had since... well... forever. That way we can all compare and contrast with other clubs with similar budget constraints and even a couple that don't have budgets constrained to our level. 

There are three primary means of talent acquisition. Draft, Trade, Free Agency. The third option free agency is barely available to us... Due to budget limitations that are always going to be there. I don't care who the new owner is... the Twins are not going to leap into a 200 million plus payroll all of a sudden.

With free agency reduced to 2nd and third tier options at money 4 to 10 times the MLB minimum. Draft development and development of who we trade for will have to compensate for the minimization of one of the three available talent acquisition options. If we can't afford to buy players developed by other organizations... we damn well better do better developing our own via drafted or traded for players.  

Whatever way those three roster staffing options are sliced up to construct each individual team rosters.

The Twins have put themselves in a position of only 8 pre-arb players projected to make the 2025 roster out of camp. 3 of those 8 players will be arbitration eligible next year. Only 8 of them compared to Cleveland and Milwaukee alone will knock us out of the 1st tier if we wanted to take a shot at a 1st tier Carlos Correa type free agent. It doesn't have to be the budget knocking us out of contention for 1st tier... it's this.  

Now I wouldn't personally pay 12 million for Carlos Santana but the number of pre-arb players on the roster is why Cleveland (with 16 of them) can afford 12 million for Carlos Santana and we can't. This is also how Cleveland can afford him and still have a lower payroll than us. 

The pre-arb player is the key to everything. 

And to circle back to your point and your point is accurate in my opinion. I've been spinning my wheels trying to explain this to others,

OK Kiersay is not good enough so we got to get 6.25 million for a lower tier FA.

That's it then? We have no choice. We can't look beyond the borders of our roster? We can't acquire someone like Cleveland does? Like Milwaukee does? Like Detroit does? Doesn't have to be Jackson Holliday that we swing a deal for.  

Can't trade for a younger player if we can't produce a younger player? I doubt that... I think we can trade for younger players. I also doubt that we can't produce more pre-arb talent ourselves but if they can't... if they can't... and many here think they can't. Well... then we have to make some serious adjustments to our development program so we can because that isn't sustainable. We will crash and burn under our budget constraints that are not going to go away.  

Everyone on Twinsdaily needs to remember that it was just a couple of years ago that Willi Castro was acquired with a minor league deal and now we are paying him 6 million. Back in the Winter of 2022... I wouldn't be able to confidently stand on the rooftops of Twinsdaily and proclaim... WILLI CASTRO... that's the guy... let's go get Willi Castro. Yet... we stop at the waters edge of Martin and Keirsay and say... Nope... we have no other options... Must go get 2nd and 3rd tier roster filler and pay 4 to 10 times the minimum for that tier which is going to take us out of the top tier every single time.

Willi Castro is one of the reasons why I'm not discussing specific names. How could any of us come up with Willi Castro December 2022 as an example for why you don't need to pay 11 million to Joey Gallo. 

[Road trip]

54 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

They've largely refused to move on from veterans (see Kepler, Max) early and get prospects. Cleveland and Tampa do that a lot.....

Agreed.  And what makes it extra strange is that trading Nelson Cruz for Joe Ryan ranks as one of the best "trade a fading vet for a prospect" moves in Twins history.  They couldn't have timed that trade any better, but they've never repeated anything like it since.

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Danchat said:

Here's what Fangraphs has:

Basically nothing at 1B...

 Brutal. 

[Cory Engelhardt]

1 hour ago, sweetmusicviola16 said:

OK, so Miranda has to prove something.  But based on the verbage from the Manager France doesn't.

He has at least proven it in the past. 

[Road trip]

I see France chose (or was assigned) #13.  Like Margot.  And Gallo.  And several other players who had largely forgettable seasons wearing the jersey for the past 30 years.  Tempting fate, aren't they?

13

Manuel Margot (2024)

Joey Gallo (2023)

Trevor Larnach (2022)

Travis Blankenhorn (2021)

Ehire Adrianza (2019-2020)

Jason Kubel (2014)

Todd Walker (1996)

At least Larnach changed his number as fast as possible...

[Vanimal46]

10 hours ago, Pdxtwins said:

Whose spot is he taking on the 40 man roster? 

He took Brent Headricks spot 

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I think there are multiple pieces to this issue.  Identifying talent doesn't seem to be one of them.
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/which-mlb-teams-drafted-the-most-big-leaguers-in-2024/

Thanks for the article... it provides perspective from a league standpoint.

Agreed... It's much more complicated than my simplification of what I see as an issue. 

Front offices basically are doing rocket science level work and I'm taking out both the rocket and the science to just present bare bones numbers of the end result and there a bunch of paths to get to that end result. 

However, my simplified end result is still... the end result of all that rocket science no matter how we got here. 

Drafting well is only the beginning. There is also a whole lot of middle. That middle is development of the drafted player. The Twins may have been tied for 4th most with 26 drafted players on opening day rosters. But, the number was 12 of them on the opening day 2024 Twins roster.

What happened to the other 14 and what did we get for them? Did we develop them and trade them or did we trade them while another organization developed them.

Did we trade them because we had a fear of them? Felt safer with a vet acquisition? Many questions to be answered and each individual is an individual story.

The end result is this... right now... we will break camp with 8 pre-arb players and therefore can't afford upper tier free agency so lower tier it is. That's how Ty France ends up being needed. 

The Brewers are going with 17 pre-arb players and that adds up to 12.9 million dollars. If the Twins are spending 130 million this year. 17 pre-arb players at 12.9 million dollars would leave them 117 million for the remaining 9 roster spots Which is an average of 13 million per. Now we can play at the upper levels of free agency a little but we are not doing that. 8 Pre-Arb at the minimum is 6 million dollars. At 130 million that leaves us 124 million to spend on 18 players for 6.9 million per and we are spending that 6.9 million per on lower tier.   

BTW... Rooker, Arraez, Steer, E-Strand, Rogers, Gil, Cano, Hendriks, Polanco, Garver, Rortvedt, Berrios and Wade Jr. are the other 14 playing elsewhere across the fruited plain. 

BTW... 1st Base development has been brought up and rightfully so. There are 5 potential 1st basemen on the above list of 14 and a catcher.  

[bean5302]

22 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

He took Brent Headricks spot 

I hear 2 packets of 20 year old Original flavor Quaker Instant Oatmeal the Pohlads found under Carl's abandoned desk in the family home took Headrick's spot. 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

right, but that's because it's very difficult to move someone to catcher, and historically not that difficult to move someone to 1B. I mean, Kal'ai Rosario isn't much of a fielder in the OF, but he's not a disaster out there...are we better off moving him to 1B now while he's still a functional OF? How about Carson McCusker? Both are bat-first players...but also might not hit enough or have enough flaws in them that they might not make it anyways.

Heck, we've got people campaigning every day here to just move Royce Lewis over to 1B.

I agree with you.  As someone who is not an MiLB insider, I would be curious to know if there is anyone on the farm that they are looking at moving to 1B

[Fire Dan Gladden]

33 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

BTW... Rooker, Arraez, Steer, E-Strand, Rogers, Gil, Cano, Hendriks, Polanco, Garver, Rortvedt, Berrios and Wade Jr. are the other 14 playing elsewhere across the fruited plain. 

 

You missed Kyle Gibson.

[Riverbrian]

29 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

BTW... Rooker, Arraez, Steer, E-Strand, Rogers, Gil, Cano, Hendriks, Polanco, Garver, Rortvedt, Berrios and Wade Jr. are the other 14 playing elsewhere across the fruited plain. 

To add to my post. This is what we got for these 14 players on other rosters last year.  

Paddack, Pablo Lopez, Salas, Pagan, Mahle, Cave, Jorge Lopez, DeSclafini, Topa, Gabriel Gonzalez, Bowen, Kiner-Falefa (Sanchez, Urshela), Ronny Henriquez, Martin and Woods Richardson. 

4 players for the current roster. (Paddack, Pablo Lopez, Martin and Wood-Richardson). 4 in the minors (Salas, Topa, Gonzalez and Bowen). Only Gonzalez is considered a higher level prospect. 

8 gone with basically nothing returned. (Pagan, Mahle, Cave, J. Lopez, DeSclafini, Sanchez, Urshela, Henriquez). 

This could be a reason why we are shopping in the lower levels. 

[Riverbrian]

7 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

You missed Kyle Gibson.

You are right... I did miss the big guy from Missouri. 

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, Riverbrian said:

To add to my post. This is what we got for these 14 players on other rosters last year.  

Paddack, Pablo Lopez, Salas, Pagan, Mahle, Cave, Jorge Lopez, DeSclafini, Topa, Gabriel Gonzalez, Bowen, Kiner-Falefa (Sanchez, Urshela), Ronny Henriquez, Martin and Woods Richardson. 

4 players for the current roster. (Paddack, Pablo Lopez, Martin and Wood-Richardson). 4 in the minors (Salas, Topa, Gonzalez and Bowen). Only Gonzalez is considered a higher level prospect. 

8 gone with basically nothing returned. (Pagan, Mahle, Cave, J. Lopez, DeSclafini, Sanchez, Urshela, Henriquez). 

This could be a reason why we are shopping in the lower levels. 

Every team makes short term trades, well, every team trying to win. I get not all the deals worked, but IMO, it's unfair to criticize them for making short term deals to try to win at the deadline, unless you never want them to do that, which I guess is possible......

They are shopping at the lower levels because they signed one guy to a huge deal, and two others to large deals, and refuse to go with youth at many positions. They also have a super fragile CF, requiring two legit starting CFers right now.

I'm not saying they are doing a good job, but this post I'm quoting seems at odds with some things you want them to do....

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

Every team makes short term trades, well, every team trying to win. I get not all the deals worked, but IMO, it's unfair to criticize them for making short term deals to try to win at the deadline, unless you never want them to do that, which I guess is possible......

They are shopping at the lower levels because they signed one guy to a huge deal, and two others to large deals, and refuse to go with youth at many positions. They also have a super fragile CF, requiring two legit starting CFers right now.

I'm not saying they are doing a good job, but this post I'm quoting seems at odds with some things you want them to do....

I was hoping that “each individual has their own story” from the previous post would show that I understand this. 
 

To further show that I understand what you are saying. I’ll add that the 14 players listed… 15 with Gibson. Some of them are at vastly different price points now so pre-arb no longer applies. 
 

What I’m hoping you notice is how some of them returned Lower Tier in some cases. Not much different that what we are signing. 

or 15 players reduced to 4... to check the attrition level. 

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

These teams are successful because they continually come up with inexpensive talent.  The disconnect where the Twins are concerned is that you only identify players "drafted and developed" by the Twins.  Roughly 40% of the prearb players you have identified for these other teams were acquired through trade and the percentage is even higher for Cleveland and Tampa.  Part of what is going on in Minnesota is they have not been as skilled as Cleveland and Tampa in acquiring prospects. 

Cleveland has only 5 players of the 23 prearb players as being from a trade.  1 each from trading Clevinger, Civale and Naylor. The pitchers were from deadline deals.  When the Twins haven’t been in the playoff hunt, what did the Twins have that would have been similar to those 2? Clevinger was coming off from 2 seasons of more than 4 Bwar 

[gil4]

19 hours ago, Post-Concussive Blues said:

We’ll all be laughing at this when France wins MVP and we issue a qualifying offer!

I'll have what you're drinking.  Make mine a double - maybe that will get Coulombe the Cy Young.

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, old nurse said:

Cleveland has only 5 players of the 23 prearb players as being from a trade.  1 each from trading Clevinger, Civale and Naylor. The pitchers were from deadline deals.  When the Twins haven’t been in the playoff hunt, what did the Twins have that would have been similar to those 2? Clevinger was coming off from 2 seasons of more than 4 Bwar 

Bingo! 

I actually only counted 4 but 5 makes the same point. 

3 Amateur Free Agents

1 Non Drafted

1 Rule 5

The Rest were drafted and developed from 1st round picks to 33rd round picks. 

Cleveland currently has 24 Homegrown players on the 40 man. They ain't just dealing for them. 

 

 

 

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, old nurse said:

Cleveland has only 5 players of the 23 prearb players as being from a trade.  1 each from trading Clevinger, Civale and Naylor. The pitchers were from deadline deals.  When the Twins haven’t been in the playoff hunt, what did the Twins have that would have been similar to those 2? Clevinger was coming off from 2 seasons of more than 4 Bwar 

My comments were aimed at the last 20 years, not this year alone.  I have the data for every Guardians team that has won 90+ games and 44.4% of the players that produced 1.5 WAR or greater were acquired as prospects. 

The 23 number also makes no sense.  There are not going to be 23 prearb players on the 26 man roster.  You appear to be counting all the prearb players on the 40 man.  Counted this way, the twins have 20 but that makes no sense.  Cleveland has 14 players that are arbitration eligible or veteran contracts.  That leaves 12 players on the 26 man that are prearb.  5 acquired by trade is 41.66%.

          Spotrac Cleveland Guardians 2025 Payroll

[Riverbrian]

51 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

My comments were aimed at the last 20 years, not this year alone.  I have the data for every Guardians team that has won 90+ games and 44.4% of the players that produced 1.5 WAR or greater were acquired as prospects. 

The 23 number also makes no sense.  There are not going to be 23 prearb players on the 26 man roster.  You appear to be counting all the prearb players on the 40 man.  Counted this way, the twins have 20 but that makes no sense.  Cleveland has 14 players that are arbitration eligible or veteran contracts.  That leaves 12 players on the 26 man that are prearb.  5 acquired by trade is 41.66%.

          Spotrac Cleveland Guardians 2025 Payroll

He is counting off the 40 man roster. Which is fine to do because... trade acquisitions can be placed on the 40 man and not on the 26 man roster. David Fry on the 40 man and currently on the injured list is the only player that kinda fits that description so Cleveland is relying on a lot of homegrown talent on the farm.  

They have 13 players who are 3 years service time or beyond if you include the injured list. 

Kwan, Ramirez, Santana, Thomas, Hedges, McKenzie, Clase, Sewald, Junis on the projected 26 man leaving 17 Pre-Arb. 

Current Injured List: Beiber, Means, Hentes, Stephens... Once healthy... that will knock them down to 13. pre-arb assuming it is players with options sent down to make room for those 4.   

Milwaukee currently has 1 Arb Eligible player on the injured list that could knock them down to 15 pre-arb players assuming it is a player with options sent down to make room.  

To your point... Yes... trading for prospects is a viable way for teams to staff their roster. 

In light of the point you are making... and I believe you are making a good point. 

On the current 40 man... There are 5 current Twins pre-arb who were acquired via trade. 

Woods-Richardson, Martin, Camargo, Cartaya and Gasper. The Twins ain't doing much of that either or we've hit a severe lull between waves. 

It sure seems like the Twins are often times choosing lower tier vet over development either via trade or free agency. 

 

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I agree with you.  As someone who is not an MiLB insider, I would be curious to know if there is anyone on the farm that they are looking at moving to 1B

Edouard Julien fits the profile of a bat-first prospect who should be moved to 1B to get him to the majors faster. Julien is NEVER going to be at the top of the depth chart defensively at 2B. If he can find his way back to a 130 OPS+ that will be enough bat for the position.

[DJL44]

Many of the current 1B in MLB played elsewhere in the minors. It's typically where you put the old guy who can still field grounders. Only the lefty throwers end up there right away.

[Post-Concussive Blues]

1 hour ago, gil4 said:

I'll have what you're drinking.  Make mine a double - maybe that will get Coulombe the Cy Young.

He might just get the Cy Old