Talks with Bronson Arroyo "heating up"

[PseudoSABR]

Given Arroyo's consistency and fortitude, his signing would likely make a riskier signing like Kazmir, Johnson, or Hughes more palatable.

[Willihammer]

I agree with the idea, but it's that commonly overlooked thing that free agents have -- choice. From MLBTR's free agent list: "Burnett will be even more picky than Kuroda, as he's deciding between the Pirates or retirement."

 

Even for as much as I'm sure we all love Minnesota, it's usually not as simple as waving dollar bills around.

 

That might be true in Burnett's case but we heard it from Dave St Peter himself, for most guys its about "dollars and years."

[BigTrane]

Agree with others who say that 2 'big name' FA SP signings is realistic, esp; given Ryan's stated disposition to FAs. Just don't see him reinventing his outlook in the offseason.

 

That said, I think 1 good, young FA (i.e., a E. Santana/Shelds) with upside + an innings-eater vet sounds very much like Ryan's personality. Seems like a realistic 'fit' from his perspective. I can envision a Phase 2 in 2014 offseason where Twins try to attract a higher level of SP talent based on a more respectable '14 finish & promise of a core built around Sano & Buxton.

 

As much as I want the Twins to go big with sensible SP FA signings, the market is a bit thin this year, so overpaying will be the rule. Would Scherzer be great? Of course. Is Ryan willing to spend big, or likely to 'plug holes' with middling FAs + international signings/bargain bin reclamation projects? You know the score. A slightly overpriced Shields or Ervin seems doable.

 

Given that, 2 solid guys, 1 young(ish) with upside and 1 vet with presence seems like about the best we can hope for. Hopefully Twins as an org. realize that they are never going to be a go-to destination for FAs, and can only attract talent with talent (and a winning record). Step 1 has to be getting over .500... Twins have no trading chips, so FA is the only way to get there now.

[James]

Given Arroyo's consistency and fortitude, his signing would likely make a riskier signing like Kazmir, Johnson, or Hughes more palatable.

I'm with you 100%, SABR. Signing him would basically be hedging your bets. I'm not 100% convinced it is a good idea, and I would not be excited if it was the Twins' only splash in free agency this year (or pitching acquisition).

 

If this was the first of one or two more pitching acquisitions, I wouldn't be against it.

[drivlikejehu]

Just signing Arroyo makes no sense. He adds 2 wins or so compared to the typical AAAA types the Twins throw out there. Once you are losing 90+ games, a couple wins here and there don't matter much.

 

Signing Arroyo in combination with other moves could make sense. But at this point we have no idea what will ultimately happen. It would take quite a bit to get the Twins in the realm of .500 ball.

[PseudoSABR]

Just signing Arroyo makes no sense. He adds 2 wins or so compared to the typical AAAA types the Twins throw out there. Once you are losing 90+ games, a couple wins here and there don't matter much.

 

Signing Arroyo in combination with other moves could make sense. But at this point we have no idea what will ultimately happen. It would take quite a bit to get the Twins in the realm of .500 ball.

With this logic, we should sign no one, because there are no free agents (in any combination) that bring us to guaranteed competitiveness. Whether the Twins are actually competitive next year, sidesteps what value Arroyo could have as a trade chit.

 

I also totally reject the notion that these "typical AAAA types" are so readily available once the season actually starts--as the Twins learn each and every year.

[Thrylos]

That might be true in Burnett's case but we heard it from Dave St Peter himself, for most guys its about "dollars and years."

 

Based on the source, he was probably talking about Country Music acts at Target Field...

[jay]

That might be true in Burnett's case but we heard it from Dave St Peter himself, for most guys its about "dollars and years."

 

Sure, you can always be the bad team that overpays to get a guy to sign if you want a contract around like Russ Ortiz, Gil Meche, Mike Hampton, etc.

 

I could give you just as many sources saying how hard it is to get free agents to a terrible team like the Twins are right now. Heck, TR specifically talks about it in today's Strib.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/231680191.html

[drivlikejehu]

With this logic, we should sign no one, because there are no free agents (in any combination) that bring us to guaranteed competitiveness. Whether the Twins are actually competitive next year, sidesteps what value Arroyo could have as a trade chit.

 

I also totally reject the notion that these "typical AAAA types" are so readily available once the season actually starts--as the Twins learn each and every year.

 

Arroyo is not going to be a notable trade chit.

 

The Twins are not contending in 2014. So it seems to me that there are two general free agent profiles that make sense:

 

1. Cheap, one-year deal to fill a hole and maybe bring back C prospect at deadline

2. Longer-term deal for a player who will be around when the Twins might contend (probably 2016 at the earliest)

 

If the Twins get Arroyo for really cheap, it makes sense. But otherwise it really doesn't, other than the fact that the Twins refuse to target one of the pitchers who fit in group 2.

[Willihammer]

Sure, you can always be the bad team that overpays to get a guy to sign if you want a contract around like Russ Ortiz, Gil Meche, Mike Hampton, etc.

 

I could give you just as many sources saying how hard it is to get free agents to a terrible team like the Twins are right now. Heck, TR specifically talks about it in today's Strib.

http://www.startribune.com/sports/twins/231680191.html

 

So you would rather have Bronson Arroyo than Ervin Santana or M. Tanaka, is that it?

[nicksaviking]

I think it's more likely that they have no reason to care about fanboys opinions at all.

 

I think the fact that Ryan has acquired guys like Liriano, Santana, Boof, May, Meyer, Milton, Nathan etc shows that he isn't against bringing in strike out guys. There really isn't much out there and, esp in the bargain bin of free agency.

 

I'm confused, am I the "fanboy?" Perhaps I have a faulty interpretation of the term but I thought it applied to brown nosers who wouldn't dare speak an ill word of the idol in fear that said idol was listening.

 

The Twins don't have to listen to me. How about they listen to common sense and sports writers that supposedly have more insight regarding the rediculous notion that it's best to demand your defense make 88% of your outs:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-twins-pitch-to-contact-like-no-one-ever/

 

http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/How_to_fix_the_Twins_Part_1_The_biggest_problem_among_many_problems110413

 

http://www.bringmethenews.com/2013/09/25/pitching-to-contact-twins-posting-pitiful-strikeout-numbers/

 

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/6/28/4474576/minnesota-twins-starters-strikeouts-history

 

Inflamatory comment aside, I am thrilled that the Twins appear to be at the front of the pack in terms of interviewing pitchers. It's just frustrating that they continue to be attracted to the same kind. There are plenty of free agents with league average or better strikeout rates available.

[raindog]

I'm not sure if anyone else has said it, but Law is hilariously undervaluing Arroyo in his FA rankings.

[jay]

So you would rather have Bronson Arroyo than Ervin Santana or M. Tanaka, is that it?

 

I have no idea where you're coming up with that. You asked about Burnett, so I showed why not and made a larger, relevant point about the challenges of getting quality free agents to bad teams.

[Willihammer]

I have no idea where you're coming up with that. You asked about Burnett, so I showed why not and made a larger, relevant point about the challenges of getting quality free agents to bad teams.

Humor me, would you personally rather the Twins sign B. Arroyo or M. Tanaka?

[beckmt]

Humor me, would you personally rather the Twins sign B. Arroyo or M. Tanaka?

Depends on money and length. Arroyo would not be horrible for 2 years, more would be terrible. It might not work out, but look at last year's FA crop of pitchers, very few of them worked out. If you want to take chances I would rather have Johnson, Lewis, Vogelsong, Halliday or any number of that type, because the contract is 1 year. Once to get to 3 years for pitchers over 30 there is too much risk and too little reward. Some of those above might not work out, but all in my mind are worth a chance if the price is right(Hoping for Johnson and one of the others or Kazmir). Then the third signing is not as important.

[beckmt]

If you think Poland is going to approve a $75 million posting fee and 12-15 million a year, then it won't happen and don't be disappointed it did not.

[PseudoSABR]

Longer-term deal for a player who will be around when the Twins might contend (probably 2016 at the earliest)

The availability and longterm effectiveness of such players is severally limited. Arroyo on a two year deal does nothing to interfere with the teams long term competitiveness. Beyond Tanaka (and even him), every other free agent will be questionably valuable in 2016.

 

The Twins need innings and have money to spend, not every deal can necessarily contribute to the future club, and nor should every deal be some boom-or-bust model.

 

I think opposition to signing Arroyo suffers from some romantic idea of what the Twins can actually accomplish in free agency. Signing Arroyo isn't mutually exclusive with signing any other free agent pitchers, and as I argued earlier, it may help mitigate the risk from signing another, boom-or-bust pitcher.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Part of me wants to be excited that we're finally going after a decent pitcher making decent money -- but another part of me is very worried that the Twins will see this as their big splash of the offseason, maybe make another cheap Rich Harden type move (or Pelfrey move) and call it a day.

 

2/24 for Arroyo would be fine, but given the void in the rotation, they really need to get two guys in that price range before they take fliers on injury cases or re-up Pelf. Kazmir at 2/16 would be a solid second move.

[oldguy10]

Quite a few pitchers out there and what concerns me is that Ryan will late too long to sign someone decent and will get left with nothing. At what point in time last year did he have to settle for guys like Pelfrey and Correia and miss out on others that would have been better pitchers. Surely someone has done a breakdown of this. And the trade for Worley is really in the same category. Could Ryan asked for a better pitcher than Worley turned out to be?

[DaveW]

Quite a few pitchers out there and what concerns me is that Ryan will late too long to sign someone decent and will get left with nothing. At what point in time last year did he have to settle for guys like Pelfrey and Correia and miss out on others that would have been better pitchers. Surely someone has done a breakdown of this. And the trade for Worley is really in the same category. Could Ryan asked for a better pitcher than Worley turned out to be?

Correia was signed pretty early IIRC

 

And Worley appeared to be a nice pick up at the time, Revere a 4th OF wasn't ever going to fetch much, and Worley at least had success at the major league level. May was the main piece of that trade though.

[TheLeviathan]

I don't like that we aren't changing our targets in terms of profile, but I'd celebrate any deal that we go out and spend 10+ a year on for 2-3 years.

 

If nothing else it'd be reason for hope and a damn starting point for better things in the future.

[darin617]

I will say that Arroyo and Kendrys Morales (to hell with Doumit as DH) provide an appealing thing: crazy consistency. Look up their stats. It's weird how consistent they are.

 

I would give Doumit away for basically nothing to get $3.5M off the books and sign a quality catcher to ease Pinto into taking over full time.

[darin617]

Josh Johnson

Kazmir

Hughes

Erick Chavez

R.Fucal

 

By no means sign Bronson Arroyo and his 87 mph fastball to anything over a 1 year contract

 

What does the velocity of a fastball have to do about whether a pitcher is any good or not. Greg Maddux was one of the greatest pitchers in the 90's and never threw over 89 mph on a good day and he will be a Hall of Famer on the first ballot. I am not trying to compare Arroyo with Maddux by no means but you don't need to throw hard to win you just have to be smart and know how work the strike zone.

[LaBombo]

After three years of abject rotation failure, it's getting a little less likely to feel either excitement or frustration over possible FA starter signings.

 

So "Talks with Bronson Arroyo heating up" sounds a tiny bit to me like an Onion story, along the lines of "Family's excitement over impending used minivan purchase approaching fever pitch with approval of car loan".

 

Yes, 'heating up' refers to the increasing likelihood of a deal, not the desirability of it. Still, it's hard to see what Arroyo does on a two year deal other than maybe to help Gardenhire achieve the historical moral victory of becoming the first manager since WWII to avoid losing at least 93 games after three consecutive 90+ loss seasons.

[ashbury]

I would give Doumit away for basically nothing to get $3.5M off the books and sign a quality catcher to ease Pinto into taking over full time.

 

It would take a lot of FA signings to get the Twins anywhere near the $100M mark, and until that time comes the salaries currently on the books are close to irrelevant to strategic planning.

[zchrz]

What does the velocity of a fastball have to do about whether a pitcher is any good or not. Greg Maddux was one of the greatest pitchers in the 90's and never threw over 89 mph on a good day and he will be a Hall of Famer on the first ballot. I am not trying to compare Arroyo with Maddux by no means but you don't need to throw hard to win you just have to be smart and know how work the strike zone.

 

The twins have been using this logic for years now trying to clone Brad Radke and it has led to the glut of 4th/5th/AAAA starters that have made up the rotation. Velocity isn't everything but it sure helps and at this point, at least for me, it would be nice to see them attempt to pursue it instead of pitchibility.

[cmb0252]

From Buster Olney:

 

"Twins have made it known they intend to sign two good veteran pitchers."

 

They don't come much more veteran than Arroyo. At least they are being aggressive

[raindog]

The twins have been using this logic for years now trying to clone Brad Radke and it has led to the glut of 4th/5th/AAAA starters that have made up the rotation. Velocity isn't everything but it sure helps and at this point, at least for me, it would be nice to see them attempt to pursue it instead of pitchibility.

 

The difference here is that Bronson Arroyo is a proven pitcher. Not some soft-tosser with a mediocre minor league track record.

[TheLeviathan]

From Buster Olney:

 

"Twins have made it known they intend to sign two good veteran pitchers."

 

They don't come much more veteran than Arroyo. At least they are being aggressive

 

Well, yeah...but what about the "good" part? I assume that's relatively speaking?

 

[Hugh Morris]

Quite a few pitchers out there and what concerns me is that Ryan will late too long to sign someone decent and will get left with nothing. At what point in time last year did he have to settle for guys like Pelfrey and Correia and miss out on others that would have been better pitchers. Surely someone has done a breakdown of this. And the trade for Worley is really in the same category. Could Ryan asked for a better pitcher than Worley turned out to be?

 

SoVD already covered this pretty well, but there seems to be some revisionism going on across this thread and this board. Correia was signed pretty early on in FA, and while there are people from Philly I'd have rather had (The at-the-time unutilized Dom Brown, for instance), Vance Worley was pretty solid in his first 2 years before the injury bug struck him.

 

The periphrials suggest that he was remarkably unlucky and also that he's lost some of the deception that made him so effective earlier in his career. It's quite possible that being 25, getting engaged (married?) and completely/unexpectedly uprooting your life to a new city, while trying to rehab an injury, proved too much for him. Given that the Twins felt he showed up to spring training out of shape, I think there's some solid ground for this theory. It also makes him a solid candidate for a bounceback season if he gets his head and body right (see: Dozier). It's rarely advisable to draw conclusions from a trade one season in.

 

Part of me wants to be excited that we're finally going after a decent pitcher making decent money -- but another part of me is very worried that the Twins will see this as their big splash of the offseason, maybe make another cheap Rich Harden type move (or Pelfrey move) and call it a day.

 

2/24 for Arroyo would be fine, but given the void in the rotation, they really need to get two guys in that price range before they take fliers on injury cases or re-up Pelf. Kazmir at 2/16 would be a solid second move.

 

And on that note... I'm aware this is all relative and subjective, the contract Pelfrey signed ($4m, reasonable incentives up to 4.5 or 5m, total potential value of $5.5m, I believe he only reached 4.1) isn't necessarily what I think of when discussing cheap pitcher contracts. It's actually pretty inline with being a one year version of what Correia got (just with a little insurance via the incentives). You may also consider the Correia deal cheap, and that's a perfectly fair reading of it.

 

For my part, and I know Mackey hates it, I don't mind the idea of an Arroyo signing-especially if the organization uses the contact to limit the risk of a multi-year deal(incentives, vesting options, etc). I think there is benefit to having a consistent veteran workhorse (even if it's consistently mediocre) around for younger pitchers, especially since the rotations people are projecting for 14/15/16/17 are built around 3 or 4 players with fewer than 100 IP combined at the major league level.

 

Plus penciling in his average workload for the rotation would make it substantially less likely I'm subjected to another "human interest story" about the Twins Pitcher in his late 20s making his first MLB start and all of the adversity/mediocrity he had to overcome to make that start. I'm definitely in favor of that.