Are “Bad Clubhouse Guys” a Market Inefficiency the Twins Can Exploit In Their Hour of Need?

The Twins are notorious among their own fans for bargain hunting over the offseason, and this offseason has turned that dial to 11. As we bandy about names, some inevitably get dismissed with a firm “I don’t want him in the clubhouse.” But Bad Clubhouse Guy™️ is a label that borders on being a heuristic. Let’s take a look at two potential discount-bin signings the Twins might be interested in (after the all-but-inevitable trades of Chris Paddack and Christian Vázquez, of course).

Yasmani Grandal
If the Twins do indeed trade Vázquez for salary relief, they’re probably going to need to reallocate some of his money toward a new, veteran backup catcher. They have shown little confidence in rookie Jair Camargo to this point and seem to prefer that he remain in the next-man-up role. Grandal is one high-profile candidate for a one-year, low-cost deal.

Grandal has a reputation as a defensive wizard, most prominently in his otherworldly framing ability. That checks one box for a backup catcher. Honestly, that’s probably the biggest box. But Grandal can also swing it a bit—not as well as he did a few years ago when he was the platonic ideal of a three-true-outcome hitter, but he’s never had a worse year at the plate than Vazquez did the past two seasons. He’s also a switch-hitter and performed better against righties last season, which can be beneficial for pairing him with righty Ryan Jeffers.

However, Grandal has earned himself a bit of a reputation. He’s generally been perceived as a prickly guy, which isn’t the greatest trait for a catcher. He also allegedly hit Tim Anderson in the face when they were both members of the 2023 White Sox, perhaps the most dysfunctional clubhouse in modern times. That’s enough to scare some people off. I mean, if it’s true, he punched a teammate and potentially brings a stink.

Tommy Pham
Pham’s story is one of the funniest in recent memory, but let’s talk about why he fits the Twins. He’s a right-handed corner outfielder. Yep, that’s the whole deal. The Twins love to platoon, and Pham, a 36-year-old 11-year veteran, can do that—ur at least he did until 2024, a year in which we saw a dropoff that might scare some teams off.

However, teams are probably more scared off by the other things. In no particular order, Tommy Pham has been stabbed outside a gentlemen’s club; slapped Joc Pederson over a fantasy football dispute; gotten into arguments with fans on the field; said some out-of-pocket things to the media and on his social media; and publicly disrespected his former teammates for not working hard enough.

That’s a bit of baggage. That’s enough baggage that might lead a fan or executive alike to say “How about not; what’s Adam Duvall up to?”

Yet, Pham has remained employed since 2014. Grandal is likewise in the twilight of a 13-year career, and he keeps getting jobs.

What is a Bad Clubhouse Guy, Anyway?
I mean, that’s the million-dollar question (literally). We tend to throw this singular label around (or some variant, such as clubhouse cancer) pretty liberally, to describe a wide range of behaviors and personalities. But bad clubhouse guys aren’t all created equal.

Just look at Grandal and Pham. Their cardinal sins are hitting someone in the face, but there’s a huge difference between the two stories. Grandal allegedly smacked a teammate in the face, whereas Pham smacked an opponent. But the context for both matters, as well, as Grandal was a member of one of the worst clubhouses in recent memory, and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out why someone might want to hit Anderson. (Ask José Ramírez for confirmation.) Pham slapped a man over fantasy football waiver-wire shenanigans.

Obviously, if given the choice between two players with the exact same skills and contract, you’re going to go with the one without the questionable behavior. But how much do those factors actually matter in the grand scheme of things?

For instance, despite his foibles, Pham has been lauded as an excellent teammate. He’s a hard worker, blunt in his honest feedback for his teammates and coaches, and a sparkplug. He's unselfish, to the point that he eschewed a chance to collect five hits in a World Series game by asking to be pinch-hit for late in Game 2 of the 2023 Fall Classic. The plate appearance he conferred upon Jace Peterson was the only one Peterson would get in the Series.

There are players like this across sports. One of my favorite examples is Stephen Jackson of the NBA—the second guy to run into the stands to fight fans during 2004’s Malice at the Palace incident. The man was a nuisance on the court and has a lengthy rap sheet that includes a felony. Yet, his teammates loved him. He was a ride-or-die teammate who played 14 years and won a championship. He was the second guy into the stands that night because he had an outnumbered teammate (in Ron Artest) to defend. Obviously, you do not want those things to happen with someone on your team, but you’d probably prefer a player like that over a player who released a video of his teammate admitting to cheating on his wife (Wolves fans: if you know you know).

There are any number of behaviors that can saddle a player with a label like that. Social scientists have attempted to quantify these locker-room or clubhouse dynamics. For example, Cope and colleagues did a study in 2011 that attempted to identify informal roles on athletic teams and three negative roles emerged—cancer, distracter, and malingerer.

Cancers pollute the locker room with negative emotion. Distracters somehow take focus away from the team and toward themselves, often away from the field of play. Malingerers keep themselves off the field due to injury longer than they need to. Each of these three roles has a different effect on the team.

If even the stuffy social scientists can identify that there are levels and flavors to negative behavior on a sports team, there must be something there. Is the player going to ruin his teammates’ days? Is he a candidate to miss games due to off-field choices? All of these questions are worth asking. Ask any scout what he sees as a bad makeup guy, and you’ll end up with as many questions as answers. That lack of a cohesive answer only adds to the tendency to group every player with one negative trait or incident into one single bucket.

Instead of slapping the same label on every guy, a team should ask themselves what the possible range of consequences to this guy might be. It’s enough to drive guys’ prices down just to have the label, and a team that can recognize which red flags are true dangers can benefit. Nor is it fair to assume that any of us—ball player, ne'er-do-well blogger, insurance company CEO, anyone—are the same person in all situations and settings. They call it clubhouse chemistry because there are real interactions that change the people involved, personally and professionally. Not every person who runs into or creates trouble in one place will do the same in another. At the very least, the primary rationale for being against a signing of a Grandal or Pham should be their talent level—so long as we don’t have true, consequential negative traits beyond “he’s kinda a hothead.”

Of course, it’s also worth factoring in the team’s context. One of the prevailing storylines for the 2018 Twins was that there were too many strong personalities and disgruntled players in the clubhouse. We ourselves will never know what’s going on behind closed doors, but it can be a legitimate concern.

However, if a team like the Twins believes that they have the infrastructure to deal with a player who isn’t a walk in the park, let’s have at it. There were some rumored problems in the clubhouse at the end of last year that could lead to trepidation about adding another big personality whose performance isn’t a needle-mover, but we should all at least be open to the possibility without pulling out the same Bad Guy stamp every time.