Falvey's First Stand

Top 10 pitching prospect means among the top 10 pitchers. Not top 10 overall. (Although Sickels had him there briefly too.)

This makes the top pitching prospects even more valuable if there are fewer of them when comparied to position players. Teams should be grabbing them whenever possible. 

I've noticed we talk quite a bit about how the Twins might evaluate various Dodgers prospects but one thing we haven't talked about much is the guy we know they've evaluated a lot, both from the Cleveland perspective and the Minnesota perspective: Brian Dozier.

 

We talk a lot about how the Twins need to make developmental changes up and down the organization but we're not really talking about how that might impact Brian Dozier, the best player on the team.

 

It's entirely possible Falvey and Levine refuse to budge on Dozier because they're confident he's a perennial 35 homer guy now. They've seen Dozier play, evaluated both his 2013-2015 and 2016 mechanics, and have internal evaluation tools that dig much deeper than we can as outsiders.

 

Combine that with a new hitting coach and it's possible they didn't move Dozier because the Dodgers were offering 3-4 WAR value for a player they believe is a 5+ WAR guy going forward.

 

It's a risk either way but I don't think we've really considered where Falvey and Levine place Dozier and how confident they are about his 2016.

And what if no other team agrees with the Twins evaluation? Just get nothing for him and let him walk in 2 years? Sign him to a massive extension and pay big for his post productive seasons?

A players value is what the free market dictates it is.

They aren't the electric company. They don't get to just set a price and force people to pay it.

Presumably if they were right and Dozier continued hitting at a high level, the market would adjust and value him accordingly. So we could trade him then if we wanted.

 

An extension would be another determination that would need to be made. Do they peg him to age like Kinsler, Zobrist, etc.?

 

I don't endorse it, but that's Brock's point. It is internally consistent.

What if the market never catches up to their internal evaluation?

That is my question.

If Dozier posts another 35+ homer season, the market will adjust. Right now, it can be argued 2016 was an outlier season. Two 2016 seasons and it's no longer an outlier.

 

And if no one will bite on Dozier after he smacks 75+ homers over two seasons, then you keep the guy and find a different way to improve the rotation.

 

The on-field product matters to every team. If Dozier is more valuable than the return, then you keep the guy.

And what if Dozier says no thanks to an extension and hits FA?

You are going to let him walk for nothing?

If that is your answer, fine, that's what I wanted to know.

I'll be pretty upset if the FO takes that route though.

And what if Dozier says no thanks to an extension and hits FA?
You are going to let him walk for nothing?

If that is your answer, fine, that's what I wanted to know.
I'll be pretty upset if the FO takes that route though.

If he has another really good season, I imagine he'll want AT LEAST a four year extension worth a good chunk of cash (if he wants one at all with as far away as we'll be) .  

Yeah, no thanks for me.  I love Dozier.  I've been a huge fan since before well before he hit the majors, but for me he's a chip we need to move him for young pitching.  I can't imagine his stock going up at all because even if he has a strong season, we'll only have one year of control to trade. 

I can't imagine his stock going up at all because even if he has a strong season, we'll only have one year of control to trade. 

But if no one makes a serious offer, what can the Twins do?

That is the conundrum of Dozier. He needs another year to prove last year was not a fluke. But even if that happens, he is a one year rental looking for a 80-100 million dollar deal.

That is why we don't have an offer we deem fair. But as Billie Bean and the Rays have shown, you have to trade guys with 2 plus years left. And you don't pay a guy like that from 30-35.

I'd try like hell to trade the guy but I don't trade out of fear of a guy walking after his contract expires.

 

If a year of Dozier is more valuable to the team than what he nets in trade, then keep the guy.

 

I'm generally not a fan of letting a player walk without some kind of compensation but sometimes it's the most logical move to make.

It's only a logical move if you think you can compete for a WS during his 2 years.

If not, then it's just stubborn and a waste of an asset.

It's a bummer if a fierce market never develops for Dozier. You could even call it bad luck. But I think it's silly to let an asset expire when you could have gotten 75 cents on the dollar.

 

I think "best offers" are withheld all the time, because there are risks to making them.  Once you offer a guy, it's incredibly bad form to pull him back or try to change it.  Maybe the Dodgers would have been ultimately willing to pull the trigger on De Leon plus Stewart, but making that offer when the Twins were steadfast in demanding 3 players (per Morosi) would have effectively ended any chance of settling on their preferred package of De Leon plus, say, Calhoun, and it still wouldn't have gotten the deal done.  Even offering "one of" Stewart or Calhoun as the second piece would have probably just emboldened the Twins to demand all 3. Not to mention the trickle down effects -- if the Rays know the Twins turned down De Leon plus Stewart or Calhoun, they are more likely to try to squeeze those players into their demand too.  Or if the Dodgers don't acquire Forsythe and they re-visit the Twins later, the Dodgers earlier offer might become the "starting point" regardless of how circumstances may have changed since then.

 

Yeah, I'm not saying it's not possible.  I just really think that would be poor negotiation on their part if they actually wanted Dozier.  If a lawyer negotiates a settlement, not showing all your cards can make sense because you can always use litigation to force or leverage opponents.  In this case, there is no forcing, so not giving your best offer and saying straight up, "this is my best offer, take it or leave it," makes no sense.  If it would embolden the Twins to ask for a 3rd prospect, the end result is the exact same: no Dozier.  To not take your best shot at your number 1 guy because you were afraid how team C would view the offer, if they ever even heard and confirmed what that offer was, then you shouldn't get in the trade game at all.  

Even if the trade were strictly viewed from a prospect ranking perspective, our scouts and FO may have had different grades.  I mean, the last thing we want is a DSpan - Meyer trade again, even though most of us would take that risk again even though it looks like the Nats knew exactly what they had.  It did not seem that the Twins were nearly as high on De Leon as many of our posters and that they were already settling by making him the centerpiece.  We've got a whole year to year and a half of prime trade time left.  I doubt the return at the break or next off season will be so dramatically different that it would't fall within the highly variable margin of error for prospect projection to begin with.  IMO.

We should trade them now for a group of prospects that will debut at the same time.

I'm not gonna step in that.  All I'm saying is that we need more higher level pitching prospects before these hitters gets further along or we could end up in the same scenario the Texas Rangers were in during the early 2000's. 

I'm not gonna step in that.  All I'm saying is that we need more higher level pitching prospects before these hitters gets further along or we could end up in the same scenario the Texas Rangers were in during the early 2000's. 

That's setting the bar high. Those Rangers had better pitching than the Twins currently do.

I can't think of a comp to the Twins current pitching situation, though if I looked it up I would imagine it would be the Senators teams from the 50s.

Well, I agree that the Twins need pitching but what they need is ace pitching. 

No, they need pitching. You sign the ace when the rest of the staff is worthy of their jockstraps. Signing an ace now is exactly as daft as keeping Dozier right now.

Signing an ace today would be throwing money down the drain for the Twins. By the time the rest of the staff becomes competent, the ace's contract would be up.

This would be sort of like the Detroit Lions when they were drafting top tier receivers with their first round picks every year in an era when they had no QB, no offensive line, and no defense.