Which Young Twins Should Get an Extension This Winter?

Just now, Twins GFP said:

I appreciate your feelings, but I do think your nostalgia is blocking out a few points:
- MLB is not a sport, none of pro sports are. MLB is entertainment disguised as a sport. If you want true competitive sports, stick with high school, low college, or (mostly) the olympics.
- Owners and players are not in this for the love, they are in it to make money. MLB players may love to play, but they do it professionally to get paid. Talk to enough pro athletes and you will learn that pretty quick.
- Owners will charge whatever ticket price the market will allow. Any promotion they run is done to ultimately bring more fans to games and make more money. Period.

You have literally agreed to all my points. Everything is viewed from a business perspective. It has to be. Player make what they make because the market says so. The ownership charges what they charge for tickets because the market says so. The objective of the game is make a much money as possible with spending as little as possible. Now for a team like the Twins, the Pohlads have done that to a degree. And now their lack of spending or fielding a competitive team is coming round to bite them with their lowest attendance in the 17 season since Target Field opened.

Ownership cried and complained that they needed a new ballpark to stay competitive in the baseball market. They have had 5 playoff appearances since 2010, 1 series win, and an otherwise poor showing. But that's the thing about baseball. Because there isn't a cap or a floor, teams are always spending differently based on market size. Not every team that spend $250+ million makes the playoffs (Mets), but not every team that spends less than $80 million (Rays, Cleveland) also makes the playoffs. Some teams buy their talent whereas others have to rely on homegrown talent before those players hit the open market. Baseball really has the most disparity amongst NA professional sports. 

1 hour ago, killercarewoliva said:

 

can't any older people respond because the choice is ludicrous. I'm not going to pay $50 for a loaf of bread. that choice does not need to be there. it's called scanning the public.

I'm not as old as Chief (who may be lurking), but I can remember when bread was 50 cents, and a Twins ticket was $5 for a good box seats at the Met.   But those days are gone.  (And a baseball ticket that cost $5 in the mid 1970s would be $30+ today adjusted for inflation)

Teams are going to charge what the market will bear... always, and regardless of player salaries.  That's just capitalism.  Big time college football and basketball tickets have long been equally expensive, and until recently those players weren't even being paid.

I don't even think the owners care particularly if the stadium is full.  They just want to maximize revenue, and if that means the good seats go for hundreds of dollars per game instead of dozens of dollars, that's what they will charge, even if a few remain unsold.

You can argue it's a scam, but it is more a matter of everyone but the wealthy being priced out.  The 1% doesn't worry much about paying $500 or more for a seat... it is pocket change for them, and the franchise owners are more than happy to empty their pockets. 

For the right price, you can extend anybody, but the only one of these guys I'd want to give meaningful money to is Jenkins.

Keaschall is fun, but he's already under team control for his prime-age seasons, he's limited to corner outfield, and he doesn't have the power to be a true star at the position. He can be good, but he's unlikely to be a "must-have" guy in his free agency years.

Rodriguez is fun to dream on, but he's never played a fully healthy season, the contact skills are alarming, and he's going to end up in a corner spot. That's fine, but once again, I don't think he's someone you absolutely want around seven years from now, in his 30s. A good career outcome for him is the next Joey Gallo. 

Culpepper is a nice story, and he's already become much more intriguing than I expected when they drafted him. But he's probably not a long-term shortstop, and while I think he can be a good player as a second or third baseman, the offensive profile is less impressive once he moves off short. Like the others, he absolutely has the potential to be good, and it's fair to be excited about him, but I don't see any reason to commit to him as the third baseman of the future more than half a decade out.

Down in the minors, it seems like Houston is probably a legit shortstop, but he's already under team control for the years you'd want from a glove-first middle infielder. I guess if you were extremely confident, you could extend Lackey, but that would be an extremely aggressive move given how catchers age.

On the pitching side, I know people have fallen in love with Taj, but he's an extreme fly-ball pitcher who relies heavily on fastball velocity. That's fine, and it can lead to good results, but it's not a skill set that usually ages particularly well.

Prielipp was a fun story and does have the upside of a playoff-caliber starter, but he's already under team control through age 30 and has enormous injury questions. If he's in the org through the end of arbitration, that's probably a win, so I don't know why you'd want to add years.

A bunch of these guys are exciting, but so much of their collective prime age seasons are already team controlled.

16 minutes ago, Andy MacPhail said:

MIL offer their promising young players extensions because they are confident that they can bring them to their potential. Twins can't do that, They aren't confident, it's more based on luck. They can offer Bradley & maybe Keaschal.

I think I'd actually do Culpepper ahead of either of these two.  Keaschal *might* be a better hitter, but Culpepper clearly has a better glove that will play somewhere, even if his bat doesn't develop fully.

Nothing against Bradley...just that injuries are such a high risk for every pitcher.

4 minutes ago, Whammy said:

I think the article would've benefitted from mentioning the uniqueness of this offseason (lockout / new CBA) as potential factors in the extension equation.

1) Will the unknowns of the lockout motivate young players to sign an extension that includes a signing bonus? For Example: Taj Bradley. Taj got a 750k signing bonus in 2018 and has been paid roughly 800k per season the last three years. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's not "change your life" money yet, he probably doesn't have a TON of savings based on what he's earned so far, and he plays a very injury prone position. The flip side of that is Walker Jenkins. He got $7.1M just 3 years ago. Sure he's further from free agency, but he got that big signing bonus and he plays a less injury plagued position. I'm not saying he doesn't have ANY motivation to sign a big extension, but probably less motivation than Taj. Taj getting a $5M signing bonus as part of an extension, probably sounds pretty good heading into the unknown of the offseason and 2027.

2) Will a potential change in CBA related to service time and arbitration demotivate players from wanting to sign an extension? You can also flip that around and say, if the clubs think the new CBA will reduce the service time clock from 6 to 5 years, do the teams have MORE motivation than normal to get young players locked up for a year or two past their current free agency year? As a team, I'd rather be negotiating and extension under the current setup compared to what a new setup might be. It's might not change at all, but the service time clock certainly isn't getting LONGER than it is now. 

I completely agree with you. If the FO of teams want to lockup these younger teams, they need to do it now more than ever. Because I feel as if the new CBA is going to target FA and MLB service time the most. Players want to be able to test the markets before their Prime is done. 

I know it doesn't happen to every player, but spending 11+ seasons with an organization and then reaching FA in your early to mid 30's can really take a toll on someone mentally. Especially if they were with a team they didn't want to be with or a team that refused to put a winning product on the field. 

Personally I think believe that there should almost be incentive based. For example currently you need 6 yrs of MLB service to be eligible for FA. I think that if you win an MVP/CY Young within the first 5 years of your team control, you should be eligible after season 5 for FA. Incentivize owners trying to lock up players at a younger age to keep their teams competitive. 

22 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

Nice rant.  A little incoherent at times but everyone understands your position.  The only thing you left out was:  Hey!  You kids get off my lawn!

Sign Bradley, Keaschall, and Jenkins to 10 year extensions. 

2 minutes ago, Linus said:

Ya know, ignoring someone is almost always a better choice than making a derogatory, personal comment. 

You're absolutely right in that it is. But I am just petty enough to where I cannot let things like that stand. It is my hill to die and I will defend it. 

26 minutes ago, Twins GFP said:

I attached the wrong post on the thread. Me and you 

9 minutes ago, Whammy said:

I think it's important to acknowledge why each side might be considering a "pre-free agency" extension. I feel like most analysis of extensions ignores several of the motivations.

Player motivations:
1) Up front money. Via either a signing bonus or higher annual salaries when they might be otherwise making the league minimum
2) Guaranteed money, which can mitigate poor future performance or can be injury insurance.

Team motivations:
1) Cost certainty. It's easier to create a long term plan if you know how much money players on your roster are going to cost 3, 4, 5 years from now.
2) Long term money savings. Teams pay more early in the contract with the idea that what would be arbitration years, or free agent years don't cost as much
3) Additional years of team control. Having a player guaranteed to be on your team beyond the 6+ years of team control that the current CBA allows for.

I know some of those sound obvious to say out loud, but they almost all play a part, and some of them often get ignored.

This is absolutely correct. Players want their money for their current/future performances. They don't want to hit just to get paid. Whereas fans and owners want to look at the WAR vs money spent deal. If a team can get a team-friendly deal that is similar to Buxtons, but can get close to 6-8 WAR out of a single season, that was worth the price.

The real issue is the contracts that blow up in a team's face. Look at Chris Davis's contract, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rendon. Teams and fans don't want that type of contract where a team is on the hook for $100's of millions of dollars and get 0 results from them. I mean you could even look at Trout's contract as a bad deal because of the injuries he's had in recent years. He was paid for how he performed at his peak, not how he is performing now. 

I almost think that more teams are going to start to move towards incentive based contracts that include hardware, plate appearances, wins, HR's, or really anything. It shows the player that they are committed to that player for a baseline, but if they overperform they get tremendous bonuses, but if they get hurt or underperform, they still got a decent baseline to collect. 

11 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Young players in MLB deserve to hit free agency much, much sooner than they do.  I imagine this will be a major outcome of the CBA negotiations.

Read: There's no way in hell any agent is signing off on anything in this uncertainty.

I definitely agree with you on that. It is crazy to think from being drafted at 18, spending 5 years in the minors, you can then be added to the 40 man, then spend another 3 seasons in the minors, then have 6 years to FA could make you 31-32 when hitting the market for the first time. Now if there were to happen a lot things would have to have gone wrong in your development (injuries, not meeting expectations, lockouts, anything really). But there are definitely players this happens to (Sabato) would be a good one to point out.