Why the Minnesota Twins Should Sign Bailey Ober to a Contract Extension Now

Could not agree more.  But do the Twins?  Or Ober?

Agree this would be a good time for this discussion.  You have to wonder about how a pending sale impacts the Twins signing long-term contracts at the moment.

I like the idea of trading away players we don't need so we can extend the players we do. Not trading players we do need to sign players we don't. I hope we have money to extend maybe a Ober or Lewis while still have intact a very competitive team.

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

If the payroll situation were different, I'd agree this would be the time to buy out a year or 2 of free agency. But with the current payroll situation and team sale possibility this doesn't feel like the time they're going to be looking to lock themselves in to more future deals. I'd actually wager it's more likely Ober is traded before his last arb year than he's extended before his last arb year unless a new owner takes over.

The payroll situation is a self imposed limit put in place by a multi billionaire who has zero interest in fielding a serious team. Locking up Ober makes sense so therefore it will not happen. 

Ober has been a blessing for the pitching staff , each year he has improved his game and should be considered part of the future  ...

Maybe not extend this offseason but it might be wise to extend him next offseason  with the current scenarios of the twins team future  ...

Bailey and his agent thanks you for all the stats, boosting his value vs. others.

Christian Javier would be the reason not to sign an extension to pitchers. After signing his ERA went up to 4.58. The next year is TJ. Now this year will be the rehab and regain year. 

The Twins have 3 more years of control over Lopez, Stewart, Ober, Jax, Ryan, Duran, and Larnach. All of these guys are good but none are superstars. Until the team is in a stable position it seems likely that the Twins will roll year to year with their current guys. 

I really like Ober but I would not extend him. You have him at arb salaries until age 32 which is a perfect time to trade him get a prospect and let someone else pay for his decline years.

11 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

I thought the Kepler/Polanco deals worked out well for the team.  If we could replicate that great.  No Dobnak deal though.  That one did not work out so well.

Kepler and Polanco are gone and both are still younger than the age the Twins have Ober controlled though.

The idea of the Twins extending players they have controlled though age 30 or beyond, is crazy talk IMO.

Also unless the Twins are grossly going to over pay, why in the world would Ober or do this?

14 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Unless Ober is considered to be an upper rotation starter, and clearly the better option compared to Joe Ryan, the answer is no. In my opinion, Ober carries a great deal of decline risk, and he's a #4 type starter. Extending guys like Ober is admitting the front office doesn't have anything to replace him. You don't buyout/extend #4 starters. You can just as easily replace them in free agency for about the same cost.

Logan Webb was an ace. Javier was coming off an a25 ace-like season. Ober is not comparable.

Keller is comparable to Ober, but Keller had already finished his arb 1 season before agreeing to the extension so the Pirates only had 2 years of team control. This would be like a 6 year contract (a29-a34) for Ober. A structure like 6 yrs and $70MM probably would work, but why would the Twins do it?

While fans seem to want their teams to extend every single good player they have, in reality, Ober should just be blocking cheaper variants of himself.

Kind of like Cody forgot to do some research.

Javier was extended though age 30, Keller though age 32, and Webb though 31.

The twins already have Ober though age 31.

The writers on this site Love to talk about the age of prospects being X number of years younger in the minors, but love to ignore age in other discussions.

The only Twins pitcher that the Twins should talk about extending is SWR (because of age)

12 hours ago, Linus said:

I really like Ober but I would not extend him. You have him at arb salaries until age 32 which is a perfect time to trade him get a prospect and let someone else pay for his decline years.

If he's really doing well until that age and the team is doing well enough to keep him, you slap the qualifying offer on him and get a draft pick back like they did with Sonny Gray

It'd be a great idea to lock up Ober and Ryan, IF we had the payroll space, but obviously we don't. Plus, I'd wait another year to see if Ober and Ryan are for real top of rotation main stays, and we'd have a better idea of what we've got in Festa, SWR and Mathews. How good the three of them project to be will probably determine how badly we need to lock up Ober and Ryan.

Several people have mentioned that the uncertain ownership financial situation precludes signing large long term contracts at this point and others have responded with a thumbs down. 

The thumbs down has always been mysterious to me, particularly when a comment is vanilla. Perhaps a short response would make more sense .... in this case something as simple as .... "No, I believe management will sign long term contracts".

The #1 reason Ober won't/shouldn't get an extension is the 1 thing not mentioned in this article: Ober is already 29 years old with 3 years of team control remaining.

Any extension will be for his age 32 and up seasons.

Unless the Twins get a steal of a deal that pays him way less than he is projected to make they will go year to year with him until he is traded or becomes a FA.

You could make the same case to extend Joe Ryan since he is a year younger than Bailey and also has 3 years of control left but for the same reasons he is unlikely to be extended.

For contrast, Pablo is only a few months older than Joe and he is also signed for exactly 3 more years.