bean5302

Agreed with this take on "Go For It" The Blue Jays got some flak on this board for being out of their minds going in on the Berrios trade and they only missed the playoffs by 1 game. While the season ended in a disappointing fashion by just barely missing the playoffs, it was pretty clear Blue Jays fans didn't regret going for it.

They didn't agree on incentives. The Twins were supposedly north of $100MM with incentives, but while Buxton was okay with the guaranteed portion, he wanted a different incentive package. No real details of the incentive package were ever disclosed. Increasing the base guaranteed wage from $11.4MM to $16.8MM and shortening the length to 5 years allowing Buxton to enter free agency at 33 (assuming year 1 of the contract replaces next year) wouldn't likely be laughed off.

Adding a bunch of individuals together to get to the same value as a single player won't necessarily make the trades "even." A single player worth 65 is generally more valuable than a collection of players worth 65. To get a healthy Lopez, I think the Twins would need to do something like Arraez, Kirilloff and Canterino.

Luis Arraez, as he is right now, is a second baseman due to lack of playing time at other positions, and even at 2B, he's SSS because the Twins had no place to play him consistently. His arm should play at SS and his range plays at 3B, but the combination of physical skills he has best suits him to 2B. Arraez has never been viewed as a SS, though it's clear he has the arm strength for the position, and he's technically faster than, say, Andrelton Simmons. Typically, Arraez's defensive metrics put him as essentially average, limited by range. On the other side of his game, Arraez's bat plays, but it's old school. Baseball in general is enamored with 3 outcome batters so Arraez doesn't fit the mold at all and he slumped pretty badly to end the season. That may have impacted his trade value. In regard to the oft injured status, Arraez has been advised by team physicians he can significantly improve his knee durability through strengthening his legs and lightening up, but it remains to be seen if he has the motivation. Baseballtradevalues has recently updated it's values and probably has Arraez at about the right spot. In the same area as Kirilloff, Polanco, Lewis and Martin. Not super elite, but definitely worth being the centerpiece of a major trade.

Since Buxton agreed with 7 years and $80MM + incentives... 5 years and $84MM guaranteed seems pretty reasonable. Then again, the ruder and more abusive you get towards people on the internet, the stronger your point becomes and better you are as a person, right?

It's based on DRS/Range Factor. DRS/Range Factor uses total put outs to determine how well a fielder performs, but it assumes players get he same number of opportunities to field balls. That seems pretty reasonable at a glance. The Twins use defensive shifts more than nearly any team in baseball, which puts fielders in position to have more opportunities to field balls than their peers playing the same position on other teams. Since all DRS/Range Factor really cares about is total outs recorded while assuming all fielders get the same number of chances, the shift artificially and sometimes dramatically inflates middle infielder defensive value. From a UZR perspective, Simmons was below average, which makes sense based on his average-ish range (slow speed but good reactions) and below average fielding rate. Simply put, Simmons' DRS/Range Factors look good because he got more chances due to the high level of shifting than many of his peers in the first place. Just the same way "Wins" once determined Cy Youngs, DRS/Range Factors are a very outdated and problematic metric now. Simmons is an average fielding shortstop in swift decline.

I'm happy with the responses and comments on the article as I don't believe anything stated effectively took away from my position. So I'd be happy if they read the comments, too.

I can't disagree more strongly with this take as it's based entirely upon an emotional attachment. Simmons has posted below average error rates for 3 consecutive years now, his defense graded below average this year, continuing a massive downturn due in part to his speed vanishing and his increasingly clumsy glovework. Simmons' sprint speed and 90 foot splits have are now placing him well below MLB average and dramatically lower than typical shortstops. The average MLB shortstop? 28.0 ft/sec. Simmons? Declined from sub-standard peak of 27.5 to 26.2 (slower than Miguel Sano's 26.5 ft/sec). His contact rates with the bat have declined 5 out of his last 6 years from 89.1% to 84.6%, his power has declined 4 straight seasons from an ISO of .143 in 2017 to a career low .051 this year and he had 451 plate appearances this year. It's not a small sample size and the batted ball data supports the decline with declines in barrel rate, exit velocity, hard hit rates, line drive rates and corresponding decreases in expected batting average. Even his weak contact rates have increased. The metrics are absolutely across the board. His UZR/150 looks like this for the past 6 years: 18.1, 18.5, 19.5, 13.8, 4.0, -1.1. Simmons is toast. His career is over.

In any case, Syndergaard being available is probably a 10% chance. The Mets are almost certainly going to make him a QO, and he's already on record as hoping he gets one because he wants to stay with the Mets. The Twins are going to be in an interesting position. They'll need to convince an Ace they're willing to spend to compete when they finished dead last in what is probably becoming a much stronger division in the future.

The myth and legend of the hurt ace a team overspent on continues! I wrote a pretty lengthy article on the subject a couple months ago. Aces are good investments whereas typical dumpster dives and mid rotation starters have been poor investments for the Twins. Even if, in the unlikely case an Ace declines, they're still a mid rotation starter. Looking at the 9 ace contracts I identified since 2015, 80% have been decent, 70% have been good, and nearly 50% have been excellent deals. 8 of 9 had provided Ace level performance 4.0+ WAR in at least one season since their signing. The best part was that Ace's rebound from the unlikely event of an injury with only a 10% chance per year an Ace loses a season. Bottom line? The injury risk is overstated, the performance risk is overstated and the cost risk is overstated.

I don't think it matters as much as I initially thought. When I looked at the surgical results and timetables, he likely would have missed a lot of next season. Seems to be a bit similar to a UCL recovery timeline because of the extra bracing needed at full workload. Also, it doesn't seem like the surgery is nearly as successful as UCL surgery.

I think your price is totally reasonable if the Twins are expecting to compete. If they're not expecting to compete, that's a different story. The Pohlad family runs the Twins very much like a typical business and as business owners, they seem quite conservative. A poor peforming team at $140MM is going to operate in the red and the Pohlad family seems unwilling to operate that way.

I think you're significantly overvaluing Buxton's leverage (and his on field value) right now and looking at things a little too simply. I don't see Buxton as an MVP talent. I see him as an All Star talent based on some scary peripherals like BB/K rates and small sample sizes. 1. How do the Twins benefit from the aforementioned contract? It boils down to a 2-3 year deal where if Buxton sucks, he stays for 3 more seasons and if he does well, he leaves. Those types of contracts are for elite talent players who have backed up that elite performance across full seasons before and just had a down year. 2. This one is easy. The Twins don't "balk" at the full guaranteed, full value extension, they trade Buxton immediately and let somebody else deal with primadonna-like demands without discussing the contract extension discussion publicly. 3. The idea Buxton can test the market, prove there is no market and then come back to the Twins and get their best offer weeks or months later isn't realistic. The Twins, like any other team, will move on and not wait for Buxton to come back. If Buxton did come back to the Twins in that scenario, he'd be in a position of no leverage and having to accept a much lower value. Lance Lynn found out the very hard way offers aren't forever when he declined the Cardinals' OQ and subsequent offers (including multi-year offers) from other teams before he settled for the lower 1 year $12MM Twins contract. I don't think any team in baseball would give Buxton more than $10MM-$15MM per year for 2-3 years guaranteed right now. Negotiation is just risk calculation. What is the team willing to risk vs. what is the player willing to risk?

Definitely a lot of work put into stuff like this and I can appreciate it, I just don't think it's realistic for the Twins to spend $140MM in a season they don't expect to compete (by your words).

Sixto Sanchez underwent capsule repair shoulder surgery with additional cleanup. There is no timetable on him and the chances he returns at his pre-surgery performance levels are poor if he ever returns to MLB caliber at all. This isn't UCL surgery, this is shoulder surgery which often ruins pitching careers.

The way Eddie hits crazy bad pitches shows he knows where pitches are going. If he'd just lay off the junk, what he's doing right now is the every day player he'd be. So frustrating, haha. Glad to see people enjoying themselves. Doesn't matter if they're playing for the Twins or not.

The Twins should offer Buxton... the opportunity to play somewhere else while the Twins focus on players who play full seasons.

Dozier vs. Forsythe 2015 - 2.8 bWAR / 3.1 fWAR vs. 4.6 bWAR / 4.1 fWAR 2016 - 5.8bWAR / 6.3 fWAR vs. 3.3 bWAR / 2.7 fWAR (127 games) Forsythe looked like a 4 win second baseman. He wasn't valued as highly as Dozier since Dozier was viewed as about a 5 win second baseman as I recall. There wasn't some enormous chasm between the two in value perception. It was widely speculated Dozier just had a one off, career year. By the time 2017 was completed, Dozier was a short term asset.

Kepler's trade value is high, it's just not elite. In fact, it's higher than some names like Buxton, Balazovic, Woods-Richardson, Ryan, Ober, Canterino and Rogers on Baseballtradevalues.com. That site isn't perfect, but it presents a much less biased view of players than fan sites have. Before people absolutely lose their minds at the audacity of Kepler being ranked higher than Buxton in terms of trade value, the valuation website just uses data.

I just don't see your point as valid. In my opinion, Dozier and Polanco do not have similar values. Not only do I believe Dozier viewed very differently than Polanco is now, but there was a huge amount of difference in cost and control. Dozier came with some serious warning bells and not only other teams in MLB noticed, so did the Twins. Dozier was begging for an extension and the Twins wouldn't even talk with him. That's poor asset management by the front office as they provided other teams with reason to worry about Dozier. Anyway, the Dodgers offered a top prospect (top 25-50 overall) for Dozier, Jose De Leon, but the Twins wanted another top prospect as well. Ultimately, the Dodgers traded De Leon for another short term 2B, Logan Forsythe, who was being paid less than Dozier and performing nearly as well. The Twins undoubtedly could have gotten De Leon and another good prospect for Dozier, but they weren't going to get De Leon, and another top 100 or better. I suspect the Twins were asking for Calhoun or Buehler in addition. We don't know what other teams offered, but the Twins were absolutely demanding a haul. They didn't expect Dozier to decline as much as he did over the next two seasons.

31 year old Dozier had 2 months of team control left, was making $9MM a year, wasn't eligible for a qualifying offer and was playing like dookie. So apart from 28 year old Polanco having 4 years of team control left, making $5.5MM next year, being eligible for a qualifying offer at the end of the 4 years of team control and playing at an All Star level currently, this is pretty close to the same.

As mentioned above, All Star caliber 2nd baseman with several years of cheap team control are extremely valuable. Teams looking to compete aren't counting on "prospects" to carry them. Prospects are played during the initial phases of building to find out what holes teams need to fill and teams expecting to contend aren't in initial build phases. Baseballtradevalues lists Polanco at #1 by a country mile in terms of Twins assets, which probably says more about the Twins than it does about Polanco, but Polanco still ranks as the 78th most trade valuable player in all of MLB right now on that site. Should the Twins trade Polanco? I'd say no, unless they're rebuilding. What's he worth? A Royce Lewis and Simeon Woods-Richardson type combined, plus a sweetener.

I'm not saying Nick Gordon is Ehire Adrianza's clone. I'm saying Nick Gordon fills the typical profile for a utility player. Cheap. Not somebody you think you want to start, but still has some potential upside. Able to cover a lot of defensive positions. The Twins made it clear they don't trust Nick Gordon at shortstop at the MLB level; however, they also made it clear they viewed him as a shortstop by playing him the vast majority of his time across 4,500 MiLB innings. Some utility players are viewed as defensive wizards, but not all of them. Danny Santana and Eduardo Nunez were horrible shortstops and Adrianza was mediocre. Yes. If Gordon cleared waivers on a DFA, analysts and fans would be stunned. Gordon hasn't hit left handed pitching well as a lefty, but platoon players are generally players who do not hit effectively against both righties and lefties. I don't see the Twins platooning Arraez with anybody next year. With Donaldson on the roster and Miranda pounding at the door, the need for Arraez to cover 3rd is neglible. He can't play shortstop or cover center field making Arraez a poor option for utility, not to mention he's proven to have the talent to be a starter and has a ton of trade value. Arraez is certainly not pushing Polanco off 2nd base and what a debacle it would be to move Polanco back to shortstop. Bottom line, Arraez/Polanco/Donaldson/Miranda are an incompatible, not complimentary group.

I could see the Twins dropping to $100MM this offseason and starting a rebuild because of the mess their roster is in, but not below that if the MLB proposal of a $100MM competitive balance floor goes into place. The $150MM ceiling is about where I think the Twins should be on any given average year, not their true ceiling, but that's just my opinion based on their market size and potential revenues.

I've seen Syndergaard mentioned a couple times in here. I don't see it happening. Syndergaard has made it clear as day he wants to stay with the Mets and indicates he'd accept a QO if one is made. Even though he was instructed not to throw breaking balls, throwing any pitches at the MLB level this year should have made an impact on how other teams view Thor at this point. The Mets are undoubtedly gauging his value on the open market, and Syndergaard is likely looking at 1 year contracts at this point. Could the Mets outbid all the competition for 1 year of Syndergaard if they fail to make him a QO? Sure. How much would they save? My guess is less than $3MM. Some team is at least going to give Syndergaard 1 year and $15MM meaning the dice roll when Stroman is already likely to leave would be a sign of incompetence in my opinion. Still, it's the Mets and such a move would be par for the course. When it comes to Verlander, the Astros owner is on record saying they'll probably make a QO to Verlander, but Verlander is looking for a contract of "considerable length." I'd think Verlander would decline the QO. Even on the open market, I'd think the worst Verlander would possibly do is 1 year $15MM so I'd think there's virtually no risk him in declining. I think he'll be available, but I also think he's going to be picky about where he signs. He'll want to be with a contender and the Twins finished dead last in what is shaping up to be a much tougher division going forward. For the Twins to even entertain signing Verlander, they'll need to prove they're in it to win it and that seems like a long-shot.