bean5302

Celestino will be 23 at the start of the season and he hit well at AAA across 211 plate appearances. Backing up Buxton could be viewed as sitting on the bench and playing every once in a while or I view it as when Buxton gets hurt and goes down for an extended time, that's when Celestino takes his place. I don't know as any amount of raking at AAA guarantees success at MLB because AAA pitchers don't necessarily expose the same weaknesses as MLB pitchers will. I think the question of whether or not Celestino is ready for MLB will be settled at the MLB level. He's proven he was able to adapt to AAA pitching and that's all we learned.

8.35 ERAs and 13.7 hits per 9 at age 28 are pretty compelling reasons to question his ability to provide value at the MLB level. There's also 2019 and 2021 results in AAA with ERAs of 4.47 and 5.14 while allowing a ton of hits there as well. He hasn't been impressive at any time in the high minors.

Meh. Doesn't matter. I'm not sure why this is some sort of shrewd move regarding Cave. I have nothing against Cave personally, I just don't see the interest in having him in the system at all at $300k or $800k. Unless there's a dramatic change in his production, he's not even a good option as a utility outfielder. A 28 year old relief pitcher project is one of those, "sure, why not" signings.

Severino is a legit #1. He's an Ace and that's how NY views him. His shoulder/lat issues in 2019 were a concern and his long return from TJ have been rough. That said, he's proven his dominance in back to back years at the MLB level.

Some definition for folks who may not know what tender means. https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/contract-tendered Contract Tendered Definition To "tender" a contract to a player is to agree to give a contract for the upcoming season to a player who is under club control. Players on the 40-man roster with fewer than six years of Major League service time must be tendered contracts or they will be considered "non-tendered" and immediately made eligible for free agency. Contracts must be tendered to both arbitration-eligible and pre-arbitration players, though the latter group has no say in its forthcoming salary. Tendering a contract to an arbitration-eligible player does not mean that the two sides set a specific salary, but rather that they agree to come to terms on a salary between the date of the tender and late February. If the two sides cannot come to terms on a salary or multi-year deal, an arbitration hearing will be held and a panel of arbitrators will determine his salary. The offseason deadline for clubs to tender contracts to eligible players typically falls in early December. Example Having accrued more than five but fewer than six years of service time, Brandon Moss was eligible for one more round of arbitration following the 2015 season. The Cardinals tendered a contract to Moss and ultimately agreed to a one-year, $8.25 million deal with him to avoid arbitration.

I think the actual question is does he stick on the ballot for more than one voting cycle. The answer is still no. Morneau is an outstanding guy by all accounts and there are few, if any, Twins who I've rooted for harder, but at 27 career WAR as a position player, he won't stick on the ballot.

...and yet UZR and RF/9 both have him as consistently above average. Also, feel free to take a look at his career numbers. Even on those wildly up and down metrics you want to use, he's neutral. Or you can cherry pick another meaningless number from 7 seasons ago.

The Twins' contract ends in 2023 and is $43MM vs. $66MM annually for the Rangers who have that same contract through 2034. The difference in TV contract revenue is here: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-update-the-estimated-local-tv-revenue-for-mlb-teams/ Texas peaked its opening day payroll at $176MM - $23MM = $153MM, assuming ticket revenues, etc were similar. MLB stadiums must be located downtown in a heavily urban area like Target Field for best results, but Globe Life Park isn't. The Twins and Rangers have similar attendance, but Target Field has been far and away more expensive to attend. Twins Rangers Price $ Att. x 1k Price $ Att. x 1k 2010 31 40 21 31 2011 33 39 19 36 2012 33 34 20 43 2013 33 31 23 39 2014 33 28 24 34 2015 33 27 24 31 2016 33 24 24 33 2017 33 25 28 31 2018 33 24 27 26 2019 33 28 26 26 Average 32.8 30,000 23.6 33,000 Twins Rangers Act. Gate Rev Max Gate Rev. Act. Gate Rev Max Gate Rev. 2010 100,440,000 100,440,000 52,731,000 73,143,000 2011 104,247,000 106,920,000 55,404,000 66,177,000 2012 90,882,000 106,920,000 69,660,000 69,660,000 2013 82,863,000 106,920,000 72,657,000 80,109,000 2014 74,844,000 106,920,000 66,096,000 83,592,000 2015 72,171,000 106,920,000 60,264,000 83,592,000 2016 64,152,000 106,920,000 64,152,000 83,592,000 2017 66,825,000 106,920,000 70,308,000 97,524,000 2018 64,152,000 106,920,000 56,862,000 94,041,000 2019 74,844,000 106,920,000 54,756,000 90,558,000 Total 795,420,000 1,062,720,000 622,890,000 821,988,000 Average 79,542,000 106,272,000 62,289,000 82,198,800 As you can clearly see, the Twins have brought in approximately $17MM more revenue in ticket sales per season on average than the Rangers. That virtually wipes out the difference in TV contract revenue. In fact, actual Twins revenues have exceeded the theoretical maximum Rangers revenues (assuming max attendance at average ticket price) from 2010-2013. Rangers attendance, on average is 10% higher than Twins attendance, but the Twins' ticket price has been nearly 40% higher. So if TV and attendance revenues are essentially the same... why do the Twins lag behind the Rangers 20% in average and 30% in peak payroll? Twins Rangers Payroll $MM Payroll $MM 2010 98 55 2011 113 92 2012 94 121 2013 76 114 2014 86 136 2015 109 142 2016 108 144 2017 108 176 2018 132 144 2019 101 104 Total 1025 1228 Average 102.5 122.8 Maybe more fans buy Rangers merchandise because the Rangers have spent way more and won, on average, 7 more games per season? Btw, I'm using 2010-2019 because there isn't a lot of data available after 2019. Twins Rangers Wins Wins 2010 94 90 2011 63 96 2012 66 93 2013 66 91 2014 70 67 2015 83 88 2016 59 95 2017 85 78 2018 78 67 2019 101 78 Total 765 843 Average 77 84 Sources: Statista, Baseball Reference, Stevetheump The Twins have every ability to compete and every single time a person sits down to do an analysis, they'll see that fact. The Twins' ownership just chooses to run their franchise very conservatively. Expanding revenue sharing to help the poor Twins or placing some hard cap right next to the salary floor just makes money hand over fist for owners like the Pohlad family and hamstrings owners who are actually dedicated to putting a high quality product on the field.

I think Celestino makes the best "backup" for Buxton. Gordon is probably best as a utility player rather than the kind of player you want to rely upon as a starter trying to fill the hole Buxton will likely leave in the lineup for 80-100 games next year. Celestino will be in his age 23 season and he proved he could hit at AAA. I don't believe a player can learn to make the adjustments they need to make for MLB pitching while playing in the minors. Either Celestino will be able to hold his own and make the adjustments he needs to make at the MLB level or he won't. Kepler's sprint speed has dropped off a bit and he posted his worst mark last year at 27.4 ft/sec, down from the peak 28.2 ft/sec in 2016. The median CF with 100+ opportunities sprint speed in 2021 was 28.4 ft/sec. So Kepler was a tick below average at his peak a few years ago, but now, he'd rank as 24th of 28 in that list. Kepler's UZR/150 has plumetted in CF over the past few years as well, though it's a pretty SSS. Sprint speed and their rank in the aforementioned list. Buxton 30.0 ft/sec (1st/28) Celestino 28.3 ft/sec (17th/28) Gordon 27.9 ft/sec (20th/28) Cave 27.9 ft/sec (20th/28) Kepler 27.4 ft/sec (24th/28) Rooker 27.3 ft/sec (25th/28) Larnach 26.5 ft/sec (28th/28)

I don't think Buxton's contract is likely boom or bust exactly. I don't expect he'll ever be healthy, but he'll probably produce enough to make him valuable. The contract's incentive design will allow it to be moved as well so it shouldn't cripple the Twins.

Let's keep the Paul Molitor "dust" he was using early in his career away from all our players.

Maybe Bally Sports has figured out how to get their broadcasts out further than a couple miles from Minneapolis, too? You know, since all of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and parts of Wisconsin are all in the Twins' blackout area.

I expect the Pittsburgh Pirates will have a new owner in the next 5 years. Nutting makes the Pohlads look positively frivolous in spending, and that's saying something. A salary floor of some type is coming and MLB will be looking to force guys like Nutting out.

Considering every single team in the Twins' division, even those in much smaller markets than the twin cities have debuted larger season payrolls than the Twins, I'm not sure I agree with you. If Kansas City can afford a $141MM opening day payroll when they're all in, I just don't see the problem. Kansas City's stadium is old, it's not downtown, the local market is 1/2 the size of Minneapolis and they were traditionally a team who didn't play well. The Texas Rangers play in Arlington. Population, 400k. 99sq/mi. Density 4.1k per square mile. Now, Dallas and Fort Worth are 20mi and 15mi away, respectively which would add about 2.0 million people. The Twins play in Minneapolis. Population 420k. 57sq/mi. Density 6.0k per square mile. St.Paul, Population 311k adds 56sq/mi. Density 6.0k per square mile. Effectively, together, 731k, 113sq/mi. Density 6.0k per square mile. The twin cities metro 3.6MM people in 1,000 square miles. DFW is 7.6MM, but in an area nearly 10x larger at 9,200 square miles. Bottom line, the Pohlads are cheap and choose not to compete at a level many other teams in their income bracket choose.

Honestly... this strikes me as stupid. Seager for $325MM and Semien for $175MM. I mean, Seager is a pretty lousy shortstop so maybe the Rangers plan to use him at 3B, but then... why $325MM? LOL. Hey, whatever floats (or sinks) their boat haha.

After Gausman went off the table for 5 years $110MM and Eduardo Rodriguez at 5 years $77MM without the Twins checking in on either, I'm crazy skeptical the Twins giving more than lip service here. Robbie Ray said "They called and offered 4 years and $60MM every day for 5 days in a row so my agent angrily told the Twins to stop getting new Google Voice numbers every time we block the previous one."

I don't think Baez gets anywhere near Semien money with all the red flags. Story is interesting. He had a down year last year which is probably the only reason he's not in the club north of $250MM in my opinion. It wouldn't surprise me if Story ended up in the $150-175MM range. If Story was 28, I could see him taking a short contract and betting on himself, but reaching free agency at 30 instead of 29 would be a big risk.

...and yet a near 35 year old shortstop just re-signed with the Giants for 2 more years. There is no rule a player can't play SS anymore after age 31 or 32. I don't believe Texas signed Semien (who will still be 31 next season) with the expectation he'll play shortstop in his age 37 season, but he'll just move to 2B or 3B as needed. Maybe he'll pack on that big contract 30lbs and lose all his speed like we've seen from many other players, but teams don't get to plan around that. Semien will be playing his age 37 season in the final year of the contract and if Semien were 3 years younger, he'd likely be looking at $35MM/yr or a longer contract. Teams pay for production and the expectation Semien will still be good at 35-36 is reasonable. The Twins just signed Donaldson to 4 years and $23MM/yr at age 34, 3 years older than Semien and Donaldson was not as good over his past couple full seasons as Semien had been.

Semien has an above average fielding rate at SS in 4 of the past 5 years, and he was average in 2018, which is the the season you cherry picked, not that errors are all that matters anyway. I think it's absolutely wild to claim defense doesn't play into a 7 year $175MM contract for a shortstop. Semien's positional value and defense is a big part of the reason he's getting paid.

Having the Twins linked to a starter at 5+ years would be pretty shocking considering they weren't willing to get near the AAV and years for Berrios.

You definitely had that one nailed. I expected him to be well under that.

This is a discussion outside of the debate. Just like the discussion of Puckett vs. Mauer saw a lot of information not included in the debate. The Debaters are not infalliable and they did not cover every possible facet of baseball. If you have something to contribute, feel free. Be aware, people (including me) may or may not agree with you, though.

If Buxton was worth high dollars on the open market, teams would have been offering the Twins something good to trade and Buxton would have been shipped. Nobody really wanted Buxton that bad outside the Twins.

It's so funny to see people call it nuts to sign Semien to $25MM/yr when he's put up back to back 6+ fWAR seasons while simultaneously cheering like it's the best decision ever the Twins signed Buxton (a guy who's typically a 3 WAR player at this stage) to $15MM per year. Semien finished 3rd in MVP voting in 2019 and 3rd again this year. If Buxton did what Semien did in 2019 or 2021, he'd earn $24MM / year, but Buxton has never finished above 16th in voting. Side note, Semien has been a very good shortstop for the last 4 years (2018-2021) straight, and he was a very good primary 2B in 2021. He's not going to instantly become bad. Semien's defensive value over the past 4 years is double that of Buxton's. The truth is, this contract is reasonable, and Twins fans on this site are jealous other teams are willing to spend big money when the Twins are not. It looks ridiculous. Manny Machado got 10yrs and $300MM for less production. Arenado got 8yrs and $260MM before free agency with the Rockies. Correa is likely going to get $300MM. Seager is probably going to get $240MM. They did not pay a premium for Semien. They paid market value and a lot of other teams were interested. Texas is spending that kind of money because they care about being competitive and winning a World Series after rebuilding for the past couple years.

Again, so who gets credit for Milwaukee not scoring? Your point is Milwaukee would have scored more than 0 runs if their offense was good. Maybe? They were good enough to score the 12th most runs in baseball last year. The best scoring team in MLB was the Astros, scoring 5.32 runs per game. The Brewers scored 4.56 runs per game. If we give the Brewers an extra 0.76 runs per game, do they win the series against Atlanta? Nope. The Astros managed 2.67 runs per game in the World Series and were shut out twice despite having the best offense in baseball. Pitching wins playoffs.