bean5302

If he's not good enough to be on the 26 man roster, why would they want to pay him a guaranteed $1.3MM? My point was really about the Twins banking on Topa to earn and maintain a 26 man roster spot, and constructing their roster around that premise. On his own, it's no big deal. Add in Stewart, Alcala, Moran, and Duarte, and stability becomes ever more concerning. The upside with Topa, in my opinion, is going to be a 3.50 ERA type of year. The risk/reward balance doesn't seem to match up well. Probably a little better than Tonkin, but with no durability.

Castro should have substantial trade value. Falvey should have an understanding of other team interest in the Twins' favorite utility guy. Tender & Trade or commit to finding payroll space elsewhere so you can Tender & Keep him. Topa will be 34 next year. He's been around forever, and he's had 1 healthy season since 2019. The Twins can't afford to fill up the roster with injury prone relievers. A 26 man spot with a guy who is probably nothing more than a medium value reliever if he's healthy doesn't seem like a great value to me. If the Twins can convince some other club 2023 wasn't a fluke, they should be able to move him, but the framework for that should have already been taken care of. Tender & Trade or Non-tender. I'd tender everybody else. When determining whether or not I'd pursue a long term contract with any player, I first ask if the player highly likely to remain a quality player in a major role? Larnach? No. Stewart? No. Then it's a question of what would that player get in free agency, and how far away are they? For guys who are already arb eligible, huge discounts are likely off the table. They're already going to make some money, and they just need a couple years before the huge payday. Lopez was Arb2 when the Twins extended him to 4yrs and $73.5MM, buying out 2 years of free agency. Joe Ryan - Spotrac's MV is 5yrs $91MM. Bailey Ober - Spotrac's MV is 4yrs $74MM I'd be inclined to think 10MM AAV deals are a non-starter for them, especially if you're throwing team options at the end of them during their last potential 3+ year contract length ages. Griffin Jax - First off, if I was Jax, I'd push the Twins all the way to arbitration before signing some $2.6MM deal. The MV in Spotrac is pretty nuts here because of the length, but I think the AAV is reasonable at $14MM/yr. I could see Jax getting a 3yr $42MM deal. A 4yr deal buying out some free agency at $5MM doesn't seem like it offers much value to Jax.

Agreed... if we weren't talking about Falvey's trade skills. The Twins don't have the $6.2MM in the budget, and Falvey has proven he doesn't know how to trade players and move money off the books. (Farmer, Kepler x2, Polanco x2) I see Willi Castro as quite similar to Marwin Gonzalez when he got 2yrs $21MM from the Twins in that crazy 2018-2019 offseason, when MLBTR predicted 4yrs $36MM.

They are polar opposite hitting styles in almost every possible respect, and they have wildly different power profiles. There is virtually nothing similar between the two hitters beyond which side of the plate they stand on. In the field, they're also polar opposites in terms of skill sets. Larnach is slow with a weak arm, but he has great instincts. Wallner's got a cannon arm and he's nearly as fast as Austin Martin, but he doesn't have the instincts Larnach does. Wallner has perennial All Star talent. Larnach has the talent to be a regular on an MLB team.

wooooooosssshhhhhhh Did something just fly by your head? LOL

Adams had a good enough run in AA to potentially generate some interest, and the promotion to AAA likely put him on the radar. He's incredibly inconsistent in terms of strikeouts (might be 13 K/9 for 5 games, then 5 K/9 for 5 games) but he is consistent in that he performed well at the end of the day. Really weird. Perhaps the Twins think there's some serious upside in there somewhere?

Jorge Mateo's playing time splits do not suggest he's a "super utility" player. He's a 2B/SS. He's never played more than 67 innings (8 games) in a season anywhere else, and not more than 20 innings anywhere else in the past 3 years. He can't hit so all of his 0.5 WAR value comes from defense at SS. Baltimore seems to be bringing him back, but much of the league speculated he might be non-tendered due to his projected arb salary at $3.2MM. 2B 3B SS LF CF RF Total 2020 20 0 0 24 7 4 55.0 2021 112 27 120 28.33 67 46.33 400.7 2022 0 0 1257.33 0 0 0 1257.3 2023 0 0 843 0 20 0 863.0 2024 457.67 0 31 0 17 0 505.7 Career 589.67 27 2251.33 52.33 111 50.33 3081.7 Percentage 19% 1% 73% 2% 4% 2% The Twins are not adding a $5.6MM relief pitcher who should be better than he actually is according to results. Falvey does not spend money on relievers.

None of these guys have high upside IMHO. They'll all probably fall into that -0.3 to + 0.7 WAR middle relief bullpen arm, but pitchers who can eat up a few innings are needed by teams like the Twins. Certainly not all of them are going to be tendered, but 1-2 probably will. I can't see Headrick getting a better offer than a MiLB contract so there's no real reason for the Twins to tender him right now, even if they want to keep him. Tonkin will get an MLB contract, just like he did last year so the Twins can either tender him or watch him walk. Topa is probably going to get an MLB offer as well. Less likely than Tonkin, but probably getting one like Okert and Staumont got from the Twins. Henriquez seems to be trusted enough as middle relief by the Twins. Eats some innings, known quantity, doesn't cost more than league minimum. I think the Twins will probably tender him.

There are no correlations between pitcher size and durability, but Raya has dealt with shoulder issues more than once or twice as he's moved up through the system. He pitched 100 innings this past season (97.2) so he should be poised for pretty much a full workload out of the gate next year. I'll be most interested to see if his stuff plays at AAA. Not overwhelming on the K's, lots and lots of walks has been Raya's M.O. in the upper minors. For all the accolades and upside, I think Raya is probably more Fernando Romero than Joe Ryan.

He injured his shoulder losing a full year (2021) and dealt with minor shoulder issues again in 2022 and 2023.

I didn't make my position known. I'm neutral on the subject as I don't know as the risks are worth it, but at least I can actually see and accept the arguments for both sides.

I'm not the one advocating for it, I'm neutral. I'm explaining why advocates of seeing Jax in the 'pen are doing it. The arguments for giving Jax a shot in the 'pen is there are many success stories, especially recently, and Jax hasn't just added 5mph to his velo the moment he moved to the bullpen, he's added the velocity over the course of several years, along with changes to his pitch types and movement. Jax is not the same pitcher he was several years ago.

Pretty much nothing in common between these two, but TD writers continue to try to force them into the same mold.

Looking at the roster, I'd say this is probably a 87-88 win team as constructed. The improvements over the current 84-85 win roster is Yandy Diaz over Brooks Lee or Edouard Julien on the 26 man, and Campusano over Vazquez. This offseason plan probably operates more in the hypothetical realm than most by assuming Campusano isn't wanted by the Padres or Peralta and Diaz would be accepted by ownership. Still, it's not outlandish as a guideline.

I can't agree with that. The consideration of moving Jax to the rotation is about his ceiling as a potential upper rotation starter. That's not something you're likely to ever see out of a guy like Morris who is more likely to top out as a durable innings eater. Think more Nick Blackburn than Francisco Liriano.

I'd be more inclined to target Mason Montgomery than Garrett Cleavinger, who puts way too many guys on base. Cleavinger has gotten decent results, but I there appears to be a significant element of luck in it.

Supporting that: https://www.si.com/fannation/mlb/fastball/news/tampa-bay-rays-reportedly-searching-for-offensive-help-at-catcher-position-this-offseason The Rays were tied to Travis d'Arnaud, who isn't known for his bat. I'd suspect they'll be pursuing Gary Sanchez pretty hard as well. It's tough to say whether or not the Rays would pass on Vazquez as it's equally tough to gauge how other teams' front offices might view him.

Luzardo will earn $6.0MM based on MLBTR estimates and Spotrac predicts $8.6MM. How are the Twins going to absorb the additional contract to begin with? Luzardo has the potential to be an upper rotation guy, but he's only flashed it, and the 27 year old had microfractures in his spine last year. Right now, BaseballTradeValues has Luzardo equal to Royce Lewis straight up. BTV is predicting Luzardo at 2.5 WAR per season and $6MM + 9MM ($15MM total) in salary or so. Lewis is predicted at like 1.8 WAR for the next 4 years with a salary like $3 + $6 + $9 + $12MM per year. Mack has some value as a AA catcher, but Miller is a middling prospect at the moment. Larnach isn't bringing back Luzardo. Larnach is a 2 WAR (ceiling) every day player already in arbitration, and he has virtually no up side. If he was fast and a plus defender, a team might be more willing to covet him, but these proposals ignore the reality. Other teams do not just have to trade with Minnesota. They can choose any of the other 28 teams in baseball as a trade partner so they don't have to overpay for readily available talent.

I think you're going to find you're in the minority if you'd like to cast off a top 10-ish prospect to unload $2-3MM of salary, and yes, I do expect it would cost a significant prospect for any team to consider taking on Randy Dobnak's contract. +50-100% the negative equity (all of it) for a realistic scenario at where a team jumps on the deal. Again, they're likely just going to give Dobber his unconditional release in this trade scenario. He'd struggle to get a MiLB deal right now.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Morris being a back end rotation arm. If Morris can be super durable, he could be a Kyle Gibson type of 2 WAR starter as a ceiling. Eating a lot of innings, generating a lot of ground balls, not striking many out. I think that's his ceiling, not his average. Morris' 7.22 K/9 and 2.94 BB/9, and 4.28 FIP in AAA doesn't project well to MLB.

Paddack probably has a little to quite a bit of negative value. The Twins are likely going to have to pay some of his salary or toss in a prospect to unload the $7.5MM. I've seen quite a few posts suggesting top tier teams who don't have traditional salary limits can take Paddack on, and that's true, but they could just as easily take an actually good pitcher on. Even a team like the Yankees or Mets or Dodgers only has a 26 man active roster. They don't want to fill that roster up with guys who don't help get them to the playoffs. Those big market teams would rather have the Cardinals pay down $15MM total and spend it the $18MM AAV on Sonny Gray. It's a totally different story taking a MiLB flier with an opt out on somebody. That costs nothing and doesn't hit the 40 or 26 man rosters.

You're still on my ignore list, but I can manually choose to expand ignored content, just as a reference for anybody wondering how the "ignore" function actually works. You'll see the following text with a drop down on "Options" allowing you to see/respond/etc. I mostly browse TD while not logged in so I actually see quite a few ignored posts, even from people I've ignored. Every once in a while, I respond. Btw, can't prove an opinion to somebody who doesn't want to listen in the first place.

Yep. There was that one time when he had 2 Cy Young candidates and the healthiest rotation in baseball.

Why wouldn't the Twins just release Dobnak and eat the $3MM rather than giving Colorado (or some more likely hypothetical team) back more than $3MM of value? Sure, we could give the hypothetical trade partner Cory Lewis for taking Dobnak off our hands so they could turn around and potentially give Dobber his unconditional release, but is that honestly a good way to save a relatively insignificant $2-3MM (depending on if the Twins use the money to add a 26 man guy)? When you're talking about Paddack or Vazquez, sure, that's a lot of salary savings. Dobnak doesn't have a significant impact, and casting off significant prospects to save a pittance is a very tough sell to my logic.

Let me make this absolutely clear. I don't agree with the front office's general strategies, and the front office further distanced themselves from Rocco Baldelli's decision making in the past in regard to the TTO concerns. I believe their combined general strategies are often founded in incomplete data or thoughts; they lean well too far into an unchallenged hypothesis and not enough into a theory. If you believe Rocco Baldelli's methodology doesn't create an increased need for a multi-inning reliever, that's your opinion and you have a right to it. Also, I'm not making a pitch to sell Tonkin to you since you (or I) have absolutely no influence on the Twins' front office decision makers.