Miggy's Little Helper

This is the definition of mediocrity. The Twins keep putting themselves in a situation where they get blown out of the playoffs in the first round with this mindset. A 20% chance of having an offense good enough to make a deep run in the playoffs is clearly worth spending ALL of the remaining money allocated to payroll to shore up pitching. This is not a "savings" or "wait and see" year. And if they're in contention come July, the Twins should dig even deeper at the deadline. To argue otherwise is irresponsible. Again, people need to stop acting on the assumption that (1) because the Twins offense has a great year in 2019 (the apparent precondition for spending next year), (2) the same group of players perform as well in the following year(s). That's a patent falsehood. Dipping a toe in the water instead of jumping in could ruin the best year for this core--which only has 3-4 years left. Despite that risk, far too many seem willing to let a potential peak year sail on by so that the team can book more profit.

The failure of Falvine is to not recognize (or willfully ignore) that just because you have a great season doesn't guarantee a repeat for either the individual or team. See Twins circa 2011. Doesn't everyone see the massive upside on this team? Just about everything went wrong last year. Castro - lost for season; Polanco - suspended; Big Erv - lost for season; Buxton - essentially lost for season; Sano - essentially lost for season; Dozier - abberantly terrible; Lance Lynn - abberantly terrible; LoMo - abberantly terrible; Reed - fell apart. Positives - Berrios - slight improvement (while continuing to be excellent); Gibson - best year yet; Rogers - amazing; Rodney - solid (and traded); Escobar - continued excellence (and traded); Rosario - continued excellence. 6/9 of the expected offensive contributors were either hurt, awful, or suspended. And 2/5 of our rotation was hurt or awful. YET, SOMEHOW (bad division, cough) THE TWINS WON 78 GAMES. Going through that, it feels like 78 wins is essentially the floor for the 2019 Twins. The reality is that if Sano and Buxton both take a major leap forward, it's possible that the Twins could put up their best offensive performance in team history. I'm not saying it absolutely will happen, but let the mind wander for a little bit, can you see it? Take the current roster and replace Buxton with someone with the equivalent value to Yelich. Take Sano and replace him with Donaldson. How excited would you be? That the Twins aren't smartly positioning themselves to be better IN CASE Sano and Buxton (and the rest of the team for that matter) take off is a grave error. They need to be thinking about October this year. Even if Sano and Buxton take off in 2019, excellence in 2020 is not guaranteed. This isn't the 2013 and 2014 roster. I'd say there is a 1/5 chance that the Twins offense explodes this year and we regret taking a "wait and see" approach.

There are so many wonderful options when you are in the Caribbean! Basically anything you'd wear in July in Minnesota!

You're right. Now I'm hearing that HE WENT SWIMMING WITH SHARKS OFF THE COAST OF AUSTRALIA with his buddies AND ONE OF THE SHARKS JUST ABOUT CLEAN RIPPED HIS WHOLE FOOT OFF. The Twins are being pretty aggressive with his rehab timeline, but we shall see!

It's been said that he was RUNNING THROUGH AN ACTIVE MINE FIELD with his buddies JUST FOR KICKS and got nicked by some shrapnel... I mean c'mon! To assume hijinks is ridiculous. He says someone fell at the celebration for the Estrellas, that person pushed him onto the stairs, and he cut his heel. Life happens and people get hurt living their life. This is incredibly minor.

THE SKY IS FALLING. THE SKY IS FALLING. Seriously, everybody complaining about Sano, get a grip. It's a horizontal laceration on the heel and the Twins are making absolutely sure it doesn't re-open with activity. Even if he's out until March 1, he gets almost 4 weeks of ST. Put the PANIC/Life Alert buttons away.

There's clearly a way to sign Machado and field a team, but the margin of error could be slim. It's the concern caused by the salary increases from the core. Assuming the Twins decline the Cruz option, I've got the Twins at at least $53-58MM for next year before Machado's contract (which includes Cruz, Kepler, Polanco, Rosario, Sano, Parker, Buxton, Rogers, May, Berrios, and Adrianza). That requires the Twins to fill a hole at SS/2B (assuming Lewis and/or Gordon aren't up next year, which you'd have to plan on) and DH. Schoop's contract is the model for a replacement at 2B. So that's 1 year $7.5MM. Now we're at $60.5-65.5MM. We've got 4 SP slots to fill after Berrios. We plug in two new guys making the minimum, that's about $1.15M. We've got 5 RP slots to fill. We probably can fill 3 with guys making the minimum. That's 1.725M. We're rolling with Garver/Astudillo behind the dish. $1.15M. Cave is the back-up OF. 575K. We gamble on Larnach for DH. 575K. That's another $5.15M. Now we're at about $66-71MM. We still need 2 SP and 2 RP. Without trading, and assuming we spent $30MM/year on Machado, that's a pretty narrow financial window to build a contending rotation and bullpen. The way to justify it would be to get on the horn right now and start dealing minor league pieces for teams that are out of it with young controllable pitching and/or teams with a deep bench of AA or AAA pitching prospects that are looking to go for it. For example, hooking up with the Braves on a Kepler plus prospect package would make sense. The price for pre-arb pitchers or a close-to-the-bigs AA or AAA piece with upside is going to be painful.

Machado would be great for us this year. But it creates big issues with payroll starting next year. The issue with Machado (as I see it) is that signing Machado means you'd need to trade for a cheap #2 or #3 SP for next year. Signing Machado creates extra IF depth from which to deal from, but no one in the IF seems to be a great chip to return a #2 or #3. To me, Kepler and Rosario are both way more valuable than any IF asset. They could be used to lead a deal along with prospects in the 5-15 range to get a return. That makes Harper preferable to Machado. Of course, we also could just sign Keuchel, which is probably the smartest of the options at this point.

There's no basis in fact for this statement. What baseball team is invested in something completely unrelated to the franchise or the MLB? All franchise business is related to the MLB. Team revenue is derived from the activity of baseball players. We know that, because all you have to ask is, "How would the revenue of 'other areas of the business' be impacted without baseball players?" For example, what does the development of BAMTech look like without having baseball games to stream?

I don't think anyone really disagrees that this is a safer route. But the idea that 5 years of Kepler is better than 1 year of Harper is not correct. Harper is very, very likely to be a much better baseball player than Kepler over the next 10 years. Yes, he'll cost more, but teams can only play one RF. Harper > Kepler.

Here's what the contract says: "The arbitration panel shall, except for a Player with five or more years of Major League service, give particular attention, for comparative salary purposes, to the contracts of Players with Major League service not exceeding one annual service group above the Player’s annual service group."

Or just hold onto it, period. Future profit is secondary to current profit.

As I read the CBA, yes. My guess is that it wouldn't be that persuasive because the rest of the contract structure would also be admissible. The union could argue that the contract controls for Arb-1 and the Team could argue the contract controls for Arb-3. It's not exactly a good benchmark. But anything can happen in arbitration...

I don't see this as a "team friendly" deal--it's pretty close to neutral assuming that Polanco continues his 2017-2018 level of play. It's what he'd likely earn through his next four years (this year plus the three arb years) and about market rate for his first year of FA.

I assume we're talking seven years including this year. As for salary structure, I'd hope for a much flatter structure. They've got bigger extensions to give out after this. Ideally, they'd just flat him at $5-6MM for the first five or even frontload (although I seem to recall this is discouraged by the salary arb calculations in the CBA). If the options are for $13MM and 15MM respectively, the team might as well light the buyout money on fire. Polanco is good. He's not $13MM or $15MM good as currently defined in the market. $11MM is about the highest I'd go--and even then there's a far greater than 50% chance the team option won't be picked up. Overall, thinking about this a bit more, this extension is a bit of a head-scratcher. The team appears to be taking on risk with this extension for almost no reason. There's not much risk that Polanco is going to crush his 2017-2018 performance this year and reset contract expectations. There's more risk of regression lowering contract expectations. And if Polanco regresses to a low .700 OPS player, $10MM per year in the later years if the contract will be a relatively painful drag on a $130MM payroll--let alone a $100MM payroll. It's odd they don't want to "wait and see" on Polanco when we all know they're far too willing to "wait and see" on the state of the team as a whole... This might be the Phil Hughes extension redux.

Explains why they didn't pursue Marwin. Either he slides over to 2B or he becomes the super utility.

Preach it, brother Kirby.

Not to sound too ridiculous here, but the reality is we should all fight for people getting their fair share based upon production. You work in a public service position, so it's not a surprise that you don't make $500K. But if you and 24 of your closest buddies were able to generate $300MM revenue per year at a large profit margin for a business owner, I'd happily advocate that you and your friends should get a lot of that money.

Because the Twins have the option of signing someone like Harper or Machado. I mean, they signed Mauer to an 8/184 deal. With inflation, that's not far off from a 10/300 contract. If they increase the pre-FAs share of the pot--which is the only logical response to the owner's unwillingness to spend for past production--the Twins signing ANY player to a large contract becomes close to an impossibility. Being unwilling and being unable to spend are two different things.

As long as we're all aware that the changes coming to the CBA do not bode well for the bottom 20 teams in the league, then great. Average and below average payroll teams are about to get slaughtered. All teams will run close to $100M payrolls with just their service time controlled players (or any agreed-to equivalent)--leaving the biggest spenders to buy all the prime free agents on high-value shorter term deals. What makes anyone think the new-CBA world to which we're headed will be so much better when the Twins have a $100M payroll for 20 pre-FAs and now have to find 5 FAs to round out their roster for $30MM? Forget ever signing Harper or Machado. They won't be able to swing an elite AAV contract for 4 years/$160MM? They can't. It's not just about long term risk, it's about how much they can spend in the first place. They're not going to push the payroll beyond 50% revenue just because they're in their window. Meanwhile the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Phillies, etc. can have 3-4 prime FAs on their roster at any given time and recycle them every 4-5 years without being hindered by the downside of any contract. The majority of owners are about to concede any semblance of competitive balance because they don't want to pay pre-FAs for their current performance and don't want to pay FAs for past performance.

Ending the discount in years 1-7.

Also, it's easy to freak out about relief pitching, but relief pitching is the most volatile asset on a team. Reed, Parker, May, Hildenberger, and Rogers are all very solid relief assets. It doesn't excuse the team from not signing Allen to a 1-year deal, but I wouldn't say that we're helpless in close games. We've got some serious talent.

Yes and yes. Free agency as we know it only exists because players aren't paid their true value for the first 6-7 years. If analytics departments are now averse to spending money on free agents, and want to pay for productivity, then the natural result is that the players will demand to be paid more in years 1-7. Analytics has no regard for the aftermath of gaming the system to unlock value (the result of which is apparently increased revenue retention by owners) in a world where the rules of the system have to be collectively bargained at periodic intervals. It's short-sighted and stupid--pennywise and pound foolish. We should all fear what is to come in 2022.

I agree, Mike. We're talking about generational talents when we utter Machado and Harper. Yet, based on the categorical nature of people's aversion to long-term deals on these boards, even Mike Trout wouldn't get a deal past his 32nd birthday. It's because of this aversion labor discord is coming. People arguing for belt-tightening forget that the players and owners agreed to limit player salaries for the first 6-7 years of a player's life. This creates pools of money to spend on FAs--money which the owners now refuse to spend. It doesn't take a genius to see that if this continues through the 2021 season, there isn't going to be a 2022 season. We'll see how much small market teams love having to pay $2-3M per year minimums for 1-3 years of service time and full value arbitration figures in years 4-6. Discounting a player's back-end comes at a price. In the interest of labor peace, let's sign Keuchel.

We are all waiting for Buxton and Sano to be what they think they can be. The risk is this: what if one or both have a monster year? If you don't spend, you could essentially "waste" a year--and not only that, you could arguably waste the year you've fielded the best overall roster with both of them on your team. Time is running out for Sano and Buxton after this year, only 2 years and 3 years, respectively, after 2019. The core is getting more expensive and the replacement talent doesn't appear likely to be as good in 2020. You're probably banking on taking one last shot in 2021 when you have full seasons of Buxton, Sano, Kiriloff, and Lewis on the roster. By then, of course, we might not "clearly be the best team in the division" because the White Sox will likely be competitive--especially if they sign Machado or Harper (or, God forbid, both). Also the rational response cannot be, "we'll just trade at the deadline." There's a serious chance that, if the Twins are in the race, the difference will be 1-2 games. That's the expected difference between Keuchel and Perez over a half (and, if we wait until the deadline, slightly more than half) season. Sure, we could always trade for a prime-Madbum-like player, who in theory could cover the difference, but that's not sensical for two reasons: (1) you could sign Keuchel AND trade for the Madbum-like player (putting you in the Falvine-throat-stepping GO ZONE); or (2) you'd be raiding the minors to cover a plain error. Of course, based on Falvine's logic, you wouldn't trade for a Madbum-like player in a close race because even though you're in the race, you're not "clearly the best team in the division." It's not worth the outlay for a rental. Also, again, a lack of action on a multi-year front is short-sighted because they're going to be signing FAs next year out of necessity anyways (lest we reboot the 2013 Twins offseason plan (Correa, Pelfrey and the Vanimal (and May) for Revere). If they go that route, they're in Loria-esque payroll territory. Compare all of that with doing nothing. The Twins might save $20M if they don't sign Keuchel--that's the only advantage. But, it's not a "savings" that will be rolled over into next year or the year after. If the advantage is saving money otherwise allocated to payroll by formula, why even compete in the first place? Why waste $14.3M on Cruz? When you could've used an Austin/Duda platoon. Why waste $7.5M on Schoop? We could call up Gordon and see what he's got or play Adrianza until mid-season. Why tender Odorizzi at $9.5M? Fernando Romero time. That's another "wasted" $31M-ish! Now the Pohlads saved over $50M!