Matt Braun

We, as fans, have an interesting relationship between the franchises we support and ourselves. The bottom line of why we support these teams is usually because we enjoy doing so (although it seems like some Twins “fans” on Twitter don’t enjoy anything that has to do with them, but that’s another story). And this vested interest in the team leads us to want our franchise to acquire the best talent available in order to possibly win the championship at the end of the season. But, there are parameters set up by the team that we also must accept in the form of payroll. We understand the limitations which are laid out to us and then theorize events that can occur within them because our teams have shown us what the limits are. In MLB, not all franchise is created equal as there are consistent patterns of spending among the teams which split them up into either “big markets” who can land the big free agents and “small markets” who have to settle for less. Now, let me get one thing clear, I am not whining about if this system is unfair as I personally believe it really is not much of a problem. Nor am I damning the teams such as the Twins who operate under stricter rules than others because I also understand that payroll is correlated to profit and this is a business after all. Teams who spend more generally have a better chance of making the playoffs but there is little to no correlation between spending and actually winning the championship. To put it simply, it’s pretty much just dumb blind luck whether or not a team wins the World Series once they make the playoffs. No, instead I want to comment on the fascinating position fans find themselves in when it comes to theorizing roster moves and creating scenarios in their mind with a certain limit that they must consider. It’s easy for us to disconnect ourselves from the money that the players we root for are making, we don’t see the total in terms of “how much is that player making” as much as we see it in “how will how much that player is making affect the teams ability to make moves”. We squabble over how many millions can we reasonably offer to a free agent along with coming to terms with the fact that teams will keep MLB ready prospects down in the minors in order to keep them around for cheaper for longer. Hell, we just saw this happen with Byron Buxton when the Twins didn’t call him up when rosters expanded party because it would give the Twins an extra year of team control. Of course, the decision required more nuance than that, but the end result was that Buxton will now be stifled in the amount of money he will be making in the future because of the limits set up the team. In a perfect world, he would have been called up in September because it would not matter that the Twins would be forced to pay him more money sooner because it would not be an issue to do so, they could offer him whatever 6 year contract he pleased and both sides would go frolic in a garden somewhere, but that isn’t the baseball world we live in. I rationalized this decision, like most others did, with the reasoning I laid out before, but in doing so I sided with the team and owner who is worth billions of dollars instead of the player worth a fraction of a fraction of that. And now, that doesn’t sit right with me. Along with this, I think of the numerous players who were non-tendered because their arbitration totals were probably going to be higher than how much their teams thought they were worth and those players were cut to save a few bucks. This would be fine if the teams spent more on free agents in return but this hasn’t been the case for a lot of teams as it seems some franchises aren’t aware that they are allowed to sign players right now. There’s also that statement that follows every question about whether a team should sign a player: “sure, as long as he’s cheap”. The easy response is that these players, while worth way less than their owners, will still end up making far more money than any of us will and it becomes hard to feel bad for a player who ends up making only 3 million dollars instead of 4 million dollars because the difference is negligible for us. But again, we’re looking at their salary from the point of view of someone who has a vested interest in them making as little money as possible in order for our favorite team to have more flexibility for future acquisitions. At the end of the day, should teams really be this concerned with cutting miniscule costs in the name of efficiency? Should how much money C.J. Cron is making affect whether or not the Rays DFA him? And should we be infuriated when Andrew McCutchen signs for 5 million dollars more than we think he’s worth? I don’t believe so, but hey, it isn’t my money.

Thanks for the help Tom! Yeah, I'm with you as far as the opportunity with awful teams in the AL, but I still think it's just a little too early to take the plunge and go all in. I think that will happen next off-season or possibly this trade deadline if the season goes well enough.

A profound philosopher once proclaimed that “it just takes some time” and that while you might be “in the middle of the ride”, “everything, everything will be just fine.” “Jimmy Eat World lyrics? That isn’t philosophical.” Well, when I’ve been drinking a little on Friday nights, it starts to sound like Socrates to me so lay off of it. The name of that song is “The Middle”, a little diddy you may have heard of, and it was the inspiration for this article about where the Twins happen to find themselves in MLB’s landscape. The Twins are of course quite a bit better than the trifecta of teams underneath them who have no interest in winning games but are still a fair bit worse than the Indians even if you squint really hard. The Indians also apparently are not very interested in winning more games considering the moves they have made this off-season and the fact that Jordan Luplow is currently one of their starting outfielders. Did I make that name up? Honestly, I checked Fangraphs and I’m still not convinced he’s a real player. But until there is a trade of either Trevor Bauer or Corey Kluber, the Indians will remain favorites for winning the AL Central again which leaves the Twins in the middle. The Wild Card remains an opportunity but considering the Balrog that is the AL East along with a few strong contenders in the West like the Angels and the Athletics, that path may actually be harder than winning the division for Minnesota in 2019. Regression is prime for both the Athletics and the Rays, the former potentially following in the footsteps of Minnesota as the “performed better than everyone thought only to get moped up by the Yankees in a Wild Card game and then fall off the next year” team. But many things will have to go right for Minnesota to see the playoffs again. Is this a bad place to be in? I don’t think so. Every year it seems that the MLB season is as much of a battle of quality players as it is a war of attrition, it comes as no surprise that the teams which make the playoffs are usually teams that avoided major injuries and were able to get consistent production from their major players. While betting on specific injuries and regression is not a good idea, betting on general injuries and regression among the contending teams is not necessarily a bad play. Just look at the 2018 Twins, who would have thought that Brian Dozier would forget how to hit a fastball, Jorge Polanco would get caught with too much O.J., Ervin Santana would lose a finger in the war, Jason Castro would bump knees with Teddy Bridgewater, Byron Buxton would be kidnapped at sporadic parts of the season, Miguel Sano having a metal rod shoved into his leg would be the 4th worst thing to happen to him that year, Logan Morrison would turn into a baked potato, and Lance Lynn would try to eat that potato. The point is, there sits a bevy of teams who are perfect candidates for smiting by the baseball gods and if the Twins just outlast those teams in 2019, they could make the playoffs in a similar fashion to the 2017 team that was able to coast to a surprise Wild Card spot. The 2018 Oakland team saw this happen also when the Mariners fell off as they always do and when the Angels partnered with the local sports hospitals of the greater Anaheim area like they also always do. Once they were out of the way, the only other competition was a Rays team which was the sports equivalent of a Monty Python sketch. After the addition of a boomstick, the 2019 Twins project by Fangraphs to be the 13th best team in baseball by fWAR at 36, .9 ahead of the 15th team (the A’s ironically) who are at 35.1, 2018 Josh Bell is the difference between them. The current free agents left are fairly uninspiring and will probably not make up enough of a difference to launch them into the upper echelon of teams. The farm system, while very very tasty, is probably a year away from having the major prospects grace the major league team. So the plan should be to put together a solid squad in 2018 which includes a reliever addition or two and then hope that things happen to fall in place to allow the 2019 team reach the playoffs while the prospects continue to develop and then hopefully cultivate in a 2020 team ready to take down the champ.