Seansy

100% behind this. When I argued that Arraez should be the lead off hitter last year Dan Hayes bit my head off with some nonsense about the Twins knowing better than some rando on the internet. Sure Dan, maybe the Twins know something that we don't. Or maybe they think they do and are wrong and should just face reality that Arraez is their best lead off hitter option!

This perfectly sums up my thinking on Arraez. If the knees will hold up, sign him long term. If they will get progressively worse with age it might be better to either avoid a long term extension or only sign one that is VERY team friendly that also helps Arraez protect himself from career ending financial losses due to his knees.

The fact that I would agree to this deal in a nanosecond tells me that it's likely not good enough to land Castillo. If they were asking for Gleyber+ I don't think Polanco, a comp pick, and cash would be enough. Probably would need to include at least another top 10ish prospect or take back a bad contract like Moose/Castellanos to include enough salary relief to make it worth their while.

I think Sonny Gray's would be a better target because his cost would be much more reasonable compared to what we heard for Castillo.

I know the comparison isn't perfect as far as years of control remaining but Aaron Hick's 7/70M extension in 2019 before his last year of arbitration that year seems like a good comp giving their injury history, prospect pedigree, and defensive abilities. That is likely too long of a commitment from the Twins' perspective but if they can reduce the guarantees in the contract by upping the incentives for things relating to games played given Buxton's lengthy injury history that may be a fair compromise for both sides.

Great write up. Do we think he will require a ML deal or could he be brought in as a NRI? If he requires a ML deal I hope they can tack on a team option so they can keep him another year if he pitches well.

Great write up. Do we think he will require a ML deal or could he be brought in as a NRI? If he requires a ML deal I hope they can tack on a team option so they can keep him another year if he pitches well.

Those Cishek and Duvall signings are very good for their teams.

Assuming Kirilloff is our LF longterm I would say building a package around Larnach for any one of these pitchers would be a great idea. Love Larnach but given our surplus of corner OF bats he makes the most sense as a trade chip.

Hoping for Clippard at ~3M and would be thrilled if Odo came back.

I'm not concerned about the rookie projections given how weird last year was and amazes me how many people want to write off Sano after a couple bad stretches coming off injury and COVID in 2020 after he was sensational in 2019. Sano had a .923 OPS in 2019 DESPITE having a brutal 3-39 stretch while changing his mechanics. He could easily have a 1.000 if he's healthy all year imo.

Agree 100% on Yamamoto. He still has 1 option remaining so he can be claimed to compete for the 5th starter spot and stashed at AAA for the year if he doesn't win it. I would guess other teams ahead of the Twins on waiver priority likely have the same idea though.

I would agree against buying high on Bauer. Based on some of previous comments and some video others have posted it is pretty clear he was using some additional substance to help with his grip during 2020 after complaining about other pitchers using it and getting away with it. If the league cracks down on it and he reverts back to a good not great pitcher the team that signs him is going to be PISSED at overpaying for a 60 game sample. Count me out.

O'Day and Clippard are my top two RH relief targets based on track record, injury history, and cost. I truly believe they are the best values for relief pitchers available. We could sign them both for ~6-7M combined and each of them individually could be as good as or better than any other higher priced reliever except for probably Hendricks.

From reporting it looks like the Twins weren't interested in Quintana. Will be interesting to see how Happ does compared to Ray and Quintana this year.

*Takes a bow* "Thank you! Thank you very much! I'd like to thank my family, friends, parents and the good Lord above for which none of this would otherwise be possible!" In all seriousness though I must confess I worked off of Aaron's list he posted and made adjustments based on how I would value them. The last 5 were definitely the hardest but I feel pretty good about my picks. Cheers Nick!

1) Kenta Maeda 2) Max Kepler 3) Alex Kirilloff 4) Royce Lewis 5) Luis Arraez 6) Jorge Polanco 7) Ryan Jeffers 8) Byron Buxton 9) Jose Berrios 10) Trevor Larnach 11) Jordan Balazovic 12) Jhoan Duran 13) Mitch Garver 14) Tyler Duffey 15) Miguel Sano 16) Randy Dobnak 17) Brent Rooker 18) Gilberto Celestino 19) Keoni Cavaco 20) Matt Canterino

Love it! Can we throw in extensions for Berrios and Buxton before they breakout into Cy Young and MVP contenders?

As always it depends on the cost. If the Twins can keep their top 6 or 7 best prospects it is probably worth trading for him and offering him the qualifying offer to recoup some of the prospect cost to acquire him.

I would love to use Castellanos' contract as a contract dump with a pitcher like Gray or Castillo! Unfortunately that means no Cruz but given his age compared to Castellanos (2021 is his age 29 season) I think that is a worthwhile move given the reduction in cost to acquire a front line starter. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ I don't know how accurate this trade simulator is but it shows the cost for those two would be either 1 of Garver, Duran, Dobnak, or Balazovic or some combination of lesser prospects. I would happily trade any of those 4 to get Castellanos and Gray. If I had to pick 1 it would probably be Garver so Jeffers starts full time and we use a veteran back up like Castro. Now, it also says we could get those two for Smeltzer, Astudillo, and Maciel and that's just silly so take it with a grain of salt but I really think Castellanos' contract isn't terrible for what he is but since the Reds are trying to cut costs... This might be a sneaky pick up. Who knows, maybe the Pohlads REALLY want to go all in and approve bringing back Cruz for 1 year AND Castellanos plays LF for 1 year. Always fun to dream right

Good tidbit from Aaron this morning on the podcast with John was that the Twins were worried they would have to pay Wisler closer to 4-5 million if they went to arbitration because of his amazing ERA being prorated over a full season by an arbiter. I think that worry is a little overblown but if that's the sense they got from Wisler's agent it at least explains a bit better why they nontendered him.

Couldn't agree with you more Cody. The Twins FO really deserves a lot of credit for finding and acquiring undervalued pitchers and developing them into real difference makers for the team. Wisler, Duffey, Thielbar, Maeda, Odorizzi, Duran, Alcala, and Dobnak have all been acquired (except Duffey) and developed into major pitching pieces for the club. I trust Falvine to find more undervalued targets that can contribute to the team going forward.

Fantasy baseball does not equal real baseball. Cruz and Rosario are rated highly for fantasy baseball because they hit 3 and 4 on a good offense so they rack up lots of RBIs. The more important thing to look at is the OPS (on base plus slugging percentage) of the player compared to the average for their position as well as how good they are defensively. Rosario rates about average offensively for a LF and is generally considered below average defensively despite a strong arm because of lots of wild bad throws and less range than average. He also hurts the team on the basepaths with how often he gets thrown out with boneheaded baserunning decisions. The most similar player to Eddie statistically is Corey Dickerson, he's literally the most similar player on baseball reference, and Dickerson is a better career hitter and generally regarded as a better fielder. As a free agent last offseason Dickerson signed a 2 year 17.5M deal with the Marlins. Eddie is projected to get ~10-13 million in arbitration this year depending on how arbitration works with the shortened season. Given how little Dickerson got as a FA last year with NO COVID revenue issues as a somewhat better player to Eddie and the fact that the Twins think Kirilloff is ready to play on just a minimum salary for 600k, it makes sense for the Twins to get rid of Eddie to save that money to spend elsewhere. Since Dickerson got less than Eddie will make in arbitration this year and most teams are acting strapped for cash, very few teams will be interested in trading for Eddie when they know the Twins will almost assuredly non tender him and they can sign him for his "true market value" of 5-7 million instead. I hope this explains why most outside observers assume the Twins will non tender Rosario. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dickeco01.shtml https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/rosared01.shtml

Not a fan of signing Anderson and I'm guessing Pilar will want to sign as a starter somewhere but otherwise I like your list

With the recent changes in the offseason here's my updated look at how the Twins can fill out their team while keeping to a 10% payroll cut. I tinkered with the numbers a bit (raising SP amounts, lowered Rogers figure, manually entered Gyorko) based off of what Fangraphs and MLB Trade Rumors put forth on contracts and arbitration. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1o_RbVgIjFQ3oNfyy4uqecJONescFSiJ4WuSR1XJkm5c/edit?usp=sharing