Whammy

No reason for Cleveland not to trade Ramirez at this point. They might as well maximize value with his remaining 3 years left (the last two are inexpensive options of 11m & 13m).

We've come to my first major disagreement with your rankings. On the open market I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Berrios would get more in return than Kepler. If we fast forward a year when Jose's service time is cut in half and we still have 3 or 4 more years of Kep, that might change, but I can't get on board with 2 years of Jose being less valuable than (insert any number here) years of Kepler And I like Kep Also, I think there should be a little "spiff" in your rankings for the fact that the team has exclusive negotiating rights with a player while he's still in arb

It's like the Rays have an internal rule to never let a player reach their final year of arbitration, which, to be honest, is a pretty interesting concept if you're disciplined enough to do it.

MLB Needs to grab the bull by the horns and figure out this streaming thing. The people that are in control of the FS(insert geography here) broadcast situation, which is not MLB in this case have, no incentive to act in the best interest of fans. They treat streaming rights as a 4 month hot potato sold to the highest bidder and the fans who are just trying to do the right (legal) thing are the ones who get hosed. Too much more of this and more and more people will just deal with the moral issues of pirating the broadcast, since it feels like they've been pirating our ability to watch baseball for two years now.

Or Darvish, who's rumored to be available

Re: Jeffers I agree with the poster about top 3 (or maybe 4), because of the reasons he laid out. Some people had him as high as 6 last offseason, and while I agree a 26 game sample isn't enough to tell us much about his offense, what we saw from him as a catcher is less reliant on small sample size flukes. The above average defense, the team showing very high confidence in him, and the small sample of good offense in MLB is enough for me to push him above Larnach for sure.

I can't recall if it was this thread or not, but I've seen people say stuff about, the best prospects not spending much time at AAA. While that has historically been true (more so the last decade), let's look at three things: 1) For the Twins specifically, will that change with the new St Paul affiliation. From both a marketability stand point as well as the standpoint of having players just down the road from the Major League club, will the Twins start to use AAA as the final stop and have that stop be longer than we've been seeing for the last decade. That doesn't necessarily mean that the timeclock to MLB has to be longer. It could just be less time at AA 2) For MLB as a whole, how will the new smaller farm systems affect this? Will not having rookie ball push the 15 guys who have a shot at MLB into low A and will that in turn push guys who's normally be at Low A into High A... and so on? Will the smaller farm systems indirectly cause less "fodder" at AAA, that will be filled with more legit prospects? 3) Will this overall resetting of MiLB into more geographically sensible affiliations cause this as well. If everyone's closest farm team is their AAA club, then why wouldn't everyone start using AAA as their final feeder into MLB? Once a few teams start to do this, will everyone jump on board?

Jeffers is still technically a prospect right (ie. Rookie of the Year eligible)

It's tough to do, but if we divorce ourselves from the knowledge of what Cruz did for MN the last 2 years, I feel like almost nobody would be calling for us to sign a high priced bat (especially not a DH). We'd be saying stuff like "having a guy locked in at DH kills our flexibility" and "that money can be better spent on contract extensions and pitching" I'm firmly in the "Sign Bauer and figure the rest out with low cost FA and internal league minimum guys" camp. Part of that is because i feel like it's inevitable that we will be back to an 8 teams per league playoff format. Assuming that's the case, I like the strategy of signing high end SP and using the regular season as more of a testing ground for the young guys like Kirilloff, Larnach, and Rooker. Having Cruz a) would kill the budget for signing Bauer and b.) stifle a lot of that "testing" of players in the regular season.

Here's the thing about waiting for the NL decision.... Assuming it eventually gets done with a commissioner order Yes, it will help his 2021 value because there are a lot more teams who would be interested. BUT It likely will not help him in terms of getting a 2nd year tacked on because no NL team is going to give a guaranteed 2nd year when they don't know if the NL will have a DH in 2022. The reason the commish would do it via 1 year order is that so making it permanent can be one of their bargaining chips when the new CBA gets bargained... after the 2021 season

Bailey Ober strikes me as exactly the type of guy a team will take a flyer on. Then release him in Spring Training and have him go to another team for a couple weeks... Rinse and repeat until he makes it through waivers and ends up at someone's AAA affiliate. Exactly the thing an oft-injured player needs. Relentless instability

Worth noting. If the season gets shortened, that $125M would be reduced proportionally. So while they ARE guaranteed contracts, the full amount wouldn't be owed. For example: The Twins were only on the hook for $52M in payroll in 2020. I know people know this, but I feel like it gets a little ignored in the thought process of "how much will the Twins spend on payroll in 2021"

The short answer is "No", but if we're willing to ship off Sano in favor of a 600k replacement, what makes us think that any other team is interesting in taking on that guaranteed money for the next two years?

At first glance, as I fade off to sleep, I don’t believe he subtracted the minimum salary he had assigned to fill out the roster in the first section, when he added in the arb guys. So that’s like 4mil. Will review more in the morning

Not listed and not included in the total… Dobnak and Smeltzer 26-man spots that still need filling… SP SP RP RP LF 4th OF IF Util DH

Per my unscientific calculations, the Twins have $79M in firm and likely commitments next season, with some Arb guesses by me. Garver – 1.0 Jeffers – 0.5 Donaldson – 21.0 Polanco – 4.3 Arraez – 0.5 Sano – 11.0 Kepler – 6.5 Buxton – 4.0 Maeda – 3.0 (officially, but likely much higher with incentives) Berrios – 6.0 Pineda – 10.0 Rogers – 5.0 (included, but…. Are we sure?) Duffey – 3.0 Wisler – 1.5 Stashak – 0.5 Alcala – 0.5 Thielbar – 0.5 Looks like it was $79M without any Maeda incentives

When I ran the numbers a couple weeks ago, the Twins were at $79M in full or likely commitments (No Rosario or Romo) and a reasonable amount of incentive reached by Maeda.

I have no doubt that most teams lost money this year, but they will never convince me in a million years that they lost 4-5 years worth of income.

This is general to baseball, but also will have an effect on some of the Twins’ free agents-to-be. What’s up with 2021? Does anyone really know? Free Agents (as usual) are going to want as much guaranteed money as possible, but teams might be reluctant to have high payrolls in 2021. With unknowns come…. Market inefficiencies. So what are some alternative contract strategies? Tactic #1 – Back loaded contracts. Instead of 3/30 being 10/10/10, why not 4/13/13. This pushes the bulk of the contract out to when the finances of baseball will likely have stabilized more. Additionally, this is beneficial to the player (not counting time value of money) because I’d say it’s still a bit of an unknown whether the full 162 will be played in 2021. For the sake of easy math, lets say it gets chopped to an 81 game schedule. When that happens instead of the player losing out on 5M (half of 10M) they only lose 2M (half of 4M). That brings me to …. Tactic #2 – Front loaded contracts. Instead of 10/10/10, why not 14/8/8. If you’re a team and you’re fairly confident that a decent amount of 2021 is going to get lopped off then why not front load the contract with a year that’s going to get trimmed down, then have the player at a discount after that. The risk is that the full 162 gets played, but if that’s the case, then likely we aren’t in the financial doomsday scenario that teams are dropping their payrolls to protect against. From the players perspective it’s not great, but nothing about this offseason is going to be great for them and having those guaranteed pay days in 2022 and 2023 might be worth it. Tactic #3 – Signing Bonus. Are these allowed? We never hear about them. It’s more of an NFL thing since their contracts aren’t guaranteed like MLB, but if they are allowed… The deep-pocketed teams might be able to sway some free agents their way by having a signing bonus. Frustrated that your paycheck was depressed in 2020? Well here’s a check for $10M and then your contract will be 4/8/8 for the next 3 years. Tactic #4 – Deferred money. (See: Bonilla, Bobby) I’d say the most likely Twins Free agents to be affected by any of these would be Odo and May. Odo is coming off a nightmare season in terms of injuries. Which would normally point to a 1-year make good contract. Not being able to really hit the FA market last offseason was made better with that $17.8M guarantee…. That turned into $6.6M. So he’s still hunting for that BIG payday that will set him up for life. But there’s a non-zero chance that if he opts for a 1-year make good contract, that he never makes good, and never gets that big payday. Ultimately it was the Odo discussion in the Gleeman and the Geek podcast that led me to go down this “Contract Tactics” rabbit hole. He maximizes his eventual earning potential with a 1-year contract, but also leaves open a doomsday scenario for him. So, would Odo take a 3/30 contract, let’s say, backloaded a little 8/11/11? Worse case that’s probably $26M guaranteed. But that’s also below full market value if you look at how he’s pitched the last couple years. As for May, he doesn’t have the nightmare 2020 looming over him like Odo, but he’s likely fighting against a market that, if payrolls are dropping, will largely ignore high priced RP. Why not pay Alcala $500k instead of May $6M? Also, as they noted in the GATG podcast, he’s never earned more than $1M in a season. That sounds like a good opportunity for a signing bonus. $4M signing bonus, then 2/5/5 after that. From the team’s perspective a $4m signing bonus is a relative drop in the bucket, but for May it represents more money than he’s earned in his entire career up to this point. But to warrant that signing bonus, he’s going to have to take a bit of a discount after that.

I thought he was like 48% this year

I posted this in a different thread, but this looks to be a better spot for it.... Sorry for double posting. I feel like there are 9 distinct scenarios – 3 levels of potential payroll (90M, 110M, 130M) & 3 potential playoff formats (Like LAST year, like THIS year, like this year but more advantage to the best teams). Not to even mention 2021 season length. There are several things I’d do regardless of the scenario: Say goodbye to Rosario Say goodbye Marwin Listen to Offers for Sano (not expecting much, so he stays around) Listen to Offers for Garver (I’m not looking to get rid of him, but if some team(s) value him near 2019 level, I’m willing to deal from a position of strength) With all of our likely existing 2021 payroll commitments we are around $75M, so regardless of the playoff scenarios if we’re looking at a $90M payroll, I’d say it’s likely Cruz is gone, and the biggest move might be bringing Odo back on a 1-year make good deal. Besides that I’d spend $5-6M total on two players 1) veteran back infielder (maybe Adrianza), 2) Veteran right handed 4th OF that you have no problem playing center. Then I’m filling the rest of the roster with near-minimum pre arb guys (Rooker, Kirilloff, Dobnak, Smeltzer, RP, RP) – That puts us around 90M If we’re in that $110M range, then I start to alter my strategy depending on the playoffs (and to a lesser extent, the length of the season) With 2019 Style Playoffs: Bring Cruz back (1yr/15), Pay Rogers $5M in arb, Say goodbye to Romo, Odo (1yr/8), Bailey (1yr/4), Splurge a little on the 4th OF (1yr/6), Get a backup IF. With 2020 Style Playoffs: Sign Bauer (1yr/30). Everything else (besides that 4th OF spot) gets filled in house with pre-arb guys. The reason these are so different is because having 8 playoff teams gives the Twins the flexibility to take some lumps by giving innings/AB to the youth movement (Kirilloff, Rooker, Larnach, Duran, Balazovich, Lewis). Find out over the course of the season who’s ready for the big time then roll into the playoffs knowing that answer and having at least Bauer, Maeda, Berrios, and Paneda as your rotation. As much as I think the 2020 style of playoffs is a crapshoot, that would likely be an exceedingly fun regular season. 130M range (not likely IMO): Add Cruz to the “2020 style playoffs” above (Bauer), spend a little more on the 4th OF, and get a legit backup IF. The main difference between the playoff styles is that if the league goes 2020 style (likely IMO), I’m still ushering in the youth movement, but it’s just a little dialed back with Cruz as my DH anchor, and I’m giving Lewis some more time in the minors to work on 3B.

I heard something interesting today... The ratings for the first round of playoffs really weren't that good. While I've been working under the assumption that playoff expansion beyond 5 and likely to 8 was inevitable, that little nugget gave me some pause.

"over" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here

I'm embarrassed to say, I completely forgot Gordon existed. I did a pretty detailed breakdown in another thread of different strategies relating to payroll options and playoff options. Most of those scenarios I had us signing an inexpensive utility IF. Mainly because, like I said, I forgot Gordon even existed.

And for the record, Garver is a perfectly average defensive catcher, leaning toward slightly below average and, albeit in fewer plate appearances (2541 vs 827), has a higher career OPS+ and also... I totally pulled it out of my butt. I was just throwing it out there and have no attachment to it. It was an add on idea at the end.