Whammy

Obviously if all other things are equal, Story is the superior player, but Story is due 13M and on the last year of his contract and Garver will make about $1M and has 3 years of team control left.

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 – Garver for Trevor Story… who says no?) 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) – 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) 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. 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 love offseason speculation. Love it. But here's where I'm struggling with this offseason. There are two MAJOR questions that we don't have answers to, that would significantly alter my strategy. 1) Payroll - 90M? 140M? Normally I have a pretty good gauge of where they SHOULD be and can work from that. But honestly, at this point, I have no idea. And, frankly, they probably don't have a great idea either. 2) Playoffs? Back to 5, with the one game WC game? Stay at 8? If we stay at 8, are the 8 teams roughly on the same playing field like this year, or are there big advantages to being a high seed? Because if the playoffs are like this year except with ta longer season, I'm willing to give the youth movement a shot, because I have more room for error (and then I spend money on one high end starter). But if it goes back to the way it was before, I probably rely on more veterans, at least at the start of the season.

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 – 0.0 Alcala – 0.5 Thielbar – 0.5 Not listed and not included in the total… Dobnak and Smeltzer Romo’s option declined and Rosario not offered Arb. 26-man spots that still need filling… SP SP RP RP LF 4th OF IF Util DH Perhaps because it’s an easy connection to make and perhaps because where there’s smoke there’s fire, Bauer has been link as a possible MN FA. He’s also said in the past (which might have changed) that he’s going to do a bunch of 1-year contracts. So, would you be up for signing Bauer to a 1/30 contract? It likely means no Nelson Cruz. And likely means no substantial free agent additions (maybe a $5M-ish RP), but I feel like we can fill most of the rest of those 26-man spots with players already in the organization. SP – Bauer SP – Dobnak (or some Bailey-esque FA signing) RP – Internal RP – Internal LF – Kirilloff 4th OF – Wade/Cave/Larnach IF - ?? Blankhorn Util - ?? DH – Rooker/Sano/Larnach That puts us around $120M in likely commitments, including about $7M for incentives likely to be attained by Maeda Play ball!

Twins fans get to see at least 1 game of Rosario's 2021 replacement before he replaces him

It was just so perfect... we let ourselves literally think, 'tying run up to the plate", then Astudillo grounds into a double play on the first pitch.

I mean, he's a lefty, but it's not like our righties had done much against that guy

Send a message Rocco... pinch hit Polanco in the bottom of the inning.

Nothing like leading off the post-season with an ump who's never been behind the plate in the post season before. Thanks MLB

And the viewers. Maeda might still be pitching with this zone

But too be fair, the first 3 pitches were all balls

PH a guy that cant hit breaking balls against a breaking ball specialist. Great idea.

I reject this premise for two reasons... 1) With as many games as MLB plays a slight imbalance seems fine. 2) The NFL only plays 16 games and they are incredibly imbalanced.

Side note: My personal belief is the the Twins have guaranteed their right to fly a “2020 Central Division Champions“ banner. Normally when there is a tie, a game 163 is played to determine a champ. There is no such thing this year. So in my mind there would be co-champions and the tiebreaker is used for seeding purposes. Basically, if you aren’t settling it on the field, then it’s co-champs. I’d be willing to listen to an argument that if one team won the season series, it was settled on the field, but in this case, we tied the season series.

No. Its 6 divisional games. 4 games against an entire division in your conference (Rotating) 4 games against an entire division in the other conference (rotating) 2 games against the teams in your same conference that finished in the same divisional position the previous year. I am 100% certain of that

So Twitter got me thinking... What's the perfect length of baseball season? And then what's the perfect playoffs to be paired with that season. I've enjoyed the 60 game season, other than not being able to go to games, but 60 in a normal year is just too short and is obviously not what's going to happen going forward. But man, it's going to be tough to go back to 162, having seen a) The best teams still bubble to the top with 60, b.) the increased importance of each game. The only downside of this 2020 package is that the number of playoff teams and seeming indifference between being seed 1 and seed 8 hasn't been great, although the NL is sure interesting going into the last weekend. The most likely thing is that we will go back to 162, because that's the easy button, and it seems like the easy button always wins. People don't want to make less money (players and owners) and 162 brings things back to normal. But this thread isn't about normal. This thread is about making things better. But at the same time coming up with a solution that both sides might just agree to (read: they don’t make less money) So what the number? For me its 124 games with 7 playoff teams in each league. I’ll talk about the playoffs first. Playoff expansion is inevitable and the good thing about the 2020 expanded playoffs, if it was implemented going forward would be the reduction in the tanking we’ve seen a lot of in the last decade or so. There were always a couple really crappy teams, but the last couple years it’s gotten a little out of control. Expanding the playoffs is also an important source of additional revenue to offset the loses of dropping to a 124 game schedule. So, how does 7 playoff teams work? 3 Division winners (seeds 1-3) and 4 wild cards (seeds 4-7) Overall 1 seed gets a bye 2 vs 7 in a best of 3 series, but #2 only has to win 1 game (#7 has to win 2 games) 3 vs 6 in a best of 3 series, but #3 only has to win 1 game (#6 has to win 2 games) 4 vs 5 in a regular 3 game series Round 2 – Reseed and play best of 5 ALCS – Best of 7 WS – Best of 7 I know this is confusing at first, but I really think it draws a clear delineation in the seeding and would mostly do away with the attitude that is occurring some this year of “does it really matter what seed we get.” Being the best team gets you a bye. Being a division winner gets you a clear advantage over the wild cards. Being a top 2 wild card is clearly important because you get a “real” series. And getting a 6/7 seed gets you in the playoffs, but it’s a tough hill to climb (eventually one of these 6/7 seeds would make a big run and it would be a great story). Now for the regular season. 124 games. How would that work? I’m going to steal from the NFL just a little and do away with this notion that is pervasive in MLB which is, everything has to be as equal as possible. Baloney. Regular season runs from around Late April to mid September Intra-Division: 48 games. 12 vs each of the other 4 teams Intra-League: 55 games. 5/6 games vs the other 10 teams Interleague: 21 games. 3 games against each of the 5 teams in “that’s years” opposing division (rotating like how it works now). But also 3 games against each of the 2 teams that finished in the same divisional ranking as you did the previous year. So, using a “normal” 2020 as an example, the Twins would play 3 games against all of the NL Central teams and 3 games against the Dodgers (since they won the NL West in 2019) and the Braves (since they won the NL East in 2019). So, yeah, that leads to a bit of an unbalanced schedule, but who cares? The NFL has been doing that for ages and it creates some of the most marquee matchups of the year. It GUARANTEES good matchups. Obviously dropping 38 regular season games is a hit to revenue, but I feel like at least some of that gets made up with a) expanded playoffs, b.) better attendance at the 62 home games that remain, and c) a negotiated TV contract for these in-season marquee matchups (ala Sunday Night Baseball). Does anyone have Manfred's mailing address?

Byron Buxton has reached a 3-ball count just 5 times this year. I don't really care... I just find it astonishing. EDIT: Actually it's, at most, 4 times. There's some overlap between 3-0, 3-1, and 3-2 counts.

Ironically, bWAR (more descriptive in nature) seems to be dinging Maeda on his seemingly unsustainable results more than the predictive fWAR

Hopefully I can get my brain to remember fWAR = Future (as in, the Fangraphs version is more predictive)

So I was perusing the pitching stats today and was looking at WAR leaders for pitchers (on ESPN, which I think is bWAR) Kenta Maeda is at 1.5, which without context seems just fine. Then I look above him. Max Scherzer is at 2.1. Hmmmm... He has and ERA over 4, and a WHIP of 1.4, while pitching the exact same number of innings as Maeda. He's got a decent amount more strikeouts than Maeda but not a TON more, so I chalk up bWAR being focused on K/9 or something. So I look higher. Max Fried 2.8 WAR. Nearly double that of Maeda. K rate is a decent amount lower than Maeda (about the difference between Kenta and Max), but has a lower ERA. That's literally the only stat that he outperforms Maeda on. So why is his WAR twice as high? So.... What the heck does pitcher WAR look at? Update: Maeda is above both pitchers on fWAR. Which really just makes things more confusing

Rooker/Cave/Gonzo OF Good thing Dobber is on the mound

His point isn't completely wrong because I will agree that the Twins aren't as "sharp" as we have been in the past, but didn't the Sox literally have as many errors in that series as the Twins had the entire year coming into the series?

Assuming for just a second that Kepler is going on the DL If the Twins thought that it would be 10 days, who would you replace him with If the Twins thought it was for the rest of the regular season, who would you replace him with? Are they different answers? Should they be? For me, if Kepler goes on the DL, it's time for Larnach to be called up.

Couldn't we technically just add him to the 60 man squad (whatever official name it has) and then trade him?