Riverbrian

Yes In theory, the Cron spot on the roster could be filled by a player who plays a different position. Any position. We don't have to limit ourselves to replacing Cron with a 1B only and therefore settling for a Bird dice roll. We don't have to shove Arraez into a static 2B role to replace the Schoop roster spot either? We also don't have to take name Marwin a starter anywhere either and take away his flexibility? The Twins can absolutely consider the best player regardless of position and acquire whoever that is. Mookie Betts could absolutely be the guy who replaces Cron. The current Twins roster could make this work... rather smoothly.

Minor league deal only for a contender.

I'll say it again. If Astudillo simply stops swinging at crap. If he learns to work the pitcher, while continuing to improve at the catcher position. With those contact skills. We will all see a rocket in terms of value increase. You keep this guy... you work with him... you fix him.

I could be wrong but I think the Dodgers could be outbid for Bumgarner. Friedman just doesn't seem to be that guy who settles for Bumgarner because he has unspent Cole money. He's too disciplined in everything he does. If Bumgarner takes less years... he will sign with the Dodgers. If he is looking for a longer term. He will sign someplace else because someone will bite to get the deal done. Where that someplace else is? Anybody's guess. Ryu? I assume he will probably be offered less years. This will bring the Dodgers heavy in that discussion instead. Just my guess. I'm not betting anything of value on my guess.

When you research the trade history of Terry Ryan over the past decade and then compare it to the other 29 teams during the same time period. The Twins were an orange pylon. The new front office has changed this. A new player acquisition door has opened and the tree has the sunlight needed to grow.

I have no idea... You'd have to imagine that he has a chair at the table and with a chair comes a voice. But, IMO... if he had significant input on the baseball side of operations... Things would get to cloggy.

My question is quite simple. What has changed between now and when the Twins were really trying to minimize his use in August and Early September? 28 Innings? I am all for getting Dobnak a chance to show us that he is better than we think. I believe he might be better than we think. It's possible, I won't doubt the guy but we don't know and the front office doesn't know. However... it would be bad roster management and a pure dice roll to plan your 2020 opening day roster with Dobnak taking one of the spots after trying really really hard not to utilize him 28 innings ago. It's 2020... It's a pivotal year... Don't mess around. Sign or trade for some arms with a track record. This is what contending teams do in the off-season. They don't mess around.

I could be wrong but I think Friedman is too disciplined to outbid others just because he can.

The only thing I can do is try to imagine how I would react to similar circumstances. If I was Madison Bumgarner... This is my first chance to control my fate... choose my team. I'm not giving that up and I'm taking it very seriously. Yes Money would have to be a factor (to a point) for me. And it would probably be the first filter to run teams through. I'm not signing for 20 million if I have 100 million on the table but 90 million with 100 million on the table wouldn't matter that much to me. I imagine that once I filter the money through and get a list of teams willing to go to certain area of compensation. My tiebreakers in order would then be: 1. Who am I working with? The manager, the GM, the coaching staff, the players. What will my work environment be like? Is the GM signing me because he is on the hot seat. Is the manager on the hot seat? Does the pitching coach have a good track record, does he call you at 4 in the morning? Do the players produce a fun environment. I don't want to go to a library to play baseball because it's a few million more. 2. Will the team be competitive for the long haul? I don't want to lock into 5 years with a club that is about to fall off a cliff. Again... Is the GM or Manager on the hot seat? 3. Location, Do I like the bright lights of New York City or the relatively quiet of Minnesota or San Diego. Once I run the process through those 3 filters and pick out a favorite destination. Then I can circle back to that preferred team and talk about the 90 million they are offering and tell them that all they have to do is take that 90 million and raise it to 100 million and I'm signing. If the team won't budge... I'll have to ask myself if that 10 million matters? I imagine with me... I would need to be recruited... it would require salesmanship from the baseball team. I'd want to meet with the pitching coach and the manager and the front office. I would like to interview them. I would want to be comfortable with the people who will I be placing my trust in. This is the first time I will be allowed to make this type of decision. When I sign with someone, I give that freedom up again. To give that up... it will require trust in who I'm giving it to.

I've heard rumors that Robbie Ray is on the Trade Block... I've heard rumors that the D-Backs are looking for a RF. Rosario plus a prospect for Robbie Ray?

He looks more and more handsome to me with each W.

I agree that Grisham is the primary value in the trade. I also understand this is need based trade. The Brewers want a SS because they ain't so comfortable with Arcia anymore and the Padres are obviously re-tooling the OF on the fly. However, Urias is a pretty steep price. I have no idea but I'm thinking that they could have really upgraded the rotation for Urias. If they still needed a young OF'er to plug in immediately like Grisham... They still had ample prospects to get that sort of deal done elsewhere. And I also am curious about the need for an OF in SD. Just a year ago, they had young OF coming out of their ears. Today... Besides Pham and Grisham... they have Franchy and Margot plus Myers. It feels like Preller is being a little undisciplined or frantic. But Hey... If he likes the guy... he likes the guy and he must pay the price to get the guy.

I think I understand what the Padres are doing. They seem to be aggressively re-tooling the roster in the face of a disappointing season. The expectations have to be higher while the patience lessened after the Big Myers contract and big free agent additions of Hosmer and Machado. They have a ton of youth and I'm sure they want more youth/immediate result balance and after spending what they have recently, I wouldn't doubt that Preller may have his job on the line. However... from my outsiders viewpoint... I can't help wonder if they couldn't have gotten a much better pitcher than Davies in return for Urias. Doesn't Urias and Lauer put them into realistic discussion with the Tigers for Boyd? Taillon with the Pirates? Gray with the Rockies? Mancini and Bundy with the Orioles? Gonzales with the Mariners?

They have and doing it very well.

I think the Rays won the trade.

It's nice to have a catcher who has caught Robbie Ray. Just sayin'.

Doesn't the article talk about what the front office has done with it's resources? Limited resources or not. The article doesn't mention Dave St. Peter or Jim Pohlad. I agree that being a blogger doesn't make anyone more credible. However... Responding to an article about THIS front office by just tossing it into a "20 year" implied systematic lowering of expectations. Implies (to me at least) that you either: A. Didn't read the article B. Didn't care what the article said because you have a 20 year opinion that trumps any adjustments the new front office has made in 3 years, when the current front office and what they might do was the focus of the article. Either way... your response had very little to do with the article itself. Unless, you were just trying to reduce the article as worthless because you believe that there is just "no hope" and you just wanted to type that for those like Ted who have hope.

Super Utility is real. The National League MVP is Super Utility. If an MVP award doesn't legitimize the concept... I don't what else will.

I'm a value guy... I frequently question why you would pay a guy millions if a guy making 600K can produce the same. However... when it comes to free agency. You can’t approach it with a spreadsheet. If you want the guy, you got to outbid the other guy. The guy's agent and the other guys bidding for him may not be aware or care what your spreadsheet says. Hard lines will force you to sign your 6th choice instead of your 1st choice.

This is the best description of free agency on the planet.

Based on the research I'm seeing. Santa has to deliver to approximately 6 thousand kids a second. In order to get that many presents delivered that fast, the only thing that makes sense to me. There would have to be some throwing of the presents involved. This takes velocity, accuracy and almost perfect rapid fire mechanics. In other words... there is no way he is doing this by Reindeer and foot speed alone. The guy can no doubt throw.

I continue to not understand why others don't seem to understand. We all saw it last year. We all watched Baldelli move the pieces around and we had to see the benefit it produced. Arraez played, 2B, 3B, SS and LF in 2019 and yet we can't help trying to put him into a static role for 2020 and checking that box as filled. You can quote all the defensive stats you want and call him sub-par. We watched the games... Arraez did not kill us defensively and the fact that he could man four different positions, helped us tremendously defensively. By splitting 4 positions in less than a full season... he isn't going to get enough time at any of the positions to get defensive stat accuracy. Put those Arraez defensive stats down and simply think back to the games you watched. It should come back to you that his defense didn't kill us. He can play 4 positions decently... why would anyone want to take that skill away from him? Sano to 1B... OK... but why do we need to take away his ability to play 3B so he plays 1B everyday? He can play both. If you want to get Garver some more AB's... Garver can play some 1B and Sano can shift over to 3B to make room when he does. Maybe Rooker gets hot and can play some 1B and Sano can shift to 3B to make room. Why would you take away his ability to play 3B so he can just stand in one spot and restrict movement from other players on the team? The 2019 Twins used flexibility to their advantage and produced 101 wins. We watched it... It went well... Why do we want to go back to the old way, especially when that old way didn't work so well?

That’s the gutsy part. If the Twins fail to get the average production that Cron has provided at 1B. The team takes a hit. I believe the decision is cost per analysis. They believe they can at least match or surpass his projected production for a lot less money or even more money with bigger projected production. If they are right... they improve the team. If they are wrong... we will let them have it on Twinsdaily. For me... I don’t want them to ever settle for average out of fear they can’t do better.

It takes guts to let a player like Cron go. However... it's ultimately a good thing that this front office has those guts. The Twins took a long time to put together a roster that can compete and the reason it took so long was because we treated Trevor Plouffe (and others) like he was Nolan Arenado. This type of spending on average, and you keep your job commitment to average stopped us from finding someone who could play like Arenado. I like that this front office is stopping this practice.

There is no challenge forthcoming. You are spot on! While I wouldn't break camp with any of those 4 on the opening day roster... you do have to plan for the possibility of one or more of them charging out of the gates like Arraez did last year when the phone call comes. At 8 Million... Cron has to be a clear upgrade over what these 4 guys could produce or he becomes a Logan Morrison shaped locked door for what could be quality 600K talent. The other consideration is this... Cron was released at 4M by the Rays... This allowed the Rays to: 1. 850K Choi and 600K Nate Lowe... Both either performed equal to, if not better than Cron did. It also allowed them to dice roll with Aguilar to see if he could recover the old magic. If the Rays can find 3 less than 1M options of similar talent to Cron when Cron was out priced at 4M. It kinda suggests that there are a ton of average 1B out there. Thames for example is out there. Better numbers than Cron and he can play occasional OF. If the Rays can succussfully replace him at 4M 3 times... 8M isn't going to make much sense unless you have no other alternatives. 2. Rotate Yandy Diaz from 3B into 1B from time to time so they could cycle 5 other players through the 3B position from time to time. Find the combinations that work, keep important depth. The Twins could do the same thing with Sano... play him at 1B from time to time. This would open the door for Marwin, Arraez and Adrianza the chance to play some 3B. Or Yes... Sign a big hitting 3B that will actually hit much better than what Cron produced. 3. With Rooker, Larnach, Kiriloff and Raley knocking on the door and all of them 1B candidates. The Combination of Cruz and Cron on the same roster makes them a 22 million dollar Rooker tar pit. Cron not on the roster saves 8 million and unclogs a roster full of MLB talent.