Brandon

110/8 = 13.75. if JD signs for 110 million he needs to produce 13.75 WAR to justify the contract. He produced around 6 last year. 13.75 is just shy of 3.5 WAR per season. I feel like even with regression he should be able to hit the number or close to it. I don't think it's a huge overpay to sign him. If there was ever a time to strike it is now. But if the Twins want to play chicken with him and the other teams over 10 million whatever. They should make a small concession when he is ready to sign if no one else blinks to get him here.

He will make 12 starts and pitch 63 innings and go 5-3 with a 4.20 ERA. With 52 Ks and 28 BBs. Control takes a while to come back after surgery and that messes with his success a little.

While the Twins posture and possibly walk away from Donaldson we are left wondering what are options are for an impact upgrade. The only other big one I see is a trade for Kris Bryant with the Cubs. They are asking alot but we fans are practically demanding the front office put up or shut up. So with an impact move that needs to be made do we trade for Bryant or go with JD s demand for 110 million? What would we need to give up to get 2 seasons of Bryant? larnarch, Graterol, Jeffers? I am not.going to pretend I know what it would.take.to make this trade but I am sure it's not cheap. What do you think the Twins should be do?

I would call last season a success. I would say the front office needs to step up and pay the price to improve the team. I think signing Donaldson is a step in the right direction. If Donaldson can be a 5-7 war player the first 3 seasons and a 2-3 the 4th season it's a win for us. The contract is right at the end of our comfort zone or what should be our comfort zone. The Twins should give him the 110 million with a 12-24 window to sign and start negotiating with Moreland in the meantime so they can pivot away from him immediately if he doesn't sign. If the Twins are truly out of the running then Atlanta can sign him for whatever he wants and JD will have overplayed his hand. I think Washington is only in at this point to keep the bidding higher. If the bottom drops out they will gladly sign him but I don't think they will break the bank to sign him. I think what the Twins are doing is exposing this to JD by saying they are going to walk away from the table. And if you want to sign with Atlanta you can do it on their terms and if you want to get the best offer, you can sign what we have out there. I imagine the Twins would budge a little as a consession to get a deal done maybe 4 million or 1 million a year, but not up to 110 million.

Maybe they circle back and get Price for the rotation. Not much else you can do.

When Donaldson signs with the Twins, we will have 6 30+ HR hitters on the team so if one of them leads off, it's ok.

Do it. If the Twins are going to punt on the pitching, we need to help what pitching we have and we also need to bludgeon the opposing team offensively.

I will like the signings with one more upside play. If we could sign one of Walker or Wood. With more lottery tickets you increase the odds of hitting on one. We have 4 starter prospects who can either start or are good fill ins for a start or two. We also have several others on the way up so we have lots of opportunities for a starter to step up and be a number 2/3 starter. Rotation Berrios Odorizzi Pineda replacement for 6 weeks Homer Bailey The 4 who can step in Graterol Smeltzer Thorpe Dobnak Several others should be ready at various points throughout the season as well Jax Poppen Wells Alcala It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Though again I would be happier with a Wood or Walker signing to top this off.

I was thinking maybe the Twins upped their offer or have a highly competitive offer out there. I think if leaked by Minnesota is to show their fans we have a 4 year offer out there so we are definitely competitive. They are putting their money out there. It's just waiting to be accepted. I just wished they could've leaked the dollar amount too so we can judge the offer ourselves.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/12/twins-have-made-4-year-offer-to-josh-donaldson.html Hopefully this offer gets accepted as it would be a good way to wrap up the off-season. Big improvement on offense, improvement in the pen, and status quo with upside in the rotation.

When Donaldson is 37 he will likely still be able to put up a .750+ OPS. He walks alot and power is the last thing to go. His average will drop as he ages. Think .220-.230/.320/.430. His defense will drop as well but should still be adequate. He will basically be Todd Frazier at 37. That's still worth around 10 million. So I am fine signing Donaldson. Now is the time we need his bat the most. If he is worth 10 million and on that last year we are paying 24-25 million we are paying that extra 14-15 million for the production the first 2 years of the deal. This is not a tragic overpay. I suspect though that this is worst case scenario. He could be moved to 1B/DH and hit better and field better at 1B. It's his reaction times that will drop not his fundamentals.

I rate it incomplete. The Twins had impact starting pitcher in the list and it isn't done yet. Also 1B/3B needs to be resolved. There are lots of options for the corner IF and they all but Donaldson replace what we got for Cron so at worst we will be even there. If we get Donaldson then it's a big Improvement. Our bullpen is improved as we get Romo and Clippard for the year. On the rotation while we are hoping for a big upgrade, finding pitchers to outperform what Gibson and Martin gave us last year needs to happen at minimum. Incremental improvements on a 101 win team should be as good as we can do. Donaldson is the variable at this point which can swing our off-season pendulum.

The Twins traded Denny Neagle for Jon Smiley back in 1992. That was the last time I remember the Twins trading a top prospect for pitching. Jay Bell as part of a package for Bert Blylevin back in 1985.

The best reason to sign Donaldson? That would give us a lineup where our 3B Donaldson, 1B Sano, C Garver, and DH Cruz all had an OPS at or over .900. Add in other line up members Polanco, Rosario, Buxton, and Kepler who all had OPS over .800. Arreaz should be atleast a .750 OPS and our bench did well too. Add Moreland at 1B instead and our lineup I still strong but with Donaldson we are several levels above the Whitesox Even with all their improvements.

If we are not going to get a proven ace, I would rather have several pitchers who can break out to increase the odds that 1 does.

Do it. Sign both Walker and Wood then trade for Archer. All three could start the season with the Twins if Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, and Graterol need more minor league time.

I think the team MVP for the Twins will be Sano. He will hit .265/.380/.670. with a full season at 1B after we sign Donaldson. Sano becomes the first Twins hitter to top the 50 HR mark. With a full season of health, Buxton is 30 OAA (Outs Above Average) and has 10 5 star Catches and 20 OF assists. With 50 stolen bases and 21 triples Buxton I a close second in the MVP race. He has a .280/.350/.550 batting line. Polanco just duplicates his 2019 season in 2020 and that is only good for fourth place in the team MVP race as Donaldson comes in and solidifies most of the IF defense with GG Defense at third helping Polanco improve at SS and Donaldson hits 40 HRs and has a batting line of .270/.370/.580. Nelson Cruz starts to regress a little and doesn't quite make the top 5 in team MVP voting next season as being a DH only with only 39 HRs in 520 AB is a downturn from his 41 in 2019 I 100 fewer AB. Still his batting line of .280/.360/.550 is pretty solid. Kepler though is able to win a GG by staying in a corner OF spot.for a full season. Finally breaking through to the 45 HR plateau. With a batting line of .260/.330/.560 he gets 5th in team MVP. Berrios finally wins 20 games but that is more of a product of offensive improvement than an improvement from Berrios. Still his 3.10 ERA is the best of his career. There is great debate as to whether he is now an ace or a 1B starter. Odorizzi has another stellar season. He even pitches 6 innings in a couple starts and 7 innings once. Tyler Clipboard gets the top reliever of the year award as he is the biggest beneficiary of Buxton playing everyday in CF. Nothing but rain drops in the Twins OF so the 45% flyball rate gets caught. Including 6 HRs get reeled in with over the wall highlight catches. In fact 7 of Buxton's 5 star Catches comes with Clipboard on the mound. Because of this Clipboard pitches 72 innings and gives up only 12 earned runs. This season doesn't even register in the top ten team MVP discussion. Note: the Twins win the 2020 World Series.

The Whitesox look so much better on paper until you look further at how awful their bench appears. How bad will their team be affected by an injury to a starting player? The Twins just need to replace Cron and Gibson to return to status quo of a team that won a 101 games. That seems more than likely. The question for us is can we find that ace starter for the playoffs and can we sign Donaldson to be our improved offensive and defensive player. The answer to those two questions could push us to that 110 win team....

Schoop was already internally replaced and Cron is easy to replace. The questions now is are we able to sign Donaldson for our lineup which is a big upgrade and this one atleast looks competitive and what do we do about the one more spot in the rotation? Both answers could be huge upgrades or at worst someone to help keep status quo.

didn't we have the 5th best rotation last season? Swapping out Martin for a rookie should be an incremental improvement. We are still minus Gibson who was a number 4 starter last season. I think we can sign another number 4. I think we are trying to improve the rotation or we would have signed someone already. And on offense we could sign Moreland till one of the rookies are ready if we don't sign Donaldson.

The Whitesox are still short a 2B and CF that can hit. I think they have a 2B prospect. They have a terrible bench. No one you want starting for long stretches at a time. So while they are a better team, they better not get hurt. I haven't checked their bullpen but I remember it being a Bummer and nothing else. We have Gonzales ready to step in as well as Cave. And Adrianza proved adequate at SS for half a season.

Paul Molitor was manager of the year a year before getting fired.

I would think the same offer from the Twins would have won us Ryu as we are in contention now.

The Whitesox don't have any margin of error or injury. Even if they sign Edwin Encarnation.

I don't think signing those veterans I FA kept the Royals from resigning their core at free agency. The 5 year 80 million from the Brewers go Cain to leave, didn't Moustakas resign then get traded? They resigned Gordon and tried to resign their 1B to sizable contracts. Also you only name two prospects the Royals traded that won't make a team either. They went over 140 million in payroll to win. Shields also got a lot of money as a free agent. If the Twins max out their payroll this year, cruz and Gonzales comes off the books freeing up 22 million. We also can trade or nontender Rosario. And Odorizzi 17.8 million is also off the books. And we have multiple prospects ready to step in. So signing an aging free agent can hurt, it shouldn't criple us from making moves and shortening our competitive window.