JB_Iowa

Just to update, here's the response from Zduriencik: http://blogs.seattletimes.com/mariners/2013/12/09/mariners-statement-from-general-manager-jack-zduriencik/

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20131207p2g00m0sp022000c.html This is a different take on the new system. According to this article, the Japanese club decides the fee in advance and then opens it up for mlb teams rather than a bidding system up to $20 m. Lots of different info coming out about Tanaka: Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 1h Rakuten president indicated to Japanese media that if Tanaka wants to be posted, team likely will honor his wishes. h/t @BenBadler. Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 30m Another view on Rakuten exec's comments on Tanaka. RT @dylanohernandez: He said he would like to post him, not that he is likely to. Ken Rosenthal ‏@Ken_Rosenthal 31m Rakuten prez believes $20M posting fee is too low. May try to discourage Tanaka from coming to MLB. Also could relent. Nothing firm yet. Rosenthal's tweets are pretty muddy!

http://seattletimes.com/html/mariners/2022420240_mariners08xml.html I found this to be a really interesting story about how top management of the Mariners functioned. While I have sometimes felt that Jim Pohlad was a little too "hands off", I don't think anyone would want ownership/top management to function in the way described in this story. (Oh, and I do think Mr. Pohlad redeemed himself by making it clear that the Twins needed to spend some money in the free agent market this off-season). Obviously there are two sides to every story and Eric Wedge's is only one but the reporter has a lot of other sources that lend credence to his claims. If even 50% of this is true, McClendon is going to need some awfully tough armor.

Gut feeling .... nobody's signing Tanaka this off-season. Unless they feel like he's a huge injury risk, why post him? They're still likely to get the $20m next year after they've had one more season of their star player. The limit on the posting fee is a disincentive to post star players any earlier than the last off-season before the player's contract expires (unless, of course, there is a big risk of injury or regression).

Jon Heyman ‏@JonHeymanCBS 30m justin morneau deal with #rockies came in at $12.5M for 2. good to see 1 club friendly deal in the bunch. Just to show how perspectives vary. Heyman calls the deal "club friendly" while many of us were shocked that it was for 2 years.

SportsCenter ‏@SportsCenter 2h How big is Robinson Cano's $240 million deal with Seattle? Mariners have spent $239.2M in the previous 8 offseasons COMBINED. But M's have TV deal announced in April 2013: with the majority purchase of ROOT Sports NW the Mariners will see approx.. $2 billion over 20 years. So that's $100m/year if my math is right (I thought I saw a figure that was higher than that). And the Twins are at what? About $30m or so? (less than $50m even with the new agreement if I remember right). There is such a huge discrepancy in local TV money. But even with the M's new revenue stream, I wouldn't want to be saddled with that contract. It looks like they are using it as a bit of a "loss leader" to try to attract other free agents.

From the current Hot Stove chat on ESPN1500: I DO think the Twins will add another pitcher. I'm hearing rumblings at Target Field -- people believe Terry Ryan could make a fairly big trade next week. by Phil Mackey 12/6/2013 6:37:07 PM 12:37 PM Like I said, I think the Twins will really kick the tires on potential trades. Keep an eye on A's LHP Brett Anderson. by Phil Mackey 12/6/2013 6:40:10 PM 12:40 PM Considering Anderson's injury history and $8 million contract, I don't think it would take top prospects. I'll throw the question back to you guys: If the A's said "Arcia for Anderson, and he's yours," do you do it if you're Terry Ryan? by Phil Mackey 12:43 PM ↑

The article is here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10084018/masahiro-tanaka-not-made-available-mlb-teams-rakuten-golden-eagles This is big news if Rakutan decides the posting fee isn't enough. And, after seeing Hokkaido Nippon get almost $52 million for Darvish 2 years ago, it's not hard to understand why. (I don't think Tanaka is worth the Darvish fee but given how much extra revenue is around mlb these days, Rakutan had to be drooling over the possibilities.) From this story: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2013/07/15/baseball/rakuten-ace-tanaka-turning-heads/#.UqHm9pV3uhx it looks like Tanaka signed a 3-year contract with Rakutan in December 2012 so they have him under team control through 2015. They could easily wait until next off-season to see if the rules change. Even if the rules don't change, they get their pitcher for another year and don't take much risk that they wouldn't get the $20m next year. The cap on posting fees could definitely affect how early teams are willing to post star players.

LOL. It was surprising to me because Hughes has been around the game for a fair amount of time and the Twins had been interested in him previously. It wasn't just that they hadn't met recently. It was that they had never spoken before: Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino First time Terry Ryan ever spoke with Phil Hughes was today, the day he signed him for $24 million over 3 yrs. Not even a prior phone call.

I thought he sounded more confident in his one-on-one interview on FSN than in the presser itself (but the questions were pretty much re-runs). And yes, its a shocker that TR never met/talked to him before today.

Have you watched him over the years? I haven't so I don't know his usual demeanor. Seemed diffident during the press conference as opposed to the smiling, confident Nolasco but for all I know, that may be typical for him. P.S. Let's hope that his taking Scott Ullger's number is good for both of them. Of course, if Ullger wanted to retire, that would be okay, too.

I don't think anyone could expect a turnaround in one year. I just hope that the signings are enough to provide some significant improvement in the pitching staff. Maybe from last in mlb to 20th-24th. I'm not expecting miracles but I hope that the improvement attributable to free agents is enough to encourage the Twins to keep working all possibilities for improving this team. Derek Wetmore did a pretty good job of putting Nolasco's signing in perspective vis a vis other AL Central teams: http://www.1500espn.com/sportswire/Where_would_Twins_ace_Ricky_Nolasco_be_in_other_AL_Central_rotations120313 I don't expect a one-year turnaround. I just felt like the 2012-2013 offseason was basically wasted.

If you gave teams the right to negotiate with the player in reverse order, how would that work? Is the player captive to a low offer from one team? Does the player just have to say "no" and move up to the next lowest team? What disincentive is there for a team to place a bid just to block other teams? I know that was the same problem in the old system but at least there they had to risk that the player would take a deal and their posting fee would be gone -- although there's some risk here, it is reduced. Isn't the new premise something like: the player has served their minor league/team control years in the Japanese system and therefore is basically a free agent when coming to the U.S.? I could understand a system where only the five teams with the lowest winning percentage & fee posting could negotiate with the player (essentially a modified/limited free agent scenario). I don't think that the "big boys" would go for that but it would create a bit of leverage for the player. BUT, that system would not be good for teams who tend to be "in the middle" rather than tanking. It would have been a horror for the Twins of 2002-2010.

Since the posting fee didn't count against the luxury tax, it gave "rich" teams a big advantage anyway -- especially on highly desirable Japanese stars. In some ways this actually evens the playing field by making it closer to other free agent situations. While the Twins wanted to make headway in Japan with the Nishioka signing, I never saw the Japanese market (either as a "buyer" of talent or as a market for the team) as a particularly good fit. Seems like West Coast teams and big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox always had a natural advantage. The Twins are better off focusing their $$$ on other international markets. I like that they are seemingly more active than some other teams in Australia, for example, and hope that they are in Europe as well. I know that talent and development is sparser in those areas than in Japan but maybe the Twins can take advantage of ties they've developed.

Isn't it "sign more GOOD pitchers" (or potentially good pitchers), not just sign more pitchers? When I think about last season, it looks to me like they tried to put together a starting rotation in much the same way that they have put together bullpens (often successfully). Just target enough and someone will come through. But starting pitching is clearly a little different and it seems that you need a certain level of talent to provide some leadership to the staff. Although Correia was a pleasant surprise, I don't think he commanded enough respect to really fill that leadership void -- I doubt that anyone thought of him as a #1, #2 or even #3 when he was signed. While I don't think Nolasco or Hughes are a #1 and may only show glimpses of being #2's at times, I do think they command a little more respect (and I definitely liked what we heard from Nolasco about his health and thinking of it as a 5-year contract -- it all sounded like what you would want from a leader). I hope that his attitude will carry over to the other pitchers on the team and make the entire staff better -- and please, let's get over the idea that 6 innings is a complete game. While it is a cliche, I do think that "good pitching begets good pitching" (we have only to look at the comments of pitchers who say they've learned from other pitchers on their staff). Conversely, I think mediocrity begets mediocrity and bad pitching. Hopefully Nolasco and Hughes will be good enough to stabilize the rotation. From Berardino's tweets, it looks to me like the Twins are still looking to add another pitcher. Maybe more of a flier. It really sounded like another free agent acquisition is more on TR's mind than a trade.

Really happy for Morneau but I agree with drivlikejehu that the Rockies are a puzzlement. I remember some "need to add a veteran" for stability discussion when they signed Cuddy. Is this the same thing? Helton retires, have to add veteran leadership?

Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino 5m Person w/direct knowledge: #mntwins are "moving on from the catching search" and "going with Pinto" as the starter in 2014.

I am incredibly grateful that, thus far, this off-season has been significantly different than last. I really felt like they took fans for granted last year but that they seemingly took notice of decreasing attendance and television viewership to figure out that they had to take some risks and spend some money to try to put a better product on the field while waiting for some of the prospects to mature. We don't know if the moves will work out .... but even if they don't, I hope it doesn't discourage the team from continuing to take some calculated risks in the free agent market in the future. And I hope we still see another move or two in the next few weeks.

Since I love the exclamation mark (and often overuse it on here), I'm now officially excited about this signing!!!

Well that's a nice Thanksgiving gift. Now I hope that Santa Ryan brings us some Christmas presents, too.

The problem is that people feel compelled to write something -- even when there really isn't anything to say. (This is not a criticism of you, Nick, this is about all of us). There really isn't anything to say. You can take what you've heard as encouraging as Nick has done or you can take a negative view and say that nothing has changed. In the long run, none of it matters -- it's actions, not words, that will make the difference.

LOL, gonna mark my calendar.

What strikes me as I look at many of these blueprints is how realistic they are on money and how much room is still available. If the Twins don't do something fairly decent this off-season, we're all going to need anti-nausea medication.

DING****DING***DING***DING Where is that darn like button.

Just because I haven't see it posted here, Berardino gives the following Twins as exposed to the Rule V draft: Among those left exposed to the Rule 5 draft on Dec. 12 are right-handed pitchers Alex Wimmers (2010 first-round pick), A.J. Achter, Dakota Watts, B.J. Hermsen and Matt Hauser; lefty Pat Dean; catcher Dan Rohlfing; third baseman Deibinson Romero; infielder James Beresford, and outfielders Evan Bigley, Angel Morales, Danny Ortiz and Mike Kvasnicka. Wimmers signed for $1.332 million but underwent a procedure six weeks ago to compress the radial nerve in his pitching elbow. http://www.twincities.com/twins/ci_24564954/twins-chris-herrmann-sent-home-from-winter-league