markos

I feel like the narrative with Stewart's rawness has changed a lot since the draft. Pre-draft, his lack of focus on baseball was seen as a good thing, with the logic being that since he was already so good as a multi-sport athlete just think how good he will be once he focuses solely on pitching. BA actually picked him as the first HS player to reach the majors from his class. There was a HS pitcher in that class that everyone agreed was super raw but worth the development effort, and that was Trey Ball, the other top-10 HS pitcher selected that year. Everyone said that Ball was a major project that would take a long, long time to develop. Few, if any, draft analysts made similar warnings about Stewart. But as his results haven't matched the expectations, there has been a steady, growing drumbeat that Stewart was super-raw, needs lots of time, etc, etc.

These are valid quibbles, especially the first one. I totally agree that it wasn't completely fair to just claim that free agent X would have signed here for the exact same amount as they ended up signing for somewhere else. I just didn't have a good handle on what the proper adjustment should be, though your "add 10% and an extra year" is a solid suggestion, and if I had saved my spreadsheet from yesterday I would try to rerun the scenario with that factored in. However, another factor that prevent me from making any adjustments is that the numbers just worked really well given the parameters I was working under, and frankly I was too lazy to go into the weeds and start making secondary moves like "In order to keep the Sanchez signing under budget, they couldn't sign Correia or Pelfrey" in order to keep everything under budget. But without going through the work (again, I'm lazy), my gut feeling is that there is enough slack with the Correia/Pelfrey/etc signings that a bump up in free agent prices is still manageable. To your second quibble, I wouldn't say it was "perfect" hindsight. To pull back the curtain a little bit, I was intrigued by the challenge put out, and I decided to start out with a framework built around 5 moves that I wanted at the time: keeping Hardy, signing Sanchez and Martin, not signing Santana and not extending Hughes. Those 5 were my starting point, and I was definitely surprised by how much payroll was still available (from the $125M limit), especially if I dumped Nolasco. Then I looked through the 2012-2014 teams to identify major weaknesses, and decided that I really needed another starter and a corner outfield/DH bat. From there it was pretty easy to cherry-pick the Beurhle and Hunter contracts. So yes, there was definitely some benefit from hindsight, but a good chunk of these moves were picked "in real time".

That is an interesting answer, and way more optimistic than I would have been back then. Do you think that is the norm? Like that a team should only be bad for basically 4 years before being good again, or something went wrong? I think if I was put in that position at the end of the 2012 season and asked to tear down and rebuild, I would have promised 2016 as the earliest, but maybe 2017. Basically 2 seasons to tear-down and acquire talent, and then a year or two for that new talent to take its lumps in the majors. And Dozier, Plouffe and Perkins would all have been traded away.

I think there is a decent argument that if you are going to have money tied to diminishing players, the best time is as the competitive window is opening up. The Twins maximum payroll flexibility should be the next three years, where the production-to-dollars ratio for Sano, Buxton, Berrios, Duffey, Rosario, Kepler, et al is a its absolute highest. Maybe Sanchez was a little too early for this window, but I'd definitely argue that going after Russell Martin a year ago certainly would not have been. And as my little exercise (surprisingly, at least to me) showed, the payroll situation right now between my moves and the status quo is practically zero. It is just as easy to clog payroll with multiple small moves as it is with a handful a big moves, and the small moves have the added downside of clogging the roster as well.

Wiping the board clean has its own risks and challenges. I definitely go back and forth with the different strategies. It is easy to look at the Cubs, Astros and Rays and think that a tear down and rebuild only takes 2-3 years, but the Pirates had 5 losing seasons under Neil Huntington before they had a season above .500, and the Royals had 6 under Dayton Moore. If you were the GM of the Twins after the 2012 season and you are committed to wiping the board clean, what is your target seasons to get back into contention? 2016 2017? Maybe even 2018? What do you do with the late emergence of Dozier, Plouffe and Perkins? If your target season to get back into contention is, let's say, 2017, do you hang on to them even though they will all be leaving their primes? I'm mostly just thinking outloud here, so don't think that I'm against rebuilding. I have, at times, definitely been a strong advocate of the total rebuild like you suggest, so don't hold it against me if I argue for rebuilding in a different thread at a later date. I just feel like the last year changed my perspective as a fan a little bit. Maybe it has been all the losing, but it was shockingly fun to actually care about the results of the team for the entire season. It has definitely made me reconsider the value of just muddling along as a .500 team. Though I'm sure that would get old after a while, too!

I'll bite. First, here are the baseline salary numbers I used, which I got from http://www.stevetheump.com/Payrolls.htm 2011: $112M 2012: $94M 2013: $75M 2014: $85M 2015: $108M 2016: $108M (via baseball-reference's estimate) Second, 2011 + Don't trade JJ Hardy. - Don't sign Nishioka This doesn't move the needle for the 2011 season, which was not salvageable due to all the injuries. But it will hopefully set up things going forward... Salary added: +$5M 2012 + sign JJ Hardy to a 3 year, $21M deal (same deal he signed with Baltimore) + sign Mark Beuhrle to a 5 year, $58M deal Fun fact: the 2012 Twins position players were pretty decent, and with Hardy they would definitely be a league-average group. Beuhrle doesn't solve the problem, but going into the season with Beuhrle, Liriano and Pavano as the top three is respectable, and replacing 30+ starts from PJ Walters, Cole Devries, Liam Hendricks, et al would certainly help the overall result. Given who they replaced on the roster, these two moves potentially add 8ish wins. So a 70-75 win team. Salary added: +$21.5M New total payroll: $115M 2013 + Sign Anibel Sanchez to a 5 year/$85M contract + Sign Torii Hunter to a 2 year/$26M contract - Don't trade Denard Span - Don't sign Mike Pelfrey Continuing with my theme that the offense wasn't the big problem, I would have kept Span. The one hole on the offense (both this year and going forward) is someone competent to play a OF/DH and actually hit okay. That is the motivation for signing Hunter. On the pitching side, I would have brought in Sanchez. This would have worked out really well, as Sanchez pitched like a borderline ace in 2013. Adding Sanchez and Beurhle probably combine to add 10 wins on their own (considering who they would have been replacing), and adding Span and Hunter (and Hardy) would have all been positives to the offense. All told, I don't think it is too crazy to think this version would have been 15ish wins better than the actual 2013 squad. That is an 81 win team on paper, which is a borderline contender. Salary added: +$50M New total payroll: $125M 2014 - Don't sign Nolasco - Don't extend Suzuki Still sign Hughes. With Hunter on board, there is much less need to run out Parmelee, Colabello, Morales and Kubel for hundreds of at bats. Again, I think there is a good argument that this team is roughly .500. Salary added: +$39M New total payroll: $124M 2015 + Sign Russell Martin to a 5 year/$82M contract (same structure: 7-15-20-20-20) - Don't extend Hughes - Don't sign Santana On paper, this is a better team. Would they have been able to replicate the magic of 2015 despite down years from Beurhle and Sanchez? I don't know. But before the season, I wouldn't be shocked if the team was expected to be above .500. But what is interesting is that by this point, the salary difference between my hypothetical scenario and the real-world scenario are not that different. Salary added: +$9M New total payroll: $117M 2016 Do nothing? Span and Beurhle are off the books, so at this point my scenario is in the exact same shape as the current payroll. And personally I prefer the combination of Sanchez/Martin over Nolasco/Santana/Suzuki. And the cavalry is arriving. Salary added: -$1M New total payroll: $107M My plan definitely didn't create any juggernauts, but I do think that it did a good job of keep the team competitive and possibly in the wild-card conversation during both 2013 and 2014 without causing any significant damage to the 2016 and beyond teams, all while staying within the $125M budget.

I agree that this is all dependent on the right situation, and from the outside we don't have a good handle on how frequently those situations show up. But as a pseudo-rebuttal, I would point out that: a) Tacking on $3-4M probably isn't going to net a huge increase in prospect value, but it might allow you to significantly increase upside potential. So instead of having to choose from a list of unexciting mid-20s AAA players, you could choose from rookie-ball teenagers with some upside. Overall expected value might not be very different, but much high potential payout. It isn't just improving the quality of the return, but also increasing the total number of prospects thrown in. Essentially this allows them to buy additional talent. c) Yes, owners may bump up spending a little bit to make some deadline moves, but many teams (Pit, KC, TB, Cle, et al) do have fairly firm limits. So the extra $3-4M that the Twins could cover would be the difference between those teams making, for example, three moves instead of just two at the deadline. It at least maximizes the teams in the conversation, and it allows the opposing GM to make the determination of what is more important to them in the moment: money or future prospects. Unfortunately, I believe Terry Ryan is on record of explicitly rejecting the possibility of paying players to play for other teams. Unless the Twins operate their finances different than I currently understand, the money they save during these trades provides ZERO benefit for future teams. Marginal improvements in quantity or quality, even at costs that in other circumstances would seem ridiculous, are better than nothing.

I have two complaints about their spending during the past few seasons. To the best of my knowledge, the Twins have neither: 1) Paid the salary (either in full or just part) of a veteran player that they were trading away to potentially get a better return. Maybe they could have gotten back two prospects for Span instead of just one if they had agreed to pay half his salary. Maybe they could have received a better return (or at least had more teams interested) for Willingham, Morneau or Liriano if they would have covered their salary for the rest of the season. 2) Taken on a bad contract from another team in an attempt to acquire young talent. Both the Braves and the Brewers have used this strategy to get some good young players. I also have smaller complaints about their apparent disinterest in going over their bonus pools in international signings and domestic drafts.

I agree that this is probably the plan. But I also thing there is better than 50/50 chance that at least one of those five pitchers you mentioned gets injured in spring training (or early in April) and Duffey ends up in the rotation. I predict that Berrios with be in the rotation by May to replace someone who is ineffective/injured.

I'm glad that the Twins are fixing his potential tipping; however, I am much more interested in how they plan on helping him regain his lost velocity.

It's never good to have to rely on the "there is no way they could be that bad again" hope when looking toward the next year, but in the Tiger's case that may be true. Their #4-#9+ starters last year were terrible - they averaged over 6+ ERA and ended up with -6 bWAR. They don't necessarily need "good Pelf" to see improvement. If Pelfrey can give them a 5.00 ERA over 150 innings next year, that would be a 15-20 run improvement over what they had last year out of the #5 spot.

The April-July team that traded away Price and Cespedes was .500 at the trade deadline. So I think it is more accurate to say that they more-or-less replaced the losses of a 81-win team that was tore down at the deadline.

Off the top of my head... - First put on the 40-man roster last year, 2015. Used one option. - Will be out of options after the 2017 season. - Service time is a little tricky, but the absolute soonest he could be a free agent is after the 2021 season, and that assumes he is on the major league roster from day 1. If he spends a few more weeks in AAA this year, then it will be pushed back to 2022.

This kind of cuts both ways, right? I mean, he could be great in 2016 but have a crappy or injured season in 2017, at which point he missed his best chance to strike it rich in free agency. And another counterpoint is that he needs to avoid major injury for two seasons rather than just one. My general rule of thumb for players is "get to free agency as quickly as possible." But there is so much volatility with relievers that it might not be best for them. Your points are certainly valid, which makes me think that the expected overall return is probably pretty close regardless of the decision.

I can't see the logic of a one-year extension from Jepsen's perspective. He is guaranteed $5M-6M this season, and then he hits free agency. Given how hot the bullpen market has been, if he has any kind of decent season in 2016 he has a good chance at a 3 year deal for $15M+. That seems like a lot of money to potentially leave on the table in exchange for an extra $5M of security, particularly since he's made something like $7M+ already for his career.

It is going to be fascinating to watch and see how their front office navigates the next two years. Here is a list of players that will be free agents after the 2017 season: Cain Davis Hosmer Moustakas Escobar Vargas Volquez Morales Hochevar Medlen Duffy Dyson Will they go all in for the next two years, and continue to trade away prospects from a good-but-not-great farm system to help them win now? Or will they start to trade away some of their major league talent to win in 2018+?

This is a lame excuse. The front office certainly didn't care that it might "potentially clog the system's internal pipeline" when it signed/re-signed/extended mid-level (or worse) starting pitchers the past two off-seasons or a DH this off-season. Personally, I'm not a proponent of spending big money on a reliever, but any concerns about clogging the internal bullpen pipeline seem absolutely ridiculous to me. The bullpen is the part of the roster with the most flexibility and the most year-to-year variability. There is always someone replaceable in the bullpen - it is the last place I would worry about potentially blocking some prospect that is more than a year away. Also, the money commitment for relievers is so low (even with multi-year deals) that cutting someone in year 2 or 3 of a deal shouldn't be any significant financial setback to the team.

Yes, I will agree that there are a lot of terrible starting pitchers that completely re-invented themselves in order to salvage their careers. But that isn't really the situation that Milone is in, and it doesn't really matter for the question I'm trying to answer. I probably made this rather unclear, but the question I'm trying to answer is "how much better will Milone be in the bullpen versus as a starter?" It isn't a question of whether he will be better or not (he will be), it is a question of degree. If Milone is projected to have a 4.10 ERA as a starter (per Steamer), his times-through-the-order ability does matter (at least a little) when trying to make an educated guess about how much better he will perform as a reliever. What do you think his ERA will be as a reliever? 3.10? 3.50? 3.75? This matters because it will determine the best allocation of the current roster. May (also per Steamer) is projected for at 3.50 ERA as a reliever. Using this, with May pitching say 70 innings and Milone pitching 180, you end up with roughly 109 runs. Now the two questions are "What will May's ERA be as a starter?" and "What will Milone's ERA be as a reliever?". I contend for many reasons (times-through-the-order penalty just one) that the change for May will be larger than the change for Milone. And if that difference is big enough (say May as starter is 4.00 ERA (+0.50) and Milone as reliever is 3.85 (-0.25)), then the 2016 team will give up fewer runs total with May in the bullpen. It is still only December, so a lot can change with the roster. But that is the question that I'm trying to wrap my mind around. I would be very interested to get your thoughts/predictions about both players' deltas between bullpen and rotation. Unless you think that the delta is the same for every pitcher or is completely random, at which point we will just have to agree to disagree. And as a final aside, my personal thought is that May should be in the rotation this year because I don't care about maximizing 2016 run prevention. If I was in charge, it is by far better for the 2017 and beyond teams to know if May can get his performance to actually match the mid-rotation stuff that he has, which means he needs to be in the rotation now.

Arguments used to help predict future performance in baseball aren't like mathematical proofs in the sense that they are proven false in light of a single counter-example. It can still be true that times-through-the-order splits matter for predicting bullpen performance for the majority of pitchers even if Glen Perkins (and dozens of others) appear to be the opposite. In your opinion, are there any indicators that will help us predict how well a starter like Milone will transition to a relief role? Or are they all just "false arguments", and instead we should just assume that every single starting pitcher will be a relief-ace when moved to the bullpen?

I agree that in general there are structural reasons for pitchers to do better in relief, and that as a general rule of thumb a starter will do better in relief. However, some of the reasons are specific to the pitcher, and in Milone's case I have some doubts. 1) Avoiding any times-through-the-order penalty. Milone doesn't have much of a penalty. 2) Increased velocity. How helpful will it be for him to be throwing 89-91 instead of 86-88? 3) Minimize platoon issues. Milone doesn't have big platoon splits. So I think he would pitch better in relief, but not necessarily a lot better.

Rosario is a tough player to project. His bat-to-ball skills are pretty amazing, and his ability to hit bad pitches is also pretty crazy. So does that mean that all the "normal" rules about hitting don't apply to him in the same way? I don't know. But there are a lot of warning signs from his performance last season: 1) He had a reverse platoon split, hitting lefties (117 wRC+) much better than righties (91 wRC+). That is rarely sustainable. 2) He crushed it at Target Field (140 wRC+) and was a pumpkin everywhere else (58 wRC+). 3) He had a high BABIP despite being a flyball hitter. Of the 46 players with a BABIP above .330 last year, he had the 5th lowest GB/FB ratio, and he had the 2nd highest popup rate.

This is a great article. Thanks for doing the research and posting it here. At this point, if the Twins aren't willing or able to bring in a very good arm that pushes May, Jepsen and even Perkins down a slot, then I think they should just try to fill out the back of the bullpen with a few fliers and hope that between reclamation projects and internal options they can be effective. This reminds me of an article Sam Miller wrote a couple years ago about the A's bullpen, back when it was really good and really cheap. He documented all the work that went into it. Hopefully it is no longer behind the BP paywall. If it is, this is a pretty good summary: "So yes, you can build an amazing bullpen. You can spend about $8 million on the entire group. You can do it by trading things you don’t want, scavenging for things nobody else wants, and asking other teams nicely, and letting your low-minors position players indulge their fantasies. It just takes 30 or 40 arms to make it work. And heaven help you if, instead of six or seven useful relievers out of those 40, you end up with only four." http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=21767

Criticizing past trades based on current information is often unfair, but I do think that the following questions are (potentially) valid criticism of the front office: 1) There is certainly a lot more liquidity in the catcher market right now than there was a month ago. Could this have been predicted in advance with a careful analysis of the FA market, arbitration decisions, 40-man roster situations on all the other teams, etc? I certainly didn't anticipate this, but then again, it isn't my job to figure that stuff out. 2) Is there every a good case for acquiring average or worse players (either via free agency or trades) prior to the arbitration/40-man roster deadline in late November? I honestly don't know the answer to this, but I kind of suspect that in most cases, there are usually more/better options available afterwards. So is it possible that moving early for non-elite players is counterproductive? Both of these questions also apply to the other big deal of the offseason - the signing of Park. The Twins signed a bat-only slugger to a long-term (but reasonable) deal right before several bat-only sluggers were either non-tendered (Chris Carter, Pedro Alvarez) or freely available (Mark Trumbo). Again, was this something that a careful analysis of the landscape could have predicted beforehand?

Another datapoint regarding Plouffe's trade value: the Angels just aquired Yunel Escobar from the Nationals for Trevor Gott. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/nationals-trade-yunel-escobar-angels.html

I really like the framework you put together here. I'd like to add another layer. (But first, you forgot to add Pomeranz's salary over the next three seasons. Not big, but he is in arbitration, so it will probably be $7M ($1.5M, $2.5M, $3.5M) over the next three seasons. So the salary difference is ~$60M total.) Putting in some (perhaps rosy) performance projections (as WAR) on these players, one ends up with: (Shields + Upton + Pomeranz) - (Plouffe + Nolasco) 2016 - (3 + 0.5 + 0.5) - (2.5 + 0.5) = 1 WAR 2017 - (2.5 + 0.5 + 0.5) - (2 + 0.5) = 1 WAR 2018 - (2 + 0.5) = 1 WAR TWINS GAIN 3 WAR You can quibble with the exact numbers, but it seems likely that the Twins will end up ahead by somewhere in the 2-4 WAR range. So in your trade, the Twins are gaining ~3 WAR but also spending an additional $60M. That isn't a very good deal. In order to even things out, instead of including Polanco in the trade, the Padres should include a prospect or two. Perhaps their version of a Jorge Polanco and maybe a Felix Jorge.