Jocko87

My fantasy team appreciates locking on JJ, my real team does not.

Where did I say anything that would lead you to believe I thought Polo was worthless? I do believe that the returns of this trade far exceeded his value. This isn’t a referendum on Falveys ability to scout returns. There are two sides to a trade, after all. It’s about the ability to extract excess value for the value sent. In this case it’s a clear win. If you think the return is somehow subpar, it’s a recognition that the Mariners also have eyes, not that Falvey somehow screwed up. You have absolutely no basis to say he should have added so and so and got an ace pitcher. This isn’t fantasy baseball.

I would say now that more details of what he was dealing with are available, it’s some of his best work. The franchise is in good baseball hands. This trade is right at the top of the list of smashing success. I said in the first few minutes of the news breaking that if you told me they got 4 players and money for Polo, I don’t even need to know the names of the players for it to be a win. Now that we know Polo was near the edge of the cliff, it’s even more amazing. Topa alone could return enough value with one decent bullpen season to make it a smashing win that even TwinsDaily could recognize. I just do not understand the Minnesota Mindset™️ that fights so hard to find a way to see everything in the most negative possible way. And I say that as a pedigreed Norwegian bachelor farmer (*not an actual farmer though). Just because we have a keyboard, doesn’t mean we need to write an article.

Can we just list all the sell high players in one article? No. Need Clicks. Oh, whats that? They don't have any sell high players? No. Maybe Jax? Maaaybe Wallner if you squint a bit. Ober? Off limits, just fold the team. Teams that finish 12-27 don't usually have sell high players and our boys almost certainly do not.

The venn diagram of Castro and Severino skill sets is two square circles. In different rooms.

I would argue that if there is a payroll issue, this player type is more valuable than ever. It's the same argument I made with Farmer last year. It's 2m for the player and 4m for the insurance policy. Much better coverage than Farmer too.

Interesting to bring this back to this thread but I'm glad you did. It ties in quite nicely. In short, the Correa saga is what brought me back to posting regularly. A bad work situation and a bad relationship went away as well, freeing up some time, but I could have gone anywhere. The whole Correa event is fascinating to me and really caught my attention. This was the topic I reset my account password for. It's also a very good discussion point for using judgement with numbers in this topic. I'm a real estate investor in addition to some other things. I own several properties and have bought and sold several more. There is a saying in real estate. Something like "there is no such thing as a deal that doesn't work, only a deal that doesn't work at this price." The Giants may well have gotten cold feet on the deal, but most teams would never go to the lengths they were at to begin with. Baseball is waking up to that nonsense in general. 13 years.!? The Mets are a completely different story. Steve Cohen understands one very fundamental thing about negotiating-don't negotiate with the entire market. By getting Correa to agree in terms (go to escrow in real estate terms) he pivoted the negotiation to between him and Boras alone. Now, under escrow, boy that chimney needs tuck pointed and the corner of the foundation (ankle) is really concerning. Dangit, I just can't pay $315m for this muffler. Again, kudos to Boras for getting his client out of that situation. Here we talk about numbers as a persuasion mechanism rather than a hard factual. Numbers are often thought of as hard factuals when really context is the only thing that matters. As a real estate investor, I instantly notice a property I was previously interested in being back on the market. Same thing for the Twins here. Kudos to them for staying awake, over the holidays, and locking down a crown jewel property for well under market price. That doesn't mean that crown jewel property doesn't come with some issues, issues are the only way crown jewels trade under market. Being aware of the issue and the risks associated are the key. Indeed, the issue they were aware of (ankle) has not been an issue as yet and the asset has performed exceptionally-except for another issue (planter fasciitis). It's like buying a property that you know if you dig into the electrical you will have to replace everything but oops, the plumbing is a problem. So I don't have an issue with other teams passing on Correa. He's a very high end specialty case that takes a very special owner to manage. Indeed, I believe the step up in class with the Correa signing may very well be the start of the selling mindset for the Pohlads. There are huge successes available, but the risk is also much higher. In real estate terms, I can buy something on 5th avenue but if I can't or am not willing to do what it takes to manage it, it won't matter how good the asset and location is. So in terms of the numbers related to Correa and his contract history, per Fangraphs estimates he was a $50.4m player when the Astros "chose" Jeremy Pena. Pena is a quite nice player, but he's not Correa. Many other factors certainly played into the Astros choice to let Carlos go-their names are Yordon, Framber, Bregman, Altuve and Tucker. With so many guys due for a payday, choices must be made. Leaving aside some odd spending decisions the Astros have made (Hader) its pretty obvious they needed to look to what they had in the wings to decide who to pay. Yordon and Tucker are not replaceable in their orbit. I have no bad feelings about Correa from the Astros moving on. It's a tough business. Fast forwarding to Correa now, he only played 86 games this year due to a different issue that led to his contract questions. In those 86 games he accumulated 4.3 fWar worth $34.2m on a $33.3m salary. This is my 5th Ave property breaking even despite only being available for half the year. All I need to do now is make the property available for the full year and it will be a monster performer. Obviously baseball availability is a different thing but the Twins got that risk priced into the contract. If you aren't impressed with his dollars to WAR its an availability question rather than a performance question. Assuming consistent performance (big if), a fully available Correa would have been an 8.1 fWar player in 2024. Juan Soto was an 8.1 fWar player this year, a $65.1m player. Again, the risk of availability was priced into the Correa contract. Jeremy Pena played 157 very solid games for the Astros this year, OPS .701 with very good defense. fWar-2.8 and a $22.3m valuation. Very good player, but Correa exists in another orbit. In ten seasons, Carlos Correa has only had one year as poor as the solid year Jeremy Pena just had. I look at Lee and Lewis and can see adequate replacements for Correa the shortstop but regardless of position they aren't close to replacing Correa the unicorn baseball superstar. The Astros could make the choice they made because they had others that could fill the superstar vacuum. It would have truly been a Twins™️ move to just play Lewis at short, fill in with Lee etc and nobody would have batted an eye. My contention is that when you get a chance to get an 8 WAR player (unicorn) on a favorable risk management contract, you do it. EVERY time. When you get a chance to buy a property on 5th Avenue at half price, you do it. EVERY time. Figure it out after. Obviously you have to do your homework to believe for sure that the property is half price or a true unicorn, but when you confirm it, you do it. Period. What do you do once you've done it? It depends. In my 5th Avenue example, I would buy that property, absolutely. I now control an asset at well under market value. I can realize that value a few ways, but the simplest is just selling it at market value. Knowing what my current portfolio takes, 5th Avenue doesn't fit with what I'm doing so the cost of spinning my operation up in that orbit is expensive. Is it worth it? Probably not. Just take the gain and let someone familiar operate it. I believe this is where the Pohlads find themselves. They stepped up in class and don't like the costs of operating in that class. It might be just that simple. As for the numbers as related to Correa, I think it's more important to look at ranges rather than a moment in time. For the comparisons to Pena. Lee and Lewis, we have to ask at what range of possible outcomes did each of them perform. Pena played the entire year, at a solid level, but what he delivered was closer to the top range of his outcomes than the bottom. Similar for Lee and Lewis, while although they may have more upside in the long term, they were both in the higher range of expected outcomes. Correa, due to availability, was in the lower half of his range of outcomes. As an investment, this is exactly what you want to put a large percentage of your money in. Very, very high upside, but also a very high floor. Risk, but the worst case ain't bad. If I were to invest $200m in something, it would have to have to meet these minimum thresholds. Correa does that, in spades. As you say, different people look at the data in different ways, and I look at the Correa deal as the best money they have spent in years.

The only factor the Twins have over the White Sox is the buyer having an affinity for the Twins and maybe a lower price. The roster and farm system matter very little. We aren't buying for today. If you look at it from a value add standpoint, which you should, the Pale Hose are like buying a tear down on Park Avenue. The Twins are good bones on Marvin Gardens. The White Sox announcement hurts the Twins, probably.

But don't assume ineptitude. Also don't assume malfeasance when simple ineptitude is a valid explanation. There are many other possibilities that we haven't even thought to consider. We don't even know which Pohlad owns which percentage of the team.

Reminder-just because we just found out about it doesn't mean it wasnt known. I apply that to the sale as well. I think the Occams Razor option here is that in any business, any industry, when a Carlos Correa miraculously falls in your lap you do it and figure it out from there. From there, my hunch is the Pohlad family (beyond the baseball interested ones) got a taste of what big boy baseball is like. Turns out they don't like it. If there's 10 of them sharing the fortune, it only takes a couple to veto a money losing sportsball thing. In a roundabout kinda way, Carlos Correa might be the small domino leading to a sale. Anyone make memes here? What would be the smallest domino in the Correa era?

In a week where the Los Angeles Dodgers started Kiki Hernandez in centerfield in a playoff game….just replace Kepler with a bulldog. Wallner is a bulldog, it will be fine.

New owner understands the cost of the game. If they intend to do this with less payroll than current, its the wrong game for them. Shedding current payroll to make the purchase attractive just isn't a thing. People who buy baseball teams aren't fooled by short term relatively small financial adjustments. If they are, its the wrong person and the other owners won't approve. I can't think of a worse way for a new owner to introduce themselves. That's the careful what you wish for situation. Yes, the current roster and pipeline are a factor. No, it doesn't really matter much in the purchase unless there are insane outliers. It will all be different in 5 years anyway. It's like not buying a house over a paint color.

Nowlin kept jumping out to me when I went to Wind Surge games. It just seemed like everywhere they put him he was just solid. And they used him everywhere, which I like as a reliever. He was often the piggyback for Raya or whoever was managing innings and all kinds of situations. He's pitched his way onto the radar for me.

Agreed. Each generation adds another cook or cooks in the kitchen. When you break it down to 10 multi-millionaires vs 1 billionaire, absent a strong matriarch/patriarch, nobody is in charge. It feels like Carl and his wife were the only decision makers for a long time and for the last few years we aren't sure who is actually in charge. Joe has never been the sole decision maker.

There is absolutely someone or several someones in mind. MLB has a list, they know all the potential owners and who is actually shopping. They know who wants the Twins, who wants the A's, who wants the Yankees etc. For this to go public, MLB and Manfred have to be on board. For all we know, the public announcement may just be a negotiation tactic if they aren't getting what they want privately from the list of approved buyers. Much better to negotiate with many if you are a seller, much better to negotiate with only one as a buyer.

Ahhh, pesky facts. One of us knows we dont have any facts. "Sources" are merely a convenient messaging device. Not facts.

The Shannon Stewart erasure will not be tolerated. There is something to this. JD Drew was a very valuable player but not everyone can play every role. I don’t recall watching him enough to know how he conducted his at bats but he certainly produced enough to have the right mindset most of the time. All I want is an offense that attacks. You know, that’s why it’s called offense. Just attack. Dictate the terms, whatever the strategy might be. Attack. Then do it again.

Without the Rendon contract what would the price have been?

Quality starting pitchers in early arbitration vs an expiring contract on the back end of usefulness? Yeah, basically the same.

Oh no, they are going to make more than 700k! They are more expensive, but not actually expensive. This premise is insane. So much of the angst with the Pohlads come from creating fanatical scenarios like this and acting like it's something they would do rather than our imagination. If it were to happen, we would be blown away by the return. That return would have salary too.

No, but it changes the price. The contract value when the sale didn't happen was 8-10% of the sale value. That moves the needle.

I understand how the numbers work. Unfortunately for your theory, anyone who would be interesting in making the purchase would also understand how they work. Most of the adjustments you are suggesting have already happened and will be transparent to a buyer. Gee, your EBITDA for the last two years looks nice, now lets see the 5 and 10 year information. There is no such thing as dressing up the books for a sale, that's called fraud. Anyone involved in these transactions can see what happened in 5 minutes with the proper information presented. What actually happens is the seller takes care of problems instead of passing an issue to the buyer. The more outstanding issues, the more items the buyer has to negotiate with. There is no artificially inflating or deflating anything. Moving money around so I'm not selling bad (unsecured) debt is pretty standard stuff but its out in the open. Lopez has a good contract and isn't an issue, it's very standard for the business. Any new owner would know they have to get another pitcher anyway so they have to run their numbers based on spending that money, rather than running with what the seller was able to conjure up. The buyer would have to pay current market prices at a higher cost than already secured. There is no incentive to offload a good contract. Many real estate investors get themselves in trouble accepting expenses as presented rather than underwriting how they would actually operate.. "Who shovels the walk?" "I do, if I'm out of town my brother does." "Are you going to keep doing it for me if I buy it?" "No!" "OK, that has a cost for me to do it, I'll add it to the calculations." Price goes down, just a little. Pretty soon the numbers aren't nearly as rosey as presented. Simple example but happens all the time. People that buy baseball teams don't make those mistakes. Anthony Rendon made it harder for Angelos to sell the Angels. It's a bad debt. If they could have gotten that off the books, a sale is much easier. Lopez is not a bad debt. You do not buy a business based on what the seller is doing or has done. You buy it based on what you will do with it. Cash from the seller remains with the seller? 2026?

There is almost zero chance of this happening. A sale announcement makes it even less likely. Why would they “offload” anything individually when they are “offloading” everything?

Aaron turning his Pohlad cannon on fans who don't agree with his irrational PTSD (Pohlad Traumatic Stress Disorder) is certainly a choice. Better help, send help.

Have you not been paying attention for the last 14 months? Completely avoiding expenses has kinda been the thing. Also, actually having a limited availability resource under control for well under market value is attractive to a buyer. Long term commitments aren't a negative, long term negative commitments are. A long term TV contract would be a positive, I would believe. An active player producing above salary rate in his prime is not a negative. A Chris Davis type contract is a negative.