Jocko87

Holy headline fangraphs! 😂 https://blogs.fangraphs.com/reds-sign-pagan-risk-giving-up-emilion-home-runs/

I mostly chimed into say I'd make more comments once we actually had some information that makes his role more apparent. But absent some real information, I agree with Tony and or Rodney. The most obvious answer is that they repeat last year unless he's lights out as a starter. If they find two starters obviously better it would be interesting to see what happens. I love him in the bullpen but the most efficient way to eat a long seasons worth of innings and shape up for the playoffs is a repeat of last year.

I'm not sure what this means. I certainly didn't say that. I thought the concept of an accomplished veteran helping a talented youngster put things together would be pretty universally understood. My bad. I did say it was impossible for us to know which would indicate I was pointing away from any statistic. Your comment was merely an opportunity to tag along with.

Holy smokes money. Good for him. I would assume they will be putting him in higher leverage spots, good luck to them.

I really think this is what it will come down to. He may be asking for a trade too. We saw the player usage really neck down to the obvious choices in the post season but I was still surprised he didn’t get any run at all. It seems to point to them having less faith in all the areas discussed in the article and comments which is surprising. Were he the obvious player they were not going to shed payroll on I’d be arguing for all those intangibles myself. The team showed their hand a bit in the playoffs I think. I’d still keep him though, for all the reasons mentioned. Making it all year with just 2 catchers again is very unlikely, I was pulling for a minor league contract for a Sandy Leon last spring. It’s just a horrible position to be short on depth and we all know how much they love depth. How much of Jeffers improvement was Vazquez mentoring him? Also impossible for us to know.

We absolutely do not agree to disagree. That would require me to accept your insane framing of my statements. You are intentionally ignoring my words to shout at clouds. I specifically addressed Trout’s future money, read again. Your evidence of correlation is anecdotal. That’s like bringing a banana to a nuclear conflict. The bottom 1/3 of any sample is statistically irrelevant. There is significant correlation between winning games and payroll. There is less significant correlation between playoff appearances and payroll but still fairly strong. The correlation between payroll and championships drops off significantly. These can all be and have been accurately measured with actual statistical analysis. None of the factors rise anywhere close to causation which is why this continues to be a discussion. Thank you New York Mets. Speaking of the Mets, they gave us a great example to learn from last year. One of the main reasons the correlation decreases for championships is how much a roster can change with very little payroll input at the trading deadline and beyond. The Mets placed two $40m pitchers on playoff teams but sent very few payroll requirements with them. It’s an extreme example, to be sure, but even a normal trade skews the ratio. The Rangers paid Sherzer middle reliever money for an ace. That they didn’t get the full ace performance is another factor for a different time. I wonder what the correlation is between getting it right at the trade deadline vs championships? I don’t think it’s been studied but my hypothesis would be that it’s stronger than payroll. The tough part of that analysis would be what is the definition of getting it right. If you want to engage my points and have a good faith discussion I can do it all day. If not, I apologize in advance. I’ll respond but only for the future curious mind that is trying to grasp a complex topic.

I see what you did there.

While I don’t have much faith in the White Sox organization for just about anything at this point, they have given us a tremendous amount of evidence who they think were negative clubhouse presence with his release. That counts for a lot. It will be interesting to see how well he gets along with his new team, if it’s not a strong culture he’ll likely be a problem again. Then again, when he eventually gets a bit role in Atlanta or Houston he’ll look really good again.

I wouldn't be surprised if the smart teams have a formulation of their own, like a 4th WARp, if you will. It's not having the data, its knowing which data matters at the proper time. Interesting point on the relative value of Jeffers big hits. Like the Jordan Luplow early bounce, we all saw hits off position players and were able to reasonably say, good for him but he ain't quite that good. Easy to note in the short sample but over a full season they can really blend in.

Past performance with hope of retained value, what sport are you watching? Straw man arguments aren’t going to work out well for you. Either engage the point or disengage the topic. It is a complicated discussion that doesn’t deserve this level of distraction. You can do all of that on twitter. Gunnar Henderson or Carlos Correa? How much money did Mike Trout make in 2011 and 2012 for 20+ WAR? Under $1m for two seasons. You know darn well that if he got hurt he never gets paid for that. I can do meaningless individual names and random teams all day. They mean nothing to this conversation.

I highly doubt it, these types of names are great sweeteners in trades. "I can fix him" except for with baseball players.

Wait, do you mean to tell me there is a store where I can buy young TVs, just learning how to pixilate, and at a significant discount? And so long as I have some patience and a solid TV development program I can have a full grown television that plays all the hits for a fraction of the price? I’ve been doing it all wrong! The TV analogy is actually pretty solid for free agent starting pitching, since you mention it. Along with several other products that we purchase at peak value it’s the best it will ever be the day we bring it home. It does nothing but decrease in value from that day forward. Doesn’t mean we don’t buy these things from time to time but understand the value proposition. Oddly, I’ve got a plasma display that is an exception to the rule but it’s taken several years. Don’t bother throwing random pitcher names at me. We all know damn well baseball pay is not equated with performance, never has, never will be. The system is designed specifically for getting the best of young players cheaply and washing most of them out before they get paid in free agency. Fair? Probably on the whole as there are no shortage of applicants but that's another thread. It’s the system we have. In that system, spending less and still performing well is quite literally peak front office performance. Are the good players paid more because they are good or good because they are paid more? By the time these players get to that pay level they have been filtered so many times your sample size is impossible to correlate with anything meaningful. Of course good players seem to get paid more, they had to be good to get paid in the first place. Why would you insist on paying more for this muffler?

Benny the Jet probably has to wait a few years to be a useful bench piece but he can be the bat boy while he waits.

It’s also a strategy that they will be employing again this offseason. If the Mariners are indeed in on Yamamoto, we don’t want to be trading with them before the signing. Mariners signing Yamamoto would mean the store is wide open for trading others out of their depth. It’s also going to take quite some time.

Maybe not bigger but different. So far prices seem reasonable and coming in about consensus expectations. If the price is 12-14m a year and only room for one I'd rather the relative upside of a Flaherty, Wacha or Giolito, depending on who they like.

I once got stranded overnight at the truck stop in Beach, ND when my fuel iced up and a trucker was kind enough to rescue and fly dump me. I endorse that idea.

You are getting there. I know its not the perfect analogy in the way you are thinking but hear me out. If I held back a little bit every year, say 6-8%, I would have a little bit of money left to fund my operation during Covid. I would have a little bit of money to splurge on a vacation, fix the transmission in my car, pay for a medical emergency. You see where this is going? To keep it in a real life example, say all of a sudden inflation and high interest rates hit and I relocate, increasing my housing costs 40%. The first year wasn't that bad, I was still able to hold back about 2.5% but things aren't looking great. The second year was rough. Debt increased and I've now not been able to hold money back and instead I'm dipping into my held back money to cover a 10% loss. Not only did I have to dip in to the reserves, I was unable to put any into it which compounds the problems. The relocation didn't bring quite the increased revenue I was expecting (attendance) so now I need to adjust. You know what I'm not getting this year? A new truck. (Seriously, have you checked those prices lately? Sheesh! Almost like starting pitching.) Bringing it back to the Twins, using your numbers, they spent 10% of all the money they have made over a 21 year period in one year. If your normal year of living caused you to take 10% out of your retirement funds just to do your basic day to day living or even pulled that 10% to sail around the world you'd make some adjustments the next year too. And yes, I'm aware they aren't dipping into the retirement accounts but people don't invest in businesses without some return. The numbers we are talking are completely reasonable returns. They are operating on the margin of one failed transmission, ie one Joey Gallo sized contract. This will be my last comment on this thread. If you chose to vote with your dollars and attention over this, that's your choice. I'm telling you though, this is not the hill to die on. If we circle back on opening day and we are both disappointed over the results of the offseason, I'll be right there with you, playing more golf than watching baseball.

In my employment career, I've been paid millions of dollars. If its over a 25 year period does that make me a millionaire? Shoot, now that I type it out, maybe I need to cut some payroll too. Again, $10m a year in this context is one Joey Gallo or Christian Vazquez contract. A 20-25m bad contract for a pitcher is absolutely crippling. You are illustrating my point, not yours.

Again, you are comparing different things, incorrectly. "Revenue sharing market score" is not revenue. "Revenue sharing market score" is not an accounting metric. Do you have the formula for "Revenue sharing market score"? "Revenue sharing market score" means nothing to me without knowing the details that go into it. I can't hardly imagine that MLB would make it fair down the board, like everything else they do. The difference is that other junior level financial analysts, and executive types, can understand the language because its regulated. GAAP matters. MLB made up "Revenue sharing market score" as a metric to manage their business. It means nothing to us.

I thought the word "cheapos" would emphasize the sarcasm. My bad. I would bet good money that a similar run of success would still leave the Twins woefully short on revenue comparatively.

Quick, what was the payroll in 87? Or 91? Or 2019 for that matter? I don't know, don't care and I'm not looking it up. Why does it matter? You keep saying the way they run the organization, I get it, but keep coming back to talk about only money. And I'm going to be blunt here, talking about it completely incorrectly. Revenue since 2002 is not a relevant measurement but if I take that number to mean something its approximately a Joey Gallo sized mistake per year. That's a razor thin margin. The making hundreds of millions comments are totally without merit, no rational accounting measure could get there. Every comparison to Atlanta literally makes the Twins looks better, not worse. If the 2022 (last full year, which does matter) numbers at Statista are to be believed, and its as good as we've got, Twins payroll was 56% of revenue. The Braves? 43%. Cheapos. You are free to vote with your dollars and attention, the same as I do. I'm telling you as plainly as I can that this is not the hill to die on.

When fans vote with their wallets do you think they do it based on the payroll or the product? I named two specific years I believe they ate it, I don't know why you bring the 2010s into the equation except to change the conversation. It is a interesting comparison but like everything else we are discussing, imperfect information keeps us from knowing how much of the 2010s was the Pohlads or Terry Ryan. As we get further away, that line is murkier, especially as we see what the current front office is able to accomplish with the same Pohlads. The current front office is the topic though, so lets stick to that. To answer the specific question, no, I don't know how much the overspend in 23 was. I'm pretty sure its at least 11m (Gallo) could be 21m (Gallo and Vazquez) or it could be 33m (paying Correa is the only option to spend that much) Who knows. I am quite sure they were over what ever budget they set though. As they are always flexible, that number would change as well. I'm glad you finally said this so clearly. Your main complaints have been consistently around payroll so it can be difficult to get to the core of your issues. What I, and I believe MLR, are trying to say is that they are doing a pretty damn good job running this team. If we focus on what this front office has done to put themselves in the position to have all these options its pretty impressive. Have they been perfect? No, but no executive is. They didn't Forrest Gump their way to this roster. Executive level positions aren't generally evaluated on individual decisions but more direction and vision. They had a nice bump with the 2019 squad but this is fully their organization now. One of the things I see that is very impressive is that they are adjusting the tactics with the changing conditions. This offseason presents a new condition and new challenge. At the end of the day if they are presented with another amazing opportunity to improve the team I believe the money would be there. With not much that I personally like in free agency other than a couple unobtainables I'm fine with payroll going down. As the kids say

And my suspicion is that they already “ate it” in 22 and 23. There is room in the bounds of the rumored numbers that brings a championship roster to spring training next year. They will likely have to spend from the prospect accounts rather than the cash accounts but I have no doubt they are still working to invest in the winning window. The other part of this that really bothers me is that we are discussing what we assume they are doing vs what Falvey actually said. Expecting payroll to be lower is not the old salary dump move. Expecting payroll to be lower is actually a perfectly reasonable assumption considering the roster makeup. They will get a ton of production from 700k players and they frankly should be commended for that. Remember, the last two years they expected payroll to be approximately 33m less but when an opportunity presented itself they spent the money. Nothing Falvey said rules something like that out. Focus on the product, not the payroll.

I think the focus should be on the stuff nobody but sickos like us would do. Replicating already available resources won't hold a lot of attention for readers or curators while finding a way to be the go to location for answers to odd Twins questions would be fantastic. My two ideas, that I'm both fascinated with and interested in enough to write about, are front office structure, roles and responsibilities and the Falvey pitching development pipeline myth. Linking to a well done research project rather than rehashing the same thing in thread after thread would be refreshing.

But its a Pohlad entity, not Twins Baseball LLC so its a different equation. The question isn't if the Pohlads should kick in from somewhere else, I think we would all be good with that, just the Twins business. The Battery is part of the Braves so those funds are already at their disposal. I think the obvious solution to all this would be that the Pohlads get into the television business, broadcast the team and make money coming and going. Brilliant!