TheLeviathan

His skillset is so unique. I hope the Twins find a way to keep him in the lineup somehow. I don't have any bright ideas on that front, but I like what he does for the top of our lineup. Especially in this era of baseball.

Fun fact: Arraez "horrible" production against lefties for his career is still .100 points higher than 2020 Simmons against humans of any handedness!

Kepler isn't a good CFer. That shouldn't be plan A if Buxton is hurt. Mixed and matched for some games? Sure. Every day? No.

He wasn't good, but I feel it bears pointing out that he was stuck in a place he wasn't developmentally ready for yet. So it may not be a fair evaluation.

The author's point to me seems exactly right. The team has some building blocks and reason for hope in the high minors along with an offense that could very easily be a winning-caliber group. Taking short, mid-tier shots at players has a threefold benefit: A) If they're successful and the team is winning it gives them depth and flexibility in their development of young players (plus...winning!) B ) If they are successful but the team is garbage you have attractive trade options. C) They're garbage and the team is garbage....worth a shot, short term deals come off the books quickly so you can try again. I've said all along I'm building for a 2023 success story, but doing that means I need to make moves now that help with that vision as well. I don't see anyone here saying sign 5 Randy Johnsons and have a sixth one in the bullpen just in case with an eleventy billion dollar payroll while we let the Pohlads eat Annie's Mac and Cheese and live out of boxes to feed our baseball habit. So maybe, just maybe, we could stick to what the OP actually said. (And yet, with this paragraph, I'm still in roughly 6th place for needless, off-track hyperbole for this thread alone. Sad Panda = Me)

Nameless grunt Witchers don't really matter much. Parts of the show were great, it has elements of being really good, but it just doesn't totally land for me.

Yeah, a lot of faceless (intended) nobodies were the only consequences. There was also some sort of lesson the Witchers learned but that didn't land either.

The shpw has mostly failed on the promise it has. Watchable but it feels lacking. Curious....without spoilers...what went sideways for you in the finale?

Marvel gets ripped for being sexless and therefore unable to create fully formed emotional characters, but that argument is such nonsense and No Way Home is a testament to that. That movie threw emotional haymakers that had real tears shed in the audience. It was fun without being overly quippy, it was a coming of age story, a tragedy, fanservice, and so much more all wrapped into one glorious package. Marvel might not be Citizen Kane or Casablanca or Goodfellas or whatever....but they consistently tell heartfelt stories that are fun. I'll buy a ticket for that anytime. You can keep the overwrought cinema opinions...those movies are great too!.....but if I'm going to a theater I want the kind of product Marvel gives me. No Way Home was laughs and tears and gut-wrenching and cathartic and all kinds of other great emotions. That studio knows what the hell it's doing.

7 more years of @Nick Nelsonpreseason articles predicting a Buxton MVP year! We're going to break that "Joe Mauer's got New "Insert Gadgety Thing Here" record the Star Tribune set yet! (All in good fun! Nice article)

I would only quibble that unions do come with downsides. I think this is an oversimplification that isn't fair to the point.. Your last paragraph is spot on though.

It's very different from the rest of the Marvel catalogue.....but Hit Monkey on Hulu has really grown on me. It's like a weird mashup of Kill Bill, Sudeikis doing his own merc with a mouth, and a well dressed monkey. It shouldn't work but I dig it.

Totally with you on the first paragraph. I'm 100% excited about the deal because the upside for a payoff is so tantalizing. It is true that there are worse deals, but with the way the Twins operate 10% is sizable. As with the Mauer deal, it becomes a lame excuse for the organization. I hope that doesn't become the case.

That has been the Plan B. That plan has mostly stunk IMO. We should invest in a better one. Even if it's only a year until Celestino takes that role. We can't afford to keep fielding a craptastic OF every time Buxton gets hurt.

His injury history could lead to him barely playing at all. If 10% of your payroll is devoted to a guy not helping you at all, that is a major problem. As you say, there is a wide range of outcomes on this and hopefully it lands on the upper end of that spectrum.

Well, I like that this signals Cave isn't plan B at CF. But now we, you know, actually need one.

It also explains the sliding, wrist injuries of the past. He has had some bad luck injuries but a ton of them seem to be preventable with better technique and measured aggression.

Or....we could find comparisons that are more applicable to the situation. Molitor was Cal Ripkian compared to Buck.

I think Joe Mauer is the right comp in many ways. We had to sign Mauer and signing him was the right move. But we signed him knowing that there could be serious regression and a good chance he couldn't play catcher his entire term of the deal. Nevertheless it was the right move. Buxton could absolutely flop and earn a tiny portion of this deal and it could be dead money by the end. It could also be an absolute windfall for this team. (Upside the Mauer deal didn't have!) Hell, it could even end up being both....a windfall early and an albatross late. All of those possibilities are part of the fair risk analysis. That analysis is why the Twins were able to land a 7 year, 15M AAV in the first place. There are serious risks. Serious upside. But I've always said....bet on upside. It's a good signing, let's hope we swoon over the results in 7 years.

This routine about Molitor is simply not true. Paul Molitor's early health situations were not nearly as extensive as Buxton's. That comparison has no merit.

It's definitely a win today! I'm all for it and excited we got it done. Hell, I've been on the conservative end with 7/115 in my offseason projection so to get in even further under? Huge win. But there is absolutely the potential we look back in disappointment. That in no way obligates us to change our mind and think we wouldn't do it over, just disappointed in the outcome. It's possible to acknowledge the risks while still being solidly in favor of the move. Jubilant even! But we do assess risks and should assess them in this case. Personally, I feel the upside relative to this cost is tremendous. There is serious downside, but not enough to sway me off that stance. I can see that downside happening, hell it may even be likely, but it doesn't change the value of the upside. So I'd sign that deal today and 7 years from now either way, but we may look back and be disappointed in how it all played out. I hope that isn't the case though!

Every contract comes with risk, no? So, yeah, there could be regret. Isn't that the risk evaluation we do in analyzing any trade or signing? All I've stressed is that I like this deal in full consideration of all the upside and downsides of it. I'm not living a fairytale that what happens from here is irrelevant. It is relevant. Hindsight won't change that I feel this is a great move, but I may end up sad it didn't pay off. Still right to do now. What is irrational is saying this deal is a win because nothing could go wrong. Including, as was mentioned, Buxton never actually playing and getting 100M. We agree that is nonsense right?

Yup, almost made that point above but I was long-winded enough, I don't want to encroach on @DocBauer's territory or anything.

Considering the future is how you make assessments about value in a contract. We need pitching but are you going to do cartwheels if we give Scherzer 14 years and 280M? Or how did your reaction to the Siemien contract change when you saw that it was 7 years? Having a rational conversation about this contract is hard right now because people are willing to say things as objectively preposterous as "If Buxton never has another PA, I won't complain". Now part of that kind of nonsense is just poor reading comprehension. No one is talking about using hindsight to look back and want to undo this deal, but assessing why it exists today requires the willingness to see the upside and downside in a contract. The same people who were wagering beer that Buxton was a 30M AAV guy are of course going to look at this differently because they were so, so wrong three months ago that of course this looks differently. It's part of a longstanding TD phenomenon in which Buxton is reality-proof. If that's your approach to the player your assessment of this deal is going to be similarly blinded/non-rational. If people want to be naively joyful, go ahead, but then they should just check out of the rational part of the discussion. Which is totally fine to do sometimes! To that end, al I was saying to the poster above, and it's still true now, is that the reason this deal is what it is relates to Buxton himself. Had he gone through another year of injuries he would've seen a fraction of this kind of guaranteed money next offseason. He's taking 100M in guarantees with incentives in part because he likes it here and also in part because his agents/reps clearly question how much will be out there in the future. Which means that there is also that downside here now that we've made this guarantee. We may see that his injuries persist and this contract ends up not paying off the way we hope. In 6 years we may have remorse that it didn't pay off. Not that we shouldn't have signed it, just remorse that this talented kid never did pay off on all that potential. We may also look back and see this as the move that won us a World Series because we got a star at a discount rate. Both possibilities are very, very real and that's why this deal looks the way it does. I get being euphoric because it's Buxton. At the same time, that's also not a real fair way to assess this move.

Depending upon his production I think that's very plausible. It's partly why I'm so in favor of the gamble.