TheLeviathan

You think pitching the bad starting pitchers more would've been a better strategy? Or would it be burning out young arms unprepared for the workload and potentially harming their careers? Which part sounds like winning to you?

Rocco Baldelli's pitcher usage is absolutely in line with the rest of baseball.

All fair. If Seager stays I go after Story next. The Twins have the money to pull this off. I think Arraez and Kepler have such low trade value relative to their contracts that trading them would be poor asset management.

I do agree that Sanchez has real upside, but catching is a market with a real scarcity and Florida has openly stated their interest in improving there. I can see the argument that there would need to be more with Garver, but I disagree it would be that imbalanced.

So you can use those to identify tiers and work from there. Gray, IMO, is more like a 15M AAV player for example.

I do think it would be harder to be more difficult, but the league needs to care about subscription numbers more than the bottom line. The numbers, in time, will hit the bottom line, but only caring about dollars upfront will kill your appeal past the diehards. MLB desperately needs to fix that tendency in general.

Yeah, but with some regular time at a regular position that might improve as well. You'll take that from a guy who can be a 113+ OPS player.

That would be my recommendation, what seemed off about it to you?

Full transparency: This is not a team intending to compete in 2022. This team is loading up for 2023. Trades and Extensions: Sign Byron Buxton to a 7 year, 119M contract with incentives Trade with Florida Marlins - Mitch Garver for SP Sixto Sanchez Trade with New York Mets - Josh Donaldson (plus 14M spread over two years) for RP Jose Butto Let Colome walk. Release Austidillo, Refsnyder, Minaya, and Cave. Free Agency: Sign Corey Seager a 5 year 27M contract to play shortstop Sign Michael Pineda back to a 2 year 24M contract with incentives Sign Jon Gray to a 3 year 45M contract Sign Sandy Leon to a 1 year, 2M contract Sign Leury Garcia to a 1 year 5M contract Sign Corey Knebel to a 3 year 24M contract Sign Ehire Adrianza to a 2 year, 3M contract Lineup/Defense C - Jeffers 500k 1B - Kiriloff 500k 2B - Polanco 5.5M SS - Seager 27M 3B - Arraez 2M LF - Rooker 500k CF - Buxton 17M RF - Kepler 6.75M DH - Sano 9.25M Bench - Gordon 500k Bench - Sandy Leon 2M Bench - Leury Garcia 5M Bench - Garlick or Larnach 500k Bench - Adrianza 1.5M Regular Lineup - Arraez-Buxton-Seager-Polanco-Kiriloff-Sano-Kepler-Rooker-Jeffers Rotation/Bullpen SP - Gray 15M SP - Ryan 500k SP - Ober 500k SP - Pineda 12M SP - Sixto Sanchez 500k CL - Rogers 6.7M BP - Alcala 500k BP - Duffey 3.7M BP - Theilbar 1.2M BP - Knebel 8M BP - Dobnak 800k BP - Gant 3.7 Total Salary: 138.6M (Including the 7M deferred) Rotation Depth: Gant, Dobnak, Smeltzer, Balazovic, Winder, Duran, SWR Bullpen Depth: Butto, Thorpe, Moran, Stashak, Strotman? Other assorted AA and AAA guys OF Depth: Larnach needs to hit himself into a job. Marten should be a guy looking to get the job in LF. As soon as mid-summer. Almost the entire bench, plus Kiriloff and Arraez can also play in the OF. IF Depth - Adrianza is a jack of all trades, Gordon as well. Being a lefty and a switch hitter gives some options for lineups. Royce Lewis and Jose Miranda should be in this conversation mid-summer as well. Catching depth: Leon exists to give Ben Rotrevedt time to be the long-term backup. The idea here is that 2022 is a transition year. So, let Rooker/Larnach and Jeffers and Arraez play. Martin is going to take 2B or LF eventually. Lewis and Miranda are going to be up to take over other positions eventually. The team is strong up the middle, depth is better, and the team is primed for a 2023 coming out party. Ditto the rotation - Gallen, Sanchez, Ryan, Ober, and the fleet of young arms gives this team options and upside. Bullpen is stabilized. By September 1 I’d love to see this group: Seager-Buxton-Polanco-Kiriloff--Marten-Larnach-Miranda-Kepler-Jeffers with a rotation of Gray-Ryan-Ober-Sanchez-Duran/Balazovic That group is an upgrade here or there in 2023 from being a real force if we develop our talented youngsters.

I can't remember the last time I heard an analogy that spot on. If that story about Saturn is true (I have never heard that, but I believe you) it's simply perfect for MLB.

Football built their empire by putting aside their regional selfishness to build a game with parity and national appeal. Baseball had national appeal and slowly allowed it's worst element (fervent regionalism) take over via cable contracts and fan bases. It has killed parity, left small markets with literal decades of non-competitive play, and destabilized the ability for the league to story-tell about the game. Making a streaming service that is still rooted in regionalism will only perpetuate the same problems. Baseball needs to sacrifice some profits for the sake of exposure and goodwill to sports fans or they'll continue to die. This idea and price point will be argued by the league, and has here, to be perfectly fine and reasonable because they are focused on a very narrow range of fans they listen to. Like people in a baseball forum conducted by baseball fans significantly more passionate than the average viewer. As has been the case for about two decades....baseball makes all their decisions based on the feelings of diehards and never recognizes the value in casual fandom. And because of that....they kill the casual fans. Nobody who says "I like to have a baseball game on sometimes" is going to pay $20 for a streaming service for 4 hour slog-a-thons. A streaming service could be the savior of baseball. But that price point needs to be at a spot a casual fan would jump at.

I definitely like your thinking, but I think you range from 20-40% low on your price estimates. There are websites that could help you project those possible salaries as well.

The answer is clearly yes. However, that doesn't mean he should be shopped. Polanco is an extremely valuable player and one the team can keep around for some time at a reasonable price.

Trades could help on this front too since it is unlikely they corner the market.

The crux. Josh Donaldson has a bad history of missing time due to injury. His numbers are trending down and he is aging. He makes a lot of money. Therefore it is "unrealistic in the real world" to think his value will go anywhere but down as his career progresses. Therefore anyone suggesting he would have more value at the deadline is plainly wrong. /End unfair framing That's how we play this game right? Of course, all of those things are true. In fact, they are more factual than any of your assertions. Yet characterizing your argument as "unrealistic in the real world" would be a terribly unfair framing. So I haven't done it. Yet you repeatedly do this. Merely having facts does not lead to a certain conclusion. It is the basis for a justified conclusion, not a certainty. (And I have several times over acknowledged you have a justified belief. Alas the reverse is not true) It is still very much possible JD could be more valuable at the deadline. At no point, despite an array of facts, have I questioned the validity or realisticness of your stance. Only stated my disagreement. By contrast, you have questioned the validity of my stance on the flawed logic I showed above. It's a BS tactic. Is there a chance Donaldson will not be tradeable until an inopportune time in the offseason? Yes. However, over the last few years player signing dates have been pushed further and further back so how likely that is highly debatable. It's definitely not an absolute or a fact like the ones I stated above. Could there be a limited market for Donaldson? Yes. Is it an absolute, unrealistic fact that is true? Quite obviously no, that's speculation. We disagree about probabilities, which is fine. We shouldn't be stating the other's position as absurd or unrealistic in absolutes. It's unfair framing, perhaps you can join me finally in ending that.

Except it is. You know what kind of players are still available late into an offseason? Josh Donaldson. Liam Hendricks. George Springer. Hell, pretty much everyone now signs well after the start of the offseason and the winter meetings. FA isn't the frenzy it once was, it plays out over time. The notion that the only way that money will be available is after everyone is signed is not commiserate with how FA has actually played out recently. Whenever that money comes free, it will be a significant asset. The idea it's only going to be when the JA Happs are out there is not in touch with reality. Now, to address the larger point, a fair way to argue your point would be to say "I understand 15M is a lot of money, I just have trepidation about how that will be spent". In no way does that imply the asset is insignificant. In no way does it imply I want to swap Donaldson for Happ. In no way does it ignore the way FA and trading works and how those things align. It's a value statement of what you value more. It isn't that hard to do, yet time and again you've done the opposite starting with the silly denial that 15M in additional spending flexibility is not a significant asset. It's like arguing a house itself, today, isn't valuable because the people about to move in are sloppy, destructive jerks. Maybe that value looks worse in a year, but that's not a fair valuation right now. There will be teams that will have an interest in Donaldson, even with the risk he has, and moving him would provide a significant spending flexibility. How it will be spent I have no idea, I'm not a fortune teller. I can only assess the balance of assets and make a decision. I value 15M in a rich FA crop with a team with a ton of holes to fill. Simple as that.

First off, we have a 50M albatross potentially on our hands if we don't deal him. I absolutely think we'll have to pony up some money, but in the scenario we don't deal him there is a very real possibility we eat every one of those dollars for a player well below that level of value. In my scenario, we don't, that's one of the perks. We're only on the hook for a portion and free up the rest for other targets. To that point.... I don't think you'll find any person to agree with you that this figure being available to spend is not "significant". It's also a mischaracterization of my argument to boil down that available funding to the addition of JA Happ or Colome. That is precisely the kind of unfair framing I'm talking about. I suggested that money could be part of the larger pool of available money to help add more pitching or shortstop talent to the roster in the form of someone like Thor or Gray or Seager or any number of free agents. You frame it as more JA Happs. That's the definition of a mischaracterization. I can understand preferring Donaldson to an additional 15M. What I can't understand is looking at 15M more in spending flexibility on a roster desperate with needs and saying - "meh, insignificant".

You bolded that I thought it would save a significant amount of money and disagreed. Is 10-15M not significant? Given that I have this crazy belief that 10-15M IS a significant amount, I could only read that as you thinking we'd have to pay off the whole thing. Of course, my Thor example was one of many examples of what we could use that 15M for and merely to help illustrate the point. I think you're smart enough to know that whatever savings we had was not exclusively valuable if or if not it could afford Thor. C'mon. This is what I'm talking about with the mischaracterizing. My point stands, your characterization of it....by your own admission....was wrong. (Unless you do actually want to argue 10-15M isn't significant. Hell, I was arguing it might be as much as 20, but even at 10-15 doesn't change the point) Perhaps, had you not been so intent to mischaracterize it you might have just argued "I'd rather have Donaldson". Ok, fine. Totally fine. But it is objectively true we'd have a significant amount of money to spend elsewhere. The bolded part is true, just maybe not worth the cost. I believe there will be a market for Donaldson - a solid defensive player, seen as a clubhouse leader, who plays a position with some scarcity. Teams will find a place for him (as you argued for other players but somehow can't see how it would work for JD as well) and at 2/35....they will see value there. Is that necessarily the best path? Of course not, JD might stay healthy and turn some of that great contact he's getting into a monster season. Then again, dealing him may save us a 50M, 15% of our payroll albatross we won't appreciate when we contend again. I lean towards the latter. I think I have valid reasons for doing so, but time will tell.

Yes, last two posts I have been deliberately hyperbolic. Frankly, after dealing with it from you for several points I just dove into the muck. At no point were you giving the merits of my position their due. Sucks when that happens huh? Look back at how you started this, you questioned whether moving on from Donaldson freed money and said it wasn't true. Yet here you are acknowledging 15M. I mean....what the hell? Is 15M not "significant" under some weird definition? The entire conversation went sideways by a point you yourself basically have refuted now. The Mets need a 3B. The Yankees want Urshela out. The Giants might prefer a short contract over a long-term FA war, either way they may have an opening. Phillies are looking. Brewers are looking. There may be other options. At no point, anywhere, has it been suggested prospects would have to go with Donaldson. Only a question of how much money would have to be sent with him. That suggestion is made up whole cloth by you to support your point - that ain't fair. My suggestion that there are teams potentially interested in taking him on has actual evidence, but how much money is definitely up in the air. I'm good paying about 20-30% of his contract and I think someone will take that on. Getting Donaldson at 2 years and 35M is perfectly reasonable.

First, I think Turner and Donaldson are a very fair comp and you continually have pushed that value comparison down more and more. Donaldson would get 2 and roughly 35-40 on the market. The FA market is likely to only have Bryant and Escobar as even semi-viable 3B options at a position where there is significant need from contenders. There will be a market for him. Secondly, the very article you read spent several paragraphs detailing how the Mets could absorb the Donaldson salary with little issue in luxury tax fines or problems with affordability. Thirdly, yes I was hyperbolic in that description but it's getting a little old to have to have to play this game where I'm arguing against Super JD, the one the Twins keep, but my JD that we trade is some schmo we'd be lucky to toss 50M in with and even have interest. It'd be nice if we were both acknowledging the flaws and strengths of the player as he stands now and going forward with a little less baked-in convenience for our arguments. There is a very real, I'd say pretty good, chance that this is the last time Donaldson is movable at all short of actually having to pay his entire contract. At this point the team could pay 10-20% and get a decent return. If age continues to sap his defense or his balky legs go bad again....this is an albatross the team now has hanging around it's neck at the tune of 15-20% of their payroll. It'll be an enormous dead weight. I consider 2022 a retool and reload year and that money can be better spent on players with a significantly lower chance of being an albatross. Wins in 2022 don't matter to me as much as a team primed for 2023 and Donaldson is a very real threat to that given his contract and his age. We don't have to have the same conclusion on that, but I strongly believe that one thing smart teams do is sell a slight stepearly rather than when it's already too late.

Donaldson was on the menu without some bounty of prospects with him. You're welcome to go back and read those articles on MLBTR. I agree, missed opportunity by the front office. If you look up offseason trade suggestions/predictions you'll see that this partnership is still very connected. Rapid fire: Free agents sign for money. Not warm and fuzzy feelings. Nothing anyone suggests we do - keeping Donaldson, trading Donaldson, anointing Donaldson our new lord and savior, asking Kirk Cousins to join the rotation, or investing heavily in cloning technology guarantees a damn thing. We're having conversations that involve a lot of projecting and speculation. That applies to your position as well. Keeping Josh Donaldson could very easily result in 25M worth of calf massages on the injury list. Let's not play that game. And that gets me to the last point: I think JD is a great player. I think he'll have value to whomever he plays for but is likely to decline to being worth less than his contract by a significant margin. I'm not playing some convenient game on this. I just want to allocate the money differently on the roster given the options we have. Justin Turner and Donaldson are roughly equal offensive players. There is no reason to expect them to have some radically different price and, once again, I feel like we're baking in some absolutes that are really unfair and contradictory. The hyperbole you're dancing around about how devastating it is to lose him doesn't jive with how actively you're trying to downgrade him. The only difference in this Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde analysis of JD seems to be in whether you're arguing it or not. Not in any objective take on him. I don't know how a discussion can proceed when one side of the conversation is allowed to talk about the same player as if he's the MVP of the league to justify their position, but the same player is some schmo when the other side is making a different argument about the same guy. We'd all love a great deal on JD. We'd all love to think he can earn that 50M the next two years too. But reality has both of those things in doubt. You're choosing the known over the unknown which is a justifiable position. In the name of better roster allocation, I'm choosing the unknown. I don't think that's an unjustifiable position without the unfair tact you're employing. I understand your position, in no way have I bastardized it, I just don't agree: yeah, JD is a great player, he can help the Twins, it may be difficult to recoup trade value outside of freed up resources. All of those positions on your part are ok....I just disagree about whether that's best for the roster because while that is all true...it's also true that the money that player takes up means we have less to spend, we will have interesting replacements blocked, and he has real injury and age regression concerns coming. I'm just on a different side of where to bet and while I might well be wrong, this discussion isn't well served if I've gotta constantly reframe the conversation away from slanted arguments.

Frankly I don't think that price point stays if the leagues combine forces. Especially with the NHL rejoining ESPN and the way both of those leagues have marketed their own products/services. People don't view streaming prices on a "per thing I watched" basis IMO. They look at the bottom line and the frequency of use. $20 would enter the market significantly higher than services that offer live sports already along with a host of other content. I have serious doubts it would be a model that would be a great selling point. Hell, the only reason the selling point even seems reasonable is relative to the cluster-f that currently exists. If they are getting out of that model, I think they need to really think outside of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I when I think of successful streaming services they all put their foot in the door by having cheap prices relative to their competitors, great content with depth, and prioritizing exposing their brand over raw subscription dollars. I'm not sure if this sounds like any of that.

Plans without any details might have absolutely no ability to be executed. I have a one step plan: "Stink less at baseballing" I can't wait for the GM offers to roll in....

"Part of his salary" implies a significant "part" is NOT being paid for. Money that can then be put towards areas on the roster in much more desperate need of help. At no point were the deadline conversations about the Twins/Mets were concerned was there anything about having to give prospects with Donaldson. So I have no idea where that last paragraph is coming from. This team has one 3B option on the roster already after Donaldson and one of their top AAA hitting prospects right behind that. If the Twins need to send 10-14M with Donaldson the next two years that STILL gives them enough money to sign Jon Gray or even better than him. Plus get a flyer prospect. This roster is better with Arraez/Miranda at 3B and Jon Gray (or Thor or whomever) for the next 2-3 years than it is with an aging Donaldson. 3B is a position of need for several contenders and very few viable options with upside. A team willing to shell out money could get a relative bargain, prospects-wise, in acquiring Donaldson. I see absolutely no reason why Donaldson, on the market, couldn't get 2 years and 40M. It's a small step up from what Justin Turner got just last year coming off a 40 game, injury ridden season. 20M not being spent at 3B is better for the balance of this roster IMO.

I think this is the meat of it. Those local cable deals are about to go away. Baseball is going to have to pay their way out of every regional contract at some point and get a national, shared revenue stream going. Regional broadcasting limits the way the league markets the product, creates massive disparities in revenues, and causes this spiderweb of broadcasting that pretty much everybody gets annoyed with at some point or another. $20 for all three sports might be a plausible selling point, but it's at the very top end of plausible. People get a helluva lot more with their streaming dollars than that proposal most of the time.