TheLeviathan

Missed that point. All long term deals are overpayments with a lot of risk.....I dont get this "bust the holy water" about Grienke or other FA and then we celebrate the brilliance of Mauer. There is a pretty marginsal difference in risk.

Actually, Mauer had just come off a career year and played the most physically demanding position in baseball. He was almost certain not to hit up to the levels the previous year and ran a higher degree of injury risk than average hitters due to many different factors. If the problem with Greinke is the years, the same concerns apply to Mauer. I'm not saying Mauer is a worse hitter or has a worse contract, but pretending these are radically different risks is just not true. I wouldn't deny that Grienke is overrated largely. But if you're worried about deals hurting you in the long run, we have already had a taste of how the Mauer deal can do that.

We keep hearing these refrains. If Grienke at 159M (not the 200M that makes an argument sound better) is horrible and stupid and outs you as a dumb poster (as implied just above) then what in the blue hell was the Mauer contract? The worst deal in the history of mankind? The biggest mistake our race has ever made? If you like that deal and guffaw at the Grienke deal....you have some serious 'splainin to do. I'd like to just throw out there that the hyper-focus on Grienke and Sanchez is largely due to a few posters insisting on using them. Personally, I see anywhere from 40-60M unspent (closer to 60) and would have just liked to see it spent on anything that added talent and didn't block a part of the longterm future. Such as: I advocated for Kelly Johnson (who is pounding the ball) for 2B, but what about him at 3B as an option since we don't want to block Dozier? How about Dan Haren? Take a flyer on Ervin Santana? Sign Adam Laroche to DH? Stephen Drew isn't blocking anyone. Take a flyer on Mike Adams, or Ryan Madson, or Joakim Soria? How about Alex Gonzalez at SS? The idea that there was nothing that could make this ballclub better, that couldn't contribute now and in the future, is patently absurd. All these other conversations just deflect away from that central point.

Market inefficiency?

Man I'm praying for a power surge soon, he's doing some things well and making harder contact. But he seems to be struggling to get around on the ball again to pull and drive it.

1. Only if they are talented. If your in-house option is Blackburn or Pedro Hernandez than why not? I think you are belaboring a point that no one disagrees with. No one wants to block young talent. What we want is a better upgrade than Pelfrey or Correia. 2. Only if you have or anticipate a tight budget. Otherwise it's really irrelevant.

Many of us don't feel the need to concede it because we haven't suggested otherwise. I've refused to name specific names - just said we should've allocated X amount of dollars to pitching - whomever that may be. I think most people would stand by that, we all know there are a lot of variables in getting a deal done. But we had the resources (afterall, our own FO said it's all about "dollars and years") to make something better than what we did.

Hyperbole is the name of my game some would say..... I'm glad we clarified your thinking, but this debate went far longer than needed in part because some transparency in your thinking would be helpful. Where I did use hyperbole are on issues I'm still a bit baffled (your understanding of how much payroll will be required for arby and your "extensions are better than FA deals" stance) but as I told Psuedo earlier, I think we're all speculating about what will be done in the future. I think we all share the hope that the team will add talent, however our GM's track record (including this offseason) leaves me a pretty bitter skeptic.

That doesn't address my point. You took hypothetical contracts for the Twins to sign last offseason and then hypothesized that they'd be worthless in 6 years. How is that hypothetical ever going to change? It will always be relevant for any offseason. But you insist on picking and choosing the hypotheticals you choose to stress. Personally, I'm not concerned about what Grienke or Sanchez looks like in 5 years. Why? Because none of the core players will be outside of team control/arb. and thus won't have large salary figures to worry about anyway even if they implode in the final years of their deals. Nothing would stop you from still having payroll flexibility because we have ZERO other obligations by that point. Well, it might, except that guys who get extensions are apparently immune to that? That's my best guess since you refuse to explain that distinction. The problem with you hypothetical about injuries is that you seem to think arb. eligible players make billions of dollars. Also, I find this whole train of thought amusing since you refuse to sign players that were known to be available last year out of fear of what MIGHT happen so you can soapbox about how it is perfectly ok not to worry because you think we MIGHT sign people in the future. Is this a cleverly masked Guiness World Record attempt for contradictions in a single thread? But it was your point and you repeated it MANY TIMES. It's one thing to acknowledge later "Oh, I didn't realize that....." and then continue the discussion from that point. But that's not what you've done. You've made one argument, had it thoroughly debunked and moved on to another, only to return to the former argument in some slightly re-worded way. It's great you have evolved your thinking, but at no point did you give that indication. You just keep going back to the same wells over and over again no matter how many times they are debunked. You don't like Grienke as an option? Fine, but understand there is not going to be a bevy of options over the hill. Sometimes you have to swallow a bitter pill and hope when it comes to FA. Fortunately, we have plenty of money to assume that risk. My fear was, and remains, that we have a GM that will never swallow that pill and this last offseason did nothing to reassure me otherwise. Will the next one? I hope so, but I'm not confident in it and meanwhile we are literally watching money waste away without adding to the team's talent.

Also, we're a "Chewbacca Defense of the Twins FA Spending away" from a series of TD head explosions.

Don't worry, I'm sure drjim has 6-7 more up his sleeve before he starts over at the first ones in hopes we all forgot about them agian.

So you're unwilling to engage about hypothetical FA signings but are more than happy to drone on and on about hypothetical injury scenarios that wreck the future of the club? Jesus dude. Jesus. AGAIN...that conflicts with your earlier points that you didn't want to add payroll that would hinder retaining the core players. Let's suppose Sano debuts next year. He will need to be resigned in 2020 or go to FA. If, as you suggest, we sign a Grienke in 3 years....that salary will be on our books and (potentially) hinder that resigning......which exactly what you were railing against earlier!!!! So which is it - you don't want deals that will hinder core resignings or yuo do? One way or another one of your arguments was complete crap that you are now acknowledging. I'd just like to figure out which one it is so you can't shift the goalposts back there again like you are want to do. Your last two paragraphs basically suggest that your arguments from the first 6 pages were a waste of all of our time and you acknowledge their ill-thoughtout nature. But given how back and forth you've been with what little ground you think you have to stand on, I'd like it explained a bit. Read through your own positions in here, they are nothing short of a conflicted, contradictory, ever shifting mess. If those last two posts are your clarification - thanks for dragging us through all this nonsense while you threw crap at the wall. I guess you now know what stuck and we can move on from there?

NO ONE IS ARGUING THAT. That scarecrow is dead, you obliterated it. Move on, no one was saying any such thing. Just that your odds of fielding better talent increases if you add talent!

Again, you keep dressing up your arguments - you basically have suggested you wouldn't sign those deals. Which means you wouldn't sign any deals for FA pitchers. And you have implied those deals were out of the norm. All of which stands to my point. Yet you've also established that you won't sign any large deals that "hinder" the payroll when those guys arrive so out of one side of your mouth you are arguing "we don't want that money on our ledger in 3 years" but "we'll add someone else in three years where it really will hinder our ability to retain that core" Please rectify these totally unrectifiable positions. Either you don't want contracts on our ledger in 6 years or you do? The average arby price is 3.5M. Let's round it up to 4. How many players will that be? 10...tops? Let's say an outrageously optimistic number like 10 of our prospects are here and we're paying out arby - that's 40M. Plus Mauer and you've barely reached HALF of the payroll we should expect if 50% is true. You want to sit on the other 60M? Do you just have some kind of fundamental misunderstanding about how much players make in arbitration? It's dirt cheap. What you suggest is adding a pitcher later, that when they reach the 4 year point in their deal will coincide with when Sano needs to be locked up. That's when you really WOULD hinder our flexibility! So could anyone. At year 1 of their deal (like Grienke) or year 6. Do you want to curl into the fetal position when it comes to contracts and just never do them? Even though they carry the same risk of injury and dollar amounts? Explain how that makes any sense.

So now we only need to wait for the market to be flooded with good starting pitching that the demand can't meet? Oofta.

So Jackson is a failure as a signing on May friggin 11th? Baker was a high risk that didn't pan out. But Villanueva and Feldman are both doing a nice job. Maholm was flipped for a pretty decent package. They are taking assets that will otherwise not be helping the team (cash) and putting them into helping the team. If that only works 30-40% of the time...how is that any different than a trade or general prospect development? Please get this through your head....no one is saying it's a sure thing. It's just got better odds than DOING NOTHING.

Quite frankly, this whole dialogue here is better wrapped up in the other thread. That's where the threads of "reason" people like drjim are using are being exposed for just how ass-backwards and inconsistent they are. Notice - you don't have to advocate "We MUST sign Grienke" to do this. That's not the point people here keep deflecting to. It's about using available resources to make your team better and the counter-arguments that are being thrown at that idea. But the premises of much of those arguments defending the Twins are just absurd. They're complete nonsense when you shine a little light on them. If anyone disagrees, by all means answer the same question I gave dr. jim that exposed his arguments: (Good luck staying consistent with your memes about bad players not coming here, not tying up future payroll, not giving up assets, etc.) If not now (or last offseason) than what player for what amount of money?

Probably not bad. They have some disappointments (Jackson and Baker) and some real positives (Feldman and Vilanueva). Nothing is certain - trades, FA, and certainly not prospect development....so I'm not sure where you think this gives you higher ground? If I'm the Cubs and I had a ton of money to spend and two of my signings are having good, surprisingly solid starts....I'd be far more thrilled with that than I would be disappointed with the others. Because they took something they had a lot of (cash) and turned it into something they needed (talent assets)

Well, A) That's one of the many problems with your position. You are passing on options you KNOW are available on the speculation of what might be available in the future. I can assure you with the increase in cable money and this thing called "inflation" that the odds of signing above average starting pitching will most assuredly not be going down. So either you're comfortable with those prices or you're not. It's clear you're not, so your distinction about "last offseason" is just more nonsense from you on this. At some point will you just recognize how terribly constructed your arguments are and just stop? Michael doesn't. And I wouldn't call Rosario "depth". I think he's a pretty damn important part of our future if he sticks in the MI. So to actually answer my question - yes you are willing to move the precious assets you are so scared the team might lose by spending itself out of their arbitration hearings. (Another concept which, on the face of it, is pretty damn laughable) Just to recap: 1. You won't sign FA's for any price similar to what was doled out last year but hope future deals are cheaper despite massive new revenue streams and basic economics. 2.You are scared the team will overspend and lose arbitration eligible players due to affordability, but have no problems dealing those same players for pitchers you have no intention of retaining because of the concerns in number 1. 3. You don't want to speculate on the future availability of players but have repeatedly asserted that this year's FA group is inferior to future ones. That's....that's a doozy of a position you hold right there.

Do you somehow think that price is coming down? And "depth" rarely acquires much top level talent. You also didn't explain if this player would be locked up - shoudl I assume that's a "no"? You're also aware how much risk there is in "going for it" in one or two years right?