Otto von Ballpark

I didn't introduce the term here, but it's my understanding that by "non-serious", posters generally aren't suggesting it's some kind of trick or PR stunt. I think by "non-serious", they mean the offer is more about hoping to land the player / getting a particular value, rather than actually landing the player. Such offers aren't necessarily bad, and may often be preferable to, say, "paying whatever it takes." But if you're always just hoping, or focused on a particular value, you may not actually land anyone when you need them (at least not in that tier of free agency). It's a competitive market and sometimes your offer needs to set you apart.

I'm not changing your argument, just like you weren't changing my argument by saying $85 mil when my post and the report said $80-85. We're just talking about two related things, a hypothetical and a reality, and I was pointing out a relevant difference between them. I addressed your $85 mil hypothetical in the very next paragraph of my post, and agreed with your general feeling although not endorsing your 90% number.

First of all, it's not a clear 4/85 offer -- it's "in the 80-85 mil range" according to the report. So right off the bat, we're not even sure it's +$10 mil or just +$5 mil (or if there are incentives etc. in there). If it's actually $85 mil, it is certainly possible some players might prefer that over 3/75, although 90% seems high. Especially in this context, of a player considering a less familiar location at 4/85 -- he might value his freedom after 3 years (even the freedom to retire at that time), and getting $75 mil in those 3 years from a more familiar club, more than locking himself into a 4th year at that unfamiliar location just for a few extra mil (and presumably only getting ~$63 mil over the first 3 years, time value of money and all that). Additionally, a player chasing a ring might ask if the 4/85 organization is going to pursue that as aggressively as the team offering 3/75, which is going to further affect how he values that extra year and extra ~$10 mil. Which is why, in this context, I'd say 4/80-85 from the Twins is not clearly better than 3/75. It's not necessarily much worse either, but it's not clearly better like some are suggesting. (And according to the report, since 4/80-85 isn't the high offer, that suggests at least one other team might agree with me too. ) Edit to add: the Bumgarner example is interesting. He had 4/70 offers, and eventually signed for what I think gets valued at 5/81 after discounting deferments. But he extracted that offer and signed it at a preferred, familiar location. I don't think a Twins offer of 5/81 would have been clearly better than Arizona's 4/70 (especially if it wasn't necessarily $81 mil, and could have been closer to $75 mil before incentives or something -- and especially if there was higher offer closer to 5/90 somewhere else!). In fact, it seems possible that Bumgarner used the interest of other clubs to extract that extra year and $11 mil from his preferred destination -- something Donaldson could do too, if other teams were offering 3/75 to the Twins 4/85.

FWIW, MLBTR estimated 3/75 for Donaldson, and the Fangraphs writer McDaniel estimated 3/71. If he's asking for 4/110, that's a ~50% increase in total value over those, although only a ~13% increase in AAV due to the extra year. (And of course, he might only be asking for 4/110 hoping that someone counters with 4/100, rather than 110 being his actual valuation of himself.) I guess the Fangraphs crowdsource was 3/60 but those generally seem lower / more unreliable than the "expert" predictions so far this winter.

Not to be that guy, but... Per Forbes list last year, Atlanta had $75 mil more annual revenue than the Twins. They also had $71 mil in profit, in a year with a $118 mil opening day payroll (compared to the Twins, who only had $14 mil profit on $128 mil opening day payroll). I'm not saying those numbers are gospel, but I don't think it's correct to suggest the Braves are really more constrained at a $129 mil payroll than the Twins at $116 mil. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll shell out for Donaldson, but they absolutely could afford to, just as much if not more than the Twins.

Worth keeping in mind that's 3/75 vs 4/80-85, in this case. It's not entirely clear that the Twins offer is as good as the projected contract.

I'd say an offer can be "serious" but still have fairly low odds of actually landing the player, which is the more important measure to me. That seems to be the MO of this FO. At least for contracts beyond $26 mil. Darvish, Wheeler, Bumgarner, and Ryu. Maybe this offer to Donaldson will break the pattern, although that report from Doogie doesn't give me much confidence right now.

MLBTR projected 3/75, and most FA are beating those projections this offseason, and arguably a 4/80-85 offer is not as good as 3/75.

Actually, Detroit has graded out as a hitter's park the last few years...

It was a good defensive game overall, although the Saints were kind of eating us up in the 4th quarter. If Brees doesn't fumble (admitted some credit goes to our defense for that too!) or if the Saints don't bungle their clock management on the final drive, we probably lose the game.

I think they're still reviewing the final play. We'll know for sure by Saturday.

No aging pitchers? Does that mean we could only trade for (Dorian) Gray?

Perhaps this was facetious, but you aren't allowed to trade newly signed FA right away. (I think the rule is May 15th or so?)

Castro is a second baseman. He never played third until a bit last year with the Marlins, when they broke in a prospect at 2B. And the Nationals have a wide open hole at 2B too, with Dozier and Asdrubal Cabrera departing as free agents.

Updating myself: with the Starlin Castro deal, the Nats would now be $24 mil under the tax threshold, per Cot's. A little tougher to fit in Donaldson, but remember, it's a soft cap. It would just be a little tax if they exceed it. There are still a few arb guys in that number too -- Taylor, Elias, Ross, and Barrett are all pretty superfluous, and are estimated to make $7 mil combined in 2020, not guaranteed yet. One of them could end up traded or just cut to save a few mil.

Being the high bidder on a 1/14 contract isn't really a meaningful precedent here, is it? Aside from the contract being for far less than a Donaldson deal, Cruz was projected by MLBTR to get a 2/30 deal, so our "high bid" was actually a bit of bargain shopping, in the context of that market. You may as well cite us being the high bidder for Lance Lynn 2 years ago too for all it might suggest about the Twins being the high bidder for Donaldson around 4/100. By comparison, Donaldson was projected by MLBTR to get 3/75 and is already beating that, in terms of years anyway. Hopefully we know more soon, but without any reported dollar figures, I'd say it's more likely that the Twins are simply in a mix of comparable offers at this point, rather than any kind of clear top bidder. It seems like that's where we were with Darvish, Wheeler, and even Bumgarner before another team (or teams) upped their bid to get it done.

I don't think this process leads to the Twins being the clear high bidder right now, by a reasonable amount. Atlanta's offer is 4 years now. It's quite possible that they're in the same hypothetical 4/85-ish territory as the Twins and Nats offers, and Donaldson is simply waiting for someone to go to $100 mil or add a 5th year. See my post above -- even Bumgarner didn't sign Arizona's first offer, when it was close to the other reported offers. Donaldson quite likely has both a preference for Atlanta *and* a dollar/year figure he is pursuing -- it's not strictly an either-or situation. And I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Washington simply due to deferments. Corbin's 6/140 mil contract last winter only had very minimal deferments ($10 mil from 2024, the last year of the contract, is paid out in 2025). Yes, Strasburg and Scherzer both have deferments, but they're also both 7 year, $210+ mil contracts, which really give no indication about if or how much Washington would want to defer a 4/100-ish deal for Donaldson. The Corbin example suggests any Donaldson deferrals could be minimal, if not non-existent. (FWIW, Strasburg's deal has a present-day value of 93.4% considering deferments. A comparable amount for a Donaldson deal may only be $6-7 mil. I wouldn't be so sure that the Nats offer couldn't beat the Twins offer by that amount.) That's not to say the Twins *aren't* the current high bidders. But we really don't have enough evidence to jump to that conclusion yet (has anyone leaked an actual offer dollar figure yet? It all seems to be years and speculated dollars). Edit to add: if Atlanta is still the favorite, Washington also has pretty strong incentive to win Donaldson's services or at least bid up Atlanta as high as possible, since Atlanta is their chief division rival!

Cot's has the Nationals at $38 mil under the luxury tax, before signing Harris ($8 mil). So it's certainly not authoritative that the Nats couldn't be matching or beating the Twins offer on the table right now, even without any significant deferred money. (And deferred money could keep them even further under the luxury tax, if they wanted.) And the Braves could be roughly matching the Twins and Nats at a lower figure and Donaldson simply wants someone to go higher before he signs. We saw something like that with Bumgarner, where the reported offers (including Arizona) were all around 4/70, and ultimately he got Arizona to go up to 5/85 before signing.

What makes you say that? From the limited info we have, this situation doesn't seem appreciably different than earlier FA negotiations (Darvish, Wheeler, Bumgarner, Ryu, etc.), when it turned out the Twins were never really the high bidder, much less "by a reasonable amount."

I'm pretty sure the bar for Bailey to stay in the rotation past May 10th is considerably lower than that. But you might be right by July.

Well, obviously Cave isn't even a part time 1B yet, so that kind of limits his positional flexibility too. Also, Cave doesn't seem any further out of platoon territory at this point than Moreland. But by the time you're giving a 1B glove to Cave, or trying Kepler back there (Kepler hasn't started a game at 1B since 2015 in the minor leagues, and hasn't played more than 1 out at the position since 2016), you're probably just going to play Marwin there anyway, right? We're not that desperate at 1B, I think we're really just on the lookout for a Cron replacement (cheap 1B with upside) or new third baseman. Moreland fits neither of those categories.

The A's can be even more frugal than the Twins. Their payroll cap is maybe ~70% of the Twins. $7 mil is a bigger relative commitment to them -- they only have one SP making that much in 2020, and may not feel they have room for another. (Or need, as Nick alludes to -- even without Bailey and losing Brett Anderson, they still have Fiers, Bassitt, Montas, Manaea, Luzardo, Puk, etc.)

Story alone might require Lewis plus a pitching prospect, and that's only if the Rockies are actually willing to sell right now (and they may not be, depending on what they want to / can do with Arenado, Blackmon, Marquez, and Gray).

But Cave needed a .361 BABIP to do that, compared to Moreland's .281. Moreland does have a below-average .285 BABIP for his career, so maybe that won't improve, but Cave's number suggests he might not have a lot of wiggle room. (Cave's career minor league BABIP was also .360, but I wouldn't necessarily count on minor league BABIP to translate to MLB? Moreland's BABIP in the minors was .336. Cave's K rate has also jumped from 21.5% in the minors to 32.2% in MLB -- how much is he already selling out to get this production?) Not that I like Moreland all that much either!

Actually about 10 runs equals 1 win, in DRS/UZR/WAR terms. (And by -5, I meant that might be his season total, rather than a change of minus 5.) So this is exactly what I've been saying -- a shift of -2 would only represent about one-fifth of a win.