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Otto von Ballpark

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Everything posted by Otto von Ballpark

  1. Otto von Ballpark
    $35 mil per year like someone said... of course for 7 years, basically twice as long as what's being discussed for Bumgarner and Ryu...
  2. Otto von Ballpark
    It's probably less common, but it's not uncommon to have games started incentives. https://www.google.com/search?q=site:mlbtraderumors.com+%22games+started%22+%22incentives%22+%222018%22 Matt Harvey and Adam Wainwright apparently signed such deals last winter. I think the short-lived Anibal Sanchez contract with the Twins had games started incentives too...
  3. Otto von Ballpark
    I think the union polices any playing time incentive shenanigans pretty strictly. So if Ryu was a pitching fine, but was an unusual healthy scratch just before a notable incentive mark, you'd probably see a grievance filed (and probably won, by the player/union).
  4. Otto von Ballpark
    Games started incentives are allowed: http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/incentive-clause
  5. Otto von Ballpark
    I'd guess that a bunch of teams could easily give him that same offer, and I don't think the Twins would win out. MLBTR predicted 3/54 but listed 13 teams of interest...
  6. Otto von Ballpark
    I'm sure they want some wiggle room built into the budget like this, but at the same time, deadline budgeting is a very different animal -- they already know how 2/3 of the season has gone so far, and they have a lot more confidence in their projections (both performance and revenue) for the last two months, etc. Given the right circumstances, they could push the 2020 payroll up to $145 mil at the deadline, even if their preseason budget limit was $135 mil. (They could also cut it to $125 mil if they become sellers...)
  7. Otto von Ballpark
    I think Mike was responding (like I was) to the erroneous notion that Darvish only "paid for" 25% of the first 2 years of his contract so far, rather than comparing the Pineda and Darvish more directly.
  8. Otto von Ballpark
    The issue isn't so much the annual salary -- it's the number of years. Cole should get twice as many guaranteed years as Ryu and Bumgarner; Strasburg, 50% more.
  9. Otto von Ballpark
    You say that like it is surprising. Both have consistently *very* low payrolls, and both are among the top revenue sharing recipients. (Neither is making significant investments in facilities right now either.) The Twins shouldn't be expected to compare to either of those clubs in terms of net profit right now.
  10. Otto von Ballpark
    That's not really how "paying for himself" works. Player performance will vary by season/half/month/etc, and periods of above-average performance can balance out periods of below-average performance. And even with his scuffles in the first half of 2019, Darvish's second half was so good, he was basically worth his salary for the full season by WAR. (Edit to add: by your accounting, Mike Trout doesn't "pay for himself" a significant amount of time either!) By WAR, Darvish also been worth his present annual salary, or more, in 6 of 8 years since he came to MLB. The only exceptions have been 2018 and his full season lost to TJ surgery in 2015. Also, what you call a "huge injury risk" has only had two notable periods in his career where he was sidelined -- his TJ elbow injury spanning late 2014 to mid 2016, and his triceps issue in 2018. Every pitcher is some level of injury risk, but we don't have near enough info to conclude that Darvish is worse than his peers in that regard.
  11. Otto von Ballpark
    Not really -- the $135 mil already includes 2020 arb estimates for those guys. The only way extensions would increase the 2020 payroll is if you front-loaded them -- which is certainly possible, but even then, it's probably only a few million. (They could just as well back-load them too, if they'd rather invest 2020 payroll in FAs.) And there really is no "etc." -- those 3 guys you listed, plus Rogers, are probably the only realistic extension candidates this winter. And odds are only 1 or 2 of them are willing to sign. And $135 mil is a conservative payroll at this point too -- they were at ~$130 entering 2018, and that was just coming off an 85 win wild-card season. They could easily support $140 mil for 2020 if their desired FAs and extensions warrant it.
  12. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, baseballtradevalues.com calls it a "moderate overpay" for the Twins, but I suspect it's not far off. Per that site, Thorpe is a pretty close value match for Turner himself -- but of course, most teams probably have a 40 FV Lewis Thorpe type they can spare to add a 3-4 WAR third baseman. So adding a couple lower value guys like Sands and/or Celestino could be necessary too. https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/ Not that I think the Dodgers are necessarily going to move a still-quality player like Turner. Even if they don't like his 3B defense that much anymore, he had a 132 wRC+ last year and a 125 projection for 2020 -- that should also play fine in their mix at 1B. Might be more likely to push out a more redundant pending FA like Enrique Hernandez, or even a guy like AJ Pollock in one of their big money trades.
  13. Otto von Ballpark
    Bellinger is already primarily an outfielder -- he only started 28 games at 1B in 2019. Turner could take 1B reps from the departing David Freese. Their other first baseman (Muncy) could take more reps at other positions too, maybe even with a trade or reduced role for Hernandez or Pollock. I have no doubt the Dodgers could make it work.
  14. Otto von Ballpark
    FWIW, the Dodgers were under the luxury tax threshold last year, so I don't think they are under much pressure to stay under for 2020 (escalating penalties reset once you get under for a year). They could overlap Turner and Rendon for a year pretty easily. And they are currently projected at $47 mil under for 2020, per Cot's. And as I mentioned on another thread, the Dodgers have also found ways to creatively lower their tax burden without straight salary dumps.
  15. Otto von Ballpark
    Rather than a straight salary dump, I think a more likely payroll-cutting route for the Cubs would be the recent Dodgers model, where high salary guys are swapped but the Cubs get the guy with more years left on his deal, thus spreading out the luxury tax hit.
  16. Otto von Ballpark
    Actually, the post at MLBTR says the Cubs would need to clear payroll to sign FAs -- not that they need to clear payroll, period. (At least not significant payroll.) If the Cubs don't sign any FAs, they could mostly just stand pat with their current roster -- and it's not a bad one. 90 Pythag wins last year, and they don't have many departures this winter -- Hamels, the rental Castellanos, and a few relievers. They have a few young players who could step up to bigger roles, and there are probably reclamation project guys they could sign for minimal cost. That strategy wouldn't boost their 2020 contention chances, of course -- but neither would salary dumping quality players like Darvish, Bryant, etc. If their immediate payroll situation was that dire, they probably wouldn't have picked up the 2020 option on Quintana, or signed Kimbrel back in June.
  17. Otto von Ballpark
    Because the Cubs wouldn't actually be clearing much salary by moving him, so they're likely not moving him (at least not affordably, for us).
  18. Otto von Ballpark
    So, no to Pineda and his diuretics?
  19. Otto von Ballpark
    Raw stats might overstate how close they are, though, as Tampa was a slight pitcher's park while Minnesota was neutral. And Tampa had a bit tougher division competition than Minnesota too.
  20. Otto von Ballpark
    Wheeler picked the better/closer team, but the reported higher offer was pretty much within a rounding error. I don't think that really disproves the general point that money talks for most of these guys (and why I would have been really curious to see what would have happened if the Twins were bidding in that range too).
  21. Otto von Ballpark
    First off, the top 8 FA SP aren't all equal (and MLBTR actually ranked Pineda 9th, and Odorizzi 6th). And isn't the goal to improve the team? Re-signing the same guys doesn't do that. And normally I'd say "how much can you improve a 101 win team?" but this was a 101 win team with a pretty clear void at the top of the rotation last year, and an ending to the season that suggests our 101 win formula clearly needs refinement for postseason success. I'll also add that so far they've only signed Odorizzi and Pineda for the short term -- which isn't necessarily bad, but it does suggest we're not super-confident in either, and/or we'll have to count on the team signing more guys (and the correct guys) each winter going forward. (Not to say there isn't risk with longer contracts too, but if you like a guy, there are potential additional payoffs for a longer-term bet.)
  22. Otto von Ballpark
    True, although Wheeler's nice stretch to end the season had 5 of 11 opponents among the top 10 MLB offenses. He shut down Washington, Arizona, and the Dodgers in consecutive turns during a pennant race in September. And while getting 5-6 good innings is a benchmark for the modern game, it's also nice to sometimes get 7 or even 8, at 100-110 pitches, to not over-tax your pen. Pineda only pitched into the 7th 4 times in 26 starts last year, and never into the 8th; Wheeler had 16 of 31. True, Wheeler got to throw to some pitchers, but he also had to throw in front of one of the game's worst defenses. Some of that was also easing Pineda back after surgery, but frankly he didn't pitch all that deep into games before his surgery either. Even if the starter is of similar quality to Odorizzi/Pineda, I'd still like to see another one with a little more quantity than that too, for good staff balance, regardless of how you want to slot them. That could have been Wheeler, or it could be Bumgarner, or it could be a trade target...
  23. Otto von Ballpark
    Perhaps as a league-wide thing? Although even then, pro sports team ownership is such an elite, exclusive club, and tied so much to other interests (media networks, real estate, etc.), that I'm not sure lowering the team profit would matter all that much to the market of buying and selling teams, where franchise valuation is determined. But more narrowly, a specific ownership group could absolutely run their team at minimum profit for a few years without their affecting franchise valuation at all, if they felt the competitive circumstances warranted it.
  24. Otto von Ballpark
    I think, and MLBTR seems to suggest, Castro is indeed looking for a starting role / longer-term contract. So no, I don't think this is really about money from the Twins perspective.
  25. Otto von Ballpark
    You remember correctly, although I don't know how much the Rays pitching creativity helped them in the playoffs. Their wild card game win, and 1 of their 2 wins vs Houston, were behind traditional starter and relatively big FA signing Charlie Morton. (Their other win was indeed behind an opener. But they also had postseason starts from Glasnow and Snell, who were both top prospects and were intended to be traditional starters but were limited by injury late last season.) I mean, I'm willing to try anything for a playoff win at this point. So sign me up!
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