Otto von Ballpark

It's not that Super 2 status itself changes the deal -- it's the length of time until the player's first multi-million dollar payday. I am sure it varies by player/agent, but that sure seems like the biggest leverage tool for these guys. Dozier is like nine months away from that payday (6 months game action). At this point, anything short of a life-threatening injury probably wasn't stopping him from getting tendered a contract in December for $2.5+ mil. Span was two years away. A bit less leverage, so his deal included an option year. You are suggesting extending Arcia when he is, what, 5 months away (3 months game action)? Obviously you can get option years added to any contract, but you have to pay more in the guaranteed years to do so. Arcia's not accepting Dozier's dollars plus options unless he is either feeling magnanimous (not impossible, but I have no idea), or he simply doesn't play/project as well as Dozier (probably the case right now, and probably reason NOT to sign him to such a contract).

Thanks for the link. From Fangraphs:

Recently, yes. But the Twins didn't do aggressive early extensions for Mauer or Morneau either. Nor Santana, Hunter, or Radke, although admittedly their careers started less impressively. Now to clarify, I don't fault the Twins too much in this regard -- the Rays' 2008 contracts for Shields/Longoria 2008 were kind of a "game changer" -- but certainly the Twins would have benefitted from being out front on this earlier. I guess I should thank the heavens that the Twins 2008 talent evaluators didn't give out an aggressive early extension, as it almost certainly would have gone to Delmon Young at the time. Or maybe Carlos Gomez as they tried to make him a slap hitter...

Do you think the Nationals cared that Span was only due $11.75 mil over his final two arbitration years plus buyout, rather than something like the $13.7 mil Austin Jackson earned going year-to-year, or the $16.85 mil for Dexter Fowler? I am sure it was nice, but the value of the option year control dwarfed the cost savings, I think. (And for Dozier the cost savings is somewhat offset by the $1.4 mil that he is getting as a kind of "bonus" during pre-arb years. The Twins could invest that money instead and later include it with him in trade if it really made any kind of difference.) Average opening day MLB team payroll was $115 mil last year. The majority of teams were above $100 mil. Any team, in win-now mode, that's cheap enough to care about $2-3 mil per season in a trade like that, is probably one that's too cheap to provide good enough return value in trade anyway. It's like when people suggest we could get a better prospect for Morneau, Willingham, etc. by eating more salary. Teams generally don't sell any kind of decent assets for a few million bucks. Don't get me wrong -- I like the deal at the present time, the total cost savings could be decent for the Twins. But the cost savings over perhaps just half of the contact, for a win-now team, that's already giving up something significant in trade?

Thanks for this nugget John. I think the Twins have been bitten by their conservatism in this regard -- by the time a player is established enough to get an extension offer from the Twins, that player is also close enough to arbitration and free agency to have this kind of leverage. Span was about the most aggressive early career extension we've done, and possibly only because he just happened to fall ~30 days short of Super Two status. Just like I want to see the Twins be more aggressive in international markets, etc., I would like to see them be more aggressive on extensions too. Hopefully the next few years provide us with some players worthy of aggressive extensions early in their careers!

I think they would only have that leverage at that point if it was clear that Arcia would miss Super Two status. Otherwise, Arcia would only be 3 months worth of games from a guaranteed ~$2.5+ mil payday. It doesn't seem like players sign up for multiple option years at that point in their careers. Although Arcia's career thus far is a somewhat refreshing reminder that the Twins generally don't play service time games. They optioned him after his rehab stint in May 2014, but only for 10 days or so, not enough to keep him from getting a full year's service time credit for 2014. If they had kept him down another 10 days, or ended his "rehab" and optioned him 10 days earlier, he probably would not project to make Super Two status.

It may already be too late to extract much excess value from an Arcia extension. As Jeremy says, he is likely less than a year away from his first arbitration award as a Super Two. Denard Span was two years away from his arb award when he signed his deal with the Twins. If the Twins could option Arcia this season for 21 days, they could delay his first arbitration award a year and eliminate his "Super Two" status. But of course, if there is a plausible performance based reason for optioning Arcia this year, he's probably not a good extension candidate anyway...

You can turn down an option and still make a qualifying offer. This article mentions it: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/mlb-qualifying-offer-system-ervin-santana-nelson-cruz-james-shields-110414 Not sure if it has been done yet, but I know it was debated when the Orioles declined their option on Nick Markakis this winter.

I echo those that have no problem with this move, and not waiting further. However, not only are the Twins not thinking trade with this deal as Brock says, but it does very little for Dozier's trade value. Dozier was never going to earn Price/Howard type money in arbitration -- at best, this is a discount of $2-3 mil in any given year. Which is nice, but for a team targeting Dozier in trade, in win-now mode and willing to surrender enough talent to the Twins to make it worthwhile for both sides, those dollar sums are pretty negligible. It's nice to save a few mil, but no team in that situation is going to surrender more talent to the Twins because of a $2-3 mil annual discount. The real value is years of control, particularly team option years. The Nationals certainly liked Span's below arb salaries, but the reason they gave up a top prospect for him was the two years of control plus the team option. Of course, Span signed his extension a year earlier than Dozier, so he had less leverage in negotiations. Like free agent extensions, if you really want to have a lot of potential excess value, you need to sign the player before they are within a year from FA (like the Twins were unable/unwilling to do with Mauer, Nathan, Santana, etc.). So arb buyout extensions probably need to be signed before the player is within a year of his first arbitration award (like Span, or Dozier last winter) if you really want excess value and not just mild cost control/savings. It would have been riskier for the Twins to do so, but had they pushed this contract on Dozier last winter, I am almost certain they could have tacked on an option year. (It generally seems the Twins have been behind the curve in aggressive early long-term deals, although they haven't had many players worth it over the past 5 years or so).

This story makes me root for Boyer a little bit: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/blaine-boyer-and-his-personal-entourage.html I'd probably root for him more if Stauffer wasn't already guaranteed a spot, though...

The guys that Gibson beat were not making a combined $8 million, though...

I think the playing time thus far makes it all but definitive.

Arcia has had two years with Brunansky as hitting coach.

Thanks for the info, Thrylos. I look forward to digging into the new metric. I quibble with this conclusion from this metric and with Jack Goin's agreement with it. Why? You don't need any advanced stats/metrics to see that the pitching staff has improved at certain points (April 2014, hopefully April 2015), because the staff at the points of comparison (April 2013, April 2012) was so bad. Essentially, you are giving them credit for getting rid of Diamond, Correia, Deduno, Swarzak, etc., when the same decision-makers are the ones who acquired those guys and relied on them in the first place. Rebuilding or not, the SP talent AND depth entering 2012 and 2013 was almost criminally thin. If you are calling on AAAA also-rans by May, multiple years in a row… AND you've got Correia/Pelfrey anchoring the top of the rotation… that's not good, even for a rebuilding team. Are they learning from their mistakes? Maybe slowly. Are they never going to sign a middling Correia type and guarantee them a rotation spot for multiple seasons again? Perhaps, but they just guaranteed significantly more to a couple guys (Nolasco, Santana) that probably project to be near Correia 2013-2014 level performance soon. And they have done precious little about outfield defense yet, so it's hard to think they are really big believers in any DIPS based metric.

I am surprised at the Boyer love. He turns 34 in July and has a career 6.3 K/9 and 90 ERA+ out of the pen. And he is 102 days short of full free agency, so if he spends 3.5 months with the Twins this year, we will almost certainly lose him for nothing after the season (or have to re-sign/extend him at market rates). Given his closeness to FA, it is doubtful that you will be able to trade him for much, even if performs well. And once he's on the team, I don't think you can send him to minors without his permission -- the only way to separate from him would be trade or release. Wouldn't we rather see if Oliveros, Achter, Tonkin, etc. can be cheap, valuable parts in our bullpen, both this year and 2016-2021? Or at least let them learn/work extensively with our MLB pitchers and staff? Those guys have options too, so they can easily be swapped between MLB and AAA as needed.

According to B-Ref, Escobar has not appeared in the outfield either this spring. Just Nunez among infielders (and only once so far).

I'd rather not waste another season at the position, as we already wasted one, arguably two. And if Buxton hits another stumbling block again this year, wasting 2015 makes it more likely you will be wasting the spot again in 2016. No one is suggesting a megatrade or huge FA signing. And whatever decent solution you find for CF could still have value post-Buxton, in a corner or by trade (kinda the value we all still hope Hicks achieves).

Nope. TK carried only 10 pitchers in 1991. Still only had 11 when he retired in 2001. Never had 12, at least not for any extended period.

Who would DH?

I would be surprised if the Twins or any team skipped the 5th starter much anymore.

OBP is more important than K rate on offense. OBP against is more important than BB rate for pitchers. If two pitchers have similar OBP against, K rate is a better tiebreaker than BB rate. Oh, those nutty "sabr people"!

Does Boyer have an opt-out?

To be fair, spring training relief appearances are often "starts" with all of the accompanying preparations, just pushed back 40 minutes or however long it takes to play the first couple innings. Still, the main starting candidates do generally get the official starts in spring, so I think it is safe to conclude that Meyer and May were never on equal footing in the rotation derby.

Correct, although I doubt it is much of an issue in spring training outside of major injuries (i.e. surgery). The rule is there to prevent teams from denying service time to injured MLB players and using the minors as a de facto disabled list, not to force young players onto spring rosters prematurely. I can't recall a situation where a player with zero MLB experience had to be placed on the MLB disabled list.

Why not another real outfielder instead of Nunez? A second backup infielder, who brings nothing more to the table that your first backup infielder, isn't terribly helpful. And if the plan is "sometimes we want to use our backup infielder in the outfield", that's not a good thing either!