Otto von Ballpark

Yeah, it's mostly moot in regards to Darvish. If they had offered 5/135 and refused to even consider the opt out in negotiation, that would have been a problem. So I guess as worried as I might be about Levine's comments regarding opt outs in general, in practical terms it's never going to come up for the Twins because they are too risk averse to even get into a situation where an opt out clause matters. Not sure whether to be comforted or troubled by that realization, though....

I think we can all agree that the opt out has value to the player. But for a deal like Darvish's, I've read that the value is probably on the order of $10-15 mil, well within the realm of negotiation rather than any kind of red flag or instant dealbreaker. When you think about it, while we come up with many dramatic scenarios, the opt out (after year 2) basically hinges on year 2 health/performance. But year 2 health/performance is subject to a lot of normal statistical variation, and isn't necessarily a great definite harbinger/predictor of year 3 and beyond (or even year 1, looking back). Take Cueto -- brilliant in year 1, and then basically an average innings eater who missed a handful of starts in year 2. But I'm not sure that his projection going forward would be that much different if you flipped those years (which would have prompted him to opt out), so the fact that he didn't opt out doesn't mean *that* much about the contract's future value to his team.

They have? Gonsalves has 22 IP at AAA, and he gave up 14 runs. Romero has yet to throw a pitch in AAA, and had a 3.53 ERA in AA where the league ERA was 3.60.

Nola is considered to have one of the top trade values in MLB: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-trade-value-1-to-10/ He was the 15th best pitcher in baseball by bWAR (4.5), right around Kershaw and deGrom. He is still being paid league minimum this year and is controlled for 4 more seasons. He might be more expensive than Archer, just by virtue of Philadelphia having less financial incentive to deal than Tampa. Also, there is no such thing as a "sign and trade" in baseball. Philadelphia would just sign the free agent starter themselves in your scenario.

Lewis actually made it to A-ball last year. Eloy Jimenez was traded out of A-ball last year. Trea Turner was in A-ball too, although as a college draftee. Admittedly Lewis is still pretty inexperienced, and I wouldn't be surprised if Tampa still had some uncertainty about his valuation that complicated the deal, even if the Twins were willing to include him. (Although I rather doubt they are.)

Not really. I mean, you want to find another team's version of Mejia? They will be cheaper than Archer of course but they won't really be cheap -- what motivation would their team have to sell them cheaply? Put yourself in their position, why would the Twins trade Mejia for cheap now?

They traded Longoria because he was about to get no-trade rights in April. They have no such urgency to move Archer. Heck, if an outfielder gets injured in spring training, a team may take a good portion of Span's salary for nothing. No need to water-down a potential Archer return just to move Span right now.

More thoughts on Darvish! (I really hope they find their Plan B soon!) A common refrain here has been, "Even if the Twins offered more money, the Cubs would have beat it anyway and still signed the player." First of all, "who cares if we didn't offer more, we still wouldn't get the player" is a rather fatalistic point of view. I don't mind if Charlie Brown takes this attitude when offered another chance to kick the football, but I don't really want this to be the mindset of my favorite baseball team when considering matters of talent procurement! Secondly, while I am not a player, or agent, or front office member, I still don't think these negotiations play out so simply. Teams are generally submitting their bids "blind", and while there might be some negotiation, I don't think teams respond well if they are asked to increase their offer significantly -- even teams with the financial resources to do so. It implies their original offer and thus valuation was arrived at capriciously, which is bad for future negotiations. If the Cubs ultimately believed Darvish wanted to come to Chicago rather than Minnesota, the Cubs could have very well stood by their offer and called Darvish's bluff. A lot of concessions in negotiations also probably take an indirect form, like opt outs, no-trades, and incentives. I don't have a crystal ball, or practice santeria, but a Twins guaranteed offer of 6/150, or even just 5/135, versus a lower Cubs offer or even a Cubs offer that only reached those levels through indirect benefits, could have also put Darvish and his agent into a pickle. The MLBPA frowns upon players turning down larger guarantees, and in fact the union has spent the bulk of this offseason alleging that larger guarantees have not been forthcoming from teams. Darvish and his agent deciding to take less guaranteed money from Chicago could have single-handedly torpedoed his union's entire collusion argument. Maybe Darvish goes "lone wolf" and doesn't care, but I'm sure his agent does, as it affects his reputation and future business. A larger offer almost presents a win-win for the Twins -- either Darvish accepts the offer and we get the player, or he turns it down and the Twins FO becomes union-busting folk heroes among baseball ownership.

Some more thoughts on Darvish. Many here have said the Twins simply couldn't afford the risks entailed by a larger contract, particularly the risk of "dead money" occupying significant payroll space in the final years and preventing us from retaining any homegrown stars. The Twins ultimately offered 5 years at approximately $110 million, and assuming it was "serious", I was wondering, how much riskier would a larger contract offer have been? That deal would have risked $22 mil per season for 5 years into the future. Had the Twins gone with the TD-prescribed contract offer of 5/135, that would have risked $27 mil per season for 5 years into the future. The marginal risk over our actual contract offer would have only been $5 mil per year difference! Unless you think the Twins were prepared to sell Buxton or Berrios into a Dickensian workhouse as soon as Darvish accepted their 5/110 offer, it sure seems like 5/135 and its +$5 mil commitment for year 5 would not have had an appreciable effect on our ability to retain homegrown talent in the future. How about the much-maligned "6 year offer"? Say, 6/150 (effectively guaranteeing the $24 mil in hard-to-reach incentives from the Cubs deal)? That would be $25 mil per season for 6 years into the future. So, compared to the Twins actual offer of 5/110, it has +$3 mil marginal risk for years 1 through 5, plus $25 mil for year 6. Now, $25 mil is definitely more than $3 mil, or $5 mil, but for only 1 year, and with 5 years to plan for it, it still doesn't seem like much more than a speed bump in terms of retaining homegrown talent. Any long-term deal for Buxton or Berrios could be structured so the largest payments came after Darvish's year 6 (and it might get structured that way just out of convention anyway). Now I am sure some will say, "But it's a slippery slope! Add a few million or an extra year a few times over and now it's significant!" But I'm not suggesting that we should have added to our offer without limits. In fact, I'm not suggesting we add to our offer at all, after the point of making it -- I am suggesting we make our one offer a more competitive one, with a meaningful chance to actually land the player and his projected 4 WAR for 2018. And it wouldn't have taken that much more marginal risk. And I am sure some will also say, "But if you add $5 mil extra marginal risk for Darvish this year, then $6 mil extra for Free Agent X next winter, and $7 mil extra for Free Agent Y the following winter, those marginal values add up!" But I am not suggesting the Twins sign a contract like this every offseason, or even every couple of offseasons. The Twins chances of landing the consensus top FA on the market is probably a once in ten years kind of thing, at best. So we can easily afford to splurge a little when those rare conditions present themselves. For a reference point, after the 2014 season, the Twins effectively added a $14 mil per year risk for Phil Hughes 3, 4, and 5 years into the future. Hughes at the time was almost 3 years younger than Darvish, but he was also coming off the first Darvish-like (4.3 bWAR) season of his career, after a string of mediocre ones including injuries (including "shoulder inflammation" that wiped out his first half of 2011). Now, the GM who signed the Hughes deal has been dismissed, but I don't think of the Phil Hughes deal as any kind of "upper limit" on acceptable risk either.

Elite talent/potential is more scarce. Four B prospects may not equal one A prospect. Obviously this can vary a bit by player/team, but you will probably have a hard time finding past trade comps based on quantity over quality returns as you describe.

Name some SP that you expect to be available at the trade deadline in 2018. Not all trade deadlines are created equal -- remember 2016 when Hector Santiago was one of the leading arms available? And even in 2017 when there were 4 notable SP available, I think you are dramatically underrating the difficulty of acquiring them. Look where they wound up: Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Astros. Doesn't look much different from FA negotiations, does it? Verlander's no-trade clause played a big role too, limiting his potential landing spots as much as any choosy FA.

Don't forget the opt-out clause, so you can leave after 3 innings if we get a bad SP performance! (Just kidding, I never advocate leaving a ballgame early.)

But when you turn around and say that contact "would be unprecedented in the franchise's history", when you know it's a lost cause, isn't that a bit more of "selling hope", in a disingenuous way?

I see 13 healthy names on the Houston 40-man which would have to make the opening day roster or be cut. Tony Sipp would be an obvious cut candidate in that group. There's also a Rule 5 guy, but only a very long shot (Anthony Gose, trying to convert from OF to RP). Not a lot of guys in the next tier forcing their way up quite yet, though. Martes is pretty raw. I don't see more than 13 position players that need rostering either. So it shouldn't be too hard to start with 12 and include McHugh as the 6th starter, if they want. Keep in mind, while they have added Verlander and Cole, they lost Fiers, McCullers has yet to start more than 22 games in a season, Keuchel has missed time the last 2 seasons (and is a pending FA himself), and Peacock might be a better weapon out of the pen.

Arrieta is the one Boras client out of the major FA SP. While some said we didn't have the luxury of beating the Cubs offer for Darvish, I think waiting on Arrieta/Boras is probably a bigger luxury that we can't afford. We can't risk going into the season with our current crop of SP.

Perhaps, but the real-world value of the opt out may only be something like ~$15 mil. There would still be some gaps between our offer and the Cubs offer. The real pressure would have been guaranteed dollars. If the Twins offered $140 mil and the Cubs were at $126 mil plus the opt out, that would have still put some pressure on. And it would have been a clear signal that we were willing to up the ante in negotiation, far more than our 5/110 offer did.

And the Arizona GM, manager, and pitching coach were all dismissed from their posts within 2 years of that trade.

And I think what would have happened if Mauer's leadoff double counted in the 2009 ALDS is that we still would have lost the game and series. (We eventually loaded the bases with nobody out in that inning and still came away with nothing, and Teixiera led off the bottom of the inning with a HR anyway.) Still doesn't mean I'm cool with Phil Cuzzi's inexplicable call.

Keep in mind, Archer is so cheap, even the Dodgers, Yankees, and other teams near the luxury tax threshold could potentially be in the mix. Clearing ~$25 mil for Darvish, with the likes of Ellsbury and Kemp, is darn near impossible. Clearing ~$8 mil to add Archer is a lot easier. And the Dodgers have been rumored in Archer discussions previously. If the Rays insist on including Span, that changes things a bit, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a given.

Need to specify which "Fernando R." now.

That's an interesting point too. The ticket rep is representing the Twins, but this message was probably intended for Dave only. I wouldn't want to risk reprimand for the person in question. If not deleting the thread, maybe deleting the exact text of the message and including only a summary would help?

Dave, could you post your side of the email too, for more context? It is very interesting. On one hand, it seems cool to get a seemingly down-to-earth response, but on the other hand, it does feel a bit unprofessional and perhaps dishonest. Are they blaming Mauer? Dissing Terry Ryan? Making a reference to the Vikings flying down to Brett Favre's ranch? If I was a ticket rep, or instructing them, I'd probably advise similar empathy, but without some of the questionable details/assertions.

I've responded in snippets, but I just wanted to summarize my position of disappointment on the Darvish situation. I've seen our offer characterized as "serious", "competitive", and even that we were basically one of two finalists for his services. Insofar as our offer was possibly about ~80% of the winning offer (roughly accounting for the value of the opt out clause), it was serious/competitive, but that greatly overstates our chances. For Darvish to actually sign with us for that figure, the following conditions would have ALL needed to be met: Darvish would have had to change his mind. He'd been sitting on similar offers for 3 weeks, and probably would have been sitting on them since December if he had given any real indications of being willing to settle for 5/110. (Changing his mind like this could attract more suitors too.) Darvish would have had to NOT change his mind too much -- if he can't get 6 years or even 5 years with a preferred destination, he could have decided a one-year deal would be acceptable, in which case he'd have a lot more potential suitors. The Cubs or another preferred destination could not already be among the ~5 comparable offers. The Cubs or another preferred destination would have had to decline or not be allowed the opportunity to match or beat the offer. And even then, our offer still would have been only 1 of ~5 comparable offers. Assuming 5 and equal weighting (which is probably generous to the Twins), that would still only be a 20% chance of landing him, and remember that's only after the first 4 conditions are already satisfied.All told, despite our "serious"/"competitive" offer, we had, what, a 5% chance of landing him at the end? Maybe 10%? We can debate around the margins, but it wasn't good. Better than what was projected for us at the beginning of the offseason, but not meaningfully so. Still a very long longshot. However, if we had simply put forth the Twins Daily projected contract of 5/135, or ZiPS' 6/156, or one of many others projected by analysts, we quite likely would have upped those odds to 50% or greater. At the very least, that would have put *real* pressure on not only the Cubs, but also Darvish, his agent, and the MLBPA as a whole, who can't afford to turn down bigger contract offers in this climate of alleged collusion. To me, it's the difference between keeping a game close in the early innings, versus keeping it close into the late innings. Or keeping a series close early, versus keeping it close late. (Like all of those postseason Twins-Yankees matchups...) We kept it close early, but that doesn't comfort me much. We had a real opportunity to keep it close late, and we *chose* not to, far more than we were defeated in competition or held back by factors outside of our control. I know that proposed deal seems rich to a lot of people, but getting the top FA to come to a mid-market team, without having to blow away the projected market offer, was a rare opportunity that may never come along again. (By comparison, for Arizona to land Greinke, they had to overshoot MLBTR's projection by $38 mil in present-day value, or $50 mil before discounting deferrals.) That the top FA fit our greatest positional need, and we project to have an otherwise competitive squad, made it all the more significant. I've repeated the phrase "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" a lot lately, but it really does apply here. Not that the risk of ~$25 mil in potential annual dead payroll 5-6 years down the line isn't a concern, but to me, the risk is far greater to pass on this rare opportunity, in the present time when more facts are known and we have more confidence in near-term projections, including those of Darvish, our prospects, the rest of our roster, the rosters of our competition, and available comparable alternatives (or lack thereof). Sorry for the wall of text, but I hope this gets my position across clearly. (edited to correct spacing)

If you are going to value him like a "4 ERA guy" then Tampa isn't going to trade him. FWIW, I am not sure of Kepler's star potential. He was never really an elite prospect, and he has been a thoroughly average corner OF in MLB so far, with a serious platoon weakness. Kepler is controlled for only 1 more year than Archer, and he is eligible for arbitration next winter -- his salary could be equal to Archer's in just 2-3 years (depending on if and how much he improves, of course).

Twins play 9 straight days after their first series, then go to Puerto Rico, then 19 straight days into May. Not much opportunity to skip the 5th spot.