Otto von Ballpark

Usually option buyouts are included in the total guaranteed value of the contract. For example, Nolasco's contract is generally reported as 4/49, because he makes $12 mil for each of 4 years, plus a $1 mil buyout on a 5th year option. Also, $3 mil in buyouts for that length/cost of contract is probably high. There are generally buyouts for each option year, and only the buyout for the first declined option gets paid. Adam Eaton just signed a deal for 5/23.5 -- he gets $22 mil over the first 5 years, then he has a $1.5 mil buyout on each of two option years. So his base guarantee is $23.5M -- there's no way for him to get both $1.5 mil buyouts. In any case, whether it's $20M, $21.5M, or $23M, 5 years with multiple team options is generally a very team-friendly deal, and almost impossible to get when a player is this close (8-9 months) to getting tendered his first arbitration contract. The only reason it's probably still feasible with Arcia is because he has yet to show much in the way of positive statistical trends (which admittedly is worrisome). I have no special insight into Arcia, so I have the same doubts about him too, but if the Twins thought there was even a 50/50 chance that he still improves enough to stick as a MLB regular (not to mention any potential to go beyond that), they'd have to jump at such an extension right now. If they wait for positive statistical trends, and let him get even closer to arbitration, this deal will not be on the table.

You are correct, according to MLB Gameday. Williams replaced Hunter to begin the top of the 8th, and shortly thereafter Graham/Hamburger allowed their runs.

Somewhat ironic that James wrote this behind a paywall, considering that the development and acceptance of defensive metrics has been held back in part due to all meaningful records and breakdowns of defensive events being behind their own paywalls. It was only possible for Parker to do this level of analysis on Dozier because he's worked to get contacts who provide him with limited amounts of non-public data. Imagine if the general public had free access to all of the input data and records that go into UZR, DRS, etc...

Definitely agreed on the offense and bullpen, though. Hope you are right about Gibson! Grudgingly admit you may be right about Meyer too.

Can we please stop comparing the Twins offense to the league where there is no DH and the pitchers bat regularly? The Twins ranked 5th in the AL, I believe, which is still good (top half of the league) and a much better representation of their performance relative to their peers than the "top ~20%" implied by the MLB rank.

But that's definitely a mark against the new coaching staff, right? This is the kind of thing we pilloried Gardy for.

They didn't sign them early. All of the players were arb eligible already when they signed their extensions.

At these salaries, basically any team could afford to take on Dozier, even as a bounceback candidate if he gets hurt or struggles. Perhaps that's the extra trade value in this deal -- not that the cost savings over arb would net us better return, but rather it is so affordable we will almost certainly never be stuck paying him if we don't want to.

In fairness, the league OPS for LHB vs LHP in Morneau's time was generally 60-70 points higher than today. In his .716 "breakout" season of 2004, the MLB average was .739! Morneau was below league average in 3 of his first ~4 seasons (thru 2007). Didn't hit them at a league average level until he turned 25 in 2006, and then reverted to below average again in 2007, before showing more sustained improvement beginning in 2008. That said, Morneau was a very different type of hitter than Arcia. At this point, I would not trust Arcia to improve against LHP, nor would I trust him to sustain enough success against RHP to make him a viable full-timer long-term. Unless the extension terms were extremely team-friendly, I would not extend.

I kinda dislike that level of "professional courtesy." Relievers haven't been the "outcasts" of MLB pitching staffs for a very long time. Pelfrey and Stauffer are on more than fair free market contracts. A team should be able to have them work out the pen for the entirely of spring training, if they believe that is the optimal usage for both the player and team. (And a team shouldn't make role promises when negotiating contracts with this level of pitcher either.) As it stands, we may have to waste regular season games while Pelfrey experiments and adjusts to his new role (and I wouldn't be surprised to hear Stauffer's spring usage cited as an excuse if he starts slow in the pen this year).

To be fair, Perkins was 27 years old, more or less healthy, and being sent to the minors midseason with no career earnings beyond a couple league minimum checks, and no guaranteed future salaries either. Pelfrey is 31, has made $30 mil, has missed 2 of the last 3 seasons to injury, has realistically had all offseason and spring to prepare and adjust to a new role, and has yet to accept a demotion. (And in fact has to power to refuse a minor league assignment, become a free agent, and keep his last $5.5 mil.) (Agreed Perkins' grievance was pretty frivolous given his performance. Frankly I am not sure why these guys are so resistant to bullpen work -- it demands a change in routine, but relievers are held in pretty high esteem in modern MLB and are compensated pretty well.)

A few notes from MLBTR on the deal: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/03/al-central-notes-dozier-tigers-finnegan.html I am guessing that Dozier and his agent wanted the Carpenter/Kipnis deal (6/52) and the Twins wouldn't do it. I don't blame him for wanting that, and I don't blame the Twins for resisting it either. And essentially, he signed a deal that mirrors the first 4 years (pre-FA) of Carpenter's and Kipnis's deals (roughly 4/21.5).

Tabata's contract is a bit of an outlier, but I absolutely would have signed Arcia for 6/15 (adjust for 4 years baseball inflation if you like) plus 3 option years, at any point in his career to date since he reached MLB. That money is nothing. The White Sox paid Dayan Viciedo that much over 6 years, and he spent almost half that time in the minors and generally sucked in the majors. And it didn't really hurt the White Sox at all. Problem is, most players don't sign contracts quite like that, and even less so at the point Arcia is at in his career.

And like Span, Jose Tabata was 2 seasons away (actually 2 seasons plus, as he signed midseason) from any kind of multi-million dollar MLB payday.

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...

I'd also like to echo jay's appreciation of this thread. I've learned new things from all sides, even if I've stubbornly butted heads with a few folks too.

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).

No options?