Otto von Ballpark

Also, looking back at my list, I'm not really seeing any players where the Twins might regret how they approached their service time. Milton and Guzman could be candidates, two guys who received the Mauer/Hicks treatment and opened their first seasons at the MLB level. Both struggled as rookies, respectively, and it would have been quite easy to argue that both should have spent at least half of those seasons in the minor leagues, if not the whole season. But in the end, both made significant progress in their second season and signed multi-year contracts covering their first year of free agency anyway, just like Mauer. I'm very confident that if Hicks turns out to be a quality major league regular, he will do the same and this service time issue will be mostly moot.

That's true, although it's less of an issue at the start of their careers (and it probably has even less effect now that the draft and international signings have spending caps). The most notable service time issues I remember are several years into a player's career, like Hardy, Perkins, and maybe even Lohse when we optioned him to AAA in 2006. Bartlett was close in 2006 and perhaps it contributed to his eventual trade. Otherwise, you can almost always justify keeping a complete rookie down a little longer -- Hicks made that tough for the Twins this spring, but Wil Myers made it easy for Tampa with a pedestrian spring performance.

In the wake of Aaron Hicks being named the Twins starting centerfielder, many fans have expressed disappointment that the team did not send him to the minors to further delay his major league service time. As little as two weeks in the minors would have delayed his potential free agency a full year; roughly three months in the minors could have also delayed his arbitration eligibility an additional year too. But how important is that? The value of an extra year of team control, before free agency, is probably best supported by the case of JJ Hardy. When Hardy was struggling for the Brewers in 2009, the team sent him to the minors briefly, ostensibly to work things out, but more likely to delay his free agency from after 2010 until after 2011. This demotion came despite Hardy having already been a MLB all-star and multi-year starter. Had the Brewers retained the services of Hardy, the direct dollar value of that extra year of control would have been minimal: final-year arbitration players are generally paid very close to market value for that season. However, when they sought to trade him after the 2009 season, the additional year of team control certainly appealed to potential trade partners. The Brewers parlayed that into reasonable return from the Twins in Carlos Gomez. The extra value to be gained in trade was quite a short window, though; had the Brewers tried to trade him earlier in his career, his performance in the potential extra year would have been more difficult to predict and thus worth less. And trading him just one year later, the Twins certainly did not fare as well as the Brewers. The value of that extra year of control is also challenged by the career of the Twins' own Joe Mauer. In 2004, Mauer, like Hicks this year, skipped over AAA and opened the season with the Twins. Barring a demotion, this meant Mauer projected to be a free agent after the 2009 season; had the Twins given him two weeks at AAA, that free agency could have been delayed a full year, until after 2010. On first glance this seems to be a costly mistake by the Twins in the handling of a future $23 million per season player. But because Mauer proved to be a very good player early, the Twins agreed to a multi-year contract after his third season anyway, avoiding arbitration entirely and buying out his first free agency season of 2010 for a very reasonable amount. It's doubtful that two more weeks in the minors would have affected the terms of this contract. Had Mauer taken longer to establish himself in the majors, though, it could have given the Twins an extra year to decide whether to keep him long-term. And Mauer's example further highlights how Hardy's extra year of control came at some cost to the Brewers. Aside from obviously upsetting Hardy and likely ruining any chance of negotiating a good deal with him later, the Brewers went year-to-year on one-year arbitration contracts with Hardy. This means they likely paid Hardy closer to maximum value in those seasons, as compared to the Twins who probably got a slight discount over this method in their multi-year contract with Mauer. Going year-to-year also exposed them to the risk that Hardy would have a "breakout" or "career" year and get an inflated arbitration award above his "true talent" or "market value" salaries -- just imagine what the Twins would have had to pay in arbitration after a season like Mauer's 2009! (Probably something like... his current annual salary. Oh well!) So while two weeks in the minors for an extra year of control is of little cost to a team like the 2013 Twins, it seems to also provide relatively little and very speculative future benefit. But what about three months in the minors, to delay the player's arbitration eligibility? A Tampa Bay Rays blog recently discussed this very topic, in regards to Wil Myers: Wil Myers and Super Two - DRaysBay They concluded that delaying the service time of a projected 4 WAR player (like Myers) for 3 months would save the team $15 million over those 7 seasons of team control. Obviously, this number would be much lower for a player with a lower projected contribution (arguably Hicks), and also lower if a multi-year contract is sought to cover arbitration seasons, like Mauer. And it doesn't include the major league value the player could provide over those 3 months (admittedly not too significant to an unlikely contender like the Twins) as well as the potential player alienation factor and how that affects future contract negotiations. Even if Hicks turns out to be a good MLB player, the hard cost savings may be as little as a few million dollars over the course of his first 7 seasons, while also inviting the alienation and year-to-year arbitration salary spik risks as dicussed above. Finally, all of this is moot if the player does not develop into and remain a quality major league regular for seven seasons. Even recent Twins like Jason Bartlett, Lew Ford , and Juan Rincon, who all looked quite promising at the beginning of their respective careers, wound up providing little major league value beyond seasons four and five anyway. And Hicks has yet to establish himself in the majors (or above AA) at all. While his performance and development track are always worthy of debate, starting Hicks in the major leagues this season should be of little concern to Twins fans from a long-term financial perspective. * While researching this post, I compiled a list of "significant" (2+ WAR season), mostly "homegrown" Twins of the recent era (1998-present), and how the Twins approached their 6 years service time of team control. The list wasn't terribly useful for this post, but is presented below because, hey, I took the time to write it. Position players: Lawton - year to year, traded during year 5 (age 29) Koskie - signed through year 6 (age 31) Hunter - signed through year 8 (age 31) Guzman - team declined option on year 7 (age 27) Mientkiewicz - traded during year 5 (age 30) Jones - left after year 6 (age 30) Pierzynski - traded after year 3 (age 26) Ford - released after year 4 (age 30) Mauer - signed through year 7 Morneau - signed through year 9 Punto - signed through year 6 (age 30) Bartlett - traded after year 2 (age 27) Cuddyer - signed through year 8 (age 32) Kubel - signed through year 7 (age 29) Span - signed through year 7 (age 31), traded after year 4 (age 28) Pitchers: Radke - signed through year 10 (age 31) in middle of year 6 (age 27) Guardado - signed through year 9 (age 32) Hawkins - signed through year 7 (age 30) Milton - signed through year 7 (age 28), traded before that year Mays - team declined option for year 8 (age 30) Santana - signed through year 8 (age 29), traded before that year Lohse - year to year, traded during year 5 (age 27) Rincon - year to year, released during year 6 (age 29) Silva - signed through year 6 (age 28) Crain - signed through year 6 (age 28) Guerrier - signed through year 6 (age 31) Baker - team declined option for year 7 (age 30) Nathan - signed through year 7 (age 33) Liriano - year to year, traded during year 6 (age 28) Slowey - year to year, traded after year 4 (age 27) Blackburn - club option on anticipated year 7 (age 32) Perkins - club option on year 9 (age 33)

Actually, this extension was Norwood Teague's doing. (Although I suspect it was partially influenced by the AD change, with the new AD using the extension as a vote of confidence for Tubby. Not sure what good a vote of confidence is when you don't have confidence, though.) Going into the last year of a coach's contract has been off-limits for awhile now -- remember the kerfuffle around Glen Mason with one year to go? And that was for a non-elite coach/program. The coach and their staff always need security beyond one year. What's interesting is that anticipating the above effect, going into the last two years of a coach's contract is now almost unthinkable. Brewster got a token extension at that point, and Tubby got his big extension with two years left too. I expect that any day now, Jerry Kill will require an extension beyond the five years remaining on his deal.

They won't, so it doesn't?

What's your source on that? Everything I read says Tubby's extension increased the buyout from $1.5 to $2.5 mil: Tubby Smith contract extension with Gophers includes $2.5M buyout max - ESPN Tubby Smith extension details: Salary goes up, buyout goes up, will review at the end of season. | StarTribune.com

Would be interesting to hear the Twins plans for Kvasnicka. IF they think they can turn him into a decent defensive catcher, he could have some value as organizational depth; Butera 2.0? I know nothing about Sanudo -- he doesn't strike me as much of a lotto ticket, but any kind of upside is probably more valuable to the Astros these days than a guy like Kvasnicka.

So, with a year left on Glen Mason's contract, the Gophers gave him a four-year extension. And then fired him after that year anyway. With two years left on Tim Brewster's contract, they gave him a two-year extension (although they lowered the buyout). Then they fired him 7 games later. With two years left on Tubby Smith's contract, they gave him a three-year extension, including a raise and an increased buyout amount. Then they fired him after the next season. (I think they extended Dan Monson at some point too -- they had to pay him a considerable buyout upon dismissal.) At least they had the good sense to give Jerry Kill an ~8 year contract, to delay the inevitable extend-then-fire process.

Actually, according to BB-Ref, after almost exclusively playing 3B in 2011, he split 2012 between RF and C, so his games caught are trending upward in that limited sample. The Twins drafted him in 2007 as an OF out of high school. And, as always, the Baseball Cube comes through with college stats: Mike Kvasnicka Statistics (2008-2012) - The Baseball Cube Good college hitter (although sometimes not in the K/BB department), but definitely has not transitioned well to the pro's.

Reliever ERA isn't terribly useful. By that measure, Alex Burnett really turned a corner last year -- but his K rate dropped dangerously low, and his walk rate only dropped slightly. I admit Roenicke does not look as useless as Jeff Gray, that was a slight exaggeration on my part, but he's 30 years old (like Gray was last year) and his K rate has been dropping steadily the past few seasons: from 9 K/9 when he hit the majors in 2009, dropping by about one each year, to 5.5 K/9 last year. All the while his walk rate has remained fairly high. As such, he's been waived by his teams each of the past two years. I haven't seen him pitch, but his spring training stats this year seem in line with these trends. His upside now is almost certainly something like Burnett last year (decent ERA with middling peripherals out of the pen), rather than Burton or Fien. Not only is that of little value to the Twins in 2013, it isn't likely to provide even marginal value beyond that (either in 2014+ performance or trade). If Deduno continues his hot hand in spring training, I'd much rather see him open with the big club, if just for entertainment value. I doubt the Twins would miss Roenicke.

So your prediction is that Florimon will die in a bizarre gardening accident? It does seem like Dozier spontaneously combusted last year...

Roenicke and Wood both look pretty vulnerable to me on the 40-man, although the Twins may not be willing to cut them loose before the season. Pressly could still go back to Boston, I suppose, although that doesn't look too likely anymore. Roenicke looks like another Jeff Gray type to me -- it doesn't look like he will be any kind of asset over the other guys we will have stashed in AAA. I would rather roll the dice on continuing Deduno's WBC showing right now.

In Plouffe's favor, his HR surge spanned two seasons, although 2011 was mostly in AAA. In that regard, I'm more optimistic about him than I am Parmelee, who really only has 2012 AAA (plus September 2011) to his credit offensively. I don't expect 30 HR pace again, but even 20 would be nice at 3B. The injury might downgrade my expectations further, though -- those kind of things can even throw off proven vets for awhile. It could be enough to permanently derail a guy who's not established yet. I'm glad he's getting a chance, though. I like his prospects better than Valencia, even after Valencia's solid debut in 2010.

Interesting that Carroll is making $3.75 million this year, and made $2.75 million last year (for an average $3.25 million) -- yet his option for next year is only $2 million. How often is an option year -- a vesting team option, no less -- worth significantly less than the previous contract year(s)? Looks like the Twins were willing to overpay for 2012-2013 to avoid a fully guaranteed three year commitment? Or they projected him as a likely starter in 2012-2013 and more of a backup in 2014? Or both player and team were being realistic about Carroll's prospects as a 40-year-old in 2014? Or maybe Carroll has plans to retire after 2013 anyway, and wanted more money upfront... In any case, Carroll is clearly our best middle infielder at this point, and his 2014 salary looks like a bargain compared to 2012-2013. And unless two of Dozier/Florimon/Escobar quickly establish themselves as solid major league regulars, he is quite likely to be one of our top two middle infielders going into 2014 as well. (For that matter, until Plouffe recovers his power stroke, he might be one of our best third base options as well.) While the Twins would love to see younger, cheaper players establish themselves at these positions (hence why Carroll is not being considered for a starting role at the beginning of this season), there is no plan or order to keep his 2014 option from vesting. Nor should there be.

I've been going through the front page again, and I've seen no comment discrepancies. Good work!

Seth -- I just read your statement: as somewhat of an excuse for the Twins draft, in that the players taken immediately after Gutierrez and Hunt haven't done much in the majors either. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you meant? Most of the other guys drafted in that range were much younger than Gutierrez and Hunt, several likely will stick in the majors in 2013 and beyond, and several have already provided good value to their drafting teams in trades even before reaching the majors. My recollection is that Gutierrez was a suspect pick at the time -- definitely lower upside on him as a college closer, compared to most other picks in that range. The Twins were drafting conservatively, as they often do, and were maybe a little too complacent with their run of major league success at the time. Conservative drafts like Gutierrez certainly didn't help as their system starting emptying around this time and the big league club subsequently fell off the table in 2011. I remember the consensus thought Hunt was a reasonable gamble in that draft range, still conservative enough for the Twins as an older college pitcher, but with some upside.

Ah, that makes more sense. Although those three guys were all 19 and under when drafted, so it's not really surprising they haven't appeared much in the majors yet. Would it be equally accurate to dismiss Aaron Hicks right now because he hasn't had much major league success yet? These high school guys -- particularly high school pitchers -- are on a different track than older college guys like Gutierrez and Hunt. I'm willing to give the Twins a pass on Hunt because he was a top talent who fell late -- a decent gamble to take. But Gutierrez was about as big a bust as you can find -- a college closer should be about the "safest" draft pick there, and Gutierrez provided zero value in the pros. Heck, even "riskier" high school picks Odorizzi and Kelly have both been used as valuable trade chits in their short careers already (A-Gon, Greinke, Shields).

Not sure what you mean by "there has been little minor league success" for a few of those guys taken after/around Gutierrez and Hunt: - Jake Odorizzi has put up solid numbers in the minors and is still a top 100 BA prospect. - Casey Kelly was a top-50 prospect this year, but looks to be having arm trouble now. - Lonnie Chisenhall reached #25 on BA's list and while he doesn't project to be a star, he should be Cleveland's starting third baseman this year. And those are just three of the guys I recognize.

It's also funny when broadcasters rate the defensive abilities of a player from watching a one-game sample. And maybe even funnier when people use that broadcaster's analysis as evidence of anything.

Agreed. And for the first month of the season, we should get Corky Miller back on the roster too, just so we can ease into this arrangement. Forget catching back-to-back games -- heck, these guys may not even have to catch back-to-back innings!

That arb-clock rant aside, Gibson to AAA this year shouldn't even be controversial. The guy pitched 28 innings last year, with only 6 of those above A-ball, and he wasn't entirely sharp at AAA even before the surgery in 2011. At the very least, you let him work his way back from surgery a bit longer without the added pressure of a major league debut to worry about.

This arb/FA clock stuff is very silly. I made the point on an Aaron Hicks thread: if the player is any good at the MLB level, you will almost certainly buy out most of his arb years and maybe a FA year or two with a long-term contract. That strategy will probably be cheaper than delaying his service time anyway. The Joe Mauer example upthread shows this: he started 2004 in the majors, thus was on track for free agency after 2009. However, he signed a long-term deal after 2006 which bought out his first free agency season (2010) at a very reasonable price. But what if the Twins kept in the minors just a bit in 2004, a month or so to delay his first free agency until after 2010? A month in the minors doesn't automatically mean Mauer accepts a deal through 2011. Best case odds are, he signs the same contract at the same time and still hits FA after 2010; the Twins gain nothing, and lose his services for part of 2004 (we obviously don't have hindsight about his injury in this example). What if the Twins kept him in the minors even further in 2004, several months to push his first arbitration eligibility until after 2007? They could save a few bucks in 2007, for sure -- they would have been able to renew him close to the minimum, if they had wanted. But if they do that, I suspect he goes year-to-year in his contracts, and gets a nice boost in arbitration after 2008 and an astronomical one after 2009, and probably makes more than our long-term scenario above. I'd say the best case scenario here, he signs a similar deal after 2006 or 2007, with a slight discount on each season, for a total savings of no more than $8 million through 2010. But to get that "savings", the Twins had to do without his services for a significant portion of 2004, which could have pissed Mauer off and hurt future negotiations, put their 2004 playoff odds in jeopardy, caused them to pass up the AJ Pierzynski trade the previous offseason, etc. (And with the floating date of "super-2" arbitration eligibility, there's a chance that this method doesn't actually delay his arbitration and you save nothing over the options above.) And this is all for a superstar-level player. For a mid-tier guy, obviously the potential costs and saving would be reduced significantly. I'm just not seeing how this specifically is going to be a big factor in personnel decisions for the Twins. Although they generally seem to be very conservative with players/promotions, I don't think this is one of the reasons.

I could see these guys (Sano, Rosario, Santana) making their debuts in 2014, but probably late in the season. I don't think delaying free agency or arbitration will be an issue, but the Twins will likely be very conservative in their promotions as usual. It would be awesome if the Twins had a position player prospect legitimately fast-track it, and make a big jump (from single-A to the majors in a year). It's been awhile since we've seen one of those: Mauer, Knoblauch...

I haven't see the comment count discrepancy since the changeover (although admittedly I am using the forums more).

It was yet another heartbreaking extra innings loss to the Yankees, but this 2008 game certainly had an unlikely hero in Delmon Young, pushing it to extra frames: August 12, 2008 New York Yankees at Minnesota Twins Play by Play and Box Score - Baseball-Reference.com