Otto von Ballpark
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It's not impossible to find replacements at Gonzalez's projected performance level. The Twins did it just last season in the outfield with Jake Cave. They did it in the infield in 2014 with Eduardo Nunez, etc. You wouldn't necessarily project that fill-in to continue that performance indefinitely, but they can still provide for the term it is needed. Teams can also add corner players in midseason trades for less than 2/21. Signing Gonzalez takes some uncertainty out of that, but my chief concern about the 2019 Twins is not necessarily the confidence I have in their fill-ins on opening day. -
As this thread's resident skeptic, I want to say I don't think this is a bad deal. I don't think there's an appreciably better player than Gonzalez available right now at this price. I don't think Gonzalez is going to collapse this year or anything. Gonzalez does a lot of little things nicely -- he's a steady bat from both sides, he can capably fill in at a variety of positions. But there's also a lot of little negatives about this deal. No, not necessarily with Gonzalez himself or his performance, but his context within this team. His clearest path to playing time is in a corner spot -- but we already have starters for those corner spots right now, and corner players are pretty cheap and not hard to acquire if we decide we need one down the road. I don't think he's overpaid at 2/21, or that it's going to prevent us from landing a superstar down the line or anything, but it's definitely a resource that could matter for this club. If we are in the race in June again and need a reliever, are we going to hesitate if an expensive one comes available? Will we have to prioritize a SP acquisition over a RP midsummer? Will our needs unfold this season, such that they could be better met by a different mix of players, in part utilizing the $21 mil we guaranteed Gonzalez now? Again, don't hate it. But like the Kepler extension, which had pro's and con's and I felt, on balance, I'd rather sign it than not -- this Gonzalez deal, on balance, I think I'd rather not sign it. That's all.
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"Astudilli"? We have more than one now?
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I don't disagree, that platoon benefits can theoretically provide more value. But I don't think you've made a particularly strong case for the platoon benefit in this specific instance. Gonzalez isn't bad from either side, but he isn't particularly strong from either side either (104 wRC+ vs LHP, 101 vs RHP). And as for who he's replacing, Cave likely isn't playing much in 2019 anyway -- or if he is, we've got bigger problems than his short-side platoon partner! Kepler may not be that bad against LHP going forward, and even if he is, there are probably other ways to get a stronger platoon partner for him in RF than 104 wRC+ Gonzalez, perhaps at cheaper cost too. And the "injury protection" benefit that Gonzalez provides will negate any modest platoon benefit too. Gonzalez can't take Kepler's spot in RF vs LHP if he's already subbing for Sano, who fell into Springfield's Mystery Spot.
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Sure. But what are the odds of those breakouts? (I'd wager it would have to be multiple breakouts, to elevate us from 82 wins to serious postseason contention.) Those are roughly the same odds that Marwin Gonzalez's depth proves valuable.
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Each win? Like, a single win? Depends on context, no? The 95 win Cubs last year, adding a single win would have meant avoiding a game 163 and the wild card game. A single win would have ultimately meant nothing for all of the 82-84 win teams in baseball last year. For those teams, each win is only really valuable as part of a cumulative increase to 88-90 wins or so.
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I don't think they had to commit 2/21, today, to get most of what Gonzalez provides (a steady, average, predominantly corner player to pick up the slack later in the season where our original starting 9 might have faltered, if we're still in the race). I think the lack of that $10.5-$21 mil could inhibit future moves, like a pricey Cole Hamels or Josh Donaldson coming available midseason. Or if we fall out of the race, we could even take on a bad contract to get an interesting prospect, like when the Braves acquired Bronson Arroyo a few years back or the Padres bought our draft pick last year. I know sometimes we think it shouldn't matter so much, but $10.5-$21 mil does matter to this club. Zobrist was a much better player -- I'd take that, even if it wasn't as much of a bargain as Gonzalez. I think the LeMahieu contract was poor, and I'm glad the Twins didn't sign it -- Gonzalez's deal being better than LeMahieu's does not necessarily mean that Gonzalez's is good.
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Yes -- but it's still true that Gonzales does nothing for that ceiling (or I'd say, relatively little ).
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There are a number of factors I'm seeing here. Sorry if I'm not being clear. I'll try to focus here on this point. First off, Marwin Gonzalez looks to be a ~2 WAR player. Flexible, but average when and where he does play. If you have better players, like the 2018 Astros, there's danger than a single injury could knock off 4+ wins and cause serious problems. Or even if a non-star underperforms and provides zero WAR, those 1-2 wins could be the difference between making the postseason or not, or homefield/advancement, etc. The value of each marginal win is higher for a projected 90+ win team like the 2018 Astros. On the other hand, a team like the Twins, without any superstars -- losing any one player to injury isn't likely to cost you more than 2 wins -- a difference that could be made up by the AAAA or bench player du jour (like Cave 2018). And with an 82 win projection -- frankly, losing a win or two probably isn't going to make a difference anyway. We need more difference-makers before a flexible, average guy like Marwin Gonzalez becomes a likely difference-maker himself. We can come up with specific scenarios where Gonzalez is more important, but on average, he isn't. Hence, I'm in no rush to commit resources to Marwin Gonzalez (and a two year, $21 million deal represents a significant resource for this club -- as well as the roster spot, if Gonzalez takes a spot alongside Adrianza instead of replacing him).
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I never said that's my recipe. But we're committing perhaps ~9% of our payroll, for two years, for a guy who appears no better than any of our 9 starters. If one of those 9 gets hurt or underperforms, and we finish with 80 wins, does it really matter if we have Gonzalez already in the fold so we can finish with 82 wins? Cave or Adrianza or any number of guys could perhaps perform similarly too. I suspect the median projection is we're roughly an 82 win team with or without Gonzalez. I never said it was a bad thing either. He improves the team -- just not that much, given what we already have. Like I said, I think this move solidifies our 82 win projection, raises our floor a bit -- but does relatively little at the top end. I'd prefer to plan on using these resources, and perhaps even the roster spot, to improve the top end more -- even if that improvement isn't available today.
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Marwin also only required a 1 year, $5 mil contract last year, and was coming right off of a 146 OPS+ which suggested that perhaps his bat had taken a step forward. Furthermore, the Astros had a $160 mil payroll, legitimate superstars at multiple positions, and were projected at 90+ wins and 90+% odds of reaching the postseason. Every single marginal win had more value for them than it does for a .500-ish team like the Twins. The Astros using Gonzalez and getting value out of him in 2018 has little bearing on the Twins doing the same in 2019, especially when the Twins are spending more resources on him.
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This is a common sentiment, that Gonzalez is Sano insurance. But it's worth noting that Gonzalez hasn't played much third base at all. Only 2 starts there last year. Only 62 starts total in his 7 year MLB career, never even reaching 20 in a single season. Even in the minors, he never played much 3B -- only 70 career starts there, mostly in rookie leagues as a teenager. Some of that is obviously because he was playing shortstop in his earlier career, and I don't have any particular reason to doubt his ability to play third. But I'm not sure how much they expect him to play 3B (or if they do, that could call into question their signings at 1B or even 2B too -- we could have signed more flexible options at those spots, or simply planned on moving Sano to 1B).
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Does it really add 1.5-2 wins? Each one of our starting position players projects to more WAR (or WAR per PA) than Gonzalez at Fangraphs right now. The only way to fit in Gonzalez's projected 1.8 is to reduce playing time for everybody else, and I'm not seeing a particularly compelling platoon benefit either. It *could* wind up adding 1.5-2 wins through some combination of injury or underperformance, but I don't see a way to *project* 1.5-2 additional wins right now. Edit to add: as I stated elsewhere, I see this a move that further solidifies our 82 win projection, but doesn't really add much to it.
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Because we don't need Gonzalez to start anywhere right now. We already have 9 starters, and they'll get a good portion of the playing time in season's first half, regardless of whether we have Gonzalez or not. Which gives us time to kick this decision down the road a bit. I know that "kicking a decision down the road" gets a bad conservative connotation, but this precisely the kind of decision and situation where you can safely kick it down the road -- 2/21 for a ~2 WAR "10th man", with our roster, isn't such a great deal that you can't pass it up. I think signing that deal now could actually be the more "conservative" route than simply waiting or looking for upgrades elsewhere.
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Agreed. I think people see Gonzalez as Escobar's replacement, which is natural. But I think a lot of Escobar's value was the fact he was cheap, we had a bit of a hole at shortstop for much of his tenure, and we felt no great pressure to make sure Escobar was an everyday player. He was the utility infielder (albeit one we weren't afraid to start when necessary). But now, we already have a shortstop locked up (Polanco). We just guaranteed Gonzalez more money in one year than Escobar made in his entire Twins career, I think. And I think Gonzalez's role will pretty clearly spill over from utility infielder, to the point where he affects our playing time and roster decisions in the corner outfield and perhaps even 1B and DH (while we likely still keep another "true" utility infielder like Adrianza on the roster). Gonzalez 2019-2020 and Escobar 2015-2018 may be similar players when they're on the field, but the resources they require, and the context of their roles, appear to be notably different.
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I don't think Marwin Gonzalez alone makes much of a difference in our odds of selling vs buying at the deadline.
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I'm not trying to be argumentative or anything. But do you remember the following about the 2018 season? - Polanco was suspended for the first half of the season (presumably that won't happen again) - Dozier and Escobar were traded at the deadline, thus missing a third of the season - Castro was injured after the first month (and he and other catchers are pretty much irrelevant to Gonzalez's playing time anyway) Those are all things that contributed a lot to who played in 2018, and that we shouldn't expect to repeat in 2019. Granted, Dozier and Escobar are gone, but we already signed one replacement -- Schoop -- plus the aforementioned return of Polanco should count as half a replacement too. And presumably we're not planning to option Sano to the minors again. Yes, Morrison bombed and was hurt in 2018. And Grossman kinda sucks. But we already signed Cron and Cruz, and I hope the front office has more confidence in them than Morrison and Grossman. Yes, Buxton had a wasted year, and he's back for 2019 -- but it would be hard for him to play *less* in 2019. And in any case, if we just use Kepler or Rosario to cover CF in Buxton's absence, I don't see who plays the corner OF as any kind of preseason priority for this club.
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And small sample caveat, but Kepler also seemed to show improvement vs. LHP last year (.745 OPS).
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Cave actually has 2 option years left (2018 was the first of 3). Roster Resource is pretty accurate for that information: https://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-minnesota-twins/
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A lot of those guys have already been replaced (by Cruz, Cron, Schoop, a returning Castro and Polanco, an emerging Astudillo), or didn't play much until after we sold at the deadline. If we sell at the deadline again in 2019, I don't care who plays the last two months of the season. I certainly wouldn't guarantee Gonzalez $21 mil now to take those PAs.
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All winter long, we've been hearing that the Twins shouldn't be aggressive while Buxton and Sano are such big question marks. Now, we make our biggest cash guarantee to lock in a guy to provide average-ish corner play in the case that Buxton and Sano don't make it. Something about those two positions doesn't add up to me. There will be Marwin Gonzalez types available for reasonable cost at the deadline if we need it.
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I hope that, because there's a lot of RHP. I hope we didn't sign Cron and Schoop just to later sign Marwin and bench them a whole lot. I think platooning should be a way to get plus performance or save resources. Platooning Gonzalez with Cron or Schoop (or even Rosario or Kepler) seems like a recipe for a $15-18 mil, ~110 wRC+ type platoon at those spots. There's some value in having him as insurance across those positions, but that value feels lower the way this Twins team is constructed (a lot of average-ish performers already).
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To be fair, Escobar and Dozier would have played a lot more had they not been traded. Polanco too, if he wasn't suspended. (And Rosario, even hurt a bit, still fell just short of your arbitrary cutoff at 138 games.) Plus, we already signed a 1B who could/should play more than Mauer, and a DH who could/should play more than Grossman.
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The post to which I was responding said the manager better get him consistent at-bats. Obviously an injury situation is different. That said, the Astros had some weaker spots to go with their stars. The Twins don't have any stars yet. I'm not sure we'll see the same level of benefit from deploying Marwin Gonzalez.
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So it's 2/21 for a potential platoon partner for Kepler or Rosario? I hope we're not expecting to bench many RHB against RHP.
