Shobae

Well he's certainly got experience and seems like a good pick up. Whether the head athletic trainer has a noticable causal influence on injures? I'm less convinced, but at this point every bit helps with the legion of IL veterans we've got on this team.

One quick correction with regards to fangraphs offensive runs. Without going into too much detail those are basically batting runs (based on woba but meant to represent runs created at the plate) and base running runs (BsR) added together. Which to my knowledge isn't applicable to the award given that we are focused here on batting not base running. So using it in the context of the silver slugger isn't quite correct as you're taking into account base running as well. This is outlined in more detail in the war article in the fangraphs glossary, for those interested. On the subject of Shortstop I think that Correa is the clear winner, we can see that Correa leads not only in wRC+ but also batting runs with 26.7. The reason this isn't as close as ops would have it is that fenway is a hitters park while Target Field is a neutral slightly pitcher favored park. He's also second in BB%, iso and BA showing that he is the most well rounded batter at the position. With regards to Arraez I fear that with Ohtani being nominated he is the clear cut winner of the award, given the 11% difference in wRC+ and Ohtani's lead in every category except for obp and those to do with striking out less and getting more hits. I would be very surprised if they nominated him for utility and then didn't consider him a utility player (which to be clear he isn't). My theory is that they wanted to make sure Ohtani got an award for his singularly historic season, since he is very unlikely to win MVP, Cy Young (though he has a deeply sabermetric case for it) or Hank Aaron. Because at DH there is no question the hardware goes to Alvarez.

This was a really good write up and I enjoyed reading a lot of the comments, just wanted to add my own two cents. I think most people agree that there is a positive correlation between spending and winning in MLB. But I don't really want to get into the debate. I agree the Pohlads could spend more and be more aggressive than they are now and see higher revenues most likely. I think part of this is revenue sharing, but also the fact that a lot of revenue comes from smaller and smaller pools. The TV deals now cover lots and then I imagine you have 20/80 ratio with fans spending. Around 20% of fans will spend around 80% of the money. So that leads to them trying to secure those more manageable low risk sources than trying to double their attendance. Unfortunately, that's how the MLB is these days and I think most owners will collude (explicitly or implicitly) to keep it that way. The second part I wanted to mention that I don't think I saw mentioned here was investing in personnel. It seems like the twins don't spend when it comes to their staff either. The example (though I could be cherry picking) that comes to mind is James Rowson, who to my knowledge was rated highly by players, getting hired away by the MARLINS. That means either the twins didn't think he was any good or they didn't care and let him walk for some minor position in an organization who's spending makes the twins look like the red sox. I can think of other instances, like the catching coach for example, who got hired by the yankees which is more understandable. I think the thing other than personnel is the organizational philosophy/shared knowledge that the Rays seem to have. No matter how many people get hired out of that franchise they never seem to lose their touch. This season their injuries were not far behind the twins, yet they made the playoffs in baseballs hardest division. That is serious organizational ability, the twins on the other hand... I really have no clue how you build up that kind of ability or how long it takes (the rays to my knowledge have been doing this since the mid 2000s) so we might just have to wait longer for the twins. But I think that their ability to either scout, develop, or rework players is absolutely key to being successful with a league average or below payroll. Last point I would bring up is the twins could invest more in their minor leaguers. It's no secret that many non top prospects or those players who's families can't support them have sub par (to put it midly) living conditions. If you invested in housing (which I think they're doing), proper food, mental and physical health, subsidizing off season training I think you would get some serious benefits. Not only to the quality of their minor league teams, but also perhaps a guy who couldn't struggle through those conditions can become a solid major leaguer. Which is well worth the investment when you think about how much wins cost. Though given the minor leaguers have elected to form a union I'm really hopeful things will improve for them, that isn't an excuse not to try and build a top farm system that really supports it's players in ways other teams don't.

Well to be fair looking at the qualified first basemen in the AL it's a massive wash there is really no clear favorite. Now why they nominated a guy with 529 innings at the position in beyond me, but it's not like there is really a group of candidates above the rest.

Well if you're paying big money to a guy presumably he has the ability to go a third time through and still be effective but even everyone's favorite Rodon only pitched 36 innings third time through the line up in this season in SF. Unless your name is Sandy Alcantara chances are you won't be going three times through on a regular basis in today's game.

Personally I'm against trading Polanco, I think the thing people are forgetting here is that Arraez is arguably less durable than Polanco as well as a worse defensive second baseman (though both have inconclusive samples). With the shift ban I'd argue the position will become more difficult (though I don't think by a lot) which would make the gap in ability potentially even wider. So this could backfire not only defensively but also cost arraez health by playing a more demanding position than 1B/DH. Then there's the topic of Nick Gordon who, while he had a good season, was offensively worse than Polanco and also only did this over 443 PA so it's a massive gamble to have him fill in and expect to be able to fill in the lost value of Polanco. Though not as big of a risk as relying on rookies and prospects to do so. I would say keep Polanco because he is a proven major league level second baseman with proven MLB upside, if the twins are serious about competing again. If he ends up blocking someone that's a problem you'd like to have, instead of the opposite when you can't make up the production you traded away.

To my mind what the twins need if they're going to sign starting pitching is someone who can give them at least 150 above average IP. As it stands I think Joe Ryan is really the only twins starter with a clean bill of health who you could count on for 150 IP (according to baseball prospectus he hasn't had any non-covid injuries). But the rest of the rotation is an unknown in terms of how many innings they will throw. I think there would be little sense in bringing in a starter with good or even great upside but who will only throw 100-130 IP. Out of the list of 16 these are the starters who I think could realistically give the twins badly needed volume Quintana, Manaea, Taillon and Gibson are the four that I think have the highest probability of doing so. (You could argue for a few others maybe but they have higher risk). Except for Quintana none of them stand out as above average performers. You're getting at best league average performance and with gibson (though best record of health) there is also his age (35) which raises concerns. Also given the twins track record of "fixing" free agent pitchers I wouldn't assume they could unlock that next level of potential from manaea/taillon. The most interesting pitcher in this group is Quintana who does have some age based regression concerns, but over his career has shown an ability to beat predictive metrics (which don't buy into his performance this season) so I think he would be an above average starter, with good upside, who could give you 160ish IP. I'm 50/50 on whether the twins should pursue him, but given their deathly fear of FA starters he's perhaps the best option that is also realistic.

The thing to remember about Rodon is that he is a Boras client and this is his big pay day. He is going into his age 30 season and is coming off two seasons of excellent performance, while being in the top 50 in games started over that time. I think the most relevant comps are Gausmann and Ray who got 110/5 and 115/5 respectively. Personally I think Rodon has not only shown he can perform better than both over a larger sample (though not much) but his predictive metrics are better. So given all that I would assume that 125/5 is really the starting point for Rodon though personally I think it's not implausible to see him get around 150 million and 4-6 years. So 25M AAV could be applicable but you'll need more than 4 years for sure.