Major League Ready

I agree that Maeda and Cruz are not likely to be as good as they were last year. What about the guys who are likely to be be more productive. Donaldson played very little and Buxton missed what was the equivalent to 1/3 of the season. Sano and Garver were beasts in 2019 but really struggled in the short season. Polanco had a wRC+ of 80. We should definitely expect better in 2021. .

I don’t think they want to fill the rotation with another average SP. We don’t know how last year went in terms of developing pitchers. We should have quite a few pitchers that are ready to be auditioned. Plus, any of the guys that are left have their own risks with short-term benefits. The organization is looking at how these decisions impact the next couple of years. Establishing one or two of our prospects this year would be huge for the next 2-3 years. We will need to replace Happ and Pineda. If just one of them is replaced by a pre-arb player, the payroll from Happ and Pineda could be reallocated to one higher profile pitcher that would be more impactful in post season play. We have a similar situation with Lewis. Let’s hope he kills it in the minors the first half and spends the second half of the season at the ML level. If he is successful, Simmons salary could also be reallocated. I have run the numbers for next year. Assuming Cruz is not back and payroll back to 2020 levels, we would have $53M available under this scenario. This includes arbitration estimates which could be a bit higher if Buxton and Berrios have big years. Part of this is as simple is these roster decisions were made based on what fit in the budget. However, the specific players and one year deals with Happ/Simmons had one eye on the future. That future is going to look great if a couple pitching prospects break through this year. So, I am firmly in the camp of giving innings to prospects instead of adding another back of the rotation vet.

They have Rooker / Cave and Arraez presently and Kirilloff / Larnach Broxton waiting in the wings. Kepler is perfectly capable of taking over CF short-term. If they need a CF for an extended period of time they would probably call up Celestino.

Shane Bieber is going to make a 10th of what Berrios is making. Pujlos will make $165M for the last 6 years to play at below replacement level. Chris Davis will make $92M for the last 4 years of his deal to be well below replacement level and there are many other examples. The system pays them as they become established just like any other profession. Some guys pay their dues and others get paid enormous amounts for sucking big-time.

Did you look at career splits or are you just making an assumption? Donaldson, Sano, and Buxton have a negligible difference against RHP. Cruz has been modestly better against LHP. Rooker actually had better numbers against RHP in AA & AAA. We should also not discount that Kirilloff will likely be with the ML club for most of the season. Garver is the one guy who quite a bit better against LHP but what LH catcher would you prefer to have that would be better than Garver against RHP? I think you are leaping to a generalized conclusion without considering the specific players.

7 Days

That sure looked like an absolute max effort delivery. I don't believe he could command pitches with that type of effort or sustain it over multiple innings. However, if he has an uptick in velo and an improved change-up there is reason for optimism.

I just don't understand why people complain about efficient use of payroll. The twins and teams like them have to be more efficient. It's not a theory. It's an absolute fact. Twenty-one of the last 25 World Series have been won by top 10 revenue teams. We should all be applauding any strategies that help overcome the significant advantage held by top revenue teams. Complain that we can't follow inefficient practices if you like but it makes no sense to complain that we don't follow inefficient practices.

As we all know, our area of need is pitching and its really hard to trade for pitching without giving up pitching prospects. Even Darvish cost the equivalent to Balazovic AND Durant plus a couple other prospects. I say "even" Darvish because he is already 34 and he has not been reliable especially in post season. We are not deep in front of the rotation guys but we finally have enough pitching in the pipeline to build a true contender. Of course, there is no guarantee with prospects, far from it. However, it's nice to be in a position where sustained success is a real possibility. It's a heck of a lot easier to fill out a roster in free agency or trade when those final pieces are position players as opposed to pitching. We should be set for OFers for several years to come and if Lewis realizes his potential our position players should not need all that much augmenting. It is so nice be realistically optimistic about having a solid decade of quality Twins teams to enjoy!

No, the salary would have not been problematic but it would have meant foregoing either Simmons or Cruz. The real cost was that they gave up the equivalent to Balazovic / Duran and Rortvedt. That's a big bight out of the future and I don't see Snell as the guy who gives us the edge in game 1. He was great in 2017 but he has not been dominant with the exception of one playoff game. You also missed my point. I asked for examples where this strategy where this has worked. KC would be the most obvious. However, they did not win it until after Shields was gone. The more important addition was a relative throw in (Davis). Also keep in mind that trading away Greinke was key in building that team. They managed to make their window really short. So, my point is that the strategy you suggest has very few success stories for teams with below average revenue. That's why this front office and others are not following your desired path.

Give us some examples of teams with below average revenue that traded away the kind of package necessary to land a "Castillo" and then made it to the WS. Give us examples of teams with below average revenue that landed the top free agent SP in free agency. I will save you the trouble. It's happened twice in the past 20+ years. The first was Mike Hamilton with Colorado. That was an unmitigated disaster. The other was Greinke to Arizona. That happened to be the year the Dbacks signed a TV contract that was a huge revenue boost. That move also proved to be quite ineffective. In other words, you are bent out of shape about things that virtually every GM of teams with similar revenue restrictions consider to be poor practices.

Another guy that will be really interesting to watch this year. He has reached the age and physically maturity where you hope he takes a step forward. It would make a difference if he was consistently in the mid 90s. How has his control developed? We have no idea if that has improved over the last year. A couple ticks on the radar gun as well as better control and he might have considerably better results.

For those of us who are old enough to remember American Top Forty (Casey Kasem) it seemed to go over just fine on that show as well.

This is not a Ryan / Gardenhire team and I don't think this regime will find it absolutely necessary to have 3 catchers. One of the interesting parts of this roster construction is that adding Simmons puts Polanco in the backup to SS role. This offers more flexibility in terms of the bench players. It will be interesting to see how they use that 26th spot on the roster.

Kinda like judging a horse race by who gets out of the gate first.

What I found interesting / encouraging is that his highest rated attribute with Fangraphs is control. Assuming the command remains with the uptick in velocity, he becomes a very intriguing prospect.

Fangraphs has Rijo's fastball graded at 40. That's quite a leap. Do you know if this is something built over time or did they find something in his delivery that yielded a substantial uptick in velo relatively quickly? It's going to be a lot of fun to follow prospects in 2021. Wow, would it be great to have 2 or 3 pitching prospects break out.

His contract would be roughly 30% of the Twins highest payroll in the history of the team. Can you site any team with below average revenue or any team for that matter that ever got to the WS with one player receiving 30% of the team's payroll? In the Twins case, Bauer and Donaldson would represent 45% of the payroll. I doubt any team has ever been constructed this way as I can't imagine anyone has ever held a GM job that does not understand the dysfunction of spending this percentage on a single player or two in this specific case. There should be plenty of examples if your position has merit. Let's see them.

We are going to see a lot of guys get time after a 60 game season in 2020. It seems like we have some pretty legit depth and that could be big this season.

I am pretty sure we got Cruz / Simmons / Happ / Colome / Robles and then traded a surplus replacement level guy from a position of depth for a pitcher that has a pretty good chance of contributing. Oh ... and we claimed a guy with a shot at contributing. I would add there are guys scattered around pretty much every playoff team that were acquired while relatively unproven that went on to be very good players. Just take a look at Tampa or even the Dodgers.

Oooops! Of course, I meant Celestino not Canterino. Too many inos but I think both guys could be a pleasant surprise addition at some point this year.

Don't agree... Much better off with Kepler given our depth of corner OFers. They can also keep Canterino at AAA and use him if Buxton goes down for a prolonged period.

This roster has come together nicely. I think a couple rookies are going to make some noise too. Looking forward to the season!

I am hoping they are not signing one of these mediocre vets because they are very confident in what they saw in one or more of our prospects last year at the alternate site. I have this feeling based on a few crumbs that Canterino is ready or very near ready. Maybe they are high on multiple SP prospects and want the room to audition them. That would be OK too. They are at $125M. The budget likely does not have room for a SP and a good RP. If they believe they have prospects that can perform at the same level as the available FAs, it makes more sense to good with prospects in SP roles and sign a good RP.

$124.7 with Maeda at a total of $8.5M.