Major League Ready

Mike, They signed 4 players that made the 25 man roster. Reed / Rodney / Morrison & Lynn. Reed was a 2 year deal. Morrison and Rodney had a 2nd year team option. Lynn was one year. Is it really fair to characterize Morrison and Rodney as 1 year deals when they had a team option. Would you agree that 1 year with a 2nd year option is a much more advantageous position to be in for the team? While I suppose you could make a case you are technically accurate, your portrayal of the situation is misleading.

Baseball is loaded with predictive analysis, is it not? FIP, defensive metrics in general, WAR, etc are all predictive in nature. It's interesting that this board screamed for an analytics driven approach and no that such an approach would likely prove the odds to be long, you want an intuitive approach which is what we had previously. Actually, the approach could be to measure the probability of each individual factor required for the teach to achieve success. IE What is the projected WAR for Buxton / Sano and the entire rest of the team. I would agree if you were to say that model requires a lot of assumption. We could instead look at a much larger set of data while using a somewhat more intuitive approach. We could ask what are the odds of building a BP given the state of ours. What does history suggest. What are the odds of Buxton or Sano producing at the level needed for the Twins to contend. The Twins analytics team could put together a very credible estimate based on the history of all the similar players who failed or succeeded in the past. What are the Odds we get 1st half Rosario and the 64 wRC+ second half Rosario and so on. Revenue is a tough one. I have read several articles trying to get a grip on revenue drivers and the KPIs are unclear and inconsistent. The Twins had stated in the past that they base payroll on previous year's revenue which would make the revenue estimates a moot point and I can see the wisdom in this approach based on the difficulty to forecast revenue. We can also look at history to understand the impact on profits when a team invests and does not perform.In 2017, MIami / Detroit / and Baltimore all invested and did not perform. Collectively, they lost $125M. The top 7 in terms of profit were all contenders who spent within their budget even though they obviously had room to spend significantly more. The Cub / Phillies / Red Sox / Giants / Astros / Dodgers and Brewers combined for $539M in profit for an average of $77M per team. The Twins made $23M by the way in a year they went to the playoffs. Kind of puts the relative focus on profits in perspective. If it were our money or we were bankers or Venture Capitalists we would would demand hard analytics for revenue, margins, capital requirements, competitive analysis and risk assessment. 10s of millions are not invested based on intuition.

I was quite specific the inability was related to the relative value placed on financial performance. Complete disregard for the financial implications does not mean someone is incapable of understanding. Are you going to tell me the difference in desire to spend between fans and the FO does not have a very high correlation to the difference in weight put on profitability between the two groups. I agree that some TDers have put forth reasonable plans. What the he## does that have to do with the this specific conversation which is why some people can't understand why the Twins would not spend every available payroll dollar. Where your new argument is concerned, don't tell me I don't understand the risk / investment side of things. If you understand how this is done in a business environment, show us the actual calculation of the cumulative risk associated with Buxton / Sano / The BP even Rosario who sucked the 2nd half, the bottom 3 rotation spots, injury, probability of success with the FAs that would be essential to putting together a contender. Then, tell me the odds of success are good. Show me the financial projections. There has been absolutely zero data / content presented that measured risk / return or the probability that any given plan would result in X number of wins. What has been presented here is ideas that would no doubt make the twins better. I have not seen a single projection of wins or the revenue implications or risk assessment.

The expectation and frustration you describe is completely reasonable and I join you in that frustration. We could have had Nola and Benintendi. We have not made any trades like Cleveland did to put together their staff. We have sucked in general at developing ML talent and it would appear we were significantly behind in developing an analytics team. This frustration explains why people want the team to go all in. It does not explain why many posters are at a loss as to why the FO would not just take a leap of faith. I responded to a very specific exasperation voiced here by many that the team refuses to just go all-in, especially in terms of payroll. That disconnect exists because fans place zero value on financial performance and the primary goal of any business is financial performance. It's that simple. From a business point of view it makes far more sense to at least get a couple months into next season before making a big trade. It probably makes more sense in terms of building a winner. There are many variables beyond Buxton/Sano but even if it were just those two, it might make the most sense to trade for a replacement for one of them. It certainly does not make sense to do that now.

I am going to provide a theory as to why this alludes many. There is no disrespect intended here. It’s purely an observation. Fans could care less about profitability and profitability is right at the top of the list of a GM's responsibilities. Many even think the business that is the Minnesota Twins owes it to the fans to disregard profitability. This is going to create a disconnect. It's also not a unique concept to pro sports. I doubt any of us cares if Cub Foods or the dealership where we buy our car or any other business maintains a healthy profit. As a matter of fact, virtually nobody would feel bad if the car dealer added up their costs incorrectly and sold them a car a cost. The common position here is “what if Sano and Buxton are good” It also possible we could construct a good BP and get a middle infielder and maybe add some SP. Why wouldn’t the Twins max payroll and perhaps trade away some prospects too? Why take a chance we could miss an opportunity? The answer is because if they fail, they will recover only a small portion of the incremental $40-50 or even $60M many here expect them to spend. (See Baltimore / Texas / Detroit) I don’t think anyone here is so naïve as to think the odds of success are high. Therefore, if you say this position eludes you, you are saying you can’t understand why the Twins would not invest 10s or millions with a low probability of success. I would absolutely love it if the Twins did not care about profitability but the reasons they don’t manage the business certainly don’t elude me.

Tampa's revenue has increased steadily for the past 15-20 years. However, making it to the world series in 2008 had minimal impact on revenue. Seems to me they understand how to run their business just fine. https://www.statista.com/statistics/196686/revenue-of-the-tampa-bay-rays-since-2006/

You did not even remotely address the three points made. Are those points true or untrue? Are you really of the opinion revenue level does not matter in a teams willingness to part with top prospects? Is what I wrote about the Dodgers and Yankees inaccurate? Is the Twins competitive position even close to that of the teams that have traded top prospects in the past few years? Is Seattle not tearing down an 89 win team? Lots of questions for you to address directly and you elect to respond with an answer that completely neglects all of them.

I have absolutely no problem with the team taking a calculated risk. By this I mean making the trades and spending the money in free agency in order to put together a true contender. However, I have seen nothing resembling a calculation of the odds of any plan resulting in contention. Legit contention would take at least a 95 win team given the current balance of power in the American League. There is no doubt that every single plan presented here would make the team better but contending would require several improbable things to come to together of which the cumulative odds are very low. The point being we cant say its a calculated risk without calculating the odds of success.

I don’t think we can make this type of blank statement. For starters, “in contention” is a relative term and a team’s willingness to part with prospects (defined as top prospects) depends on their relative position in terms of contention. Obviously, the Red Sox, Yankees, Astros, Athletics, Dodgers, Braves, Nationals, Brewers and Cubs are in a window of contention. Several other teams are relative close but teams like the mariners are opting to tear down. Chicago tore down with a more proven roster than the Twins have now and they had a legit ace with 3 years of control You also have to consider the revenue of any given team. The lower the revenue the more necessary it is to retain low cost talent. Will, Tampa, a 90 win team, be willing to trade away top prospects? Very doubtful. When have they EVER? They never do purely from a business requirement prospective. Oakland and Tampa have generally traded away established talent, even top talent (Price) because of their need for low cost talent. Even the highest revenue teams have been very reluctant to trade top prospects. Theo Epstein was unwilling to trade Bellinger / Buehler / Urias etc. and he has been quite consistent in his unwillingness to trade top prospects even though they are clearly in contention. How about the Yankees? Were they willing to deal Sanchez when they had an established veteran? Were they willing to deal Severino? No, The Yankees have not been inclined to give up elite prospects. They have actually benefited more from trading for prospects than trading away prospects. Stanton did not cost elite prospects because of the salary attached to Stanton. Sheffield is an exception and the circumstances are extreme. They have assembled a 100 win team but need SP if they are going to have a chance to win their division and compete deep into the playoffs. Boston is the one team that has ponied up top prospects but of course they were able to do this because they were stacked with young talent and also able to spend $200M+ in payroll. They are also in a position to sustain a team that is among the most dominant in MLB history. That is a mile away from the Twins situation. Three points come to mind when looking at the trends around the league. 1) Even very rich teams that are clearly in contention are very reluctant to give up top talent. History is very clear in this matter. 2) 2) Below average revenue teams are even less inclined and teams that are not probable contenders also are much less inclined to trade top prospects. 3) The Twin’s scenario is not remotely in a similar scenario to the teams that have traded top prospects. Those teams are top contenders and we are a relative long shot. Low cost players are more important to a team with the twin’s revenue and we are a long way from comparable in terms of being an established contender.

Taking a leap of faith is a fun notion for fans but don't be disappointed when it does not happen. Pretend for a moment you are accountable for the results. In that position you and the 10 people who liked this can appreciate that any business school in the country would reject this position with extreme prejudice. We are taught in business programs and later in leadership positions to never take a leap of faith, at least not when the cost or even potential costs are high.

Cleveland put together an entire staff without doing either. St. Louis did it when they were on top. The Mets did it and so have many others. Having said this, I think Syndergaard is exactly the kind of guy you trade for because he is elite and in his prime. He is that final piece that changes the power rankings among contenders. The problem is we are not among the contenders, not even close unless, and he won't get us close. The scenario that gets us close goes like this. Two guys that have never sustained elite play will do so now. Why? Because we have no chance if they don't. Then, we magically put together a BP representative of a winner. How? Buy elite RPs. What is the track record of these elite RPs. Looking at history and the FAs available, one would have to conclude that is highly speculative. Not to mention, the only way any of them come here is if we pay an even more obscene amount than the market price is right now. Then, we will have to assume we get the Rosario of the 1st half not the Rosario that have a wRC+ of 64 for the second half. Then, we will need Garver to carry the load a catcher. Then, we need to come up with a 2B Then, we need them all to stay healthy, especially the guy we bet the future on. Then, if all those things come through we have a team on par with Cleveland and Seattle last year. Great, we can come up just short or get waxed in the first round if this scenario with a 5% chance of coming to fruition works out. You are asking Falvey to sign his termination papers.

I agree. Just trying to provide some perspective that might help with the angst here. It just does not make sense to be mad because a business acts like a business but more importantly from a fan perspective these principals do suggest the best way to build a winner is a measured approach as you suggest.

Mike, A couple years ago someone made a similar statement. I put up a chart of all of the playoff teams and the source of their SPs. It was overwhelmingly how grown. Some were drafted and some were trades before the player became established. Granted, that has shifted some the last couple years. There were 2 relatively high profile free agent SPs last year. Collectively they produced 2WAR for $51M (Arietta-2 / Darvish-0) There were not any high profile SPs in 2017. Rich Hill was the highest price FA at less than $13M AAV. In 2016, there were 4 high profile signings. Two of them (Price / Cueto) produced well in 2016. The other two not so much. Production went down for the group in 2017. Only Greinke was good. The other 3 produced 1.6 - 1.0 WAR. Production down even further in 2018 where this group averaged 1.825WAR 2018 21.00 / 126 Darvish ….. 0 25.00 / 75 Arietta …... 2 2017 N/A 2016 34.40 / 206 - Zack Greinke 2.2/5.1/3.5 31.00 / 217 - David Price 4.5/1.6/2.7 23.00 / 110 - Jordan Zimmerman 1.3/ 1/ 0.9 21.66 / 130 - Johnny Cueto 5.5/1.2/ 0.2 Average WAR per year ……….... 3.375 2.225 1.825 The premise that signing this type of free agent has a high probability of making the team better is not supported by recent history and the history is the front end where the production should be very good. All four of these deals look bleak in terms of the final years. They produced 1WAR/$18M last year and that's going to look good compared to the final years.

Forbes and Statistica publish revenue estimates every year. Do you really think organizations with this level of credibility would publish something without having reasonable validation? I am not saving they have audited financial statements but I don't think it's reasonable to assume they have "no idea". 99% of fans simply never make an attempt to dig up the financial info the way they would player stats. Most fans also dismiss all of the normal core concepts of running a business. For example, most posters here ignore financial risk. That's simply not a realistic expectation of any business. Most here look at this season and find a reason for the Twins to go all-in financially and some even suggest leveraging our future by trading top prospects.Fans look at this year and see. Let's say an executive was presenting a scenario similar to Twins to their creditors or board to get funding. If not presented, they would ask about the solidity (odds) of the "future state" scenario being presented. In other words, what has to happen and what are the odds of it happening. A parallel situation would be sales leadership for our fictitious company getting up and saying we have two clients (Buxton / Sano) that have done a little work with us and we are counting on them coming on big for us. Then, another executive says we have a division (the BP) that we are going to basically totally rebuild but we have one reliable guy (Rogers). Next executive gets up and says we also have a couple holes in our manufacturing department (1B / 2B and another SP) but we have an agency working on it or we will recruit them from another company. The bank/board would ask what are the odds of the 1st scenario (Buxton / Sano) .... Not very good How about the odds of rebuilding that division to the level of a contender ..... Not very good How about the new hires? What are the odds they all produce as need .... Not very good What if any of our key employees become ill (injured)? Would this impact the plan ... Yes it would Do all of these things have to come together to make a profit (contend) with this plan ... Yes The bank says no and the board fires some executives. Through the eyes of a baseball fan, it's always time to go all-in. It's interesting that fans accept it's a business for the players and they will act accordingly. If we were willing to accept this is a business for the owners, we would not expect unbridled spending and no aversion to financial risk.

I like to break-down the previous year to see how players are trending. The most predictive information is generally the most recent. Of course, we know this generalization sometimes is not so accurate with MLB players. Grossman was the team's best hitter over the 2nd. Rosario was the worst. Here is wRC+ for the 2nd half (players with 100AB or more) Grossman .…. 128 Garver ….....… 118 Polanco .……. 112 Austin ………. 106 Kepler …….... 99 Cave …'.…….. 98 Mauer ………. 95 Forsythe …... 85 Sano ………… 85 Adrianza ….... 65 Rosario ……... 64 I am indifferent but I think your position is a lot closer to that of the FO as compared to most posters here.

I really don't have a position here. The changes he made seem to have turned him into a different pitcher. I don't have the same capacity to evaluate those changes as the people who get paid for that sort of thing. If those people made that decision, I would be very happy they believe that potential to be present and would welcome the experiment.

What is Chicago would have taken that position with Chris Sale. This would be the year to experiment. What an incredible impact if you could get 180 innings for the next 4 years of anywhere near the dominance he had last year out of the BP. It's whole lot easier to find dominant RPs than to find an ace, a LH ace to boot. Where creative ideas are concerned, this one has the potential to be a huge plus.

Is my memory faulty? I thought I remember ready or hearing in an interview that the starting point for their budget is previous year revenue. I am sure they adapt based on the market and what they get done or don't get done with specific FAs but I thought the starting point was previous year revenue.

Kepler's OPS is as low as Mauer's so he would be no improvement offensively and I seriously doubt he would be Mauer's equal defensively so I don't see how how Kepler at 1B makes us better. His value is that he is a plus defender as a corner OFer and can be used in CF when needed. Putting him at 1B negates his primary contribution so I see this as a step backwards. We not only get worse at 1B we weaken our OF defense. Romero struggled in AAA last year. His control / command has to improve before he is of value in any role at the ML level. He would be more valuable as a starter so I rather they keep him at AAA until he improves his command. I could go either way on May. More innings has more value but I am not convinced he can perform as a starter or stacker. However, it might be worth giving him one more shot. I love Astudillo but let's not get ahead of ourselves. He too needs to prove himself beyond what is a relatively small sample size from last year.

We have had this argument before. There is an exceptionally high correlation between WAR/Payroll dollar and winning a Championship for any team with less than average revenue. It is a mathematical certainty. Please feel free to prove this theory incorrect. There are teams that can afford to spend $2.5M/win to produce a 100 win team. It would be an extreme push to say the twins could spend $1.5M to do the same. Therefore, there is absolutely no denying thay pl;ayers that cost $10-12M/WAR are counter-productive if the goal is to produce a contender. The inability for some fans to understand this absolute certainty is the reason we have these ridiculous debates about why can't the Twins just sign the most expensive guys. It takes very little analytical skill to go back through prior year signings and conclude the most expensive FAs go to the teams with the most revenue. What a revelation ... The guys with the most money are far more likely to sign expensive players. Who would have guessed.

Sorry mike. You are right. That was poorly stated. I should have said "some of" instead of generalizing.

Actually, if he can uptick just a touch next year and hit 4 more HRs than last year, he will equal our previous 1B HR total for the last 4 years combined. The same people complaining about the value proposition or budget allocation of $5M for Cron support spending $14-15M projected for Cruz. If it's value or available payroll, Cron offers .5 less war for $9M less not to mention he is not 38 and likely to decline. Why can't he be a better value alternative to Cruz that allows for other acquisitions instead of being a cost that prevents them?

I would rather have him than any of the FAs available so it's hard to be too disappointed. He is in his prime and last year was his 1st season with 500ABs. It's reasonable to hope for another uptick but I would be satisfied with what he did last year.

Let's hope Sano shows up at 240 lbs, plays above average 3B and the two of them combine for 75HR!!! A man can dream, can't he?

We can definitely afford an Eovaldi type free agent if we don't have any significant dead weight contracts. Obviously, landing a free agent SP with this profile is an uphill battle even with the available budget. The point being we should exhaust any such option and avoid the practices that are likely self-defeating. FAs that produce 1WAR/12-15M in payroll is self-defeating. If we spend $60M of a $130M budget on 4 players that produce 6 WAR, we have to average almost 2 WAR across all of the remaining roster. This equates to 1.73 WAR per million $ of payroll. That is a very tall order. Go ahead and sign high profile guys but they need to produce 1 WAR per $4M like JD Martinez did last year. That type of production nets an additional 9 wins.