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The answer is not a black and white given all the circumstances that go into the decision of when to promote a prospect. However, if you look at recent twins history and the history of every other team around the league, teams find a spot for players when they are ready. The trend is becoming even more aggressive. This is especially true with position players. The Twins found room for Arraez and Lewis as soon as they were ready. Julien has taken Polanco’s spot. He is the starting 2B. Why is this true? Because the single most important aspect of building a winning team is developing prospects. This is true for any team. Just look at the Dodgers vs the Yankees right now and it becomes increasing important as revenue is reduced. The 2nd greatest contributor to building a winner (historically) has been trading for prospects. This reality drives the practices of teams like the A’s, Ray’s and Guardians and you have seen it lately from the reds and Orioles. The Ray’s traded Willy Adames at the end of May to make room for Wander Franco. They did not even wait for the deadline. Some fans are always going to hate trading an established player. There were people here who insisted we should have kept Donaldson and Urshela. Some still complain about Rosario even though he has been mostly terrible since leaving. The Rays replaced Adames with an equal or better player and improved their team for several years by getting Drew Rassmussen. The team is obviously better for it. The best case scenario for any team, especially a team in the bottom two-thirds of revenue is to replace a veteran with an equal or better young player. That player will contribute for a longer period of time, be injured less, cost less, and hopefully bring back another player that contributes. It is the ideal scenario. So, yes, you make room when a player is truly ready.
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- austin martin
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The revenue disparity has existed for a very long time. It exists because putting the star players in big markets and having big market teams dominate maximizes revenue. Ownership and players both like it as is.. The players were pushing to cut revenue sharing during the last CBA. The owners did try to hold the disparity in check during the last CBA but the players pushed very hard to elevate the luxury tax threshold. This most recent increase has widened the gap and the dodgers drove as bus full of money right through that gap,
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Both sides of this argument have merit. Canterino has never been able to log a lot of innings but it's also not a good idea to convert a guy that can be a starter into a RP. Good starters are the scarcer resource. I also am inclined to give weight to the medical professionals advising the FO. We should recognize we don't have all the pertinent information. In concept, I like the idea of him starting and then going to the BP if he pushes his innings limit even though it's a best case scenario.
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You picked 8 out of hundreds and you used Streamer. Do you think Kiermaier's agent was negotiating based on 1.2 from Streamer or 3.9 from baseball reference. One was what he actually did last year. The other an estimate. More importantly, it's not the estimate of the party making the offer. Bader had the worst year of his career. The Mets were willing to bet he would be better next year and they only had to give a one-year contract which has a very different risk profile. I could go on but what is relevant is that the measure you are using is calculated based on production per dollar spent. It is not for a sample, it's all free agents as opposed to you picking examples. It's not a reflection of estimated value it's actual production per dollar spent.
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You are confusing the average cost per war with value. Teams are not making offers anticipating a cost of $10M/WAR. The failure rate with free agents is so high that it inflates the cost per WAR well beyond what teams anticipate but teams don't offer $30M/year to a player anticipated to produce 3 WAR. In addition, the threshold teams are willing to accept is going to be significantly different for a team producing $600M in revenue vs $300M in revenue.
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He was almost exactly league average last year. His OPS was .726 and wRC+ was 99. Are we being a little hard on him. Seems pretty reasonable he could make some tweaks and be above average. That might look pretty good as a bridge to Rodriquez and Jenkins.
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By frame to you mean weight? I looked at their definition but it's hard to tell why they differ so much. They should be relatively close based on other stats. The had almost the same wRC+. 136 for Juulien and 132 for Arraez. Julien's defensive metrics are a bit better. Julien's fWAR is 82% of Arraez but he had 78% of the playing time as Arraez. Given WAR is cumulative, this makes sense in rough terms. Julien's bWAR is only 53% of Arraez which does not make sense.
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I would guess demand is greater than supply at driveline and I would also guess that many teams are developing their own version of driveline.
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I might be missing something here but I think you are looking at a bWAR metric for batting only. fWAR considers defense and when defense is considered Arraez and Julien had about equal WAR. If Julien's defensive continues to improve, that gap between the two metrics will continue to widen unless Arraez also improves defensively.
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The one thing we can say about roster construction that is absolutely certain. The Minnesota Twins have to get twice the production per dollar from their roster as the top revenue teams. That does not mean free agents can’t contribute to building a roster. Oddly enough, the more successful they are at developing low cost players, the more they can spend on free agents. However, finding players with higher production per dollar is still going to be paramount to success. Zach Eflin is a great example from last year. His AAV is 13.33M and they got 4.8 WAR from him. That’s 2.78M/WAR. Charlie Mortenson was a great example back when the Rays signed him. He had a relatively modest AAV and did not have the risk associated with a long-term contract. The reality is that teams like the Twins very rarely sign a player like Correa because spending that high of a percentage on one player makes it very difficult to construct a complete team. If we examine the construction of successful low and mid revenue teams, we will find a handful of free agents that contributed but the overall WAR from free agents or established players acquired in trade totally 15-20%. The other 80% comes from drafted players or players acquired before becoming established at the MLB level. Some of them were MLB players but not established. This is not theoretical. This is history. The takeaway is that the Twins absolutely cannot be successful without being far more productive per dollar spent than the top revenue teams. So, why are we angry when they won't follow a model that can't possibly be successful?
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Really interesting "stuff" Tom. I would have liked to see him at driveline this off-season. It seems like his weakness is the fastball. Perhaps they could help him find more life and more consistency with his FB.
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I hope you are right. We could use the OF depth Larnach could provide and Miranda was one of the best players on the team for quite a stretch in 2022.
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How would you feel if they traded him for a good AAA prospect and then reinvested the $10.5M plus another 5-10M in a starting pitcher? That would put them at $125-130M in payroll which seems feasible. What if they traded him and Kepler for prospects and used the money to bring in Hoskins and a BP arm?
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Seattle's projected payroll is only $117M so moving Ray and DeSclafini coming off next year may have satisfied their payroll needs. They are definetly not as good, especially in the playoffs if they move Castillo. I doubt they go that route. They also gave up a ton to get him. Marte is Cincy's #1 prospect, Arroyo is #3 and Stroudt made it to the MLB level last year. Dipotto looks pretty bad if he flips Castillo for less than a haul at this point.
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I think you have captured the heart of the matter Doc. You have to believe that this type of trade is what the FO is trying to pull-off. It's going to competitive for SPs so let's hope the trade partners value Polanco enough that it does not take a top prospect to get pitching.
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Here is one link. He was roughly average based on Statcast.
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IDK what to think of Castro either but it's also hard to ignore what he did last year. His OPS against RHP was 801. If Buxton can start against LHP they are in good shape. What would be ideal is Martin stepping up. Those two would be a great bench combo. Gordon might the back-up out of spring training but Martin could be the answer.
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I would agree Polanco has a better chance of "earning his paycheck". I just don't see that as a relevant measure. Using a terrible signing or trade as a comparison proves nothing. Should we never trade a player because Mahle produced absolutely nothing? I think you are using hyperbole to argue against and idea you don't like. Also, the national writers don't agree. They have pointed to Polanco as the most logical player for the Twins to trade. Would the Ray's trade him? Their history suggests they would and this tactic has been the reason very effective for a number of modest revenue teams.
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Yes, Kirilloff still has question marks but the context of the discussion was why they spent $11M on Gallo last year. The fact there is still a need does not diminish the need they had last year. I would reallocate the dollars to Hoskins because we don't have the payroll capacity for both and I think Hoskins is a better fit because we don't have depth at 1B and Kirilloff can play the OF if they are both healthy. Of course, there is also a return associated with Polanco. None of this is original thinking on my part. There have been multiple articles from national writers expressing the same sentiment.
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You will have to elaborate on how this is relevant because I see absolutely zero relevance to the question of if the money would be better allocated toward pitching. We are working with a significantly different budget. Kirilloff's availability was very much in question last year and 2B is our deepest position this year. Also, this being a trade instead of a free agent signing, we would be getting what should be a significant return if he has the value many here suggest. How is what they paid Gallo relevant?
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Wyatt Langford had an OPS 0f 1.285 in AA and 1.065 in AAA last year. I hope Lee is the real deal but he has not proven to be an elite prospect at this point.. He was very good for at the end of his AA stint and may very well rip up AAA this year but he still has some proving to do, IMO.
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If we were talking about a start-up, you would have a valid point. Did I really need to qualify the previous statement with "the exception of start-ups"? Do you really want to stand that operating budgets in for profit businesses is not driven by revenue?
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Yes, they could afford that $11M gamble last year. This year they don't have $30M in BAM money and an undetermined decrease in TV revenue. How is what they did last year relevant? It's also not a matter of if they could keep Polanco. Obviously, they could keep him. The question is could the team get better short by redistributing the dollars or long-term by trading for value. Having watched the Rays make deal after deal of this nature that have resulted in long-term success, I am just fine with them moving Polanco if reasonable value short or long-term can be obtained.
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Farmer is also has slightly better career stats against LHP so he is actually slightly better than Polanco where platooning with Julien is concerned.
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Yes and no. They are in control of the alternative they chose. They are not in control of the market factors that have devalued distribution in its current form. They are not in control of how quickly alternative distribution channels are formed.
