Major League Ready

Does Soler not having signed yet make you wonder if his price might not be quite as high as expected. He is probably seen as a DH with no defense value, right? Who knows but the fact he has not signed yet makes one wonder. I don't see him as anywhere near a $20M/year guy but I am not the guy writing the checks. Seems possible his market drop to 3/39 but I could be in LF. (see what I did there)

I don't think so. Castro has a career wRC+ of 91 vs both LHP and RHP and only 82 vs last year. His break-out with the bat last year was hitting left handed. (121 wRC+) I hope they can find a way to get Soler.

I think giving public money to organizations that can pay employees hundreds of millions is absurd but this has very little to do with the relevance of expecting a team with below average revenue to have a league average payroll. In addition, market size does have some correlation to market potential but alone is a rather weak indication of revenue potential. Are you in possession of a rather in depth marketing study we don't know about. That's what it would take to make any sort of credible statement as to how good a job they are doing. I expect fanatics ignore anything that does not support whatever they are fanatical about but it reaches a point of absurdity when adults ignore revenue when making an argument about spending.

You are forgetting they had $30M in BAM Money which is 20% of what they spent last year. More importantly, market size may reflect earning potential, but earning potential does not pay the bills. If a team in the 12th largest market generates the same amount of revenue as a team in the 18th largest market, they run out of money at the exact same time. Every adult here knows that a budget is based on income. This measure is a desperate attempt to come up with something to justify the Twins should spend more. It makes absolutely no sense and fans know this but use this logic anyway.

I never understand why posters use Major League Average to measure how aggressively a team is spending. A team that generated 120% of average revenue should be expected to spend roughly 120% of league average. The Twins generated 78% of league average in 2022 and might have been a tick higher in 2023 with playoff revenue. Why would we use major league average to set expectations for a team significantly below average? To put numbers to this .... The 2022 Washington Nationals were the closest to league average revenue in 2022 at 103%. They generated $89M more in revenue than the Twins. Why would we expect a team $90M under average to spend an average amount? 2022 MLB Revenue

A healthy Matt Canterino has a decent shot at the big league club this year.

My initial reaction was yuck but Mike Sixel took that one. My thought was that they were sitting at $114M in payroll before this move so they had $15-20M to spend assuming the TV deal goes through. There has to be someone better and I would rather give Miranda or Severino a shot because they provide an upside that would impact the team for years. After giving it some thought, Santana did have an .807 OPS against LHP last year which is much better than Kirilloff and Julien. He is also a better defender than Kirilloff / Miranda and Severino. It definitely won’t hurt to have another guy on the team that will demonstrate how to take good Abs. Rocco loves to play match-ups and Sanatana will improve the team in a platoon role if he can maintain the level of play he produced in 2023 but that’s a fairly big if at age 38. It's also possible he is the only guy they could get on a 1 year deal that was worth having. They have 11 that will be arbitration eligible next year and Pablo gets a $13M raise so I can understand if they were only interested in a 1 year deal. I was hoping for Soler. Maybe that's still possible.

Yes. I just clicked on career splits instead of year by year.

According to Fangraphs Soler has a wRC+ of 129 as a DH. What is your source? Season Position BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO BABIP wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ Total as LF 10.8% 27.4% 0.39 .216 .304 .401 .705 .185 .261 49 -2.3 .307 93 Total as RF 9.5% 26.3% 0.36 .245 .321 .438 .759 .194 .298 199 12.7 .326 102 Total as DH 11.2% 26.6% 0.42 .251 .346 .523 .869 .272 .287 229 56.4 .365 129 Total as PH 18.8% 35.4% 0.53 .205 .354 .410 .764 .205 .300 7 0.8 .339 114

I would add Austin Martin to the list. He would not be brought up in strictly an IF role but his ability to cover 2B in addition to CF/LF will provide an expanded opportunity.

No doubt it's a lot for one year. I was just trying to get a grip on what we would have needed to offer as to better judge the cost. This seems about equivalent but then again, I don't know their players/prospects. Ortiz seems roughly equivalent to Lee and Hall to Varland.

The Brewers received Joey Ortiz, DL Hall and the 34th pick in the draft in exchange for Corbin Burnes. The Twins don't have prospects that are really similar but they do have prospects of similar value. What would an offer from the Twins have looked like that would have beaten out the Orioles offer? Would Lee / Varland and the 33rd pick be equivalent?

Generally speaking, people with a BA in communications are not inclined to believe they are experts on how business valuations are derived with the exception of internet forums of course.

The reason could be that they have become confident in signing a TV deal or even get a deal done. Beyond that Hoskins plays 1B and we have Kirilloff with both Miranda and Severino as possible back-ups. We could also cover 1B with Julien if Kirilloff goes down and if Miranda or Severio has not earned a shot. Soler can start in place of one of our LH corner OFers. He is poor defensively but the offensive improvement is great enough to over shadow his defensive limitations. Our only option to cover the need for a RH OFer is Martin. Soler probably fits a little better.

I did not imply anything. I said straight up that your lack of support puts you squarely in opposition with ESPN / Fangraphs and others who have scrutinized this trade. Therefore, given the divergence in your opinion, the only possibility is that either you or all of the sources that wrote about the trade must lack understanding. One side has to be wrong where the opinions differ so greatly.

Let's look at it this way. The hypothesis is pretty straight forward given the argument is that keeping the payroll around 2023 levels would result in a higher valuation of the team. How are we going to prove this specific assertion. We would have to find enough data points of this specific set of circumstances. Plus, we would have to have valid examples of valuation. We don't have actual sales of organizations which would be the best indicator. We have valuations based on partial information. A valid valuation would at a minimum require a very accurate accounting of profitability. The people producing those valuations certainly do not have this information. Valuations are primarily driven by net profitability and the certainty of future profits. The premise that investing those profits in personnel will drive up the valuation contradicts the fundamentals of valuation. If the only way fans are satisfied is by the team investing all of their profits in personnel, the team has virtually no value when they are successful on the field. The only time they would be profitable is when they were losing. Of course, we can make a case for an investment in a single year which is an entirely different argument. I think we would all like to see them eat it this year and that might have happened if not for what happened in 2020-21

Very odd response given I did not offer a personal opinion. I asked if you had read any of the numerous articles from well-known outlets which contradicted your position. Are they dumb. There are only two possibilities. One is that our FO and all of these baseball writers are clueless. The other is that you have an understanding superior to all of them. I guess that's basically the same thing so there is only one possibility. How is it possible you don't have a GM job.

He would primarily be a DH and start some against LHP.

I was on the fence with Soler but you guys have me convinced. He is probably the best fit left out there. The Twins are at 114M right now so he would put them at $130 which is within the range we have heard. Don't think Duvall is a good fit because he does not hit LHP any better than RHP. Merrifield makes no sense. We don't need to say money to fill multiple roles or add a BP piece. Let's get one guy who can make an impact. We have a lot of BP depth at this point.

How are you going to validate your assumption? If I recommended a client spend $30M as an example, I would need very solid basis / validation for that recommendation if I ever wanted to work for that client again.

Anyone know how the money transfers? The Giants agreed to pay the Mariners $6M who then agreed to pay the Twins $8M. Can the twins keep the $8M if they find someone to take DeSclafani with his entire $12M salary? I recognize that probably would not happen. Just trying to understand our options.

This is an interesting point. It is possible they use whatever figure they arrive at this year as a minimum expectation. They have Kepler coming off this year. Vazquez / Paddack and Castro after 2025. Perhaps they trade Castro at some point. Point being, they could sign someone to a multi year deal with the risk being they would be handcuffed if the TV revenue continues to be less than the previous deal. Of course, success on the field would also increase the top line which would be the best scenario.

I explained that position on more than one occasion. The Twins by virtue of having so much young/cheap talent had the payroll capacity to add a high-end SP or at least I thought they did until the TV contract situation reared its ugly head. I even acknowledged that I had gathered all of the data on similar past free agent signings and found they were often a disaster. I also must concede that I did not think Nola would get 7 years going into his age 31 season. I was an advocate of signing him through age 35. To suggest that I was advocating for 7/175 is not accurate. The Pohlads financial well-being is of absolutely no consequence to me but I have been around financial decisions my entire career and know what to expect. I expect them to act like it's a business. I don't know how to build a house or develop software nor do I have expertise in many other areas requiring specialized training and experience and I don't presume people with that subject matter expertise are incompetent if I don't understand why they do something. Fans assume exceptionally successful people are incompetent fools when they disagree with how something is done. That's when I take exception.

I was referring to the prospect cost being asked by teams with SPs to trade this off-season. Many have inquired. None have been willing to pay the asking price.

I see the pecking order (right now) the same way as you. However, the relief and optimism in that video is telling unless you think he is a really good actor, there is reason for us to be optimistic regarding his health. He will still need to get control of his pitches.