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Major League Ready

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Everything posted by Major League Ready

  1. Major League Ready
    You might be right. I am of course reading between the lines of the comments. It seems like most here are very aware of the budget considerations which is why I assumed they were thinking in terms of reallocating the money. I think the bigger disconnect is that many hope Polanco is traded for high-end established pitching. That's not going to happening. At least not where Polanco the headliner. It would take Polanco plus one of Lee / Jenkins or Julien and another decent prospect.
  2. Major League Ready
    Andres ranked because of a very strong season in 22 when he was 33. He produced 1.1 WAR last year in his age 34 season. I doubt any team would project Andrus in his age 35 season to produce as well as Polanco.
  3. Major League Ready
    Farmer might be the last guy they need to extend. He will turn 34 next season and they have multiple players that can replace him for $6M less. He also would be competing for playing time with our number 2 rated prospect as well as our #7 rated prospect (Schobel) who probably has a higher ceiling. Of course, Lee has a much higher ceiling.
  4. Major League Ready
    I appreciate the positive point of view but there is nothing positive about reducing payroll. All of these options exist without reducing payroll. It's not as if they could not utilize these options and also find a way to improve the team while remaining at the same level of payroll.
  5. Major League Ready
    I don’t think anyone is arguing Polanco would not get ABs. The argument is that the dollars would be better spent elsewhere given the payroll situation. In other words, we are looking at a different equation than what you have illustrated. The equation is Polanco’s replacement + 9,760,000 will provide a better net result than Polanco. For example, they are going to sign another SP. I would rather have Castro/Miranda/Severino or Pratt take those PAs IF Julien or Lewis are injured and sign a SP for 21.76M instead of $12M. If neither or those two are injured I would rather have Julien or Lewis getting as many PAs as possible. We also have Brooks Lee at AAA with a reasonable expectation he will be ready half-way through the season. Do you want to keep him stashed at AAA or invest that playing time in him to make us better for the next several years? It's also worthy of noting that Polanco has been injury prone himself.
  6. Major League Ready
    Well Tom, If you hate the idea of Polanco being traded for prospects you are likely going to be disappointed. Teams that want Polanco are not likely to trade away well above average pitching or a good power bat. The primary benefit of trading Polanco would be redistributing the salary to a free agent starting pitcher. Obviously, the $10M does not buy a free agent SP but it could provide funding to spend $20M instead of $10M on a free agent SP. Maybe this will make you feel better. Go to Fangraphs and look at how the players on any 90+ win team (among teams in the bottom 2/3 of revenue) in the past 20 years and look at how those rosters were built. Players that were acquired as prospects or players acquired before every producing at the ML level are far and away more important to building a winning team than trading for established players. It's not even remotely close. We want established players because we want immediate gain. However, as we saw with Mahle and Lopez trading for established players is not a certain thing. The Rays and Gaurdians prove over and over how effective flipping players that profile like Polanco for prospects can be we fans still don't want prospects. I will gladly take a good prospect and invest the extra $10M in a very good SP or even a very good bat.
  7. Major League Ready
    No doubt he has been injury prone but right now but the issue at hand is not if he will get injured. He is already injured and his ability to return is very specific to his knee. Any future contribution from Buxton right now is dependent upon this issue with his knee(s) being resolved. We should worry about him being injury prone if he makes it back but right now we should be hoping we get to a position where we are questioning if he can remain healthy. That would be a good thing at this point.
  8. Major League Ready
    He couldn't do it last year is not exactly a great basis for the certainty you profess. It's not exactly unheard of for players to come back from injury. So, unless you are an orthopedic specialist, you are guessing like the rest of us.
  9. Major League Ready
    Castro / Martin / Severino and Larnach or even Gordon fit together nicely as bench players. Castro can play every position except 1B/C. Martin can play 2B/CF/LF. Severino can play 1B/2B/3B and is a switch hitter. Prato can play 2B/3B/LF.
  10. Major League Ready
    What has been reported regarding Buxton's prognosis? Is there any reason to believe that the most recent surgery has a reasonable chance of allowing him to play CF? I am looking for some hope to cling to here.
  11. Major League Ready
    I have already said Martin would be the preferred option but Bader is no joke. A ++ defender and a + hitter against LHP has real value especially the way Baldelli plays match-ups. He would be a nice addition given our need for a RH OFer if Buxton could be counted on for 80-100 games. Of course, that's not the case.
  12. Major League Ready
    I sure hope they don't opt for the low end of the range we are hearing. I have played with the numbers and possible combinations quite a bit and have come up with what I think is a good roster at 137-140M. Of course, you still have to convince guys to come here and we will be up against a lot of big market teams looking for pitching. The part about never having spent does not weigh quite as heavily for me as some others here. We never signed a player like Correa before either. Perhaps more importantly, I don't remember a time when we had so much young (cheap) talent. That significantly changes the decision parameters. My gut tells me they sign Maeda or equivalent but there is a path to a good free agent SP provided the market does not pay an absurd amount this year which is all together possible. I would love it if we could somehow use Polanco to trade for pitching but that is not a likely Scenario, especially for a front of the rotation guy. Teams willing to trade such a pitcher want elite prospects which I am very much against doing. That's a short-term emphasis with a huge potential down-side.
  13. Major League Ready
    Spending is without a doubt advantageous. The Dodgers and Yankees win records will attest to that advantage while Seager and Semien are testaments to your point about picking the right free agents. To your point … there are countless examples of free agents that do not live up to expectations or fail completely. I remember some here being incensed that the Twins did not sign the sure thing that was Madison Bumgardner. Here is the part that eludes fans. There are about 10 teams that generate $100-300M more than the Twins. So, while spending is advantageous, when the twins run out of money, those teams have $100M plus to spend. The collective incremental spending those teams have is probably in the neighborhood of $2B. Those teams are going to take that incremental income and absorb the top free agents. This is an absolute of economics we refuse to accept. By far the most important aspects of roster building for the twins are drafting or trading for prospects and developing them. Ironically, being productive at developing players enables more free agent spending. However, teams with the twins level of income are only going to be able to afford a couple big contracts at any given time where the Dodgers and Yankees can afford several. Our acquisitions better be good and last year they were not. Correa and Buxton produced 1.7 WAR. Semien and Seager produce 12.4. The biggest potential improvement is for the high-priced guys we already have to perform. It is really odd to me that people seem to accept Correa's poor production because they are happy the twins spent a lot to sign him.
  14. Major League Ready
    Given the budget, I might just roll with Martin over Bader or MAT if we can land a good SP. However, I have only seen Martin play CG a couple times. If he can be relatively close defensively, Martin has upside offensively. Bader becomes a more intriguing addition if the doctors are telling the team Buxton has a reasonable chance of playing 80+ games in CF next year.
  15. Major League Ready
    The Twins offense was quite good after the AS break. I would determine what to do with position players after taking a run at Montgomery / Rodriquez oe perhaps Stroman. If we can't land one of those guys maybe we take a chance on Giolito or Maeda. Once the pitching spend is determined we address the position players. If we spend $25M on a SP it becomes necessary to trade 1 or 2 of Polanco / Farmer and Kepler and I would prioritize keeping them in the reverse order. Kepler is a starter where the other two are bench players and we have far more depth in the IF. The next priority is CF. If we could sign Kiermaier or Jung-Ho Lee, I would trade Polanco or Farmer or both. We can get a very good SP and Kiermaier or Lee for $140M but Polanco would have to go and possibly Farmer as well if it were one of the top SPs.
  16. Major League Ready
    I am assuming Polanco and Farmer are not both going to be here and they just might trade both. Also assuming Gordon is gone. That's another $12-18M.
  17. Major League Ready
    I like the Lee idea. However, I am not following the numbers. If you trade Polanco, you are at $106.4M (see below) while keeping Thielbar. The latest budget blurb is that they will cut at least 10% which is a max of $140M. That gives you $33M to spend. MLB Trade Rumors projects Lee at 5/50. Even at $11M AAV for Lee you would have up to $22M to spend on pitching. The next guy I would move in this equation is Farmer which would give you $38M available for pitching after signing Lee.
  18. Major League Ready
    You might want to think this through. If Ohtani will generate $50M for the Twins. He will generate $100M for the Dodgers.
  19. Major League Ready
    They can still improve this team If at least 10% means they are willing to go as high as 90% under the right circumstances. That's still $140M.
  20. Major League Ready
    How about Jung-Ho Lee? You don't often get a crack at guys that age. I am with you. The rest of the available position players does not excite much. Trade Rumors predicts 4/80 for Hernadez. He was very good 20-22 but mediocre this season. It's a little harder for me to be excited about a guy coming off a bad season. Soler has a high K rate and so bad in the OF that he is basically a DH. I am kind of intrigued by Lee.
  21. Major League Ready
    Darn good point. I thought the same thing but just let it go. What I was thinking when I responded was that some of the multi-million dollar facilities upgrades (if planned) could be postponed.
  22. Major League Ready
    Fair question. Let me start by saying I am advocating for what I would do. Will they be willing? IDK but some here will recall that a few years ago I was dead set against that type of free agent. My position has changed because the team is in a different position. The FO position could be different than the past as well although the reduced payroll does throw some cold water on the whole thing. Even if they are willing, their willingness might get trampled where the top guys are concerned by all the big market teams that are looking for pitching this year. A lot of the top guys are targeting pitching not to mention the position player side is much weaker than pitching. That said freeing up funds to be spent elsewhere is still a good idea. That might mean Giolitto instead of Montgomery but I would still trade both Polanco and Farmer if I could turn that payroll into a good SP. I am not trading top prospects. The team’s ceiling as I illustrated in a previous post is much higher keeping them so if we are looking to build a true contender trading top prospects is a bad idea. They might be able to trade Julien for pitching but team’s that trade top pitching are generally looking for prospects because they are rebuilding. It’s just really rare / almost unheard of for a true contender to trade a true top of the rotation player for another established player. Seattle for example could keep their pitching and easily acquire a Polanco type player for prospects. However, I would not be at all surprised if they acquire pitching via trade. I just don't think it will be the big name everyone wants. It will be a guy they believe has upside.
  23. Major League Ready
    You are sure right about contracts for pitchers but didn't we also say something similar about Correa and the contract he would command? We have also never in my memory had this much young position talent which allows for a significant FA pitcher to be signed. Now, if they bring what has been projected, it's not happening but I would like to think it's a possibility. I was the guy dead set against this kind of acquisition a few years ago but I think we are positioned very differently now. If they go trade for a SP, I don't believe it's an established ace. It will be someone like Lopez who was seen as a mid-rotation guy. He elevated his status this year and I think the Twins look for someone similar.
  24. Major League Ready
    Really well-balanced thoughts here, Doc. I also don't think they are poised to win the WS as constructed. However, I also don't think spending an extra $10M or even $20M or even $30M is likely to get us there. We need the new Young core that is replacing the old core to be better than what Buxton / Polanco / Kepler / Rosario etc produced. The twist that does not get much attention is that trading prospects for vets diminishes the supply of cheap talent that enables us to spend on free agency. The reason we were able to sign Correa regardless of if we think it's a good investment is because we had so much young talent. The current situation with Polanco is a great example. I would require trading a great deal of prospect capital to get a true front of the rotation SP. Whereas trading Polanco frees up payroll and also brings in prospects. That an uncertain but potentially incredibly impactful swing between those two strategies. Perhaps more importantly, the prospects offer the potential of 6-7 years of service where the trading for established players in usually for 2 years. No doubt spending enhances the chances of winning. However, the source of the Twins relatively lower spending is not that they don't spend. It's that they don't generate as much revenue as many other teams. Being disappointed that they don't spend like teams generating a $100M or more in revenue makes little sense to me. However, I hope they stretch the payroll as a far as possible too.
  25. Major League Ready
    You are chasing a model that works for top 10 revenue teams. We are not one of them and chasing a model that you can't possibly execute is a horrendously poor strategy. Get over it. There are 10 teams that produce $100M or $200M or $300M more in revenue. Guess what, they are going to get those free agents. I will take year after year of 90 win teams and take my chances winning the WS. If we win our share, we win a title every 30 years. The Rangers had never won. I watch 120 games/year and want to see a good product as often as possible. That's the model I want them to follow, especially when the model you insist upon is simply not a model a team with below average revenue can possibly execute. BTW ... Bryon Stott produce 3.9 WAR this year vs 1.1 for Correa and Stott won a GG at 2B. I will take him at SS and $30M that would buy me a top SP without a shadow of a doubt.
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