The other half of that is they don’t have money for a really good pitcher because they spent it on Ober and Kremer.
You can “raise the floor” into the 70 win range. To break through to the 90 win range, you need All-Stars. There isn’t a “3rd place” pennant.
The Saints season will be over September 20. If Rodriguez isn’t up for the final six games of the season then either the Twins have exceeded expectations or they really, really don’t like Rodriguez.
“I don’t fault Twins decision-makers for making the trade.”
I will. They’re so focused on “raising the floor” that they spent prospects to bring in a starting pitcher not good enough to win a playoff game. When you have a borderline team, you can’t “raise the floor” into the playoffs. You have to raise the ceiling.
You have to assume that at least one of those five teams has a winning record in Sept. That means the Twins will have to win at least 16 of the next 24 games.
He’s overly focused on the percentage and not the total. If Jeffers had allowed 10 stolen bases and not thrown out anyone this year he would be focused on the 0% and not the fact that he only allowed 10 steals.
The median MLB team has 95 steals this season, which is basically what you get when you double Jeffers’ totals. His stolen bases allowed is pretty close to the base rate. That’s why the cost is just two extra runs.
If a team wants to meet the minimum they can take on a worthless contract, get paid by another team to do it, cut the player and end up no better off on talent but more profitable.
Runs the catcher costs a team on defense from stolen bases is actually one of the easiest, most objective and most accurate things to measure of all the defensive statistics.
There is no way in hell the owners would create a system that has them spending more money than they are spending right now. They aren’t threatening a lockout to open up their wallets and throw cash around. That is a very, very naive take.
I hate hard cap and floor because every transaction is about how it affects the cap and not how it affects the level of talent on the team. Dead weight contracts become valuable because they can be bought out.
I also think the Twins front office would be totally screwed if they had to learn how to run a franchise with a minimum spend. They’re bad enough decision makers now. If the decisions become more complicated they will be even worse. They will blow the whole budget on old folks and watch their blocked young talent succeed elsewhere.
Brandon Lowe has produced more offense than Bell this season and he has a good glove at 2B. Gleyber Torres can still hit, he just missed time with an injury.
History has also told us that Jenkins and Rodriguez are also likely to miss large parts of the season. Between the three players they will be lucky to cover two spots. Martin and Roden will get plenty of playing time.
They have some depth in the outfield to cover for injuries. They have diddly squat in the infield. Adding a starting caliber middle infielder is critical. That frees up Kody to cover several positions as injury depth. Marek Houston should not be part of 2027 plans as a primary or secondary option.