Jim Crikket

Well I can say I'm glad my elementary education major of a daughter doesn't read this site. She'd be using this to "prove" to her dad that she needs a new iPad... and if dad buys one of those for anyone, it will be for himself! Welcome to blogdom, Scott

rileyroy - My recollection is that, yes, anyone on the claiming team's 40 man roster that they would want to send back in trade would have had to clear waivers first. Then again, the Twins would have a very early waiver claim on any AL player so they could, in turn, claim said player and then work out the trade. Minor leaguers not on the 40 man roster don't have to clear waivers, though, which is why many August trades are for prospects (or organizational minor leaguers). James - Capps and Pavano are interesting cases. Do the Twins send them through waivers immediately when it's unlikely anyone would claim them prior to seeing whether they can actually pitch, which would allow the Twins to trade them to anyone once they've cleared waivers? Or would they wait until they've proven healthy enough to pitch quasi-effectively with the hope someone WOULD claim them so the Twins could simply let them go to anyone willing to relieve the Twins of the rest of their contracts? Not sure which is the better strategy at this point. Then again, I'm not even sure whether you can put someone who's on the DL on waivers.

I haven't been to Port Charlotte for a minor league game, but I've been there for Spring Training games and I would be shocked if tickets for an Advanced A game there would be difficult to come by. I suppose they might have some kind of final-game-of-the-season Fan Appreciation Promotion that might bring a decent crowd out, but they've got a great "boardwalk" around the outfield for general admission ticketholders and I can't imagine there not being tickets available. Maybe check Port Charlotte's boxscores to see what kind of attendance they routinely get.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate you stopping by and thanks for the kind words.

I'm kind of with Peanuts on this. The Forum and Blog sections serve two completely different purposes for me. The blogs offer an opportunity to provide perspective and context on a topic that the writer feels strongly enough about to at least attempt to put forth her/his thoughtful viewpoint or share experiences with others. The Forum, frankly, seems more geared toward instant "debate". I rarely learn anything new from the Forum and while I'm as willing to debate viewpoints as the next person, I don't like being drawn in to the general lack of civility that can occur (I admit I'm guilty of that at times and it does bother me in retrospect) and after a while it just becomes beating dead horses and a bunch of people saying the same things over and over. Give me a well thought out blog post any day, even if I don't necessarily agree with the author's point. That's one reason I applaud John's efforts to come up with some way to generate more content in that area.

Great piece! As a kid, our vacation at least every other year was to Cody WY where a sizable group of my relatives had moved to. If we took the train, that meant having someone pick us up in Billings. Now that I think about it, the only time I've flown out there to see relatives, we flew in to Billings, too. I do love that part of the country. I admit, however, that I never even recognized that they played baseball out there. It seems like all my relatives ever wanted to do was go to the rodeo! Enjoy the trip!

I think Thrylos is on to something there (the 2 week topic "assignment", not the firing of Gardy, Andy and Terry ). CapitalBabs got me in to an online photography club a couple of years ago. The organizer would periodically assign a topic and everyone would go out and take pictures that fit the genre or topic assigned, then share with the group by the deadline. Even that became tough to keep up with over time and eventually died off (or they left and reorganized somewhere without me because my photography sucked, which is quite possible!). But while it was going, I really enjoyed it. It might even be a good way to generate more off-season activity because, while some of us never shut up about baseball, I think we'll find a lot of people don't spend nearly as much of their winters thinking, much less writing, about the Twins.

Wow, with so much blogging talent in Beloit this weekend, maybe I should skip my regular Saturday poker tournament and buzz up there. Maybe some of that writing talent would rub off! It may also be the last/best time to catch the Twins prospects in Beloit (just in case that PDC isn't renewed). Going to have to ponder that idea.

I think the idea has some merit, John. Two "concerns" come to my mind immediately, however. First, while I like to think I'm relatively active in terms of generating content for our Knuckleballs blog and often re-post articles here, I'm not sure I could commit to two blog posts per week at TD. First, not all of the stuff I write for our own blog is directly related to the Twins. For example, I did a two-part series earlier this week on my local minor league team, the Cedar Rapids Kernels, that included an interview with their GM. I don't re-post things here unless they really are Twins related. But more than that, one of the best things about blogging is that I don't have "deadlines" and I don't have to write if I either don't have anything in particular to say or if I'm just too busy with life for a little while. So the 2/week thing would probably keep me from signing up. Maybe most others wouldn't have that issue, though. I'm also a bit queazy about the "constructive criticism" thing. If there were a way to offer it privately, rather than in public comments, that's fine. It may just be me, but knowing how tough it is at times to put your stuff out there for public review, I'd still just feel uneasy about posting even the most well-intentioned constructive criticism in someone's comment section. Especially someone who I don't know well enough or haven't read enough from to know for sure it would be taken in the spirit it's offered. I do like the idea of using the ratings more. I've always wondered why that feature isn't better utilized. I guess I'm as guilty of that as everyone, because I never "rate" anything here either. I think getting that function used regularly would be a good thing. Just my 2 cents.

Congratulations! It's an understatement to say you're all off to a terrific start. I'm sure everything from here will just keep getting better.

This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com I’m not one to usually say, “I told you so,” but… yeah… I did tell you so. I told you to prepare to be disappointed at the trade deadline so it comes as no surprise to me that most Twins fans seemed to come away from the July 31 non-waiver deadline disappointed in the lack of moves by the Twins. Many of us do understand why the roster remained intact, except for the trade of Francisco Liriano. The new CBA dampened enthusiasm for players who will be free agents at the end of the season. Justin Morneau’s contract is too big to get other teams excited about trading something of value for him. Other teams are understandably hoarding their top “high ceiling” young starting pitchers and weren’t willing to part with them for any of the Twins players Terry Ryan had to offer. Logically, we know there will remain interest in those same players this off-season. But even knowing and understanding all of that, there’s disappointment all over Twinsville. I’m disappointed in the aftermath of the deadline, too. But not necessarily for the same reasons others are. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TerryRyan-251x300.jpg Terry Ryan Some people are disappointed that Ryan didn’t just take the best offer on the table for a player like Denard Span, for whom the Twins arguably have a suitable replacement for already in Ben Revere. Some felt Josh Willingham, who at age 33 is having the best year of his career, will never be more valuable than he is now and should have been traded for the best deal offered, simply for that reason. I don’t happen to agree with either of these positions, so I’m not disappointed that Span and Willingham are still Twins. In fact, when the deadline passed Tuesday with no deals by the Twins, I wasn’t really disappointed at all. No, my disappointment came a little later. Phil Mackey of 1500ESPN posted a couple articles with quotes from Terry Ryan in the aftermath of Tuesday’s trade deadline and it was Ryan’s comments, taken all together, that provide the groundwork for my disappointment. "There's a lot of players on this ballclub that people would like to have on their team. I don't think there's any question about that. I don't think there's any shock that people putting up the numbers on this ballclub would be desirable for other organizations. If you're going to do something with that you'd like to think that you're getting equity back. We didn't see it." "Everything that we do here right now probably includes some sort of pitching. In particular, starting pitching. I think we've shown some resiliency in that bullpen out there. "It is difficult to come out with starting pitching, especially the younger controllable-type guys that organizations covet, where they have control. That's exactly the types of people we were looking to bring back in any sort of deal, and we just couldn't get what we were looking for today." "We have holes. And some of it is pitching. And some of it is not. There are other areas we need to address.” "Some of it will be injury. Some of it would be chemistry and some of it is execution. We've cracked in a few areas this year." So much there to digest, isn’t there? Yet, I can’t see anything there I disagree with at all. There certainly was no shortage of players other teams were interested in having. It’s also good to see the Twins recognize their biggest problem, whether short term or long term, is their rotation. They needed good young high-ceiling pitchers in any deal and apparently didn’t get that kind of talent offered. Ryan is also correct in saying that pitching is not the only hole they have to fill. The middle infield remains less productive than you would like it to be, for example. They certainly have “cracked” in more than one area over the course of the season. But then there were these additional quotes. "As you know, I don't worry too much about the payroll. We had all kinds of money this year and we didn't get it done. It's not a payroll issue. It's personnel and making sure we put the right people in the right place.” "I'm not banking on free agency, to be honest. If you keep banking on free agency, you'll end up chasing your tail. This is not going to be a free agency approach. This is going to be no shortcuts and doing the job the way it's supposed to be done. And that's usually that's with young, development, scouting and picking the right people." Sigh. If he had just said, “It’s not just a payroll issue,” and, “I’m not banking strictly on free agency,” I’d have felt a little better because I do agree that you can’t, “keep banking on free agency.” But he didn’t. So, taking his words exactly as quoted, we all have to be disappointed, because Terry Ryan is just wrong. It is partially about payroll and free agency is a perfectly legitimate “shortcut” to fielding a better baseball team than you currently have. Shortcuts are not necessarily mutually exclusive from, “doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done.” Have you ever been to San Francisco and decided to take a little day trip across the bay to Sausalito? It’s not very far away and there are multiple ways to get there. The most direct route is by boat, but of course that costs you some cash. If you have the cash, I think it’s the best option. If you are on a budget, you can drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then again, that’s a toll bridge, so even traveling that way comes with a cost, too. Both are shortcuts, though, because you do have another option. You can travel east a ways then north a longer ways, then west a ways, then south a ways and get to Sausalito that way. Not many people do that, because people recognize their time has value, too, and it takes a lot of extra time to get where you want to go that way (and if you're directionally challenged, you may take a wrong turn and never get exactly where you wanted to go). There was a time, during Terry Ryan’s first tour of duty as GM, when the Twins had no alternative to taking the long way toward building a competitive team. They simply couldn’t afford the free agency shortcut. They had no choice but to flip veteran players for prospects as soon as they got expensive and then develop those prospects and hope they turned in to good Big Leaguers. They had moderate success doing that, too. But they don’t have to do that now. Not exclusively, anyway. Is developing from within still the best way to fill out most of your roster? Abso-friggin-lutely, it is. But utilizing free agency to augment that process… to fill those “holes” Ryan referred to… in order to maintain a level of competitiveness, is not wrong just because it’s an option you didn’t have five years ago. I would have hoped that their experience with Josh Willingham would have demonstrated that to the Twins front office. If the Twins had traded off most of their veterans Tuesday, I’d have been disappointed. I’m in the group of fans that believes the line up is capable of competing within their division in 2013 if they fix the rotation. That said, if they'd gone the route of trading off the veterans, I’d have at least understood that Terry Ryan has a plan and I’m just going to have to be more patient to see how it unfolds. But he didn’t do that. The result is that he seems to be caught in between… not embracing the new “shortcut” available to him to get the team back on track quicker through free agency, but also not fully executing the old “flip veterans for top prospects” method of building a competitive team over a longer period of time, either. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Mauer-Morneau-2-300x261.jpg This is not what Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau signed up for (Photo: AP/Tom Olmscheid) It’s that purgatory in between that appears to indicate a lack of any real plan that disappoints me more than anything else today. Then again, it's the same disappointment I felt last year when the Twins made no attempt to improve their rotation through free agency, so this isn't exactly new disappointment. I would think it would have to be disappointing Joe Mauer and the other veteran players, as well. These guys are here because they felt they would have a legitimate chance to play for a winner in Minnesota and it’s hard to see how that will happen for anyone who’s already approaching or past his 30th birthday if the Twins are unwilling to tap the free agent market for serious rotation help. If the "free agency approach" is not an option, it seems to me that the right thing for Terry Ryan to do would be to call those guys together… Mauer, Morneau, Span, Willingham, Doumit, Perkins… and say, “Guys, here’s the plan. We’re not going to spend money for top free agent pitching, so we’re probably going to continue to struggle with the rotation. That means we’re probably going to have to win a lot of 8-7 games to even come close to being a .500 team for the next couple of years. That’s not what any of you signed up for. We’d like to give our fans some familiar faces to root for and our young pitchers some semblance of offensive support, so unless we get bowled over by an offer, we’d like to keep most of you around. But if you would prefer, we will see what we can get for you on the trade market this off-season. We won’t give anyone away for a handful of magic beans, but if we can get legitimate prospects in return, we’ll try to give you a better shot to play for a contender. Talk to your agents and have them give me a call. Either way, thank you for what you’ve given the organization already and no hard feelings.” When he’s done with that chat and after he hears back from their agents, he could communicate something similar to the fan base. Would there be disappointment? Yes. But the honesty would be refreshing, everyone would know what to expect and at least there would be some rational hope for the future. As it is now, all we’ve got is the disappointment, even if we can't all agree on why we're disappointed. - JC P.S. To be fair, Jim Pohlad sounded at least slightly more positive about the Twins participation in the free agent market in this Pioneer Press article. The money quote: "We will definitely look at the free-agent market," Pohlad said Tuesday, July 31. "We probably won't sign the most expensive free-agent pitcher that there is. Terry (Ryan, general manager) is committed to doing everything (to improve the team)." Pohlad said the Twins, who are 12 games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox, will be able to afford some free agents. The Twins' payroll this season is about $100 million. "We're happy at the level (of payroll) we're at right now," the Twins CEO said.

This article was originally posted at Knuckleballsblog.com I’m not one to usually say, “I told you so,” but… yeah… I did tell you so. I told you to prepare to be disappointed at the trade deadline so it comes as no surprise to me that most Twins fans seemed to come away from the July 31 non-waiver deadline disappointed in the lack of moves by the Twins. Many of us do understand why the roster remained intact, except for the trade of Francisco Liriano. The new CBA dampened enthusiasm for players who will be free agents at the end of the season. Justin Morneau’s contract is too big to get other teams excited about trading something of value for him. Other teams are understandably hoarding their top “high ceiling” young starting pitchers and weren’t willing to part with them for any of the Twins players Terry Ryan had to offer. Logically, we know there will remain interest in those same players this off-season. But even knowing and understanding all of that, there’s disappointment all over Twinsville. I’m disappointed in the aftermath of the deadline, too. But not necessarily for the same reasons others are. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/TerryRyan-251x300.jpg Terry Ryan Some people are disappointed that Ryan didn’t just take the best offer on the table for a player like Denard Span, for whom the Twins arguably have a suitable replacement for already in Ben Revere. Some felt Josh Willingham, who at age 33 is having the best year of his career, will never be more valuable than he is now and should have been traded for the best deal offered, simply for that reason. I don’t happen to agree with either of these positions, so I’m not disappointed that Span and Willingham are still Twins. In fact, when the deadline passed Tuesday with no deals by the Twins, I wasn’t really disappointed at all. No, my disappointment came a little later. Phil Mackey of 1500ESPN posted a couple articles with quotes from Terry Ryan in the aftermath of Tuesday’s trade deadline and it was Ryan’s comments, taken all together, that provide the groundwork for my disappointment. "There's a lot of players on this ballclub that people would like to have on their team. I don't think there's any question about that. I don't think there's any shock that people putting up the numbers on this ballclub would be desirable for other organizations. If you're going to do something with that you'd like to think that you're getting equity back. We didn't see it." "Everything that we do here right now probably includes some sort of pitching. In particular, starting pitching. I think we've shown some resiliency in that bullpen out there. "It is difficult to come out with starting pitching, especially the younger controllable-type guys that organizations covet, where they have control. That's exactly the types of people we were looking to bring back in any sort of deal, and we just couldn't get what we were looking for today." "We have holes. And some of it is pitching. And some of it is not. There are other areas we need to address.” "Some of it will be injury. Some of it would be chemistry and some of it is execution. We've cracked in a few areas this year." So much there to digest, isn’t there? Yet, I can’t see anything there I disagree with at all. There certainly was no shortage of players other teams were interested in having. It’s also good to see the Twins recognize their biggest problem, whether short term or long term, is their rotation. They needed good young high-ceiling pitchers in any deal and apparently didn’t get that kind of talent offered. Ryan is also correct in saying that pitching is not the only hole they have to fill. The middle infield remains less productive than you would like it to be, for example. They certainly have “cracked” in more than one area over the course of the season. But then there were these additional quotes. "As you know, I don't worry too much about the payroll. We had all kinds of money this year and we didn't get it done. It's not a payroll issue. It's personnel and making sure we put the right people in the right place.” "I'm not banking on free agency, to be honest. If you keep banking on free agency, you'll end up chasing your tail. This is not going to be a free agency approach. This is going to be no shortcuts and doing the job the way it's supposed to be done. And that's usually that's with young, development, scouting and picking the right people." Sigh. If he had just said, “It’s not just a payroll issue,” and, “I’m not banking strictly on free agency,” I’d have felt a little better because I do agree that you can’t, “keep banking on free agency.” But he didn’t. So, taking his words exactly as quoted, we all have to be disappointed, because Terry Ryan is just wrong. It is partially about payroll and free agency is a perfectly legitimate “shortcut” to fielding a better baseball team than you currently have. Shortcuts are not necessarily mutually exclusive from, “doing the job the way it’s supposed to be done.” Have you ever been to San Francisco and decided to take a little day trip across the bay to Sausalito? It’s not very far away and there are multiple ways to get there. The most direct route is by boat, but of course that costs you some cash. If you have the cash, I think it’s the best option. If you are on a budget, you can drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Then again, that’s a toll bridge, so even traveling that way comes with a cost, too. Both are shortcuts, though, because you do have another option. You can travel east a ways then north a longer ways, then west a ways, then south a ways and get to Sausalito that way. Not many people do that, because people recognize their time has value, too, and it takes a lot of extra time to get where you want to go that way (and if you're directionally challenged, you may take a wrong turn and never get exactly where you wanted to go). There was a time, during Terry Ryan’s first tour of duty as GM, when the Twins had no alternative to taking the long way toward building a competitive team. They simply couldn’t afford the free agency shortcut. They had no choice but to flip veteran players for prospects as soon as they got expensive and then develop those prospects and hope they turned in to good Big Leaguers. They had moderate success doing that, too. But they don’t have to do that now. Not exclusively, anyway. Is developing from within still the best way to fill out most of your roster? Abso-friggin-lutely, it is. But utilizing free agency to augment that process… to fill those “holes” Ryan referred to… in order to maintain a level of competitiveness, is not wrong just because it’s an option you didn’t have five years ago. I would have hoped that their experience with Josh Willingham would have demonstrated that to the Twins front office. If the Twins had traded off most of their veterans Tuesday, I’d have been disappointed. I’m in the group of fans that believes the line up is capable of competing within their division in 2013 if they fix the rotation. That said, if they'd gone the route of trading off the veterans, I’d have at least understood that Terry Ryan has a plan and I’m just going to have to be more patient to see how it unfolds. But he didn’t do that. The result is that he seems to be caught in between… not embracing the new “shortcut” available to him to get the team back on track quicker through free agency, but also not fully executing the old “flip veterans for top prospects” method of building a competitive team over a longer period of time, either. http://knuckleballsblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Mauer-Morneau-2-300x261.jpg This is not what Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau signed up for (Photo: AP/Tom Olmscheid) It’s that purgatory in between that appears to indicate a lack of any real plan that disappoints me more than anything else today. Then again, it's the same disappointment I felt last year when the Twins made no attempt to improve their rotation through free agency, so this isn't exactly new disappointment. I would think it would have to be disappointing Joe Mauer and the other veteran players, as well. These guys are here because they felt they would have a legitimate chance to play for a winner in Minnesota and it’s hard to see how that will happen for anyone who’s already approaching or past his 30th birthday if the Twins are unwilling to tap the free agent market for serious rotation help. If the "free agency approach" is not an option, it seems to me that the right thing for Terry Ryan to do would be to call those guys together… Mauer, Morneau, Span, Willingham, Doumit, Perkins… and say, “Guys, here’s the plan. We’re not going to spend money for top free agent pitching, so we’re probably going to continue to struggle with the rotation. That means we’re probably going to have to win a lot of 8-7 games to even come close to being a .500 team for the next couple of years. That’s not what any of you signed up for. We’d like to give our fans some familiar faces to root for and our young pitchers some semblance of offensive support, so unless we get bowled over by an offer, we’d like to keep most of you around. But if you would prefer, we will see what we can get for you on the trade market this off-season. We won’t give anyone away for a handful of magic beans, but if we can get legitimate prospects in return, we’ll try to give you a better shot to play for a contender. Talk to your agents and have them give me a call. Either way, thank you for what you’ve given the organization already and no hard feelings.” When he’s done with that chat and after he hears back from their agents, he could communicate something similar to the fan base. Would there be disappointment? Yes. But the honesty would be refreshing, everyone would know what to expect and at least there would be some rational hope for the future. As it is now, all we’ve got is the disappointment, even if we can't all agree on why we're disappointed. - JC P.S. To be fair, Jim Pohlad sounded at least slightly more positive about the Twins participation in the free agent market in this Pioneer Press article. The money quote: "We will definitely look at the free-agent market," Pohlad said Tuesday, July 31. "We probably won't sign the most expensive free-agent pitcher that there is. Terry (Ryan, general manager) is committed to doing everything (to improve the team)." Pohlad said the Twins, who are 12 games behind the first-place Chicago White Sox, will be able to afford some free agents. The Twins' payroll this season is about $100 million. "We're happy at the level (of payroll) we're at right now," the Twins CEO said.

I've had similar expereinces with Mason City... afternoon games aren't generally carried. Living in Cedar Rapids, we're in a similar dead zone. The only MLB radio carried is the ESPN Radio affiliate, which carries many, but not all, of the WSox games. I subscribe to MLB.tv, even though the entire state is subject to blackout for all 6 MLB teams in surrounding states. The upside to that is that it comes with MLB AtBat, which allows me to bring in Twins radio broadcasts on my smartphone (if I'm in out and about) and on the computer (if I'm home). I'm hopeful that the local Class A team in CR might switch from their Angels affiliation to the Twins next year. If that should happen, there's a decent chance we start seeing a bit more media interest in the Twins in eastern Iowa anyway.

Good point. Obviously the Geek would get all the travel assignments. Not sure how TVOR would feel about that. Then again, she might like the idea.

I was thinking the same thing. Especially if Baker and his agent believe the Twins medical staff has been less than spectacular with regard to addressing his injury(ies). He may not want to trust what's left of his career to the same staff. Not to mention, he (like every other player his age) may prefer to see if he can hook on to an organization more committed to competing within the next year or two.

Gleeman and the Geek, of course! They solve all the Twins' problems within the time it takes to do a podcast every Sunday, so imagine what they could do if they shared the GM gig on a full time basis! Of course, I'm not sure they'd both live through the first month of sharing the job.

I continue to be a bit delinquent in checking in on James, but with the addition of another middle infielder to the organization as part of the Liriano trade, I thought now would be a good time to find out how he's been doing. It's not exactly pretty, at least on the offensive side. James' batting average has dropped to .255 and his OPS is down to .614. He needs to pick things back up again and finish the season strong to leave a positive impression on the organization heading in to the off-season. On the defensive side, however, he's continued to do an excellent job. He's always had good range, but committing just five errors on the entire season, so far, while playing both 2B and SS, is exceptional. Now let's get that bat going again!

Wow, you're in for a heck of a trip if you're hitting all of the affiliates! I'm anxious to keep up on your travels.

I could certainly see Morneau being traded in an August waiver deal and if the Twins agree to cover a significant portion of his remaining contract, it could buy a decent return. Small chance, perhaps, but not impossible. Strange stuff happens in August when teams can really sniff the finish line and they get hit with an injury.

Not to hijack this thread (though there seem to be a few other Span/Reds threads, so maybe it would be OK), but being a real baseball writer/reporter is a tough gig these days. Either you aren't out there getting news regarding your assigned beat first (perhaps due to those pesky journalistic ethics that require multiple sources before reporting news) and thus you're "lazy" or you DO report (via social media) things you hear from only one source and you therefore get it wrong occasionally and you've "mindlessly tweeted whatever you want". Kinda makes me glad I dropped out of journalism school.

Yeah I've always understood the deal has to be done and in to the MLB office by the firm deadline. Of course, that doesn't mean it's reported immediately. Could be some time before last minute deals are announced to media.

MLB Network reporters are on crack? Well... that explains SO much.

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Yeah saw that Tweeted, too, and "huh?" was my first reaction. Maybe TR got an offer that he didn't feel was a "must do", but offered Span a choice if he wanted to go to a contender right now? No idea what else it might be. Not aware he had even any partial no-trade rights.

You're assuming you know he's at peak value now. That's no more "true" an assumption than any other assumption. Could he get injured? Sure. He could also go on a tear and increase his value even more. Just because one possibility fits your desire to see him traded now more than the other possibility doesn't make your assumption any more valid. It's a crapshoot either way and taking a lesser deal now just because he might get injured before the offseason would be foolish.