IndianaTwin

I thought of the fact that I hadn't identified someone as a longer relief guy. However, I do think that last year's shorter starts were an injury-based aberration, based on prior years' starter usage patterns when the Twins were more or less at league average. I also considered several other factors. First, I think the overall rotation will be stronger than a year ago, so there will be fewer really short starts. Second, they don't have an Archer in the mix, which was a guaranteed start of no more than five and often just four innings. The possible exception is Maeda. However, if he's indeed not up to a normal starter's workload, he's someone who does actually have the experience of being a several-inning guy in the bullpen. Third, my bullpen has a lot of experience, including guys who are more used to going on back-to-back days than last year's bullpen was. Finally, with the overall strength of this bullpen, they can afford to shift a guy like Jax to being a two-inning guy on occasion. With this year's experience, they couldn't do that, since they couldn't afford to use him up for a couple days.

You did read me correctly, and apparently I've misunderstood that part. With your understanding, plus the $800k from my mistakenly including Cave, I'm adding Fulmer to the bullpen as well.

There are a number of guys, including Pagan, who have no contract information other than the years of control. I see that on other teams as well, and all of them seem to be people who are in the arbitration window. It's not all people in the arbitration window, but there's enough of them that I read it as "incomplete." And I know that being a catcher has value, but it's hard for me to believe that two years of Jansen is worth six years of Lewis or Miranda. I was also basing my comment off this tweet. It's a tweet, so who knows what "far more interest" means, but it suggests that he's seen as having at least some value. I should have been more clear in my original post in saying that it would take more than Pagan, but I'd like to think his inclusion would soften the prospect inclusion need.

I’m going off the word on the street that says teams have expressed interest in Pagan, along with assuming there would need to be some level of prospect inclusion.

Thanks. I knew, but missed that. Guess that frees up a little to make sure Chapman fits!

The idea of taking a shot at an offseason plan is always a fun one. Here's my attempt. As best as I could, I used the arbitration projections cited elsewhere. I also used the free agent projections at MLBTradeRumors as starting points. And I had the advantage of being able to include the Urshela and Farmer moves and other action that's happened to date. First, the sunk costs – options that didn’t get picked up: Bundy $1M, Archer $.75M and Sano $2.75M for a total cost of $4.5M Next is the rotation guys already on the roster – Gray $11.825M, Ryan $1M, Mahle $7.2M, Maeda $3.125M, Paddack $2.4M, Dobnak $1.5M, Winder $0.75M, Ober $0.75M, for a total cost of $28.5M. I’m willing to run with this group of eight, knowing I’ve got Woods Richardson, Varland, Enlow, Balazovic, Henriquez and Enlow in St. Paul. I’ll also grab a couple Aaron Sanchez/Dereck Rodriguez-types on minor league contracts to see if I can catch lightning in a bottle. Relievers on the roster – Duran $0.725M, Thielbar $2.4M, Lopez $3.7, Moran $0.725M, Jax $0.75M, Alcala $0.8M, for a total cost of $9.1M. The close reader will note the absence of Pagan. I’m actually not that averse to keeping him around, but I’m going to take advantage of the rumor mill that says multiple teams expressed interest. Stay tuned. Catcher – Jeffers at $1.3M. We’ll need more, obviously. Stay tuned. Infield – The mixture of Miranda (1b/3b) $0.75M, Farmer (ss/3b) $5.9M, Arraez (1b/2b) $5M, Polanco (2b) $7.5M and Gordon (2b/ss) $0.75M gets us a base-level infield at $19.9M, with Lewis and Lee waiting in the wings. You might wanna stay tuned, however. Outfield – The mix of Buxton $15.143, Kepler $8.5M, Larnach $1M, Kirilloff $1M, Celestino $0.725, Wallner $0.725M and Cave $0.8M gives flexibility at $27.893M. I think Kepler will bounce back and at least one of the Larnach/Kirilloff/Wallner trio will fully blossom. Consider as well that Gordon and even Lewis or Lee could fit into this picture as well. And that gives us a total cost of $91.193M so far, with just the need for a catcher, bullpen depth and miscellaneous other improvements. There's really no one on this list that can't DH, so I'm assuming people will rotate through that spot. We’ll start with catcher. The Blue Jays are operating from a position of depth with Alejandro Kirk, mega-prospect Gabriel Moreno and still-young Danny Jansen. It’s also a team that is seeking bullpen depth, so I’m going to offer Pagan for Jansen. It may take a prospect to add to the mix, but I’m comfortable that it won’t need to be a highly ranked guy, so I’ll plug in Jansen at $3.7M, bringing us to $94.893M. I’m still needing bullpen depth, but I’ll first address the elephant in the room – miscellaneous improvements. I give Correa a raise to $35.5M per year for the next four years, with an opt out, followed by two years at $32M with another opt out, followed by two years at $30M. That’s a guarantee of $266M over eight years, but it's front-loaded for him and gives him the ability to opt out after his age 31 and 33 seasons, both ages when he’s still young enough to get a six- or four-year deal. With his $35.5M for 2023, our total is $130.393M as we head to the bullpen. I’ve always had a thing for David Robertson, and he proved me right this year. He’s served as a closer and as a setup guy in the past, and I offer him the 2/$16M MLBTR suggests. I’m generally skeptical of big contracts to relievers, but seeing Kenley Jansen at 2/$26M is too good to pass up. That pushes the budget up to $151.393, but I’ll have a bit of savings in that I’ve got dollar figures attached to 30 guys. Though all 30 guys will see MLB time at some point, several of them won’t get the total listed here, since they’ll spend some time in the minors. I figure that’ll save a couple million. And as it turns out, I’ve got a March birthday, and the bosses give me a birthday present. On MLBTRs list, they’ve got dollar values assigned to nine relievers, with an annual salaries of $4.5M at the bottom. In their list of “honorable mention,” they’ve got Michael Fulmer, Craig Kimbrel, Seth Lugo, Matt Moore and Matt Strahm. If any of them don’t get a major league deal, I give them a minor league contract with opt-out dates and an incentive-based contract. And the birthday present gets even better – to me, the most conspicuous name that’s missing from MLTTR's article is Aroldis Chapman. Seeing him unsigned, I give him a $3M guarantee with incentives and look forward to him slamming the door in Game 7 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. Chapman’s $3M balances the bit of savings that’s in guys who’ve been optioned, and leaves me with a budget of just over $150M, but when the higher-ups think about adding Chapman, Jansen, Robertson and a veteran on a minor league contract to a bullpen that already has Duran, Jax, Lopez, Thielbar, Alcala and Moran, they say “Go for it” and give me a $300 bonus gift certificate to spend in the team store. But alas, that’s still not enough to get one of the new jerseys. I liked the old ones better anyway.

Ryan went 7.0 on 4/27, but yes, the 7-inning starts of Gray (5/24) and Smeltzer (5/26) came in the latter part of that first window. I also saw at least two other games where the starter pitched into the 7th, but didn't complete it. So, out of the first 50 games, Bundy went a full 6 twice and into the 6th twice more in his eight starts. Ryan went 7 once. 6 thrice and into the 6th once in his eight starts. Smeltzer went 7 and 6 once each and into the 6th in his four starts. Gray went 7 once and 6 twice in his seven starts. Ober went 6 in one of his three starts before getting hurt. Paddack went into the 6th twice in his four starts before the one in which he got hurt, though he didn't finish the inning either time. The exception was Archer, for whom the plan was not to go long, at least in the early part of the season. And as they've said in the offseason, the intent was to gradually stretch Archer out as the season went along, but he wasn't able to do so. But of the 41 non-Archer games, the starter finished 7 three times, finished 6 nine times, and went into the 6th six times. I didn't count the number of starts that went exactly 5, and there were a few where the guy was pulled earlier because of injury or getting shelled. Among other things, that means they finished at least 6 innings on 12 of the 41 non-Archer games and attempted to do so another 6 times. To me, that's enough to suggest that they wanted guys to go through six or even seven. And I didn't check this, but it sure seems like that's a higher percentage of longer starts than we saw later in the year, which is part of my point -- that they made a mid-season adjustment. Additionally, remember that the beginning of the year was also when they were using a 10-man bullpen, so they had additional bullets to use at the first sign of trouble. And for better or worse, they hadn't lost trust in guys like Duffey, Smith and Pagan yet, so they thought they were going to a strong bullpen when they pulled the starter. Alas, not so much. I didn't look at pitch counts, but I'd suggest that having a 10-man bullpen available was also a factor in not extending guys beyond the counts you reference. But thanks for your response and pushing back a bit. I didn't name this above, but I think we'll have a better feel for whether "short starts" is "The Plan" when we see how they shape the staff this offseason and then play into the new year. As I look at their prior years' history, when they were generally around the league average, it feels as much like a one-year aberration as it does an ongoing trend.

Concur. MLBTR has Rodon at 5/$140M, or $28M/yr. Using MLBTR's estimates further, I'd rather spend roll with the starters we've got and spend $28M on Kenley Jansen (2/$26M), David Robertson (2/$16M) and either Adam Ottavino or Chris Martin (both at 2/$14M).

Los Angeles de Los Angeles.

Reserving judgment is not allowed on TD. Around here, we go ahead and declare the offseason an abject failure if we haven’t addressed all needs by Thanksgiving. /s

I’ll long remember driving down Interstate 57 in central Illinois, windows down on a beautiful summer evening, and the yell I let out when Sano hit the homer against Cleveland. Folks from several exits away reported hearing loud noises in the distance. Okay, maybe not that last part, but I’ll put that blast alongside Puckett’s homer, Larkin’s single, the 3-2-3 double play, and the Darrell Evans pickoff on the short list of most memorable plays in my nearly 50 years as a Twins fan. For the joy of that night, I can forgive an awful lot of strikeouts.

Paddack can be put on the 60-day IL at the beginning of spring training.

Not sure if a Beef & Chedd will do it, now that they’ve added that brisket sandwich with the bacon and onion straws. If either of those do it AND they’d bring the Orange Cream shake back, all would be good.

But actually, remember that there was a shortened spring training, so most pitchers had gotten fewer than normal starts during spring training. Additionally, they were carrying two more relievers than usual because of the expanded rosters. Even with those, they were throwing “normal” lengths as starters.

I agree that you have to plan for injury, and I'm always surprised at those on TD who list five guys for the rotation and assume that will be enough. But by May 29, the Twins had seven starters (Gray, Ober, Bundy, Paddack, Ryan, Dobnak, Winder) who'd spent time on the IL (Winder in the minors). I'm not sure how you can plan for that level of injury in the rotation. In addition, Balazovic was also on the minor league IL until May 1 and then was getting hammered when he did come back, so he wasn't the option they hoped he'd be. And I didn't speak to this, but also having four relievers (Alcala, Romero, Coulombe and Stashak) on the IL by late May certainly affected the bullpen's ability to bail them out when starters got injured. They only managed to get 36 innings all season out of four guys they were counting on for significantly more innings than that. And that doesn't consider the meltdown of a guy who was planned to help anchor the bullpen after three straight seasons of excellent relief -- Duffey. To me that's inordinate, so I'll offer sympathy. And we do have a new head trainer now. ?

Quite a number of posts have railed about “The Plan” for Twins starters to make short starts and never face the Third Time Through the Order, but I did a fairly deep dive into looking at box scores and would offer a different analysis of their starter usage this season. Here’s an alternative take for consideration, arguing that The Plan was not the plan: From Opening Day until about May 31, the Twins tried using starters in a “normal” pattern. If you look at starters across the board (except for Archer), there are a decent number of 6 inning starts and even some 7 inning starts from Gray, Ryan, Paddack, and Bundy. Unfortunately, by May 31, every starter except Archer had already spent time on the IL or was sent to the minors for being ineffective. That meant a 13-game stretch where their starters were Smeltzer, Sands, Ober, Archer, Gonzalez, Bundy, Smeltzer, Sands, Archer, Bundy, Smeltzer, Gonzalez. Continuing that is a recipe for disaster. On June 14 and 15, Ryan and Gray came off the IL to join Archer, Bundy and somebody else (more on that coming) in the rotation. At that point, I think the team felt like it had two choices. They could either keep using starters “normally” and risk them going back to the IL, replaced by Gonzalez, Sands, et. al, OR they could find a way to manage their workload. They chose the latter, shortening the outings of nearly all of their starters from that point forward. For a time it worked, at least in terms of staying healthy. From June 13 to Sept. 9, the quartet of Bundy-Archer-Ryan-Gray made all of their starts, with the exception of a short IL stint around the All-Star break for Archer, where he missed two outings. The fifth spot in the rotation was first filled by Smeltzer (6 times), Winder (3 times, once as a 27th man and twice in Archer’s spot) and Sanchez (2 times). Then they traded for Mahle, who made three starts in the fifth spot and got hurt. Then two more for Sanchez, one more for Mahle and one from Varland. I’d also suggest that it largely worked in terms of quality. Gray pitched as expected, but it was actually Bundy who was their most effective starter and who played a key role in keeping them in the race. Bundy had 14 starts (including two in the 13-game stint referenced above), going 72.1 innings with a 3.36 ERA and a .629 OPS against. Gray had 14 starts, going 71 innings with a 3.42 ERA and an .672 OPS against. Archer was arguably the next most effective. He made 15 starts (again counting the two in the 13-game stint referenced above), totaling 66.1 innings with a .657 OPS against. His ERA was elevated at 4.61, driven up primarily by several games when he got shellacked, including giving up six runs in 3 innings in his first game off the short IL stint. In 10 of the 15 games, however, he kept the team in the game by giving up two or fewer runs, but always in 4-5 innings. Though he threw the most innings (75 in 14 starts), Ryan was actually the least effective, giving up a .783 OPS on the way to a 4.80 ERA. In his defense on the latter, it’s skewed by a game in which he game up 10 runs. I didn’t total up the showings of the others, other than to anecdotally remember that it was a mix of performances, what one might expect of a No. 5. Though they had lost the lead, they were still just 1.5 games back when Cleveland came to town on Sept. 9. Then the wheels came off. Mahle had been picked up to the fill the fifth spot, but had gotten hurt. Though Archer had pitched a lot of decent games, he never stretched out to the degree they hoped and made just one more start before being shut down. Gray made two more starts and was shut down. Bundy kept making starts, but ran out of gas and was ineffective. The bullpen showed spurts of effectiveness (Duran, Jax, Fulmer and Lopez at times after their acquisitions, Pagan in low-leverage spots during July and August). But overall, the bullpen was unable to handle the workload required with the short outings. If you’ve made it this far, here’s my summary: Short starts wasn’t “The Plan,” but they were forced into it by early-season injuries and the inability of Archer to extend. Consider how the story with starters might have been different if either Paddack or Ober stayed healthy; Archer does stretch out to going 5 innings regularly and 6 occasionally rather than never getting past the 4-5 range; and Mahle stays healthy after the trade. Though they could have brought up some of the young guys to use as long reliever/piggy backs, I think they saw the writing on the wall that things were not sustainable. Instead, they placed an emphasis on the long view, allowing guys like Varland and Woods Richardson to continue their development. They DID have several instances where they used Sanchez as an innings-eater. Were there some games when Rocco could have read Twins Daily and kept a starter in an inning longer? Probably, but I think they were again playing the long game, believing that their only chance of staying in the race was making sure that guys could make their next start. And the one after that. As an additional data point to suggest that short starts wasn’t The Plan, it’s worth noting that in composite of the previous years of the Falvey/Levine era, the Twins were actually within 0.1 innings of the league average in start length. The one year in which they were 0.3 innings less than the league average was the year in which they used Openers on at least eight games. Eight starts of one inning instead of five knocks your season average down by 0.2 innings. Conversely, in the season when Berrios, Odo, Pineda and Gibson stayed healthy, they actually were 0.3 innings ABOVE average in starter length.

Does that mean Ron Davis was a Yugo?

I'm not sure either whether this would get it done -- I'm just not sure I'd want to go much further. My thought was that if he could only get three years of $35.1M AAV last year, it's going to be hard for him to get more years at that level this year. This gets him an additional two years at that level, plus another four years at close to that level. After adding up my numbers to get eight years at $270M, I realized that adding a ninth year at the $30M level would get him to that $300M number. But I'd be cautious about eight years, let alone a ninth. And my take on the front office is that they are more cautious about committing length than they are about committing AAV. Plus, in the industry, there seems to be a move toward opt-outs. I don't know if my numbers are right, but I could see a team using a structure along the lines of what I suggested. "Creativity and flexibility" in contract structure also seems to fit both the Boras and the Twins MO, so I see that as a potential advantage for the Twins over other teams in negotiations. Boras has already found that the Twins will listen to creative ideas.

With the pitchers, it's probably because Rocco didn't leave them on the mound long enough to get familiar with them.* *I'm not a Rocco/"Spreadsheet" basher (more toward the opposite, in fact). It just seemed like a smart-aleck thing to say before someone else did. ?

I could reasonably see it being beyond $300M. There's an element of one upmanship and pride in these negotiations. The .1 in $35.1M wasn't coincidence -- it allowed him to top Rendon in AAV among infielders. With that in mind, I think it will take either some years at >$35M or at $300M in total, since that's a nice round number. Perhaps both. So here's the idea that I've floated elsewhere... 8 years at $270M. The first four years at $36M, followed by two at $33M and two at $30M, with opt outs after four and six years. Correa gets... A raise for the first four years and in the neighborhood of some of the biggies that have happened. The ability to opt out if he thinks he can beat 4 years for $126M at age 31 or 2 years for $60M at age 33. A slightly front-loaded contract, which is beneficial for investment purposes. The Twins get... A bit of salary relief after four and six years if he opts in. A lot of salary relief after four or six years if he opts out. The ability for Lewis to play 3B for several years, flip-flopping with Correa at the appropriate time (think ARod moving to 3B). Is that close? I'm not sure it's enough, but I'm also not sure I'd go much further.

And completely unrelated, @Squirrel, you may be interested in knowing that my alma mater just introduced a new mascot, a squirrel named Dash. You have to be creative when you're the Maple Leafs. https://goleafs.net/sports/2022/10/6/meet-the-mascot.aspx

And while I'm at it, I'll make the first of my probably eleventy-seven times of saying this -- can we please not judge the entire offseason on one transaction that does or doesn't happen, can we please not make "we didn't even try" assertions on every free agent that we're not linked to, and and can we please wait until Opening Day to put a grade on the offseason? (This is not directed to anyone on this post -- just a general declaration about the tenor of how offseason TD discussions seem to go.) EDIT to add: @Squirrel, you must have posted while I was typing. I indeed wasn't poking at you! ?

Better than I thought they were at this point last year... Meaning, I still think it's doubtful, but they HAVE pulled off surprises. Few of us expected Correa. Few of us expected Donaldson. I don't remember back that far, but how many of us expected Cruz the first time? Not sure how many of us expected them to come through with seven years on Buxton.

Yes, Jansen is the guy I've been looking at, though more as a partner to Jeffers than ditching him altogether. Toronto has talked about getting Moreno at bats at other positions*, but I think that's more about not being seen to be having a glut at catcher and thus being desperate to trade. And Jansen will be a much cheaper pickup than Kirk or Moreno. *As the owner of Moreno in a keeper fantasy league, I'd be glad to have him playing every day at another position while maintaining his catcher eligibility.

Splitting time between two catchers? Yes, that will happen. But I don't think they'll be overly worried about a platoon arrangement. At catcher, they seem more concerned about balancing load than they do platoon-advantage. They tend to follow a pattern of alternating days, rarely giving a start three days in a row unless there are injury issues to deal with, When you're platooning, you're relying on the other team to tell you which person to play. So it might be a bonus if they have one catcher hitting from each side, but I'm guessing platoon balance is well down the priority list in shopping for a catcher.