Trov

The nature of how the game works is most FA signings are of less value than an arbitration or pre-arbitration player. Most players sign at or after their peak, and teams are hoping that players peak will last into mid to late 30's. However, only a very few players even play above league average late into 30's and they are HOF bound generally. The problem is once you sign one of these guys, even more so for mid-market teams, you are stuck with him for better or worse. Normally paying them for same level of play you could get a rookie to do, but paying them what a superstar output should be. This is why when so many fans call for spending huge on top FA pitchers, generally even higher risk than position players, I always respond with never more than 4 years, and would prefer 3. Fans call the Twins cheap for not going out to try and sign some of these FA pitchers, but it is not being cheap to not want to connect yourself to a terrible starting pitchers for 4 season after good 1 to 3 seasons. The talk of Bucks contract is that one it was cheaper because of his health risk. It is also a risk because one thing that made him amazing is his speed, something that will go away as he ages and continues to have lower body injuries. If he loses his speed he will lose much of his value because his speed put him so over the top. Not saying he is nothing without it, but he much less without it. When signing a player to long term deal into mid to late 30's you need to project how much will they hold up. Is their best skills going to go fade? For pitchers do they rely just on velo, and if so will they adjust when that fades? For hitters is speed their main tool, how will they adjust when that fades?

I think people are overhyping Julien as a "stud". I say this because he was unplayable against lefties. He had an OPS of .447 against lefties. Yes, he did very well against righties overall with OPS .898, but right now he looks to be a platoon guy not a everyday stud. Lee has not shown the on base percentage Julien has shown, but the slugging is close to each other. Lee is a better lefty hitter than righty, but he still has been better against lefties than Julien has. I am still high on Julien, but if he cannot get on base against lefties then he is not a stud. Remember everyone thought Miranda was going to be a stud after his rookie year too, now he is outside looking in. I am always willing to move a guy for the right deal. Not sure who would be available though. I would not do it for a 1 or 2 year guy really, unless we know we can resign to a few more years. Also, they would need to be 27 or younger right now to go after in my opinion.

I think one they wanted to bring up the TV deal situation, because it affects more than just the Twins, and several teams are in a similar boat. I also think they wanted to come out to fans and let them know not to expect a big splash in FA. We normally never expected it, but over last few years we have made some bigger signings than anyone expected. Some fans still want the Twins to spend like Padres, despite Padres needing to cut even more payroll and take out loans to cover payroll.

The first baseman from Miami sounds interesting option. That is the type of position player that normally does get taken. He is of an age that he will either make it and have his best next couple of years, or he will not cut it and you let him go for not that much money spent.

I think the agreement was much higher than I would have offered him. I wonder if Reds expect possible 9th inning roll, and he has shown that is not his roll. He reminds me of Hawkins, a guy who was good and at times great set up guy, but once you tried to get him to be the "closer" he would falter.

I agree the price is high, and the bat is not been good, but I believe he helped the pitching staff even when he was not behind the plate for the game. I would not sell him for pennies on the dollar, but if we can get a fair value return I would be open to it, but do not just look to dump the dump.

I do not see him getting traded mainly because his value is not super high. He carried the team in second half for most part, but he is not a long time elite hitter. His defense is good, but outside of that his type can be found in FA, or in minor leagues.

This is where some self scouting needs to be done. Is the team sold that Julien is going to be a leadoff guy for years to come? If so, will Lee be a top hitter for years to come too? Can you play Lewis, Lee, CC, and Julien in same field? Mainly would one move to 1st or OF? Similar will Wallner make the needed adjustments over his career? I never put huge stock on a rookie season, even more so when it was mainly an early hot streak. I remember when Badoo had huge first month and everyone was upset we did not protect him, but since he has been below league average, because league adjusted to him and he did not adjust back. Wallner had some hot streaks, but overall did seem to get better later in year, so there is hope there. However, big issue is that both were unplayable against lefties. It was so bad their numbers against lefties in the season we would pull them every chance we had against a lefty. Their OPS were both below .500 against them. So will either learn to put up a even a passable at bat against lefty? If not, neither have super high value because they are platoon players, not stars. Then other question is what are other teams willing to give up for them? Do they fill a hole without leaving too much of one on our team? Julien is unlikely to leave much of a hole, and this year Wallner would not either, depending on other moves. The Rays have been know to do this, they trade guys at peak value getting good things from other teams and the player regresses. Unless both Julien and Wallner improve against lefties, if they regress at all against righties they are replacement players at best.

I think he could be due for an offensive bounce back, but he should be relegated to DH at this point in his career. He has always been a bad defender and not sure a move to 3rd, or 2nd, or corner OF will help. I have always thought Anderson was a good hitter, but his defense has cost his team a lot of games. I have no interest in him myself, because he has also been known to be a tough teammate to get along with too.

I addressed this in my comment above, they are very close in many things, however, Puckett ended his career still hitting above average and retired due to becoming basically blind. Joe's last several years he was league average hitter. I commented about how a person ends a career voters look at, because if you look at pure stats, I always point out Johan had about as good of stats, if not overall better, than Koufax, but Johan did not even get the 5% to get a second vote and Koufax was first ballot, because Koufax ended at top of game due to injury and Johan tried to make several comebacks so retired not at top of game.

If he would have retired after his last concussion at catcher, he would be in already, most likely as a first ballot guy, but because he tried to play out his contract, and did well, but not HOF level he is a question mark. Not sure how voters look at things now, but in the past if a guy retired due to injury/illness, they would extrapolate his career as if he would continue to play like he did when retired. Two main guys come to mind. Kirby Puckett and Sandy Koufax. Puckett played 12 years, put up a 51 bWAR and retired at 35 due to basically becoming blind. Koufax played 12 years, put up a 49 bWAR retired at 30 due to injuries. Koufax was at the peak of his career coming off of 5 dominate seasons and was considered one of best when he retired. Puckett was not top guy at the time, but still putting up great numbers and both were expected if they would have kept going would have put up typical HOF numbers. Joe played 15 seasons, but really only 70 more games than Puckett, due to injuries and playing catcher first part of career. Joe put up very similar numbers, other than HR being a bit more for Puckett, but not a ton. Both retired at 35. The big difference is Puckett was still putting up career highs in OPS, Joe was putting up career lows. Puckett was putting up OPS+ above league average, Joe was at league average. So voters last saw Puckett top of game or near it, Joe was average. I agree Joe should be in HOF, but the fact he ended his career looking normal at an offensive position will look bad. I put Koufax in there to compare to Johan for similar reasons. Johan did not make it past first ballot, but his career numbers look very similar to Koufax, minus the shutouts because of era they played in. Johan had 12 years pitched, higher bWAR than Koufax. Johan had a good 5 year run at similar age. The difference is Koufax at the time was considered best in game when he retired due to injury, and Johan tried to come back several times. If a player cares about HOF if they are over 30 and on path to it, if they get injured they should retire due to it. Voters do not seem to take players trying to fight through injury at end of career like they do if someone ends career for it.

The concern I have with Cortez is that he really has had about 240 good innings in his career. He is coming off injury. Is he the guy that was near cy young guy, or was that an outlier season? Of course that is why he could be had and he could bounce back.

It completely depends on who the prospect is. I do find it interesting you left out the Mahle trade. Both prospects, that made majors last year had higher WAR than Mahle did. I still agree with that trade because of who we traded away was lower level prospects than who we kept. The point is that it in part depends on who you give up and generally the Twins are not willing to give up the top prospects in their system. Other teams have got very burned in prospects for current MLB talent down the road. One of the more recent trades that always comes to mind is Tatis Jr. for James Shields that the Sox made. When you look back at all the trades mentioned, outside of Petty, none were even like top 10 prospects in our system, but you left out the 1 trade recently that had 2 top 10 prospects that did not work in Twins favor overall.

If you looked at just his numbers as a hitter he would not get in, but I agree, the voters should look at that in the scope of him being a catcher for his peak career. Had he been moved off catcher to play a different position it is likely he would have started his career earlier. I remember Tom Kelly said if he was not a catcher he could have hit MLB pitching at 19, but he was not ready to catch MLB pitching at 19. He also would have likely had less injuries and played more total games. The voters should not just look at his numbers, but look at them in light of catching. One thing that will hurt Joe is his lack of personality, lack of post season success. Neither should play a factor, but voters vote for all kinds of reasons.

I do not know if Joe gets in first ballot. I think he should, but I think many writers will look at the end of his career as not close to his peak, and want his counting numbers higher. I think he will get in, but some writers feel passing on year 1 and building up sends some sort of message as to they were HOF but not as dominate kind of thing. It actually might be he has to get in on a committee vote. He had a stretch as not just best hitting catcher, if he had more power, ever, but one of best hitters in game at the time. If he played his whole career at catcher he would be first ballot, but writers will use his transition, due to injuries as a reason to slight him.

That is about as dark of a horse you can have. The only way it happens is if he just crushes camp, several options ahead of him get injured. Walker Jenkins has a better shot than E-Rod in my opinion, and he has very little chance as well.

I would not want to give up a top prospect for 1 year of a pitcher. It is not sound roster building. Even if you feel they are the 1 missing piece, you do it too often your gut your farm systems and eventually you run out of prospects to have depth when injuries set in, or you lose guys to FA. If you can get any of them for a mix of guys we have depth with, and middle of road prospects then I would be more open to it.

Gilbert is the most interesting piece to me being his years of control. With all those years of control you can afford to give up more for him. Would Seattle take Polanco and a prospect? Would they demand someone like Lee or Julien? Should we be willing to part either? There are no major 2nd base free agents, but if I was Seattle I would be looking for much more than Polanco and a prospect, unless it was a pitching prospect like Raya to help replace Gilbert down road, or I would want someone expected to be a long term solution at 2nd. Someone like either Julien or Lee. I would be fine if we traded away Julien for Gilbert straight up. It would be a similar type of deal we did last year. Moved a lack luster defense guy, that has high upside on offense for a pitcher that in this case would fill a hole for hopefully 4 years. We could slot Polanco in until Lee ready to take over. We would be selling high on Julien. He may be a very good MLB player for years, or he could be a rookie flash. Remember we thought Miranda would be manning a position for years to come, now he is outside looking in after one bad injury season.

The Gilbert trade seems reasonable. The trade for Burns is not bad but then next year you are again searching for someone to replace him as he will not resign with Twins most likely. The others I am not sold on.

I want to address a few things the writer had to say, and a few things some of the comments had to say. First, the argument I seem to be reading is that to improve the team they need to spend more to be better, and if they spend more we will more causing more fans to watch games. Then the second is even if they are losing money, the team is rich and should be find losing money to make sure fans see high priced players. Well, payroll does not equal wins or WS wins. Increasing it does not mean we will win any more than before. Does it increase the chances, maybe, maybe not. Looking just at Twins, we spent 11 mil on Gallo, many not happy about that deal, but he blocked Wallner from coming up earlier. He earned 11 mil, but was outplayed by a league min guy. Further, San Diageo has increased payroll for years, and last year many on here said Twins should be like them. However, they have yet to even make a WS either, and I read somewhere they had to take a loan to cover payroll. It is accurate they increased attendance, despite not making playoffs. Twins despite spending more last few years on payroll have lower attendance than in 2019. So it is possible we will not see a huge uptick in attendance. Outside of the first 2 years of Target field attendance has stayed pretty much between 2 mil and 2.5 mill, that goes back to beginning of 2002 stretch where they stopped bottom feeding, but still not spending more money. Overall, spending money on players does not mean more fans, winning means more fans, and spending money does not mean wins. Look at the Mets. Now to the second point, as pointed out, the Padres are cutting payroll a ton now, because they went way over what they could afford, despite the nearly 3 mil fans 2 years ago and over 3.2 million last year. So they could not afford their payroll. To expect a rich business owner to lose money on a business simply because they can is not a way to have a team stick around. I do not think any fans should expect a team to lose money. Yes, true we do not know the books, but we can estimate. The paid attendance was about 2 million, just under, and average ticket price is about $35. Yes some games they get more because of cost, and some seats get sold more, but also bulk buys and season tickets get discounts too. So for math lets say just the 35 average. That is 70 mil from tickets sales. If we increased to 3 mil that is 105, but we have only got to 3 mil a few times in history. Throw in concession sales, I will estimate 10 per person, only because some will spend much more some will spend none, but it is not all profit because there is the cost of the food and beverage as well. That is another 20 mil, for 90 mil. We know reports said teams got 110 mil from tv sharing, 48% of tv, and we had about 26 mil to ourselves, after counting tv sharing. That puts us at about 226 mil. Lets throw in an estimated 30 mil from merch, no clue if that is close or not, but I know I do not spend much on them year to year. So about 250. We had a 150 payroll. If that was only expenses, that would be a lot of cash to spend, however, do not forget there are a ton of employees that work day to day for team. There are travel costs. There is equipment costs. There are minor league players costs. Each year they award like 10 plus million on signing bonus for drafted players, and a few more on international players. I do not know how much it adds up to, but it really cuts into that 100 mil about. Now, this year not only are Twins losing broadcast money but other teams are up in air, which cuts into their share of the 48%, cutting that 110 down, and our 26 mil. Point is, cutting payroll may be only way to not lose money, and we should not expect a team to lose money, just as we should not expect an business to remain open losing money simply because we like it. I also have no clue if my estimates are high or low and by how much. Other than the broadcasting money that has been documented.

I am not trading a guy that is a top prospect for a 1 year rental. That is how teams get to have many years of bad teams because they sell all long term options for short term possible fixes.

I think anyone who is 100% analytics or 100% against it is closed minded. This is in all sports. I think each situation should be managed as it is, and using the analytics can help, but to base all decisions on it is flawed, just as basing all decisions on the old rule book is flawed too. In baseball it has became a huge push, and fans and managers alike point to analytics as a predicter of future outcomes, without looking at the situation as a whole. In the example of pulling pitcher after 2 trips through order because history says they are more likely to give up runs a third time is flawed to always pull pitcher. If the pitcher is dealing well and no hitter has had a good at bat against them, why pull him? Sometimes feeling the game needs to be done. Just as in football, the analytics points to the "odds" of winning a game based on a decision. However, it does not look at that particular matchup but historical data across thousands of games. For example, the going for it on 4th down and short instead of punting. In part it depends on time of game if it is wise decision. However, if you are the Eagals, and you need 1 yard, you should always go for it, because no one has stopped the tush push play. But other teams have failed at it, and they do not always get the 1 yard. Also, if your defense is playing well, giving the other team a short field is not wise. IN football I feel analytics should play less of a roll in decision making and how the team is doing in that game or historically should make more of a factor.

Farmer is the only one I think they DFA as he will be redundant with Castro and hopefully Lee coming up during season.

I agree with the estimated timelines, but that is always based on general linier progression of the player. Some players will not progress, and some will progress faster than expected. Also injuries always play a roll. For example, if Jenkins tears up both levels of A ball this year, and some injuries set in on OF in 2025, he could get an early call if he is tearing up AA. Not saying likely, but possible. I would say if he tears of up all levels he will be possible at starting 2026 out of camp.

I have had a similar comp, in regards to power and defense, but Encarnacion K rate was only 18% for a career, with walk rate of 11% Severino K rate in minors so far is 28%, even higher last couple of years, and walk rate of 10%. I expect Severino to increase his K rate above 33% closer to 40% if he does not make changes soon.