John Bonnes

I love it Kirsten.

This shortest of phrases makes our hearts soar Pitchers and catchers report We limped through last year but come back for more Pitchers and catchers report 99 losses taught the boys things We yearn for the clean slate a new season brings Like Hornsby we stared out the window for spring Pitchers and catchers report Four tiny words and hope’s candle’s lit Pitchers and catchers report Gardy will make sure they get after it Pitchers and catchers report Smith was relieved and Ryan’s the man He let Cuddy go but got Josh Willingham We’ll hope that Capps moon shots don’t ruin his plan Pitchers and catchers report We love when they hustle and slide in the dirt Pitchers and catchers report But please Lord don’t let the boys end up hurt Pitcher and catchers report We’ll watch through our fingers when Frankie throws Obsess on the nogginof Justin Morneau And the Bilat’ral legs of our catcher Joe Pitchers and catchers report Finally you take your turn as poet Pitchers and catchers report Channel your winter frustration and show it Pitchers and catchers report The comments below are a great place to bleat Two tens and three ‘levens provide you the beat (But add words wherever, if like me you cheat) Pitchers and catchers report With apologies to Franklin Pierce Adams

This shortest of phrases makes our hearts soar Pitchers and catchers report We limped through last year but come back for more Pitchers and catchers report 99 losses taught the boys things We yearn for the clean slate a new season brings Like Hornsby we stared out the window for spring Pitchers and catchers report Four tiny words and hope’s candle’s lit Pitchers and catchers report Gardy will make sure they get after it Pitchers and catchers report Smith was relieved and Ryan’s the man He let Cuddy go but got Josh Willingham We’ll hope that Capps moon shots don’t ruin his plan Pitchers and catchers report We love when they hustle and slide in the dirt Pitchers and catchers report But please Lord don’t let the boys end up hurt Pitcher and catchers report We’ll watch through our fingers when Frankie throws Obsess on the nogginof Justin Morneau And the Bilat’ral legs of our catcher Joe Pitchers and catchers report Finally you take your turn as poet Pitchers and catchers report Channel your winter frustration and show it Pitchers and catchers report The comments below are a great place to bleat Two tens and three ‘levens provide you the beat (But add words wherever, if like me you cheat) Pitchers and catchers report With apologies to Franklin Pierce Adams

Don't believe the hype. There might be 66 guys in Twins spring training, but they aren't really competing for roster spots. In fact, there may not be a single roster spot to compete for. How come? Because of "options." Options are a MLB administrative rule that limits how long a team can keep a player on their 40-man roster but not bring them to the big leagues. Basically, they have three years before they need to commit to bringing that player to the majors. For a little more on it, check out this entry, where I compared it to the amount of time before you move from dating to married. If a player doesn't have "options" left, they cannot be sent to the minors without being offered to every other major league team for their 25-man roster. So a team risks losing that player, and that isn't a risk the Twins are usually anxious to take. Thus, a player without options almost always has the inside track to make it to Opening Day. And when you look over the 25 spots the Twins have available, player without options look like they're going to gobble up most of the open spots. Let's run through them. The Twins entered spring training with their lineup and rotation pretty set, which (barring any injuries) takes care of 14 of the 25 spots on the roster C - Joe Mauer 1B - Justin Morneau 2B - Alexi Casilla SS - Jamey Carroll 3B - Danny Valencia DH - Ryan Doumit RF - Josh Willingham CF - Denard Span LF - Ben Revere Rotation - Carl Pavano, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn & Jason Marquis That leaves 11 spots, which probably includes four guys off the bench and seven guys in the bullpen. There are heavy favorites for each of them: Drew Butera is likely the backup catcher unless the Twins are really enamored with newly acquired JR Towles. Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes are both out of options, so they're almost locks to be on the bench. The fourth spot might be the only open spot, but the obvious option is Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who the Twins will be paying $3M whether he plays in the majors or minors. And there are similar roster crunches in the bullpen. Four of the seven spots will likely to Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Joel Zumaya and Brian Duensing, all of whom are slotted for late-inning roles. And the other three spots? It turns out there are three relievers without options: Anthony Swarzak is out of options, is right-handed and did a nice job in the swingman role last year. It seems obvious that he would make it. Jeff Gray is a right-handed reliever who has pitched for several team the last couple of years. The Twins picked him up this offseason off of waivers because he was out of options. The Twins want at least one more right-hander in the bullpen, so he would seem to be an obvious front-runner Finally, Matt Maloney is a left-hander that the Twins also picked up this offseason because he was also out of options. He has mostly worked as a starter, but so did Perkins before the Twins moved him to the bullpen. And a third left-handed reliever might make sense given that Perkins won't be used situationally. Suddenly there are 0 spots left and another 41 guys in camp.

Don't believe the hype. There might be 66 guys in Twins spring training, but they aren't really competing for roster spots. In fact, there may not be a single roster spot to compete for. How come? Because of "options." Options are a MLB administrative rule that limits how long a team can keep a player on their 40-man roster but not bring them to the big leagues. Basically, they have three years before they need to commit to bringing that player to the majors. For a little more on it, check out this entry, where I compared it to the amount of time before you move from dating to married. If a player doesn't have "options" left, they cannot be sent to the minors without being offered to every other major league team for their 25-man roster. So a team risks losing that player, and that isn't a risk the Twins are usually anxious to take. Thus, a player without options almost always has the inside track to make it to Opening Day. And when you look over the 25 spots the Twins have available, player without options look like they're going to gobble up most of the open spots. Let's run through them. The Twins entered spring training with their lineup and rotation pretty set, which (barring any injuries) takes care of 14 of the 25 spots on the roster C - Joe Mauer 1B - Justin Morneau 2B - Alexi Casilla SS - Jamey Carroll 3B - Danny Valencia DH - Ryan Doumit RF - Josh Willingham CF - Denard Span LF - Ben Revere Rotation - Carl Pavano, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn & Jason Marquis That leaves 11 spots, which probably includes four guys off the bench and seven guys in the bullpen. There are heavy favorites for each of them: Drew Butera is likely the backup catcher unless the Twins are really enamored with newly acquired JR Towles. Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes are both out of options, so they're almost locks to be on the bench. The fourth spot might be the only open spot, but the obvious option is Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who the Twins will be paying $3M whether he plays in the majors or minors. And there are similar roster crunches in the bullpen. Four of the seven spots will likely to Matt Capps, Glen Perkins, Joel Zumaya and Brian Duensing, all of whom are slotted for late-inning roles. And the other three spots? It turns out there are three relievers without options: Anthony Swarzak is out of options, is right-handed and did a nice job in the swingman role last year. It seems obvious that he would make it. Jeff Gray is a right-handed reliever who has pitched for several team the last couple of years. The Twins picked him up this offseason off of waivers because he was out of options. The Twins want at least one more right-hander in the bullpen, so he would seem to be an obvious front-runner Finally, Matt Maloney is a left-hander that the Twins also picked up this offseason because he was also out of options. He has mostly worked as a starter, but so did Perkins before the Twins moved him to the bullpen. And a third left-handed reliever might make sense given that Perkins won't be used situationally. Suddenly there are 0 spots left and another 41 guys in camp.

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]119[/ATTACH]Aaron's car finally kicked, so we take this opportunity to go through each of the Twins players and talk about our expectations, including which car we would compare them to. (It's better than it sounds.) Here are: the podcasts the rss feed if you want to subscribe and the podcast on iTunes (where you can also subscribe and leave reviews).

Today’s mystery category? Let’s see if you can guess from the clues… "What are the Twins television revenues?" "Why is everybody bitching about a $100 million payroll?" "Why couldn't the Twins sign Prince Fielder?" If you didn’t get it, don’t be too hard on yourself - it’s a little convoluted. The category is “What questions avoid THE question?” http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGofCSWwMM/SvC2Pp-BBGI/AAAAAAAAAJA/on_4qxbl278/s320/baseball-money.jpg In Twins Territory, THE question has been: why did payroll go down $15 million following the second year of a publicly funded stadium? But because MLB teams keep their financial information so private, journalists are limited in the information they can dig up. Since that information doesn’t give the whole story - and because they want to share that information that they’ve uncovered - they find other questions so they can still publish the story. Or, they list what they found, and refer to it generally, but offer few specifics. My pithy intro might suggest I’m being critical of that strategy. I’m not - for two good reasons. First, because these are usually fine questions to answer, and every answer adds a piece to the puzzle. Second, because I‘m about to do much the same thing. On Friday night, in a Q&A session at the end of the Hot Stove Banquet, Twins President Dave St. Peter answered THE question candidly, if generally. He listed 3 factors: 1) The Twins stretched payroll slightly last year, and so the reduction isn't really $15M over last year's budget. The last signing of last year's offseason was Carl Pavano, who signed for $8M. At the time, the Twins claimed they stretched a little to make that signing, and before that signing they were still looking into other players, albeit less expensive ones. So let's assume that accounts for $2-3M of the difference. 2) The Twins will need to pay more for draft picks then they did last year. Last year the Twins paid about $3M for their top draft picks. This year the Twins will have five picks in the top 75. Thanks to the new collective bargaining agreement, we know almost exactly how much those picks should cost: about $11M. That's $8M plus $2-3M from stretching last year and now the Twins are down ~$10-11M. We have $4-5M left to find. 3) Finally, St. Peter anticipates a drop in revenue. He clarified this a few minutes later when he said that revenues from the ballpark tend to normalize on a per capita basis. In other words, as the novelty of a new ballpark wears off, people spend less on each trip to the ballpark. (By the way, the Twins also revealed during the media luncheon on Friday that they only anticipate about a 4% decrease in season tickets this year.) That makes sense. Since payroll is supposed to be about 50% of the total revenue, a $4-5M decrease in payroll would reflect an $8-10M decrease in revenue. That seems high to me, but not totally unreasonable, especially when St. Peter added that they aren't budgeting for 3,000,000 in attendance this year. (That last note, by the way, could further explain Phil Mackey’s story about Jim Pohlad taking a “wait-and-see” approach. When I read that story, I was outraged: ownership was expecting fans to make a financial commitment but wasn’t willing to make one itself. Reading between the lines, I wonder if the story isn’t a little different. After last year’s disaster, and with so much uncertainty, ownership directed management to use more conservative models for anticipated revenue. The effect is the same, and it’s essentially what Mackey’s sources said, but somehow this infuriates me less.) This shouldn't be meant to imply that I approve, or even completely understand. For instance, I still believe it is pennywise and pound foolish to not invest and additional $2M in backup plans at two especially questionable roster spots. And it isn't clear to me why some of that decrease isn't offset by increases in shared national revenues, which consistently increase for MLB teams. I still haven’t answered the question. But it gets us closer, and leads to some good news/bad news. The bad news is that the Pohlads are not the Ilitchs - they run a business as a business, and not as a charitable organization, no matter how much fun it would be to win a World Series. But it also implies that two of those three cuts should be one-time events. Hopefully so will this payroll reduction. Which may have been the real $15,000,000 question I wanted answered.

Today’s mystery category? Let’s see if you can guess from the clues… "What are the Twins television revenues?" "Why is everybody bitching about a $100 million payroll?" "Why couldn't the Twins sign Prince Fielder?" If you didn’t get it, don’t be too hard on yourself - it’s a little convoluted. The category is “What questions avoid THE question?” http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__MGofCSWwMM/SvC2Pp-BBGI/AAAAAAAAAJA/on_4qxbl278/s320/baseball-money.jpg In Twins Territory, THE question has been: why did payroll go down $15 million following the second year of a publicly funded stadium? But because MLB teams keep their financial information so private, journalists are limited in the information they can dig up. Since that information doesn’t give the whole story - and because they want to share that information that they’ve uncovered - they find other questions so they can still publish the story. Or, they list what they found, and refer to it generally, but offer few specifics. My pithy intro might suggest I’m being critical of that strategy. I’m not - for two good reasons. First, because these are usually fine questions to answer, and every answer adds a piece to the puzzle. Second, because I‘m about to do much the same thing. On Friday night, in a Q&A session at the end of the Hot Stove Banquet, Twins President Dave St. Peter answered THE question candidly, if generally. He listed 3 factors: 1) The Twins stretched payroll slightly last year, and so the reduction isn't really $15M over last year's budget. The last signing of last year's offseason was Carl Pavano, who signed for $8M. At the time, the Twins claimed they stretched a little to make that signing, and before that signing they were still looking into other players, albeit less expensive ones. So let's assume that accounts for $2-3M of the difference. 2) The Twins will need to pay more for draft picks then they did last year. Last year the Twins paid about $3M for their top draft picks. This year the Twins will have five picks in the top 75. Thanks to the new collective bargaining agreement, we know almost exactly how much those picks should cost: about $11M. That's $8M plus $2-3M from stretching last year and now the Twins are down ~$10-11M. We have $4-5M left to find. 3) Finally, St. Peter anticipates a drop in revenue. He clarified this a few minutes later when he said that revenues from the ballpark tend to normalize on a per capita basis. In other words, as the novelty of a new ballpark wears off, people spend less on each trip to the ballpark. (By the way, the Twins also revealed during the media luncheon on Friday that they only anticipate about a 4% decrease in season tickets this year.) That makes sense. Since payroll is supposed to be about 50% of the total revenue, a $4-5M decrease in payroll would reflect an $8-10M decrease in revenue. That seems high to me, but not totally unreasonable, especially when St. Peter added that they aren't budgeting for 3,000,000 in attendance this year. (That last note, by the way, could further explain Phil Mackey’s story about Jim Pohlad taking a “wait-and-see” approach. When I read that story, I was outraged: ownership was expecting fans to make a financial commitment but wasn’t willing to make one itself. Reading between the lines, I wonder if the story isn’t a little different. After last year’s disaster, and with so much uncertainty, ownership directed management to use more conservative models for anticipated revenue. The effect is the same, and it’s essentially what Mackey’s sources said, but somehow this infuriates me less.) This shouldn't be meant to imply that I approve, or even completely understand. For instance, I still believe it is pennywise and pound foolish to not invest and additional $2M in backup plans at two especially questionable roster spots. And it isn't clear to me why some of that decrease isn't offset by increases in shared national revenues, which consistently increase for MLB teams. I still haven’t answered the question. But it gets us closer, and leads to some good news/bad news. The bad news is that the Pohlads are not the Ilitchs - they run a business as a business, and not as a charitable organization, no matter how much fun it would be to win a World Series. But it also implies that two of those three cuts should be one-time events. Hopefully so will this payroll reduction. Which may have been the real $15,000,000 question I wanted answered.

Hyperbole is fun. http://www.shoebuy.com/pm/cuffl/cuffl458504_159613_jb1.jpgIt is. It’s also easy. Plus, it sounds so darn authoritative. No wonder it’s so often our go to form of entertainment. Our latest example (for baseball, because this is a baseball blog) was the deal the Tigers just signed with Prince Fielder. The Tigers suddenly became favorites to win the World Series. Which is interesting, because about a week earlier, even their candidacy for the AL Central crown was in doubt when their second best hitter, Victor Martinez, was going to miss the year after a knee injury. Is the hyperbole correct? Is Fielder such an upgrade over Martinez that the Tigers, who won 95 games last year (but only had the run differential of an 89-win team), are a lock for the AL Central? Let’s just do a little back of the napkin figuring on what this means the Tigers. Some of the hyperbole is dead on. Fielder is every bit that good. The contract is being called ridiculous by a ton of baseball analysts, but if you’re going to give a ridiculous contract to someone, Fielder is a pretty good choice. We like to make fun of his size, but there are 130 runs hidden in that ample waist and his size hasn’t stopped him from playing at least 157 games per year every year since 2006. He's probably even better than you think. A really nice metric for measuring a hitter’s offensive impact is Bill James’ Runs Created (RC). James demonstrated that by looking at the number of walks, hits, doubles, triples, homeruns and at-bats a team had, he could give a pretty good estimate of how many runs they scored that year. Then he used that same formula for players. (It’s a fun metric, and if you have an extra five minutes to dive into details, I did a short tutorial on it here.) Using RC (as pulled from ESPN.com), Fielder has created 130, 114 and 141 runs for the Brewers each of the last three years. Martinez, on the other hand, is no slouch, but has generated 91, 81 and 105. That’s about 35 runs less per season than Fielder. Fielder also hasn’t been a terrible first baseman. He’s below average, but has cost his team only about five run per season the last few years. The bigger concern for the Tigers is the talk about Miguel Cabrera moving back to third base. He wasn’t a terrible third baseman with the Marlins, but that was back in 2007. It’s not too crazy to suggest he would be one of the worst third basemen in baseball if he were to play there full time. The worst third basemen in baseball cost their teams about 15-20 runs last year. Which would still mean that the Tigers are coming out ahead 15-20 runs. That’s about two wins. But is that really going to happen? The Tigers might not WANT to put Cabrera or Fielder in the DH spot regularly, and those players may not want to play there either. But nobody is going to want to watch Cabrera embarrass (or hurt) himself either. And if you're going to play Brandon Inge anyway, wouldn't you rather play him at third? So those other 15-20 runs are in play, too. That could be another two wins. Still, the hyperbole probably isn’t accurate. Fielder likely improves the Tigers above and beyond what Martinez could have provided, adding 2-4 wins. That certainly strengthens their hand, but it doesn’t launch them into a world-class level, and they’re still within reach of whichever other AL Central team puts things together this year.

Hyperbole is fun. http://www.shoebuy.com/pm/cuffl/cuffl458504_159613_jb1.jpgIt is. It’s also easy. Plus, it sounds so darn authoritative. No wonder it’s so often our go to form of entertainment. Our latest example (for baseball, because this is a baseball blog) was the deal the Tigers just signed with Prince Fielder. The Tigers suddenly became favorites to win the World Series. Which is interesting, because about a week earlier, even their candidacy for the AL Central crown was in doubt when their second best hitter, Victor Martinez, was going to miss the year after a knee injury. Is the hyperbole correct? Is Fielder such an upgrade over Martinez that the Tigers, who won 95 games last year (but only had the run differential of an 89-win team), are a lock for the AL Central? Let’s just do a little back of the napkin figuring on what this means the Tigers. Some of the hyperbole is dead on. Fielder is every bit that good. The contract is being called ridiculous by a ton of baseball analysts, but if you’re going to give a ridiculous contract to someone, Fielder is a pretty good choice. We like to make fun of his size, but there are 130 runs hidden in that ample waist and his size hasn’t stopped him from playing at least 157 games per year every year since 2006. He's probably even better than you think. A really nice metric for measuring a hitter’s offensive impact is Bill James’ Runs Created (RC). James demonstrated that by looking at the number of walks, hits, doubles, triples, homeruns and at-bats a team had, he could give a pretty good estimate of how many runs they scored that year. Then he used that same formula for players. (It’s a fun metric, and if you have an extra five minutes to dive into details, I did a short tutorial on it here.) Using RC (as pulled from ESPN.com), Fielder has created 130, 114 and 141 runs for the Brewers each of the last three years. Martinez, on the other hand, is no slouch, but has generated 91, 81 and 105. That’s about 35 runs less per season than Fielder. Fielder also hasn’t been a terrible first baseman. He’s below average, but has cost his team only about five run per season the last few years. The bigger concern for the Tigers is the talk about Miguel Cabrera moving back to third base. He wasn’t a terrible third baseman with the Marlins, but that was back in 2007. It’s not too crazy to suggest he would be one of the worst third basemen in baseball if he were to play there full time. The worst third basemen in baseball cost their teams about 15-20 runs last year. Which would still mean that the Tigers are coming out ahead 15-20 runs. That’s about two wins. But is that really going to happen? The Tigers might not WANT to put Cabrera or Fielder in the DH spot regularly, and those players may not want to play there either. But nobody is going to want to watch Cabrera embarrass (or hurt) himself either. And if you're going to play Brandon Inge anyway, wouldn't you rather play him at third? So those other 15-20 runs are in play, too. That could be another two wins. Still, the hyperbole probably isn’t accurate. Fielder likely improves the Tigers above and beyond what Martinez could have provided, adding 2-4 wins. That certainly strengthens their hand, but it doesn’t launch them into a world-class level, and they’re still within reach of whichever other AL Central team puts things together this year.

Hot Stove League Banquet It ain't fancy. It is fun. If you're looking to get together for a lot of irreverent and fun Twins talk, I'd invite you to attend the 4th Annual LAST Hot Stove League Banquet and Charity Auction next Friday night. It's not the fourth annual - it's the fourth annual LAST, because this has been going on for decades now and they keep trying to stop doing it. Just click on the image below for more information. [ATTACH=CONFIG]65[/ATTACH] You'll likely see both The Voice of Reason and I there and we'll probably be taking the party someplace else immediately afterwards. I hope you can make it.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]61[/ATTACH] So far, the Twins have invested $99M in their 2012 team. Whether you think they'll be competitive or not isn't the point. (I do.) Whether you think they should have cut payroll or not isn’t the point. (I don't.) The point is this: the Twins have invested $99M in their 2012 team. Now they need to spend a tiny fraction of that to insure it. You would think that would be obvious to the Twins, who have traditionally been a risk-adverse organization, especially under Terry Ryan. They demonstrated that again this offseason. They could've waited to sign their free agents, gambling that the market would go down and they wouldn't be left without competent players. Instead, they reversed course from the last few seasons, aggressively signing almost their entire roster before Christmas. But they also have a tradition of being extremely tied to a budget, and it appears they've hit it. But to stop now, when the free agent market is so affordable and they still have two enormous risks on the roster would be the definition of pennywise and pound-foolish. They created the first of these risks earlier this week when they signed Joel Zumaya to a super affordble one-year deal, heavy with incentives. The contract is awesome. Zumaya's health history isn't. Zumaya has failed to stay healthy for the last five consecutive seasons. The question isn't if he'll stay healthy. The question is when he'll break. When he does, the Twins are right back where they were a week ago - without a dependable right-handed arm in their bullpen other than Matt Capps. (Let's let the irony of that last sentence settle in for minute.) Zumaya has the potential to be a great signing or a dubious choice depending entirely on whether the Twins go out and sign someone else. There are a half-dozen competent right-handed relievers on the market, all of whom are likely to cost between one and two million dollars. That's how much it would take to transform the bullpen from “mess” to “average with upside.” The second risk was made clear last week on the MLB Network in an interview with Justin Morneau. "Most days, I wake up I feel pretty good. Usually after I get done, really exert myself, really working out hard after a long day, your brain gets tired and everything gets so worn down. It's not functioning the way it's supposed to be, and you kind of get done with the day and you go, 'Something's not right.' And you end up going home and taking a nap for a couple hours or whatever it is, and you wake up and the headache's still there and you kind of grind through it. But it's been a lot better lately.” “A lot better.” That’s an in interesting phrase. Not “good” or “fine.” Just “better.” Last year the Twins had a backup plan for Morneau: Jim Thome. He wouldn't play first, but manager Ron Gardenhire could move around the lineup and have Thome play designated hitter. He can do the same this year, except that the bats he is going to turn to are Trevor Plouffe and Luke Hughes. Meanwhile, one of the stories of the free agent market is how many designated hitter are looking for work. Vladamir Guerrero, Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Raul Ibanez, Magglio Ordonez and even Carlos Guillen are available and several of them are going to be available for about the same amount the Twins paid Thome. For $2-4 million, the Twins could pick up two key insurance policies on their #5 hitter and their bullpen. To not do so, to instead roll the dice on two critical areas that already look dubious, is foolhardy. ~~~ If you haven't taken advantage of the special pre-order price for Seth Stoh's Minnesota Twins Prospect Handbook, time is running out. This isn't an e-book, you can throw this on your bookcase, bring it to games, give it to the Twins fan in your life. Grab it quick to help retain your sanity during these cold snaps. You can order it HERE.