John Bonnes

50% that he's even average. 10% that he's the old Justin. Let's ponder this - what if he is just an average 1B, or slightly below average? Where does he bat in the lineup? It takes Gardenhire at least 2.5 months to move him our of 4 or 5, right? I assume Willingham and Doumit move up a spot, and then Morneau goes 6th with Valencia following him. And if any of those guys are hurt, Plouffe is the next option? Fine against LHP, but vs RHP...ugh.

The bigger issue might be that maybe the Twins picked the wrong place to build their big international academy.

Huh. He's always been in indy leagues? Never in an organization? And he's a hitter? I can't think of a real success story like that. Obviously, it doesn't hurt anything, but that might be a testement to how thin the Twins are at first base in their system, more than any chance this guy has.

I saw this in another place this week too. In a post on Seedling to Stars (I think) they listed which of the Twins prospects had been listed in various top 100 lists. None of the lists had a big number of Twins - but there were about eight guys that made at least one group's top 100. That was far more than other AL Central clubs. Others (especially the Royals) had a lot more high end prospects, but the Twins had a lot of guys that were either on the fringe or were higher risk/reward guys. If they can get some of these guys to advance this year, this could be a very exciting farm system at this time next year. (Crossing fingers)

I was less enthusiastic about the pitchers. But I was about halfway through the story and was surprised how often at each position I thought "I'm kinda excited about this guy" - and I hadn't even got to the outfielders yet.

Souhan does. I didn't have ver high hopes for Vasquez, so this doesn't bother me. I gotta think that maybe Mastroianni has a shots the 4th OFer in a Repko kind of way. Do we know if he has options? If Hughes can't go, I could see Mastroianni joining Nishi, Plouffe & Butera as the bench. Ill also point out that he could be the other half of a platoon w Revere.

Seedlings to Stars listed the top Twins prospects at each position. It's a pretty good read from a guy who clearly follows the Twins closely: http://seedlingstostars.com/2012/02/08/s2s-2012-team-prospect-lists-minnesota-twins/ But what really encouraged me is that at just about each position, there was some hope. Consider: C - Chris Herrmann 1B - Chris Parmelee 2B - Eddie Rosario 3B - Miguel Sano SS - Levi Michael OF - Oswaldo Arcia OF - Aaron Hicks OF - Joe Benson I gotta say - that doesn't suck. Only three of them are close to the majors, and that always limit my excitement a bit, but that's going to be kind of a fun lineup to watch for the next couple of years. And it doesn't include some other intriguing guys like Dozier and Morales.

Here were his top 10 Twins prospects and where the top four ranked in all of MLB: 1. Miguel Sano, 3B (28) 2. Eddie Rosario, CF (50) 3. Aaron Hicks, CF (80) 4. Oswaldo Arcia, RF (85) 5. Joe Benson, OF 6. Levi Michael, SS 7. Brian Dozier, IF 8. Kyle Gibson, RHP 9. Travis Harrison, 3B 10. Alex Wimmers, RHP There has been quite a bit of doom and gloom about the Twins farm system lately, and I gotta say, his writeup of the top four really encouraged me. He sees a lot of upside from those guys.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?176-The-15-000-000-Question

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.

The best part is that their infatuation seems to even puzzle Capps. At the luncheon he said he really didn't think he would be coming back to the Twins - right up until the point where the Twins called his agent and expressed interest. The he did everything he could do to make it happen. But the point is that even he assumed they wouldn't have any interest after that crappile he squeezed out last year.

There was an issue. I had to go with this format for now. Maybe eventually we'll be able to add it.

I certainly wouldn't trade Revere or Benon or Harrison. I might not evn trade Span. Harrison isn't exactly a high upside guy, and he's already getting expensive. He may be overpriced as earl as next year and certainly will by 2014.

I think the assumption is the "minor league deal" means "cheap." Usually, that's the case, but his time it wasn't. If he makes the team, he gets $1.5M and he has incentives that make the deal worth $3.25M.

OF the #Twins who were hurt last year, Morneau remains the biggest concern. Everything he says is so measured and careful.

Heh. The Twins already signed their low-risk bullpen arm: Zumaya. Heh. Lidge hasn't bee "right" in years, and his walk rate even in limited time last year was through the roof. Nathan looked like his old self from June through Sept. They might both have a similar injury risk, but the risk of Lidge being ineffective looks a lot higher. (Not that I wouldn't love to have signed him.) Lord, but these signings are making the Twins looks pennywise and poundfoolish. Did we get definitive word on how much Wheeler signed for? As we saw with Francis, it doesn't mean it was a cheap contract just because is was a minor league deal. If it really was just $1M, how little must the #Twins have offered him?

There's a difference between accepting a guy as an inning-eating fifth starter and grumping about missing out on a guy. Francis falls in that spread. If the overall point is that the Twins overpaid for Jason Marquis, I agree, and I thought that at the time. That's the danger of the Twins "propose an open offer and sign the guy that takes it" method: the guy that takes is the guy you overvalued the most relative to the market. I'd claim the Twins have overpaid for half of the guys they've picked up this offseason: Carroll, Capps & Marquis. But I think they got bargains on the other half: Doumit, Zumaya & Willingham. So I don't know that I can criticize them too vehemently on their strategy. BTW, good story. I'm couldn't help but wonder exactly how slow Francis' changeup (his primary offspeed pitch) must be to offset an 84mph fastball. And while the two players' fastballs might be equally effective, the pitchers themselves certainly weren't. It isn't that big a spread between an eight-figure salary and retirement, apparently.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?165-We-Lost-Jeff-Francis!-(Yawn-)

I saw several tweets yesterday bemoaning the fact that the Twins didn't get Jeff Francis considering he signed a minor league deal with the Reds. I've certainly cast a skeptical eye towards the Twins aggressive stance early in this offseason, especially in the bullpen. But the Francis signing, IMHO, points out the risk/reward of waiting out the musical chairs game that is the free agent market: Reward - when the music stops, there can be an awful lot of players anxious to take a seat in your remaining chair Risk - all of those players might kinda suck. When I look at Francis, I wonder why anyone would bemoan missing out on him. MLB GMs seem to agree - he just signed a minor league deal with a team in which there is no guarantee of a rotation spot. All by itself, that's revealing. But there is plenty of other evidence: 1. His fastball lost a couple of mph and tops out at about 84 according to rotowire.com 2. His k rate was down in the mid 4s last year. 3. He was hit like a pinata at a ADHD kids birthday party last year. I expect that last point is why so many analysts kind of like him - it's almost unfathomable that a guy can give up 220+ hits in 180 innings without some bad luck being involved. That may be true, but there is another explanation - a pitcher can just kinda suck. Those guys get weeded out in a hurry and thus don't impact Voros McCracken's correlation coefficient much, but there is no question they exist. I suspect yesterday's deal reflects MLB's organic weeding process more than it reflects the Twins cluelessness.

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?164-Prince-Fielder-vs-Hyperbole

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.