chpettit19

Why does it not make sense? MLB is literally giving us the expected ability of each market to make a certain revenue as compared to the rest of the league. Why would it not make sense to use it as a measuring stick of how teams are doing? I don't care what the Twins actual revenue is (and we don't know their actual revenue so it makes no more sense to go off that). MLB is telling us what it should be relative to their competition. It's more than fair to expect the Twins to be able to create the revenue their market dictates they should generate. I'm not asking for above and beyond, I'm asking them to reach the very base of the market they're in which is 17th in baseball. If they can't produce the 17th highest revenue in baseball that's on them. Doesn't change what the expectations should be. I didn't dive deep into the payrolls, sorry. Fine, if the Rangers can get to 207 the Twins can get to 170. Or certainly maintain 150+. Also pretty simple in business that you have to invest money to make money. I don't have to hope the Pohlad's are "willing to reduce profitability or perhaps take a loss," I have to hope they have enough foresight to invest in their product to increase profitability moving forward.

As much as I don't like having guys with #1 starter upside moved to the pen, it feels like that's what the call should be for Canterino. Duran had the same conundrum, and people still talk about wanting to put him back in the rotation, but those shutdown bullpen arms are also vital. If Canterino can join Duran and Jax at the back of the pen and form a shutdown trio for the next 4 years that'd be a huge box checked off on the to do list. Maybe Varland ends up there as well at some point over the next year or 2. If you can turn every playoff game into a 6 inning game for the opponent's offense you're in good shape. If Canterino can be that type of reliever that's the move I'd make. Him building up to a true starter's workload (even in this age of reduced starter innings) likely takes too long. If he can be a pen force starting in 2024 that's what I'd do.

Certainly don't expect the Twins to sign Ohtani, but I'll be absolutely floored if he doesn't get 500 mil from someone. He's going to DH all year so "injured" is a bit relative with him. His offense alone was worth over 50 mil if you subscribe to the idea that 1 WAR costs about 8 mil on the open market. The young, everyday players being a bunch of hope right now is exactly why I want to spend on an established star. I have never understood the idea that teams should wait until they just need that last piece to bring in a star (not saying that's what you're saying, just that it's the general idea people throw around). People lost their minds when the Rangers signed Semien and Seager 2 years ago because they weren't ready to have 2 players push them over the top. Well the Rangers knew they had guys coming. They believed in Garcia, Carter, Jung, Heim, Lowe, etc. and knew it may not all come together in 2022, or even 2023, but their wave was coming. The Twins wave is coming. Their success will always rely on the prospect wave producing talent, but they can give the roster a boost by bringing in another established player to help get them over the top. I don't have high expectations for them to actually sign anyone quickly, or at the top of the market. But I don't see any reason they shouldn't, or couldn't. If the goal is truly to bring another World Series title to Minnesota their window is opening and they should be looking to add real top talent. If they don't I think fans should be mad.

I wouldn't be surprised by the Twins doing a deal like that with Mahle, but from some of the things that were reported I'm not sure they like how he communicated about his arm and he just didn't feel like someone they spoke glowingly about. That is obviously very much speculation on my part, but I just didn't get the feeling like they were super happy with him so they may just let him go and not even talk about the "pay to rehab" type deal. But that is a very Twins move. I already assume Varland is starting in AAA next year. He has the Ober role in my mind. Knowing you're going to need 6, 7, 8+ starters and having someone you trust a bit as your 6th guy is the way I think they'll go with Varland. It is possible that Maeda, Paddack, Ryan, or Ober step up and become a #2 type pitcher. But I don't want to count on that. There's a chance you sign someone like Nola and he just falls apart, but the odds are more likely that Nola is a #1 or 2 than any of those Twins incumbents. I want to win a World Series. All you can do in the pursuit of that goal is to give yourself the best chance by fielding a team full of guys who have the best chance of performing to those levels. I'd rather bring in someone with the best chance of being a #2 and then have the nice problem of having another guy step up and having 3, 4, 5 playoff worthy starters than bring back someone like Maeda who has a far lower chance of being a playoff starter and having the bad problem of nobody stepping up and going into the playoffs with Lopez and a bunch of bullpen games.

Ohtani may not fix the front of the rotation problem for next year, but he'd fix it moving forward after that, and he'd fix the elite hitter at the top of the lineup problem starting next year. Yes, QO is due to Gray within 5 days. He has until November 15th to decide if he wants to accept it. I'd be pretty shocked if he accepts it and doesn't take the chance to at least field offers from every team for the first time in his career. I like Maeda, and Mahle is an intriguing arm, but I'd be incredibly disappointed if that was the move they made to fill the open rotation spot. Mahle can't be counted on until August maybe, and even then that's a big risk to hope he jumps right back in at top form. Maeda is a solid pitcher, but he's not a top 1-3 pitcher in a playoff rotation. I'd rather take a shot at someone like Flaherty bouncing back than go with either of those guys. The rotation spot they have open is for a #1 or 2. Filling it with someone like Maeda or Mahle would be a very clear step back from 2023.

Brooks Lee had a 78 wRC+ at AAA last year, and Jenkins has played 26 total professional games. Not sure what you want the Twins to be doing with them that they aren't.

Flaherty is an interesting one for me. If this were a couple years ago I'd be all over him instead of the Happ, Shoemaker, Archer, Bundy signings they were making, but, as I see it, they have 1 opening in the rotation for 2024. I want a more sure thing than Flaherty for that 1 spot if I can get it.

I don't mind that strategy, but I'd rather just use money than players and money. Everyone wants stick and glove players, but it's not that easy. Replacing Julien's bat won't be easy. Not saying not to trade him (or anyone), but the offense was still a problem in the playoffs (and for most of the year) so I don't know that I see trading any good bats as dealing from a position of strength. But I would guess it's more likely they trade than sign one of these guys. Even though I think the top 5 names on this list are likely just as good, or better, than any pitcher they can get in trade. And cheap, #2 projection type pitchers in AAA are going to cost a ton in trade. Well more than Julien. If you're set on not trading Lewis, Lee, Jenkins, or ERod you're going to struggle to get somebody like that. Everybody wants those guys. Most valuable commodity in baseball probably. 27 year old Lopez with 2 years of control left cost a batting champ. 20-26 year old Lopez type with even more control costs well more than that would be my guess.

What do you feel the difference between Lopez and the number 3-5 guys on that list is? Especially prior to the Twins acquiring him. They're paying him 21.5 per year after next year so it's not like he's significantly cheaper than them, and he cost them Arraez on top of that. He's younger than everyone but Yamamoto, but he cost them Arraez. What do you think the prospect cost would be compared to giving up a defending batting champ? Julien is the only guy that'd likely come close to Arraez's value so are you looking to trade him? Not sure how else you get it done without using Lee, Lewis, Jenkins, or ERod.

The Rockies are fighting with the Angels for the worst run franchise in baseball. Definitely don't want to be following their lead. But the Padres were basically the opposite of the 2022 Vikings this year. They were 2-12 in extra inning games, and 9-23 in 1 run games. They had a +104 run differential (Twins was +119, 104 was 8th best in baseball) which makes it absolutely crazy that they finished with only 82 wins. And they made it to the NLCS last year. If that's a "terrible model to follow" I don't know what our expectations should be here. Yes, Dodgers playoff success has been severely lacking, but they win 100 games basically every year, and have won 90 plus every year since 2013. I'll take that "not pretty picture" over the Twins picture since 2013. The Rangers are about to win the World Series. The Astros have been to 8 straight ALCS. And St Louis just had their first losing season since 2007, and only their 3rd since 1999. If those are examples of teams "buying their way to failure" I'd like to sign up for buying my way to failure, because those are the teams I just named, and they're all having way more success than the Twins (other than Colorado). Adding through trades and the farm system are also vital. I'm not suggesting they only build through free agency, I'm suggesting they supplement through free agency. And the top end of it, not the bottom. Yes, the Lopez deal has worked well so far, but the Mahle one hasn't at all. They should be making trades, promoting young guys, and signing free agents. Whatever you have to do to get top end talent. If they develop right they can afford top end free agents in certain windows. I think this is one of those windows.

Have the Twins said they can't afford Gray? I don't really follow their pressers or anything. Not being able to afford 20ish a year would be very frustrating.

I don't think there's a bunch of future all stars coming up, and that's why I want to pay for them. I think there's a lot of really good players coming up, with 1 or 2 all stars, and that's why I want to supplement them with paid for stars to push them over the top. Or give them the best chance to get over the top. I totally understand the 10 year thing. In fact, I wouldn't go to 10 years for any other player (assuming we're talking free agents so they're in their late 20s, early 30s). I don't like the idea of signing the vast majority of players past the age of 35 (it's why I'm not overly thrilled with the idea of bringing Gray back for 3 years). I just think if you have the chance to add the greatest player to ever live you should do it. The extra revenue he would bring in for the first 5 years of that contract pays for the last 5. I think he's simply the most extreme outlier in the history of baseball (maybe sports in general), and if I could get him I would. Agreed the 10 years is way bigger of a concern than the AAV. But I'd do it anyways. But, yes, this is really a complete waste of my energy as it'll simply never happen. But man would it be awesome.

I'm not going to get into 2024 payroll stuff here, and I understand that some fans will buy the "we have to reduce payroll for 2024" line they're fed, but I won't. You just won your first playoff game in 2 decades, and had an incredible atmosphere at Target Field. If the Pohlads need to eat it for a year, so be it. You don't get to where you're at now and take a step back. Texas has the 13th best market score in MLB. The Twins are 17th. Should the Rangers have a higher payroll? For sure. Should they have a $100 million higher payroll? I'd argue that's either the Pohlads caring more about profit than the Texas owners, or the Rangers being run better so they make more money. The Rangers are actually eligible for revenue sharing based on their market size. The Rangers have the 4th highest payroll despite having the 13th highest market score. The Twins have the 16th or 17th highest payroll (depending on your source) with the 17th highest market score. If the Rangers can get to 250 why can't the Twins get to 200? Is it because they can't sell tickets and get eyeballs because they've built terrible teams for most of the last 10+ years? Cardinals have the 26th best market score and nearly the exact same payroll as the Twins. San Diego is 24th and had the 3rd highest payroll. Rockies have the 21st highest market score and a payroll 20 million higher than the Twins. Houston is 15th in market score and have maintained top 5-10 payrolls for years. The Twins have momentum now. Feels like an awfully big business mistake to crush that by cutting payroll now. Especially when there's plenty of smaller, or similar, markets that find a way.

Oh, I definitely don't expect the Twins to go after Ohtani. I'd argue that not paying for elite talent is a risk as well, though. Assuming the goal is to win championships. You need elite talent to win. Expecting to get multiple elite talents out of your system all at the same time is just as big a risk as paying for some expensive players. Not wanting to pay big money for elite talent is mostly because you want to be able to pay other talent, right? That's the general argument people make. You can't pay Ohtani because then how are you going to pay other guys to win with him? Isn't there risk in waiting for someone else to be worth that money? Like I said, I don't expect them to go after Ohtani, but I think this is the time to make a splash. I don't blame people for being risk averse in terms of not wanting to do the big money thing, but I think if there was ever a time to do it now is that time. They have Correa, Buxton, and Lopez locked up for 4 or 5 years each. Now Buxton may be lost money at this point, but I'm just trying to lay out the situation. They have Vazquez for 2 more years. Kepler for 1, and Polanco for 2. Those are the only guys making real money right now, right? Ryan, Ober, Lewis, Julien, Lee, Kirilloff, Wallner, Martin, and so on are the guys everyone wants to build around, and have money to pay, right? Those guys are all at various spots between not even being on the 40-man today and pre-arbitration if I'm not mistaken. That means you have them all under control, for well under market rates, for 3-6+ years. I don't think anyone would argue that anyone I just named has any shot at being as good as Ohtani over the next 5 years. After those 5 years when he likely starts to decline, you have all the guys currently making big money off the books and Ohtani's contract isn't even filling every dollar you make up with losing them. Basically losing Correa, Buxton, and Vazquez from your roster covers Ohtani's deal in 5 years. Kepler, Polanco, and Lopez coming off the books over the next 4 covers any increase to the arbitration numbers from the young guys we're all excited for. And then you continue to backfill with pre-arb young players to sustain your success. I don't see a ton of risk in the Twins making another big signing right now. The risk would be that you picked the wrong free agent so you can't sign another one later on to make up for them. The Twins new young core is here. They're always going to be the key to sustained success, but by having so many young guys it provides you a 5 year window to go big on free agents to surround them with while also giving you 5 more years until you need to replace a whole bunch of young guys instead of just 1 or 2 here and there. I don't expect Ohtani, but their window is now. If not now, when? When are they going to be better set with young talent all arriving at the same time with a natural window to go big? The Rangers are on the brink of a championship because they saw their system about to produce a number of good players and they went out and spent money on stars to support that. Why can't the Twins do the same thing?

But Falvey may want to duplicate the colossal payroll success of the Rangers. Or Dodgers. Or Astros. Signing high priced free agents isn't a problem if you have cheap, young talent from your system on pre-arb and arb deals. The Angels and Mets didn't fail because they spent, they failed because they didn't develop. The Rangers are 1 win away from a World Series title while handing out $685 million on 3 players in free agency the last 2 years. They gave another $132.75 million to 4 other free agents. That's $817.75 million guaranteed that they handed out in free agent deals in a 2 year time span. Then they traded for Max Scherzer. Not including Scherzer, they handed out over $140 million/year to 7 guys (Seager, deGrom, Semien, Gray, Eovaldi, Heaney, and Leclerc). They pay out $101 million to deGrom (40), Seager (35.5), and Semien (26) in one year alone. deGrom made 6 starts (30.1 innings) for them for $40 million, and they're still about to win the World Series. 6 of those 7 guys are a big reason why. But Garcia, Jung, Carter, Lowe, Heim, etc. on pre-arb and arb deals stepping in and carrying weight as well is just as big, if not bigger, because it means they don't need to spend any more to win. High priced contracts only kill you if you can't back them up with low cost, good players.

To me, a lot of the ERod equation comes down to how he's striking out. Is it a lot of swing and miss in zone or is he just taking too many pitches and putting himself in bad spots? I don't know. But if it's a lot of swing and miss in zone and I can trade him for a controllable, young, starting pitcher I'd do it. The reports I've read suggest he's probably not an MLB CFer, but that could change the equation a little as well. Walker Jenkins is the only untouchable player I see in the minors for the Twins. The rest would all be available depending on the return. Now that return may have to be Spencer Strider or George Kirby, but if they can get an arm in their mid-20s to pair with Pablo for the next 4+ years I'm trading anyone not named Lewis or Jenkins. It will be very interesting to see how ERod progresses over the next couple years. Feels like he could be Gallo or Soto (as someone else pointed out). That's a major leaguer either way, but one is an MVP, and one you'd wish you'd traded him for pitching after 2023.

Basically their WARx8 million to represent the average cost of 1 WAR on the open market.

"Worth" is a pretty loaded word, I think. Shohei's offense alone this year was "worth" $53 million according to Fangraph's WAR, while his pitching was worth $19 million. I think it's a pretty safe bet that Shohei gets back to a pretty darn good pitcher. TJ just doesn't change pitchers like it used to, and he's about as hard a worker as you can find. He'll only be 30 when he starts pitching again. I think 50 a year for him is likely a steal for the next 5 years. End of the deal could get ugly, but his swing is so simple to start with I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him still be worth quite a bit towards the end of the deal, too. It's a massive gamble, and I don't expect the Twins to even put a bid in on him, but I'd rather bet on Ohtani til he's 39 than guys like Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado who just got paid until they're 40. Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander are making 43 a year as 40 year olds.

That's kind of cool! I'm going to hit all 30 stadiums (plus the WBC) in 2026 and am going to figure out something to collect for each stadium. This has been added to the list of possibilities!

Totally fair, but slashing payroll very likely doesn't help with whatever plan they've come up with. Pohlads may have to eat it in 2024, but taking the momentum from your first playoff win in 2 decades and destroying it by significantly reducing payroll to below your market size is just tying your other hand behind your back in the process. Twins games are going to be broadcast next year. They should already have checks lined up to be stroked, or the Pohlads should already know they're taking it in the wallet this year. Twins Daily is a much more tuned in segment of the fanbase than the general population. Telling the people around here they're going youth movement so cutting payroll isn't that big of a deal would actually excite a large number of people here because they're tuned into the org and follow prospects. But telling the general fanbase you're cutting payroll and going youth movement after having signed the biggest FA contract in team history and finally winning a playoff game wouldn't go over well at all. That's how you turn yourself into a playoff regular who can't sell tickets like Cleveland.

What would cause a loss of 30% of revenue in 2024 while providing a sustainable increase in revenue by year 2 or 3 in this situation? Going more over the air to bring in more fans by being able to provide their product for free this year while partnering it with a streaming option through MLB? Do we think that plan works well if they cut payroll at the same time and piss off the fan base? Is the hope just that the older generation being able to get their product for free while cord cutters pay to stream it balances out with the anger you'd get from the fan base when you say "thanks for packing our stadium for the playoffs, but we're going to take a step back in payroll now?" The teams that have made these sorts of moves haven't cut payroll to do it, they've simply bet on the idea of losing now to win over time. The story I'm getting around here is that the Twins will cut payroll and that's OK and fans shouldn't be upset. I don't buy it. If you cut payroll at this point you're going to destroy all the goodwill you just built up. They finally have momentum and destroying it by slashing payroll sure sounds like a horrible business decision if you're making your way towards a subscription based revenue stream.

If any of those top 5 guys get the money projected there they immediately move into the top 10 in AAV amongst starting pitchers in baseball. I don't think that seems low. Are Montgomery, Nola, and Snell top 10 pitchers in baseball? I don't think anyone would argue that they were coming into this year. I don't know how many would argue they are moving forward either. The nature of pro sports is that each year the contracts go up some, but, by AAV those numbers eclipse Stroman, Ray, Gausman, Castillo, Bassitt, Musgrove, Morton, Perez, Lynn, Berrios, Mikolas, Lopez, Darvish, and Webb who all signed within the last 2 years. I think 25/year is probably pretty accurate to what these guys can get. Only 8 starting pitchers in baseball make 25/year right now. Yeah, not a big Bowden fan, but I think his numbers are probably pretty close here, as far as AAV goes. They'll likely all ask for as many years as they can get, but the AAVs are awfully close I think.

Totally fair, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you're right on that. I wouldn't like it, though. If they're going to spend I want them to spend on the biggest gun they can get. And I don't think that's Sonny Gray, even if he's who I expect them to sign.

Do you like it more than Montgomery, Nola, or Snell providing 100 mil over 5 years? To me, that's the question. There's no way they're signing more than 1 guy like this (chances of them even signing 1 is quite low). If you're going to give out 20+ a year to Gray why wouldn't you just add 5 more and give it to a guy who should be better for longer?

Do you think Gray maintains his production from 2023, most importantly his health, moving forward? I'm just not convinced he can maintain that for much longer. He's only made 30 starts in a year 1 other time since 2015. I wouldn't expect him to be able to do it more frequently as he hits his mid-30s. He's a max effort guy (even though he doesn't throw with super high velocity) so I'm just worried that you sign him for 3 years and get 1 actually good one out of him while the other guys would require longer commitments for slightly higher AAV, but likely provide you more productive years. I won't be upset if they bring him back for something around 3/60, but I'd like to shoot for one of the guys who are more likely to have 3+ really good years left in them.