chpettit19

Yes. And in the real world it's based on real numbers and 150-160 million seems reasonable. If your expectations are the Pohlads spending Dodger type money on payroll and lose 10s, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year you should probably find a new team to cheer for. "There's no cap so they could/should spend more" is a tired, nonsensical, and unrealistic argument.

The premise of this post/article/whatever-you-call-it is that Joe Ryan's scouting reports were wrong about how good 2 of his pitches were. The author states that the scouting reports are wrong and he's basing it on 34 combined changeup and curveballs between 2 starts. For that matter he's only thrown 25 sliders. Suggesting that dozens of people who scout pitchers for a living have misjudged the hundreds of curves and changes they've seen him throw because his first 34 in the majors went well is absurd. Click-bate headline without any real substance. But has produced some solid conversation on Ryan and potential. If Ryan is going to be as good as some people think the Twins should be in great shape pitching wise if 1/3 of their other prospects hit their ceilings. Brighter days on the horizon?

Can the Twins afford to pay an "ace?" Yes. Any team can. The question is what can they surround them with. According to the contract numbers in the original post the average "ace" FA contract from each year is 27, 26.5, 26.5, 27, 27, 28, 28, 26.6, 25.4 29.75, 30, 30, 31.5, 31.5. The average annual money for all the "ace" deals is 27.75 per year (I didn't include the 2M per year deferrals for Scherzer as that isn't a typical deal and isn't what anyone is actually talking about when they talk about signing players to these deals). I think 150-160 is a reasonable enough payroll target for the Twins. We'll go with the top end 160. Having 1 of those guys takes up 17% of your payroll. Having 2 of them takes up 35%. Having 1 would leave you with about 130 million to spend and having 2 would leave you with about 105 left to spend on the rest of the team. The question isn't whether or not they can afford any of these guys, or even whether those guys are worth their money. The question is can you build a world series contending team (or division winning, or whatever your goal is) with 1 "ace" and 130M or 2 "aces" and 105M. There's 24 or 25 other spots to fill. Don't have time to run the numbers right now, but that's the discussion that should be happening. I think the answer to all of these questions is always that you have to develop minor leaguers. Whether you draft them, trade for them, sign them internationally, pick them out of Ubers, or whatever. You need to develop your own talent and have them be good from almost the jump to be competitive. Even the Yankees and Dodgers do. Walker Buehler being an "ace" on a pre-arb deal allows them to do so much more with their already significant financial advantage. Add in Seager, Smith, and Bellinger on pre-arb or arb deals and it's outrageous. The Rays and As compete because they have young guys who contribute more than their contracts say they should. Too much discussion is based around free agent signings. Free agents are the compliments to your young core, not the other way around. So, yes, the Twins can afford those big deals, but it doesn't mean anything if their cheap guys are garbage. Just ask the teams we ran out there with a cy young award winner, 2 MVPs, an elite reliever, and a young stud #2 arm that also couldn't win in the playoffs.

If I'm remembering correctly Simeon Woods Richardson was also struggling with walks for the first time in his career in Toronto's system early this year. Would be interesting to look at walk, and injury, rates amongst minor league pitchers this year. I feel like somebody around here could find some data.

Oh there's definitely pros and cons to their strategy. I think it makes sense to avoid signing guys for more than they're worth. I mean the Padres would love to have Eric Hosmer and his 20M a year off their books. So it helps them avoid those bad deals that weigh them down. But you also miss out on the players you identify as having the best chance to succeed because you won't go higher than a certain price. It all falls apart when 100% (Cruz was technically a free agent, but he was returning) of your signings fail. My guess is they break free agents into tiers and say "these guys are worth up $X" and "these guys are worth $Y." Then they want to bring in a certain number of guys from each tier and they engage with agents. They pursue their preferred guy until the price gets above X or Y then move to the next guy in that tier. It's a logical approach, but certainly has some holes. And when you miss like they did this offseason there definitely needs to be some reflection on what lead them to their decisions. Good news is they can't be any worse than missing on everyone!

I don't know that their strategy is signing FA late as much as it's not going over what they have decided a player is worth. They're "in" on plenty of players early, but they set hard lines on contracts and won't go above what they feel the player is worth. That can push them out of some negotiations and leave them to only getting guys later when the player's market has come back down. Think it's a solid strategy in many cases, but not all. The SS market this winter will be interesting to watch as there's a chance somebody will have that same sort of strategy and end up with an all-star SS for much less than expected.

That BA video is 2 years old. So BA would have him being 16 right now as well.

Duran feels like a reliever to me. A potentially really good one who throws 100 with a secondary pitch ("Splinker") that some people rate as a 70. If he comes back this year I throw him in the St Paul bullpen for a few outings and let him go a couple innings at a time. Bring him back next year with a shot to carve out a spot in the Twins bullpen or put him in St Paul's bullpen and follow the approach the OP is suggesting. I don't know that I'd really be banking on him being a starter ever, but I'd be looking to turn him into my Hader type fireman who can throw a couple innings sometimes or just come in and K the side. (I actually think Joe Ryan ends up in that kind of role, too, but that'd be real nice to have multiple shutdown guys in the pen)

If I'm the Twins ownership/FO I negotiate with Buxton until the new CBA has been finalized and I know next season is happening. If it's clear that we're not going to get a deal done then I look to move him for a package that's better than whatever the QO "reward" is. If it stays the current comp pick situation I need a first round pick type talent plus another prospect. If I don't get that I play out next year with Buxton knowing I finally have someone who can backup CF defensively in Lewis who will get his shot next year at some point. If Buxton stays healthy all year and is an MVP candidate I extend a QO and let him see if he can get the money he thinks he can. If he accepts the QO then I have to decide if I want to play with him on the 1 year deal or move him for prospects. If he's coming off a season of MVP type play in 150 games I'd think you can get a pretty decent return for him during the offseason from a team who wants him for a full season. Not having a legit CF backup for the last handful of years has been a huge mistake. I think moving forward they're finally in a position to better survive losing Buxton to injury for different stretches with Lewis, and maybe Martin, able to cover CF. Buxton on 7/80 plus incentives with a league minimum player able to step in if he goes down is a nice situation to be in, and I'd be willing to give Buxton year to year incentives (no vesting clauses that would guarantee future money) up to 30-35M based on games played. I think his glove alone is worth 15M a year and even league average offense from him makes him worth 25+.

Fair enough, I can appreciate that. I was just agreeing with the general point and not specific players.

Not sure why you'd tag me in this. I haven't said anything about Kintzler, or any specific player outside of Reed. All I've said is that Reed types are added and cut multiple times a year and this is a clickbait article.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/transactions/#month=8&year=2021 Trying to get some people to understand that this is what the MLB transaction tracker looks like is difficult. Literally every major league team loses multiple players to the waiver wire every single season. Some of them turn out to be something, most of them don't. If somebody wants to make the claim that any team's front office is bad and should lose their jobs they need to go through that list and track every transaction by every team and see which teams actually perform better or worst. Picking out 1 random guy and saying "see, Falvine sucks!" is completely useless and can literally be done for every single team. When you track 1 team you're aware of their failures while not being aware of the struggles other teams have. It's why articles like this are nothing but clickbait. No context and are just here to stoke emotions, not critical thought.

You could write this exact story for a dozen guys from every organization. This is nothing. The question shouldn't even be "did the Twins miss something," it should be "did the Twins, Angels, Dodgers, and Rays miss something." This is the life of fringe MLB players. Sometimes one will hit down the line somewhere, but there are dozens of guys a year who get DFA'd, claimed, DFA'd, claimed, DFA'd, claimed, and on and on until every team who wanted to see him for themselves has done their claiming. This is just click-bait chum in the water for fans already angry with the Twins FO this year.

Agreed there's no way Martin gets called up this year. No reason at all to take a 40-man spot for a September call up. But I'd be shocked if he isn't in Minneapolis before September next year. I'd argue he could hold his own in the majors right now with his approach and ability to get the barrel to the ball so it'd be really disappointed if he put up a huge minor league season next year and they didn't call him up midseason. Have to assume there'll be injuries and I think he'll show he's ready to hit for average and get on base and they'll go to him midseason. Or maybe post trade deadline if they move Sano or someone. But certainly no reason to add him to the 40-man mess now. Wait til next year.

I haven't viewed Buxton as a prospect for years. I viewed him as an incredibly talented player who was drastically underperforming his skills while changing his swing, drastically, multiple times mid-season. He then went back to square 1, simplified his swing, got real aggressive hunting fastballs, and started hitting the way basically everyone thought he would. Josh Donaldson didn't figure his hitting out until he overhauled his swing before his age 27 season and became a perennial MVP candidate. Nelson Cruz didn't figure it out until he was 28. Jose Bautista was 29. Max Muncy was 27. Justin Turner 29. The list goes on and on. And none of those guys had anywhere near the natural abilities Buxton does. You're more than welcome to view Buxton however you choose to, but to suggest that him being 25 before he figured it out means he's not actually a good hitter and is the 90-95 OPS+ guy he was his first few years seems overly negative. And, by the way, he got MVP votes with a 93 OPS+ in 140 games in 2017 because he does so many things on the field. And as for his infield hits falling off because he's going to get slow, again, he's 27 years old, not 35. And there's no reason to believe he's suddenly going to stop being fast. He comes into camp in shape every year and clearly puts in the work to keep his body in top shape. Him going from the 100th percentile in sprint speed to the 95th percentile (he's in the 99th percentile this year) in sprint speed takes almost nothing away from his production. You're talking the loss of a handful infield hits per season starting 4 years down the road. So from the age of 31-34/35 he'll be still OPSing higher than league average while still providing gold glove defense in CF. I just don't understand any part of your stance. At basically 11M/year base there is just very little downside to signing him to an extension.

Agree to disagree on what? Literally everyone actually involved and with direct knowledge of the situation says 7/80 is/was agreed upon. Your argument is that they're all wrong (or lying) and you know better. So, sure, agree to disagree.

Well both him and his agent have publicly stated that they agreed to a base of 7 years and $80M, but they couldn't come together with the team on the incentives so I think I'll stick with him being good with the 7/80 and wanting more incentives.

Since 2015 Buxton has a a 3.6% weak contact rate and 28% topped ball rate. Mike Trout is at 3.6% and 22.4%. League average is 3.7% and 33.3%. He's under league average for both. Since 2019 his weak contact percent's have been 2.4, 2.1, and 2.6. Well below league average. His topped ball %s have been 23.8, 25, and 38.5. 2 years of basically 10 points below average and this year above. Yes, his speed does give him a great advantage over other players in beating out infield hits, but you're making it sound like he's a slap hitter or something. I think you just have a very different view of Buxton than I do and what his recent stats have shown him to be. He has 10 homeruns in 27 games this year and you think he's a 20-25 homer guy in a full season. You're suggesting he would have gone from 10 in 27 games to 10-15 in the next 130 games. So from a 60 homer pace (he wasn't going to hit 60 hrs this year) to a 19 homer pace. You think his recent production is more than 3x better than who he really is. That's one heck of a hot streak for any player. Especially bold stance considering this is the type of player everyone thought he would be for years.

And as I pointed out in the original comment you responded to there's no reason to believe he's suddenly going to be super slow. Kevin Kiermaier topped out at 29.7 ft/s sprint speed back in 2015 at the age of 25. He's now at 29.1 ft/s sprint speed at the age of 31. Buxton is at 30.0 ft/s sprint speed at the age of 27. How much slower do you think he'll get in the next 5 years? Even dropping down to 29 ft/s keeps him in the 95th percentile of MLB players. There are only 40 players in MLB who have sprint speeds of 29 or faster. So there's no real reason to think he's suddenly going to be slow. Trout is 30 and has only dropped to 29.3. Jon Berti for the Marlins is 31 and sprinting at 29.9 ft/s. Billy hamilton is 31 at 29.6. Adam Engel 30 at 29.7. Phil Gosselin is 33 and sprinting 29.2. And none of those guys are coming from Buxton's top speed at 30.9.

In decline? At the age of 27 he's already at the point in his career where he's going to be getting significantly worse? Bold claim there. Not going to argue with you on the batting stats. If you want to believe he hasn't figured his hitting out over the last 2 years and is a different player than he was early on when they were changing his swing every other week I'm fine with you believing that. Agree to disagree. But he's still worth 7/80 plus incentives.

September will be a big month for Buck. If he comes back and plays the whole month at anything close to how he played his first 27 games this year it makes this offseason real interesting. He's going to stick to his demands of big incentives on that reported 7/80 base deal. But will also raise the type of package the Twins could demand if they refuse to meet his contract demands. I'm of the belief the Twins should sign him to whatever incentives he wants (assuming all incentives are based on that season and there aren't any future season vesting options he's talking about) as his value from his defense alone will be incredibly high into his mid 30s. I'm not a believer that he's going to hit 30 and suddenly go from 30 ft/s sprint speed to 25. Dude is fast enough and gets good enough jumps that even losing a step or 2 in his early 30s means he's the best defensive CFer in baseball. Reference point: Kevin Kiermaier is 31 and has gone from 29.7 ft/s in 2015 to 29.1 ft/s this year and is still in the 95th percentile for sprint speed. Buxton should be an elite glove man for his whole career. If he's a .300 hitter with 30+ bombs you're talking MVP and he's worth whatever incentives he's asking for. If the Twins can get him on a 7/80 base it's the absolute right move. With their limited payroll (whether self inflicted or not) this is their best chance to sign a player of this caliber to a long-term deal that doesn't kill their budget. If the Pohlads won't sign off on a deal like this due to the risk of their payroll jumping 15M in a season where they have the MVP then MLB should force them to sell.

Confused by people saying you can find Colina types anywhere. 24 year old who's dominated the minors, throws 100, and has the best slider in the org and you think you can just cut him and find someone else who fits that mold? He's the type of arm we've all been begging for in the Twins pen. Nobody is saying he's a sure fire stud, but he's most definitely somebody you keep on the 40 man and give a shot to next year.

Certainly don't want Simmons back next year, but pitching is why the Twins failed this year and now that they have young guys up I think keeping Simmons for his glove alone makes sense for the rest of this season. Let those young arms build confidence with their best SS option behind them instead of having 4 negative fielders behind them (assuming Donaldson DHs as is being suggested here). Making your young pitchers get 4 outs in half their innings because you have Miranda, Polanco, Arraez, and Sano behind them is more harmful to the 2022 Twins than having Miranda stay in AAA for a "playoff" run and keeping Simmons on the Twins. Help your young pitchers build confidence going into 2022. I'd love to see Miranda get his feet wet this year and make his debut with sky high confidence during the best hitting season of his life, but I think there's legit reasons he isn't up. I don't think he's being wasted in St Paul, and think there's something to be gained from him playing in competitive games during a "playoff" push and leading the team during the "playoffs." I don't think the experience of playing in pressure situations in St Paul this year instead of playing in meaningless games in Minneapolis is a complete waste. He doesn't get to face ML pitching, but he's learning to excel under pressure (hopefully). Also a lot of underselling of current Twins position players in this thread. If you don't like what Donaldson is doing for the money he's being paid you really shouldn't ever ask for the Twins to sign big name FAs ever again. He's missed a little time with health problems, but people make it sound like he's Buxton playing 35% of games or something. He's going to play in 120ish games (not ideal, but not crazy). He's got an OPS+ of 123 and wRC+ of 118. His defense has slid some, but he's still the second best infield glove we have. The Twins are getting what they paid for. This is what you get from most big name FA signings. Reference point: Manny Machado (significantly younger, and on a much longer and more expensive deal) has an OPS+ of 130 and wRC+ of 121. His defense is still really good as he's much younger and hasn't seen his athleticism decline, but offensively he's putting up quite similar numbers for even more money.

I'm interested to see what Larnach's approach looks like in 2022. He was a left-center gap hitter his whole amateur career so I was surprised to see him looking to pull so much at the major league level. Will he come back next year looking as pull happy as he did this year, or be back to using the left-center gap and being a little more hit over power? From all the reports I've read he spent all last year working on being able to pull the ball for power so I wonder if the early promotion got him locked into that swing without the chance to take the next step of having both his opposite field approach while being able to turn on pitches inside.

Teams definitely keep places open for FAs. They can add and remove guys from the 40-man as they want in the offseason, but removing them still makes the player go through waivers. And the crappy teams with open 40-man spots would much rather take a kid off waivers and be able to move them up and down next season between the minors and majors than have to take the kid in the Rule 5 and keep them on the major league roster all year. That doesn't necessarily mean they cut the Smeltzer's of the world immediately after the season. They "keep a spot open" by knowing they have someone like Smeltzer that they're willing to move on from if they find an upgrade. My list wasn't saying they should cut and add those specific players day 1 of the offseason, but those are the 35 (or 36) guys I'd have marked on my board as IN for next season and are only not on the 40-man at the Rule 5 deadline if I've found better players to replace them. The Twins need to have an idea of who in the org they are putting on the 40-man. They need to know which guys are expendable. Then they use that information to make decisions in free agency and trades. They don't just cut borderline 40-man guys immediately, but they see if they can move them for a low level lottery ticket that clears a 40-man spot and adds talent to the system. So I don't mean literally having open spots on the 40-man the whole offseason, but knowing which guys are coming and going and not putting 40 guys on the 40-man that they're not willing to cut when they know they need to sign free agents.