chpettit19

To be fair, Margot hadn't been able to field at his peak in over a year, and it wasn't just Margot. Should they never bring in another veteran ever? Of course they should. But saying it's just Margot isn't accurate either. Kyle Farmer's OPS didn't get over .600 until August 15th last year. And that was for 1 day. It didn't get back over .600 until September 4th. His BA was at or above .200 only 3 days total before September 7th. Margot may be the poster child right now, but it's not just about him. At least not for many of us. It's about them refusing to move on from veteran position players without options. They carried Kyle Farmer all season despite him not being able to play SS anymore and being a sub-.600 OPS bat. You add that to Manuel Margot and Joey Gallo the year before and Andrelton Simmons for an entire lost season and rostering Kyle Garlick and Jordan Luplow instead of Margot in previous seasons and there's plenty more there than just Manuel Margot to be concerned about when it comes to the Twins veteran additions lately.

Martin has nearly 1500 outfield innings between his college and pro career. I'd like to think he'll see improvement as he gets more innings, but I don't think we should act like he just stepped foot out there for the first time this year. He's been taking fly balls for a long time. There's a very real chance he simply isn't a very good outfield defender.

If you can trade Paddack and replace his salary with these 2 (or similar guys) and be under your budget, ok. I'm not overly excited about these 2, or any 1 year vet place holders. This regime doesn't move on from them no matter how they perform. If Laureano performs like he did for Cleveland last year, how confident is anyone that he wouldn't be on this roster all year with a 45 OPS+? That scares me way more than any rookie with options. But I think the question with filling these perceived needs of right handed corner outfield bat and 1B is what you have to subtract to fill them. Because the answer sure doesn't appear to be nothing. If you have to subtract Castro to add these 2, no thanks. If its just Paddack, whatever. Is it Paddack and Vazquez? Now we need another catcher, too. It's not as simple as "who can fill these needs" because you need to subtract some guys to be able to add some guys.

Aaron Judge isn't fast. Playing CF doesn't make him fast. Shohei is fast (70th percentile sprint speed, 28.1 ft/sec). Aaron Judge is not (36th percentile sprint speed, 26.8 ft/sec). Alex Kirilloff also had a 26.8 ft/sec sprint speed. And Carlos Correa. I agree with the general premise that being fast and having power don't have to be separate things, though. Bobby Witt Jr being the best possible example. Elly De La Cruz being another very good one. Wyatt Langford is one the Rangers hope becomes a household name for his power/speed combo. Jackson Chourio, Julio Rodriguez, Trea Turner, Jarren Duran, Corbin Carroll, Ronald Acuna Jr, Mike Trout, Gunnar Henderson, Oneil Cruz, Luis Robert, Byron Buxton, Shohei, the list goes on and on. It doesn't have to be all about sprint speed though. I think just ending the sentence at "the guys who hit the ball hard tend to be the best athletes" is good enough. The Twins have been lacking athletes for a while now. Correa is an athlete. He's not fast, but he's an athlete. Lewis isn't super fast anymore, but he's an athlete. Buxton is fast and an athlete. Kepler stopped being fast (also a 26.8 ft/sec sprint speed) but was an athlete. Wallner is an athlete. I may be missing a guy here or there, but the rest of the Twins roster is lacking in athleticism. I think they're getting better there, but still behind the curve. They also lack instinct. Lee isn't much of an athlete but has instinct. They need to find more guys with both.

FYI, can't offer the player a boat. Can offer them your bonus pool money. Can acquire up to 50% more and offer them that as well. Can offer nothing else. Can't even imply you're offering more than that. And definitely can't talk about an extension. That would lead to Derek Falvey being banned from Major League Baseball. The likelihood of a sale being finalized in less than a month is essentially 0. All they've done is said they're interested in the Twins. Roki has to be signed by the end of January. There's no chance the Ishbia brothers own the Twins by then. So, mentioning them is a no go as well, I'd think.

Yeah, it'd be interesting to know what they can, and would, say about where they're at in the process. We know about 1 possible interested party publicly, but don't know anything about any conversations or due diligence that have actually taken place. If I'm Roki, a team in the Twins position only wins the bidding for my services if they're head and shoulders ahead of the competition. If it's close, I'm just not taking the risk on the sale and the unknown. Because even if Falvey can say stuff, he can't say "the new owner isn't going to like me or Rocco or X and thats going to change on day 1." I hope the Twins put together an A+ presentation and give themselves a chance. But they're in a tough spot that has nothing to do with Falvey or any of the employees. The Pohlads continue to strike.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that. In fact, I said the safe bet is to always assume somebody somewhere is breaking a rule. What I did was point out that your questioning of the first "bait-n-switch" is a decade behind. I pointed out the things you guaranteed are happening would lead to GMs/POBOs being permanently banned from Major League Baseball, which is a fear they didn't have a decade ago when this actually was happening frequently. You haven't suggested subtle ways, you've suggested blatant ways that would lead to people losing their careers the second somebody got fired who knew about it or Roki said something random he didn't know was going to get somebody in trouble (like Kirk Cousins randomly mentioning he talked to the Falcon's trainer before signing). "Hypothetically... hahhaha, believe me, this is a "hypothetical" what.. if you, say, make the team out of of Spring Training might you be amicable to an extension to x years and y dollars?" isn't some sneaky subtle way of getting around rules. Throwing out 6/80 terms isn't some subtle way of getting around rules. They're blatant rule violations. Your suggestions wouldn't happen because they'd get people banned from the league. That's what I've said. These aren't gray areas anymore. They aren't the spirit of the rules. They are the rules. With severe consequences. Does that mean everyone is playing fair? Of course not. But they aren't sitting in pitches dropping blatant rule violations that will get them banned, either.

All he can sign is a minor league deal. Meaning he'll get whatever pool money he agrees to as a signing bonus and then he'll be subject to the same pre-arb and arbitration rules as the rest of the minor league players. He can sign an extension after agreeing to his original deal, but coming out with an extension like the 6/80 deal suggested in the first year would lead to an investigation because the team has no motivation to do that deal. They already have him under team control for 6 years. For example, Shohei Ohtani signed his original deal with the Angels for a $2.3 million signing bonus. He then made 545k, 650k, 260k (2020), 3 mil, 5.5 mil, and 30 mil through his pre-arb and arb years before hitting free agency. Roki Sasaki will follow the same kind of route with higher numbers as league minimums have gone up.

Saying the words you're suggesting right there would end up with the same penalties the Braves suffered. They closed those holes in the new CBA. The wording is very broad and doesn't take much to prove. "Whether implied or explicit" is how they worded it exactly for this reason. That's what happens after teams get caught, like I said, especially with a target this big. It takes 1 former employee with knowledge of the strategy to get interviewed to end careers. Teams are always pushing the boundaries and the safe bet is to always assume somebody is breaking a rule somewhere, but coming out with an extension like that quickly for somebody like Roki would have every other team in the league pissed and have an investigation into your entire international operation opened immediately. John Coppolella can never work in baseball again. You think guys are risking their careers for Roki Sasaki or any other individual international signing? I don't. Once somebody gets caught and the hammer is dropped and the holes closed things tend to go away substantially. You said you were waiting for the first bait-n-switch. It already happened. It was happening a decade ago and 7 years ago MLB brought the hammer down. Then they closed the holes 2 years ago. You couldn't put a 6/80 deal in place during his first year without having MLB investigate you aggressively. Nobody is risking that.

He didn't say he didn't slump, he said he doesn't do the slump mindset.

Yes. Can't offer him anything outside your pool money. You can trade for an additional 50% of your pool allotment, but you can't offer extra things like houses, cars, etc.

This is what got the Braves in trouble a number of years ago and landed Yunior Severino with the Twins. No team would bring up his roster spot. He already knows he's making the team, not worth risking losing him and the severe penalties that'd come with it to mention what's already known. The first bait-n-switch already happened. It's why it's very unlikely to happen again. Especially with this well-known of a target. The league would come down crazy hard on a team doing this to make an example of them. The CBA has rules covering all that kind of stuff. Even hinting at extensions will get your pool money pulled and all your international signings released.

While I'd normally agree with you, I'm not sure this is as easily done this year. Multiple reports out there that the Twins had previously tried to trade for him and couldn't get it done so selected him in the Rule 5 instead. So, it'd seem like the asking price to keep him in the system will be relatively painful and not so easily accomplished for this particular player.

Every team should be putting together their best pitch. These are the types of signing opportunities that every team loves. Roki has his flaws (mostly injury concerns), but he's an MLB ready arm that throws filthy stuff and has pitched on the world's biggest stage and he can be had for (relatively speaking) pennies. Every team should be putting together their absolute best pitch. Including the Twins. The signing pool is nothing. The coastal, big market teams talk him out of caring about that immediately by pointing out the endorsement opportunities (well his agent informs him of the extra financial opportunities). The difference between the Twins 7.55 mil at the top and the Dodgers 5.2 mil at the bottom is made up in 1 commercial shoot. He's ignoring the pool money because it doesn't matter to him financially. His money, like Shohei's was, will be made off the field. I don't know if he cares about the money, but it can still be a thing without him caring about the pool money. The Twins having the highest pool money doesn't matter. Because if the Dodgers, or any other team, want to match it they can trade for more and get close enough. The Twins having the most doesn't matter. It's not enough to matter. Especially when you get into Miami and Tampa (who are pretty good with arms, too, by the way) having the same amount but having no tax in their state and stuff like that. The 7.55 doesn't matter. The Twins biggest hurdle is the instability of the organization. From the possible sale to the payroll to Falvey and Rocco's job security and all that comes with those things. Every team has some level of instability in many of those things, it's just the nature of the industry. But the Twins are at a different level right now. Every professional athlete knows they could be traded at any time (outside of no trade clause things) or their teammates could be traded at any time or their bosses could be fired at any time. It's a very volatile business. But 23-year-olds moving to another country are likely going to be a little more hesitant when it comes to an organization whose owners have publicly stated they're looking to sell the team. That means everything about the organization is up in the air. You may like how they do things right now, but if they sell the team in February it may be an entirely new group of people doing things and then you have no idea how things will be done. If you sit down with Dodger brass you know there's a certain level of stability there. You can talk to Steve Cohen and get a feel for him and feel comfortable that your expectations for your first 6 years have a certain level of certainty. You can talk to the Pohlads, or anyone they employ, until you're blue in the face, but come away from it with no idea what you may be getting into by the end of 2025. The Twins should be putting their best foot forward. Put together an A+ presentation. Sell him on no earthquakes if you think that's the ticket. But they still have a Mount Fuji sized peak to climb. The odds are very slim the Twins walk away from this offseason with Roki Sasaki in the fold.

Nobody is bent out of shape. But "try to kick some creative ideas around" transitioning into leaving the door open to trading Correa is very different from shutting it down with "Correa is our shortstop and we have no plans to trade him." "Try to kick some creative ideas around" very much leaves it open to interpretation that they're having open and active conversations about trading Carlos Correa. "We get calls, but aren't planning on trading him" does not give that same kind of impression at all. They're not the same answer. They are more than the least bit different. His words matter. Why is he annoyed he has to answer a question every head baseball person has to answer? Why are you acting like this is something every GM or POBO doesn't deal with? He's paid millions of dollars a year to run a baseball team. He can put on his big boy pants and answer the same question every other head baseball person answers. He's not "rightly annoyed." If he's annoyed by having to answer the obvious question then he should quit and find a different job. And there have been articles about trading a bunch of people. And there will be every year. Because the honest answer is that every player is available for the right price. The question isn't what the honest answer is or whether or not this is a media driven thing and not really what Falvey meant, it's about letting the media drive the narrative or taking control of it yourself and stopping the continued deuteriation of the relationship between the team and the fans. "Well its the media and the fans should just be smarter" while shrugging their shoulders has been the Twins way of dealing with this stuff for a long time. And it's why they suck at selling tickets and driving revenue. DSP has been horrible at this stuff and Falvey seems to be taking his lead from him. Maybe MN fans really are the only dumb ones in the entire country and it just sucks that Falvey has to deal with this specific fanbase, but this is still the fanbase he has to deal with. The comments lead to more angry fans. After a complete disaster of an offseason last year and a complete disaster of an end to this season. "Fans should just be smarter" is not the correct response. Better statements is. Better PR is. Rebuilding the relationship between the team and the fans is. The fans are pissed. You're now relying on fans to buy tickets to games and streaming packages for TV revenue. "Not my fault they misunderstood what I said, stupid media and stupid fans fault, not mine" is the wrong answer. Alienating your fan base even more than you have over the last 13 months is the worst possible outcome whether it's the fans fault or not. Telling the fans they need to change how smart they are isn't the right answer. That's the DSP approach. Changing how you act and speak as an organization is the right answer. Falvey and the Twins need to message better. If the last 13 months hasn't made that abundantly clear, I don't know what will. Blaming the moron MN media and fans is a cop out and not a solution. It's on the team to fix what they do. Not the fans.

Technically Ted is a professional writer because he gets paid by sites like this, yes, but he isn't a professional writer like Gleeman or Hayes or Do. He's a blogger. His professional career is an IT recruiter. And, again, even in that article he says it's "highly unlikely" the Twins sign Sasaki. Just like Wolfe was speaking for himself and just giving his thoughts on the small markets he gave his thoughts when asked if Roki would be able to handle New York and he was quoted as saying "I think he could handle it." when asked if Roki would have problems with the pressures of playing in New York. That comes from Anthony DiComo from MLB. com. And, again, I've never said the odds are 0. I said the Twins should talk to him. But the realistic odds are about 1%. I'm sorry that breaks your heart or something, but that's the realistic odds. There aren't any "known boxes." That's what you keep ignoring. Roki Sasaki hasn't said anything. He hasn't presented any boxes. The "boxes" the agent presented weren't even Roki's boxes. As I already told you the agent even said he hadn't discussed this with Roki in detail. Those quotes weren't the agent passing along Roki's thoughts they were just the agent giving ideas. That was an agent doing agent things. There are no boxes to check yet. And the Twins definitely don't check the "Yu Darvish" box. San Diego, another mid-market team without the media circus, does check that box. Roki and Yu are very close. But you ignore that part of the press conference because it doesn't fit your happy narrative about the Twins being a dream destination. The Twins' pitching program isn't going anywhere no matter what? Says who? The new owners might fire Falvey on day 1. Then there's no promises who stays and who goes and the entire development program is up in the air. That claim is totally outrageous.

No. The Mariners haven't traded Castillo. They reportedly also got offered Bohm for Kirby or Gilbert and turned that down immediately. Because every team gets calls on every useful player that could be reasonably seen as possibly available. If Dipoto is just looking to salary dump Castillo (or Falvey is looking to just salary dump Correa) then he needs to be looser with his stance. But if he's going to keep him unless he gets the price he's asking then you take the strong stance knowing the only way you actually trade someone from your rotation (or Correa) is if you get a deal that is an obvious win. If you bring back a massive package the fan base is excited that your offense isn't going to bring you down so much next year and you win the PR on the trade. Instead of having negative PR out there for a trade that may never even happen.

There's a "dedicated group" in all 49 states, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and the CNMI. Acting like MN is the only state/fan base that has fans who take rumors and run with them is nonsense. The sale didn't change his answer one bit. That's a cop out. The sale didn't make it impossible for him to say "We get calls on Carlos and all of our players, but Carlos is our shortstop and we have no plans to trade him." That's a perfectly acceptable answer he could have given, but didn't. Anybody reading between those lines to say the Twins are shopping Correa is being immediately dismissed. His words do matter. He's the top non-ownership member of the organization. Everything he says matters. Especially now with the fanbase already in full on rebellion mode. It's not about the "dedicated group (that) only hear what they want to hear" it's about everyone else. Leaving the door open for interpretation during what he knows will be another slow winter where ticket sales will already be insanely low is bad PR for the guy now in charge of also driving ticket sales along with building a baseball team. People said it didn't matter when they announced the payroll decrease last year either. It does matter. It all matters. Whether it's just a stupid media group and fanbase who isn't smart enough to keep up or not, it matters and he needs to be better. He's in charge of it all now. Figure it out and quit saying things that get your fanbase to turn on you.

I very strongly disagree. How many would've noticed? Us on TD would, yes, but we're outliers. But announcing it in November before season ticket sales go into full swing? That's way worse than just letting it happen. Doing their same old same old "we're talking with people and just coming up short on trying to sign guys" bit all winter after individual game tickets go on sale after a mini playoff run instead of announcing publicly that you're cutting payroll? Way better for ticket sales. The average fan wouldn't have noticed and they would've sold tickets over the offseason and early into the season if they hadn't announced anything. The media would've connected them to a couple players throughout the offseason as "good fits" which would've grown fan excitement and increased ticket sales. Early season ticket sales would've been better which would've covered until the team got how and spent most of the summer as one of the best teams in baseball before the collapse. They almost undoubtedly would've sold more tickets last year had they kept their mouths shut all offseason and just kept with what used to be Falvey's favorite phrase "the Pohlads give us enough resources to build a contending team." They'd be in the same spot now of being almost universally despised, but they would've made more money last year. The bungled every PR situation they could the entire offseason. I don't know how anyone could argue differently. It was a complete and total disaster.

Strong disagree. Teams are interested in Correa. Just like teams are interested in Seattle pitching. There will always be media rumors and it's the media's jobs to ask the questions. It's what they're paid to do. Falvey's answer was very different than Dipoto's. Falvey should care. Especially with his new promotion. DSP didn't care and it was a massive reason for the team's struggles to connect with the fan base. No matter what you think about the media and the questions they ask the fans care about the team and the answers they give. Falvey needs to care. He kicked off the firestorm of payroll blowback last year and he's kicked off the Correa trade concerns this year. He doesn't get to not care. His words matter. The Pohlads don't speak often (for good reason) so he's the top official we hear from. New owners aren't here yet. And there's nothing mind blowing guaranteed with them. In fact, they were smart enough to meet their fans where they were and put Suns games on over the air TV instead of telling their fans to just quit being morons. Continuing to lose customers because you demand they adapt to you instead of you adapting to them is not smart.

He didn't have to give that answer. He could have said "we're not trading Carlos Correa." There's no rules saying he can't say "people call on every player, but I tell them we're not trading any of our stars, including Carlos." Dipoto says "we're not trading from our rotation." Or "trading from our rotation is plan Z." And things like that all the time. The media says "team X is interested in pitcher Y from Seattle" and Dipoto again says "we're not trading from our rotation." Do I think Falvey is shopping Correa? No. Did he say that stuff only because he was asked a question? Yes. Is it likely Correa is traded? Only if they get a killer return. But Falvey shouldn't have given an answer that so easily lead to "the Twins are listening on Correa" headlines. Falvey is yet another Twins representative that needs a PR seminar. Or 5. He didn't need to openly state they were slashing payroll last year and he didn't need to give that answer on Correa. "We get calls on everyone, every team does, but Correa is our shortstop and we have no plans to trade him. Next question."

Oh, for sure. But there's usual instability, then there's actively trying to sell the team instability. There's understood risk as a professional athlete that you may be traded, that your teammates may be traded, that any number of your bosses may be fired on a whim, etc. But then there's ownership change mixed with public payroll cutting/concerns instability. That's a different beast that changes the equation for a 23-year-old moving to a new country.

"I think that there’s an argument to be made that a smaller, mid-market team might be more beneficial for him as a soft landing coming from Japan, given what he’s been through and not having an enjoyable experience with the media. It might be — I’m not saying it will be — I don’t know how he’s going to view it but it might be beneficial for him to be in a smaller market. I really don’t know how he looks at it yet because I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and discuss it with him in great detail.” And there's the full quote about the smaller market thing, by the way. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for smaller markets. They haven't even discussed it yet. It's just something people have been saying because the Japanese media has been brutal towards him and his family for leaving at such a young age. Emphasis on the word might was from the agent. The biggest thing from the media scrum with the agent is that he hasn't even had a real discussion with Roki about his thoughts on any of this yet. It's all just agent speak covering all his bases.

From the claim that if hes chasing money he'd wait until he can get it in his contract. I mean you directly stated (incorrectly) that if he wanted money he'd stay in Japan another year and get Yamamoto's deal. Ted doesn't have an inside source with Roki. He can say whatever he wants about him. He has no source with him. He's a blogger. He's you and me who happens to get paid to write things about the Twins. Why would I care what Ted says the chances are of Roki signing here are? And, by the way, he says the chances of him signing here aren't good. "Don’t let me kill your optimsm, but it’s still highly unlikely the Minnesota Twins actually land Roki Sasaki, in the end." The Twins should talk to Roki. Of course they should. But you should be realistic about the situation. The Pohlads are trying to sell the team. The new owners will want to reassess the entire organization. There's instability up and down the roster and front office from the very top down. People want to know who they're signing up to work with. If Roki doesn't know if Falvey will be in charge next year why would he want to sign on with Falvey? If he doesn't know if Pablo, Correa, Buxton, Royce, and the rest of the squad will even be here next year why would he want to sign here? The instability of the sale of the team is a major hurdle that is nearly impossible to overcome. Then you add in numerous other very nice other options for him and the odds of him coming here are miniscule. Oh, and Ted also left out all the quotes about Roki not being afraid of big markets and being more than happy to go to New York or LA. His agent just spit out a whole bunch of nice stuff that covered every market in MLB like he should so he didn't close any doors. Falvey should call Roki's agent, but Roki isn't coming here.

It mattered to 1 team, and that's all it takes cuz it got him paid. And Profar's will get him paid. O'Neill's got him paid. Outlier platform years get guys paid all the time. And those contracts got bad all the time. But if you're going to bash Paddack for his lack of innings and performance since 2019 and call out the people on this site for having faith in Paddack based on the 2019 version while ignoring everything since then throw Matthew Boyd out as the rebuttal their lines since 2019 shouldn't look like this: Boyd: 263 innings 4.65 ERA, 4.38 FIP, 8.9 K/9 Paddack: 283 innings 4.90 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 8.4 K/9 Boyd went on a heater for 8 starts and got himself paid. Good for him. You threw around a bunch of pre-2020 Boyd numbers while bashing other posters for their Paddack stances then got mad at me for pointing out that you were using pre-2020 Boyd numbers. Boyd got paid for 8 starts. I hope it works out for the Cubs and he has his first full season of starts ever with an ERA under 4.39 or FIP under 4.32. Cuz if it was a Twins pitcher putting up those numbers you'd be calling them a number 5 starter, not telling us they have "huge upside."