sthpstm

All the home runs were great but the Twins offense was too one dimensional. I don't buy the disrupting team chemistry argument. In reality, none of really know the relationships that exist, but I believe bringing in another quality, professional player or two will improve chemistry. This is not a group of friends or a club, this is a team that should be going to a world series and I'm not convinced the "chemistry" will get them there without more walks and quality at bats in general.

Here we go...this first one will hurt... Trade Miguel Sano, Alex Kirilloff and Jhoan Duran or Balazovic to the Reds for Luis Castillo Trade Eddie Rosario and a couple of lower prospects for Jeff Hoffman Let Sam Dyson go Pay Martin Perez his buyout Project payroll: $67.5M Sign Marcell Ozuna for 3 years, $36M Sign Josh Donaldson for 2 years $45M Sign Madison Bumgarner for 3 years, $57M Sign Kyle Gibson for 1 year, $8M Sign Dellin Betances for (? - 2 years, $12M) Sign Travis d'Arnaud for 2 years, $10M (or Francisco Cervelli for the same) Castillo Berrios Bumgarner Gibson Hoffman Depth: Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, Jax, Sands, etc. etc. Rogers Duffey May Littell Graterol (like Liriano and Santana before him, the plan will be move to stretch him out to starter later in the season) Stashak Betances The best of the rest - Romero, Smeltzer, etc. C Garver 1B Cron 2B Arraez 3B Donaldson SS Polanco RF Kepler CF Buxton LF Ozuna Bench: d'Arnaud, Gonzalez, Arraez, Cave $140M payroll with a solid rotation and some added professional hitters and at least 1 solid defender in Donaldson and Ozuna. Yes, Hoffman has been bad but I expect at least 1 trade of FA signing of a pitcher who failed to reach a once lofty ceiling. Hoffman is still young and enough and has the potential to be that guy.

Jeff Hoffman

I've wondered how much all of these moves to pull a guy from triple A, use him and send him back for another drives the Red Wings and Skinner crazy. He must have a really tough job some days, especially with most of the remaining arms there pitching pretty poorly.

Personally I’m disappointed. There’s enough cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity on this site from posters without making this type of writing a feature.

Sorry, what? How did Trevor May sign for less than the number offered by the Twins? That’s perplexing.

The guy has been TERRIBLE offensively this year. But let's keep ignoring that because he was a high draft pick and is tremendously athletic. I guess great defense means he needs to be called up in September to be a defensive replacement only. Take your blinders off folks.

I was hoping to go tonight, but I'll settle for Romero v Ohtani on Sunday.

For those suggesting a 1 year deal, do you think the Twins will give up the draft pick to sign Lynn or Cobb for just 1 year?

If the team can improve the top 6 starting pitcher options, why not do it? I think my main question with Lynn is if someone with his repertoire will continue to (or return to) pitch at an above average level.

Are we sure Pineda can't be moved to the DL now and Sanchez takes his spot? https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/02/cubs-to-sign-shae-simmons.html

I noticed on MLBTR the last few days that a few players on other teams have already been moved to the 60 day DL to make room for new additions, which surprised me. So, maybe the rules now would allow Pineda to moved to the 60 day DL as soon as the signing is official.

I'm surprised it's an MLB deal, but with a lower BABIP and a better HR % he could be serviceable. Interesting too that SIERRA calculates him as an above average pitcher; he did strike out almost 1 per inning so clearly he had something that was working. If the Twins think they can get good starts out him with something changing, pitch usage or sequencing or whatever, combined with solid defense, I say go for it.

I get all of those arguments and I was on this side until the past couple of weeks. The Twins just simply don't get a lot of good opportunities to get this type of a pitcher. I'd rather see them get him in a year where they are still developing than wait a year or two when the market is flooded with more teams competing for this type of a pitcher. Next year and after, the big spenders will be back and instead of getting a good pitcher at fair value they'd have to outbid maybe the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Cubs, the Red Sox, etc. and other mystery teams (Braves, Padres, etc.) that are starting to take off with cheap players and willing to spend.

The current CBA lasts through the 2021 season, correct? It seems like we should expect big changes, or at least that we all would generally agree some changes are needed, like higher pay for players pre-arb and during arb. If I'm a team I'd be concerned about having too many players signed at a high salary for 2022 or beyond if I also expect little production from them. Could this have any impact on not offering guys longer deals?

As a fan whose lifestyle is most kindly described as thrifty, the pay calculations of baseball players has long bothered me. Why would a player who is young but exceptionally gifted be payed a pittance? Why would a player who was once productive but has for various reasons become unproductive be paid 10 to 20 times more? Why would a player who is productive and may remain so or may as likely become unproductive be guaranteed 200 times more? "Because the market and it's rules allow it" has essentially been the response. If it take s $50 million, or $100 million to get an experienced player who has been greatly underpaid; if a team is willing to pay them and get a small percentage of the expected value for the monetary investment, so be it. We are finally seeing the beginning of this system cracking. While I welcome the change, I don't welcome the fights likely to ensue. Can a team shield itself from this? This offseason, with a few exceptions teams are beginning to step back from what have historically been vast overpays for currently good but soon likely to decline productivity. This makes sense. But at the same time those same teams will continue to pay next to nothing for some players that will provide value far greater than their pay. This does not make sense. A market correction is understandable; but a correction on one part without a correction on the other will result in some issue. In this case, that issue may be a player strike. Perhaps it will start small until the next CBA, or perhaps or it will happen all at once in 4 years. Rather than going any further on the complaints, how can a team get ahead of the issue, and is there any advantage to doing so? What if a team chooses to provide fairer pay to young players by internally increasing all pre-arbitration salaries to amounts rarely seen? If the Twins contract offer to free agents included this guarantee, would any veteran player care? Will that increase improve player moral, and will that have an effect on effort, on productive, on things that make a ball club better? Teams created analytics and research departments to improve their outcomes. Is there a market deficiency here that could be altered to be ahead of the curve? Would a team doing so be more attractive to free agents? Would fans care? Would they react positively and support the team in greater ways (more dollars)? I believe this is likely something that might effect the teams appearance to free agents greater in 2019 and 2020 more so than in 2018, but since 2018 is what currently affects it, here is my example. Dear Yu Darvish (or Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb, or whomever you wish with dollars and possibly years changed appropriately), Effective 2018, the Twins will be increasing the salaries for pre-arbitration eligible players 2 times the standard rate calculation. This amount will increase to 3 times the standard rate in 2019, to 4 times the standard rate in 2020 and to 5 times the rate in 2021. Further increases will be likely in 2022. Beginning in 2019 and ending in 2021, arbitration-eligible numbers will also be increased with the final percentages being an increase of 100% - 90% for players under $1 million, by 75%-60% for players over $1 million but under $3 million, by 50%-35% for those between $3 million and $5 million, and by 25%-15% for those between $5 million and $10 million. The percentages will be based on a sliding scale which decreases for greater salaries which is detailed on the attached. In order to pay all players a fairer wage, veteran players in free agency will, must, see their wages affected to some degree. Our offer is reflective of this change, though we have attempted to keep those changes minimal and have included incentives based off of the amount of innings pitched in later years. Beginning in 2018 your 5 year salary schedule would be the following: $28 million, $30 million, $25 million (up to $3 million incentives at 190 innings), $20 million (up to $5 million incentives at 190 innings), $17 million (up to $7 million incentives at 190 innings). The base salary total is $120 million up to $135 million with incentives met. We acknowledge that based off of past contracts for free agents, the amount would likely have been $180 - $150 million over 6 or 5 years. But we also acknowledge that a change must come and will come. We want to be a driver in that change and ask you to join us in being a driving force for fairer pay practices. By the year 2021 players base salary with the Twins will begin at $2.5 million, with an estimated total salary increase of $20 million. By the year 2021 arbitration salaries as compared with 2018 salaries would be $22 million to $14 million (based off of current Twins players likely to be in the system we estimate this actual amount to be $65 million compared to $50 million). The total increase for the year 2021 which must be reflected in free agent payments is $32.5 million, with total increases over the 4 year period being far greater.

If you see divergent reports on where he will settle defensively, are you reading old, pre-draft reports. Everything I've seen on him since the draft believe that the advances he made post-draft indicate he can not only stick, but could be very good at SS.

Personally, I think the debate on is she telling the truth or is she lying is pointless. Unfortunately, going pubic with the allegations makes everyone think they should make a decision, pick a side. Yes, the allegations can be made public, but as an employer my thought be, please, give us a period to begin investigating and handle this, with the accuser, appropriately. To bring it to him in an appropriate way and ensure the truth comes out before it becomes a giant storm with the media and the public making wild assumptions and allegations and conclusions. It really comes from a position of wanting to aid the assaulted. So what bothers me, isn't is this the truth or not, it's the way it was announced. Did no one in whom she confided advise her and offer to assist her in going through the appropriate channels, be it the Twins, MLB, or her employer? I have had to deal with harassment in my work. It was not fun but it certainly was nothing like what happened here; I still think it about and have to deal with it and I can sympathize with her. Bringing it up to the attention of multiple senior managers was extremely worrisome, but it was necessary in my opinion to bring about a resolution and to bring peace of mind. Unfortunately, I imagine that making a public announcement has likely brought a great deal of turmoil to her life.

Are the Twins the one that can discipline or does it have to come from the league? For that consideration alone, does it matter if this was a team sanctioned event or if it was one his representatives arranged?

I don't think I've seen this noted elsewhere. The Twins have signed 19 year old Kai-Wei Tang to a $500,000 bonus. https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/twins-sign-right-hander-kai-wei-teng/c-263886652 Immediately, I can't find any other information on him.

For me, the question in acquiring Kemp is what Dodger's prospects your money can buy if you take on a significant portion of his contract. I would dream on Dennis Santana, but I don't know if he's attainable.

We will certainly see some minor league signings with a high likelihood of making the roster after 60 day DL moves. The Twins have done fairly well with those and there will be some experienced, though initially unexciting, names there as well.

Great - hard to dislike this type of risk/rewards move. And in my opinion he offers more upside than Smyly on the same contract. I wonder if the incentives are similar to what Smyly received.

If that's the starting request from Pittsburgh, that's not outrageous and maybe the Twins could tweak a bit. I am waiting for the Danny Duffy rumor - 4 years at a reasonable price but not the bargain Cole or Archer are. I'm curious what the price would be for Duffy.

His decrease in walks and increase in strikeouts compared to last year is encouraging. When Garvin Alston was hired and one of the only pieces of information on him was focusing on release points/extension, Slegers was the first name that came to mind on guys he could help continue to refine.