Cap'n Piranha

There is no rule you can possibly enact to combat this, without simultaneously increasing the odds of injury. Closing the door on this would open a fairly serious window.

But would you move him for 2 years of Jon Gray?

A few things; Sano and Buxton each accumulated 2.7 WAR last year, placing them 5th and 6th in the lineup. In terms of WAR/150, they're 6th and 4th, respectively. They were key cogs in the Twins success, and most assuredly, not along for the ride. No way Odo takes a 3/$36M deal. He can get basically half of that just this year with the QO, so taking that deal implies Odorizzi's camp thinks he would not be able to get a 2 year contract for $9M/year after 2020, when he woudl have no draft pick compensation attached. if the Twins want Odo for the next 3 years, they're going to have to get somewhere in the $42-$45 range. Alex Gordon makes no sense for this team, whether an outfielder is traded or not. From an offensive standpoint, Buxton and Kepler are better options, as is Rosario (unless you want more OBP in return for a big power drop). Cave and Wade are probably better too; they certainly have more upside. And with Kiriloff and Larnach holding their own at age 21 and 22 in AA, that's 7 options better than Gordon, before even mentioning Gonzalez and Royce Lewis should he be moved to the outfield. If we feel like we need more outfield defense despite having the 2nd best CF and 3rd best RF (according to fangraphs), than just go sign a really fast guy from someone's minor league system. Or alternatively, sign Billy Hamilton who is far superior defensively to Gordon, and would actually steal some bases too. All that being said, outfield is the last place the Twins should be looking to spend time or money this offseason.

Arraez is going nowhere. Out of 241 hitters with 350+ PA's, he was 30th lowest in soft contact rate, #1 in opposite field rate, #2 in bb/k, #1 in contact rate, lowest in swinging strike rate, #3 in zone contact rate, and #1 in out of zone contact rate. And all of this in his first ever taste of the bigs, in a season in which he started at AA, and turned 22 after the season started. Barring something shocking happening, Luis will be an elite hitter in the league for at least the next decade. Guys who walk more than they strike out, have elite contact ability, and generally make medium+ contact while being among the handful of youngest players in the league don't regress. They progress.

I really like Mookie, and a Buxton/Betts/Kepler outfield is possibly the best defensive outfield in the game, and maybe offensively too. That being said, with Cave and Wade already on the roster as cheap, controllable options with decent production and potential upside (Cave OPS'd .964 in 141 2nd half PA's last year, and was at .805 overall. Wade only OPS'd .723, but showed elite plate discipline ability--1.1 bb/k, only a 14.9% soft contact rate, and an 83.7% contact rate--suggests when his Mendoza-esque babip normalizes, he'll be an above average offensive player). Add in the fact that our 2nd and 3rd best prospects are playing in the outifeld, and our best might end up there too, and giving up assets in order to pay Betts $20M+ and potentially watch him walk seems like a poor allocation of resources. If the Twins are indeed willing to commit the $250M or so it would take to keep Betts here for the next 6-8 years, I'd much rather they just gave that to Cole, Strasburg, or Rendon. If they're not, I don't see how it makes any sense to give up prospects and a still 26 year old 3rd baseman with 40+ HR power just to shell out $20M+ and watch Betts walk for only a comp pick.

Sure, I get, LA winning a tiebreak over MSP all else being equal. That's why I'm proposing the Twins do 7/$250 with an opt-out after 5. Hell, make it after 4 if need be. I'm not Gerrit Cole, so I can't say how much "living" in LA during the season is worth to him, but if the Angels go 7/$224 with no opt-out, I struggle to think Cole would pass on $26M/the option to re-up closer to his prime, rather than after it, if at all.

Definitely. Per my above post, the Twins could decide to skip Rendon, and do BOTH Cole and Strasburg, and still be around $160M. Long story short, there is absolutely no reason for the Twins to not offer $30M per year to at least one of Cole, Strasburg, and Rendon.

I don't quite get the idea of wanting to play where you want to live being a huge factor. Every player spends the entire month of March away from "home". From April through September, every player will spend at minimum 81 out of 183 total days away from home, and that's only if there are no off days during the middle of road trips, and the player doesn't make the all-star team. In reality, it can be safely assumed that every player will spend at most half of the season at home, and in some cases, that's only 3-6 days at a time. Those are also the 6 months where the weather is quite nice almost everywhere. Put it another way--if someone doesn't want to spend winters in Minnesota, they can still play for the Twins, and have a very low chance of ever having to see snow, since they can spend November through February wherever they want, and March in Fort Myers.

Right now is the Twins' Perfect Storm Opportunity. Attendance at Target Field jumped to nearly 2.3M, up from 1.96M in 2018, with an average ticket cost of $37.80. Tag on an extra $10/person between concessions and merch (which is probably low), and the Twins brought in $109.6M from their 81 home games last year. The Twins FSN deal runs 4 more years (through 2023) at around $40M a year, which means last year, the Twins already had almost $150M in revenue before any ads, radio rights, or MLB funds were distributed. Now is the time for the Twins to make their move, shed the reputation of not spending, and the rewards they can reap will be massive. Imagine if the Twins can move their average attendance from just over 28k a game to 35k a game. Imagine if the average spend per attendee moves to $55 instead of $48. Target Field would now be worth $156M all on it's own. Now imagine the increased ratings FSN gets with the increased interest, and perhaps the next contract puts the Twins in the Billion club for local broadcast--the Cardinals current deal could be a template (as a team in a smaller market than the Twin Cities, but probably more popular in the St Louis market), which is 15 years and $1B. Thats another $67M in annual revenue, putting the Twins at $223M before radio, marketing, revenue distribution from MLB, or home playoff games (with the likelihood of full stadiums and dramatically increased ticket prices--say an average spend of $160 between tickets, concessions, and merch--a home playoff game is worth $5M to $6M easily), the Twins could definitely get to $300M in revenue annually. How do the Twins achieve these growth numbers? Exceed the 50% of revenue on payroll rule, and do what it takes to sign both Cole and Rendon this winter. Offer Rendon 7 years and $225M, and Cole 7 years and $250M. Give them both opt outs after 5 years to sweeten the incentive to come to Minnesota; this will accomplish a number of things. Fans will go insane. When the Phillies signed Bryce Harper, they sold 100k extra tickets. The reaction from Twins fans will assuredly exceed that. That reaction is what the Twins would be counting on to drive the increased revenue numbers I detailed above. It makes extreme baseball sense from the pitching side. A top 3 rotation of Cole, Berrios, and Odo can compete in the playoffs. If Graterol takes off, look out. Plus, with all the prospects still in the minors, the Twins could easily flip some combination of Lewis, Kiriloff, Larnach, Balazovic, Gordon, Smeltzer, Thorpe, Duran, or Alcala and still be able to trade for a 4th starter--say Lewis, Balazovic, and Alcala for Syndergaard? It makes extreme baseball sense from the lineup side too. If MLB truly does "de-juice" the baseball, this Twins team could use some extra OBP. Imagine a line-up of Arraez, Rendon, Cruz, Kepler, Sano, Garver, Polanco, Rosario, and Buxton (ideally, the Twins would trade Rosario, and let Cave/Wade play until Kiriloff or Larnach is ready). That is a deadly lineup, not to mention moving Sano to first vastly improves your infield defense, while barely downgrading your defense at first. The cost actually isn't even that bad. In this scenario, the Twins free up anything they would have to pay Cron (MLBTR projects $7.7M). Clear Rosario's projected $8.9M, and you're already more than a quarter of the way to Rendon and Cole's contracts--$16.6M out of $68M. The Twins would be at $142M in payroll, while still needing to pay Arraez, Cave, Wade, a backup catcher, 3 to 4 guys in the bullpen, and 2 starters. All of that should be doable for $20M, unless you are trading for a 4th starter/bringing back Pineda. While that might make extensions more difficult, you also free up $21M next year with Cruz and Marwin off the books; the Twins could decide to lock in Buxton and Sano this offseason for $20M a year between the two of them for sure if they really wanted, and still not go too much past $160M.Will the dream of Cole/Rendon happen? I'm sure it won't. But if the Twins want to change everything, it is a completely feasible way to do it.

Gibson, based only on stats, having not seen any of his pitches, looks like a mixed (but mostly positive) bag to me last night. 18 k/9, 20% swinging strike rate, 2/1 gb/fb ratio, and 50% chase rate are all good. 50% hard hit rate is not so ideal however.

Um, Willians in 15 high leverage PA's this season has a .690 OPS with an 86 wRC+, and has made soft contact 42.9% of the time.

Not enough length in the pen for me. Assume you get 6 from Berrios, 5 from Odorizzi, and 4 from Dobnak. Unless there's a sweep, you'll then need 9 innings in Game 4--add it up and you're looking at a minimum of 19 innings from your bullpen (losing the first two on the road in non-walkoff fashion, no extra innings). That 19 innings comes in only 5 days, so asking Rogers, Romo, Duffey, May, or Littell to pitch more than 2 innings each starts getting dicey, as it would mean either a multi-inning outing, or pitching 3 times in 5 days with a back-to-back comprising two of those outings. This leaves us with 4 pitchers who would need to cover at minimum 9 innings. If Perez and Gibson each take 3, then that's only 3 innings left for the last two guys--but that assumes A) Gibson and Perez can make it three innings, and B ) no game goes into extra innings. Those seem like two big gambles to me when you could easily put Smeltzer or Thorpe on the roster instead of a 7th guy who covers an inning at a time. In that scenario, I prefer Brusdar's stuff over Stashak against the Astros or Yankees.

Oh, not personal at all--at least no more personal than you make them. I'll agree that Stashak, in a vacuum is better than Thorpe or Gibson right now (although Thorpe's numbers are dragged down by one bad outing against Cleveland). However, he can't do what the Twins are going to need from bullpen options 6-9; provide multiple innings. While Thorpe has been over 4 only once, he's been over 2 innings 5 times--Stashak has been over 2 innings once, despite 7 more appearances. When you're likely to need 13-15 innings from your bullpen in Game 3-4 (which are on consecutive days, by the way), you will need 8-10 from the bottom 3-4 guys unless you want to pitch one or more of Rogers, Romo, Duffey, May, and Littell back-to back, and for the third time in either 4 or 5 days most likely. That makes having 3 guys that you ask to give you 3 innings nearly a must--putting Stashak ahead of either Gibson or Thorpe means Stashak will have to get stretched to two innings, and Graterol might have to as well (unless Graterol is left off for both Gibson and Thorpe). By the way, Thorpe is actually better against lefties than Stashak; .804 OPS against .859 OPS, .354 wOBA against .366 wOBA, 11.1 k/9 against 7.6 k/9, 4.27 xFIP against 5.25 xFIP, 20% hard hit rate against 38.7% hard hit rate. If the goal is to get another guy to face lefties besides Perez, neither Thorpe or Stashak are good options, but Stashak is worse. No need to make a wager, that interests me not at all. If I'm wrong, no big deal; I would just be really surprised if a team that will need a lot of length from its bullpen will elect for a 6th one inning guy (maybe 7th, depending on if he's behind Graterol) over a third length guy.

Who's spot is Stashak taking? If the Twins are truly doing a bullpen game in Game 4, and knowing that 5 innings is about the most they can expect in games 2 and 3, while also knowing that their ace bullpen guys are not great when not rested, length becomes very important. You have to have at least 2 long guys in the bullpen, if not 3--at this point that's Perez, Gibson and Thorpe (assuming Dobnak goes in Game 3). If the Twins are carrying 12 pitchers (which has to be the maximum), the 9 in the bullpen would for sure include Rogers, Romo, Duffey, May, and Littell. Add in the 3 long guys above, and you're now at 8, so the choice would come down to Graterol or Stashak. I prefer Graterol, due to his upside, but I would not be opposed to Stashak. Also, saying it's an oversight or something else is completely meaningless. For example, should you respond to this, you will either use your keyboard, or something else.

While Gibson was awful, I can't really blame him too much--I blame the Twins for thinking a guy can bounce back from ulcerative colitis in 10 days. Gibson should have been given the rest of the season off with the only mandate to eat as much healthy food as he can get his body right. Have him pitch on the last Sunday of the regular season, and see what you have there. The Twins playoff bullpen is also going to be very interesting. Rogers, Romo, Duffey, and May are locks. With Berrios and Odo absolute locks to be the top two starters, that theoretically leaves you with 5 slots to cover two starters and 3 length guys. But if Littell and Brusdar are included, now you only have one spot, and since you need to count on at least 4 innings in Odo's start, and maybe 5 in both game 3 and 4, I have to wonder if the Twins carry 8 guys, not 7, as relievers. In this case, that would mean Dobnak, Smeltzer, Gibson, and Perez, with Thorpe an alternate if either Gibson or Perez is left off.

You seem to be assuming that Luis almost must regress, and simply repeating this year's numbers is the absolute best case scenario. This suggests you think it's impossible that he adds more muscle, turning singles into doubles and some doubles into homers. Or that with an entire offseason as the presumptive starting second baseman, he'll be able to more thoroughly study opposing AL pitchers, as opposed to this year where he spent the offseason worrying about AA pitchers. Arraez is a decent candidate to not regress, given his understanding of the strike zone (26.7% chase rate, 52nd out of 268 batters with 300+ PA's), his consistent use of all fields (all between 27.9% and 37%), his elite contact ability (3.0% swinging strike rate, 2nd of 268; 92.7% contact rate, 1st), his subsequent ability to avoid soft contact (11.1%, 16th), and his competence against all pitch types (only negative against cutters, and that's only -0.1). It seems highly unlikely that these skills will suddenly dissipate at the age of 23. Furthermore, stating that giving out a contract now is silly because Arraez might regress next year ignores the possibility that not giving out a contract now is silly because Arraez might progress next year. What if next year he flirts with .400 into August, before settling with a .370 average and winning the batting title by 40 points? What if the OBP hangs around .430 the entire year, but he also hits 40 doubles, and even 10 homers, leading to him OPS'ing above .900? What if his conditioning, and therefore defense and speed improve because he spends the entire offseason training in Fort Myers, as opposed to in Venezuela, where there's an actual famine going on? I don't think all, or perhaps even any of that happens, but none of that is out of the question, and if it does happen, will make him much more expensive than $5M-$7M a year. Finally, if Arraez does have 2 more years like this one (which would put him at about 10-12 career WAR before the age of 25), you probably won't be able to get him to sign a team friendly contract, as he might very will be in arbitration at that point, and looking at a $4M to $6M first year salary anyways. Team friendly deals happen because you're giving players giant raises in years you don't have to, in return for not having to give them huge raises in years you do. I posed this question already, but I'll ask again; what's worse--paying Arraez $35M over the next 7 years while he slashes .290/.330/.380, or saving at most $15M over the next 5-6 years, then watching Luis leave in free agency and win a couple batting titles?

Super 2. I don't know if Luis will attain Super 2 status, but it's certainly possible, which would give the Twins 5 years of control, barring significant injuries that allow the Twins to gain a fourth year of arbitration.

Altuve won't be a comp for arbitration because he didn't go to arbitration. Luis' first arbitration year (either 2022 or 2023) will be nearly a decade after Altuve signed that contract. Just a few things have/will have changed in terms of MLB compensation in that span.

As I understand it, Super 2 means you become arbitration eligible for the season after you achieve two years of service time. As Arraez cannot hit that mark next year (he will in all likelihood finish with 1 point something), he should have 2 years of pre-arbitration left. But if he wins a batting title in either of the next two years, that first arbitration number for his age 25 season might be more than the $4M I threw out, meaning the hypothetical $7M and $10M would be more too. You take risk signing Arraez to an extension now. But you take risk by not doing it too. And I personally would rather the Twins take the risk of a small (relatively) overpay to a league average player than watch a perennial all-star play for someone else because the Twins didn't want to pay an extra $10M to $20M over 5-6 years.

The goal for the Twins starting these last 13 games was to win every series; 2-1 against Chicago, 3-1 against the Royals, 2-1 against the Tigers, 2-1 against the Royals. Add that up, and it's 9-4--with a magic number of 9, that makes anything Cleveland does irrelevant. Last night's win secured the series win, so today we play with house money. Keep in mind that these 3 games with the White Sox were/are the hardest games left on our schedule. By far. Also, for the September thing next year, even if the Twins aren't allowed to pick 28 players from the 40 man for every series, they can still have the shuttle up and running, just from Fort Myers instead of Rochester.

Incorrect. He will cost about $1.1M the next two years, but if we assume he will continue to hit above .300 with an OBP in the .360 to .380 range, he will likely get somewhere around $20M in his 3 arb years (say $4M, $7M, and $10M as not unreasonable numbers). That's $21M for 5 years, after which he would be a free agent--the first two years of that deal would at that point surely by $10M-$12M a year. In this scenario, he would be following Kris Bryant (3 years at the minimum, FA after 6 years). If he has three more years after this one of team control, the story does change a little bit. 5 more years of control--somewhere in the neighborhood of $45M over the next 7 years 6 more years of control--somewhere in the neighborhood of $33M over the next 7 years You sign him to a 7 year, $35M deal because it creates payroll certainty for you, and because if he becomes a poor man's Jose Altuve when he's 25, you have him at $7M a year for the next 4 years, and not the $12M to $18M he might otherwise cost.

Plate discipline and control of the strike zone are skills unlikely to erode--neither is his elite contact ability (at least not until he approaches, if not hits, his 30's). Luis is, among players with 300+ PA's this year, 1st in out-of-zone contact, 5th in in-zone contact, 1st in overall contact, and 2nd in swing strike rate, all while making only 11.3% soft contact (16th). Arraez is about as good a candidate there is to maintain the tools that are his skills, ability to get hits and have a high OBP. The reason you give Arraez a contract now is because that's how you get it really cheap. For example, back in April, the Braves gave Acuna an 8 (or 10) year contract for $100M (or $134M) after only 487 PA's in the Bigs. How much more do you think the Braves would have to pay if they tried to do an extension after Acuna put up a 5 WAR season in his age 21 season? I'm not saying Arraez is the player Acuna is--I'm saying the philosophy of doing deals early is how you get deals that look like steals. After all, if you pro-rate Arraez' WAR to a 150 game season, he's a 4 WAR player.

Yeah, my bad, I did my math wrong and pulled his 2002 numbers (I had just looked at Cruz, so I had 1980 in my head). Here are the actual numbers, 100% in MLB .294/.372/.411/.783 in 554 PA's, 26 2B, 2 3B, 9 HR, 6.5% XBH Rate, 73 BB, 64 K, 1.14 BB/K Arraez maintains his advantage in OBP, and actually has a better bb/k ratio than Joe did, but falls behind Joe in the XBH rate, but remains ahead in slugging due to his better batting average. I still think the point remains, Arraez' numbers as a 22 year old can hold their own against Altuve and Mauer at the same age.

Yeah, I'm not looking for him to change his swing--I think Mauer is a good comp for him here. Arraez has great zone control, uses all the fields, and isn't trying to hit homers. Mauer averaged a double every 18.6 PA's, and a homer every 55.7 PA's; if Arraez matches those rates (he's not far off on doubles, but quite a ways on homers), assuming 600 PA's a year, that's 32 doubles and 11ish homers a year. Seems reasonable.

So he'll be on the team for the next 7-8 years at a team friendly price...