Vanimal46

Well said. We will most likely never hear the story of Fernando Romero in 2020. It’s strange he was one of very few with this visa issue. I was hoping he’d be back for a redemption story in 2021.

I’m avoiding the money conversation entirely. Until owners open their books we’re doing nothing but yelling at clouds. It’s embarrassing MLB hasn’t given clarity about universal DH. It shouldn’t be difficult to achieve in a day. Vote yes or no. Continuing to drag it out gives the optics that they are intentionally depressing the DH market. No surprise baseball is trending towards being the NBA. It won’t be long until over half of the teams make the playoffs, making regular season play worthless. Then “load management” will enter the chat and our stars will play 100 games because there’s no pressure to make the playoffs.

You bring up a good question about how we define SS... Range used to be one of the most important traits before extreme shifting came into play. Now I don't think range is important as much as it used to be. Arm strength is still a must, since now they're throwing to first base from shallow CF. And frankly, they need to be really good with the bat now. SS is no longer a position for the slick fielding slap hitting guys. Shortstops as a whole in 2020 batted .263/.325/.423 for an OPS of .748. Their BA is the highest out of all position groups, and their OPS was 5th highest. I think now more than ever we need bat first guys who can be shifted into success defensively. Which makes the slash lines in our pipeline very depressing.

On a positive note, if Batista wasn't so washed up in 2006, we never would have met Nick Punto! The 2005 off-season had some baffling moves. Batista is right up there, along with the rotting corpse of Rondell White. I can't believe he actually played in parts of 2 seasons for the Twins when they were contending for a WS title! I'll always have fond memories of imitating Tony Batista's batting stance playing backyard baseball in the neighborhood.

Devin's also upset that he now has to take a new route to the AAA ballpark. It was so much easier taking I-35 all the way to Rochester to watch the Red Wings!

The Rule 5 draft has been much ado about nothing for a while. Now we’re picking players who haven’t played an organized professional game in 17 months. I’m not concerned in the slightest. Good luck to Baddoo and Wells.

Good call outs on Hendriks and Hand. I didn’t realize Hendriks is only entering his age 32 season. Hand will be 31 and Bradley will be 28. Upon further review I don’t know how I would rank these 3 players. I read that Bradley was projected to get $6 million in arbitration. He’s someone I’d like to give a 1 + option year contract too. If there’s competition for him, maybe $6 million + $7.5 million in 2022 is enough?

Ketel Marte is another excellent trade candidate. 4 years of control at a very reasonable price. I assume that's going to take 1-2 players we are considering for a 2021 MLB spot plus another lower level minor leaguer. As far as why would the Dodgers trade Taylor. I think when value presents itself they would move on an expiring contract for a lottery ticket. They do have a replacement on roster already in Gavin Lux. He got his feet wet, and as a top prospect they will want to get him at-bats. Not to mention their pipeline is crazy deep. Who knows, they may have another replacement waiting in the minors too.

If they exceed last year's payroll number, it opens up a world of possibilities. Free agency is cool, but trading is where the opportunities really get fun. Instead of spending $24 million for Odo and Paxton, why not take on the last year of Scherzer's contract at $27 million? More teams than not will be looking to rebuild or find salary relief than take it on. The Twins would be zigging while everyone else is zagging.

Found it! Doctor Gast was the TD member who made the suggestion of Chris Taylor. http://twinsdaily.com/topic/44211-addressing-the-twins-greatest-need/

Agreed Tony&Rodney. I purposely went for the 10-15% payroll reduction to see what it would look like. If the payroll is at $135-145 million then this blueprint shows there will be room for Cruz and maybe a better bench player too. Thanks for stopping by and commenting! I’m sure I’ll be bored again this winter and come up with other blueprints.

It's Friday afternoon, and I'm counting the minutes until the weekend. Let's make a plan. For this exercise, I started with Matthew Taylor's spreadsheet on Twinspayroll.com, and used $125 million as the top spending level. My goal is to fall $5-10 million under that to reflect closer to a 15% payroll discount. When I started the exercise, I wondered how we could best allocate the budget if we elected not to re-sign Nelson Cruz. Let's get started... The spreadsheet shows these roster slots available to fill: LF DH 4th OF Utility Utility Backup C Along with 4 bullpen slots and 2 slots in the starting rotation. Starting amount: $84.6 Million Internal Adds: In this blueprint, I gave LF, 4th OF, Backup C, 5th starter, and the last 2 bullpen slots to internal prospects. Alex Kirilloff gets my opening day nod in LF. If the team trusted him to start game 2 of the playoffs, they should trust him to start on Opening Day. By seniority, I chose Jake Cave as the 4th OF with a very short leash. Ryan Jeffers showed in the shortened season that he's ready for prime time and makes the team platooning with Garver. The Twins still have 3-4 prospects in the mix for the 5th spot, and I think one of them will win it. For fun, I chose Jhoan Duran. For the last two bullpen slots, Cody Stashak and Lewis Thorpe made the cut. I think Smeltzer and Thorpe will need to move to the bullpen this winter to have a shot at making the team. Running Amount: $88.2 Million Free Agents: SP #4 - Corey Kluber $10 million - This guy maybe toast. However, I can't help thinking what if he's healthy? There's very few besides Trevor Bauer who have Cy Young caliber stuff. I take that gamble with this regime's usual 1 + option year contact. RP Archie Bradley $6.5 million - Bradley instantly becomes the top free agent bullpen arm, and I think he's got the stuff to stay strong for another 2-3 years. I would offer 2/$13 and see if he bites. RP Tyler Clippard $3 million - Clippard was rock solid in the pen last year, and I'm happy to re-sign him for another season. Utility - Hanser Alberto $1 million - Admittedly I know nothing about this guy other than a quick glance at Baseball Reference. This isn't a hill I'm going to die on... DH Yasiel Puig $2 million - Here's the payoff for the blog title. I punted DH by not allocating $15 million towards the position and elect toward a rotational effort. Puig is still young enough, hits RH, and can play in the OF too. Running Amount: $110.73 million Trades: I only made one trade since they are impossible to predict. I really liked one of our member's suggestions to trade for Chris Taylor on the LA Dodgers. I have been looking for the post to give proper credit where its due and can't find it. Sorry! Chris Taylor fits the need for depth at 2B, SS, and the OF. He has 1 year left on his contract at $7.8 million. I won't claim to know exactly what it would take to acquire him. However, I believe it won't take more than a prospect playing in the lower levels of the minors, and doesn't affect anyone in consideration for a 2021 MLB roster spot. ALL IN COST: $118.53 million

I mean, Archie Bradley will probably top the list of FA relievers now. And David Dahl is incredibly enticing if he can stay healthy. I don't think they need to avoid non-tendered free agents. From what I gather you want option A. What if Bauer doesn't consider Minnesota at all as a free agent destination?

To me there’s not much to be baffled about with this decision. The staff transformed Wisler into a one pitch wonder, and he saw immense success. The league always adjusts, and they’re probably not betting him repeating what he did in a larger sample size. For now, they’re paying lip service in case if their other options don’t work out and he’s still available later this winter. I’m more confident that the FO can identify more reclamation projects and transform other players just like Wisler. I think yearly bullpen turnover will continue to be a trend in the future. Especially with how many in game pitching changes there are, and the volatility of the position group as a whole.

They have until 7 PM tonight to offer him a contract.

Lol, absolutely not. I am having Phil Hughes flashbacks reading about this topic.

This is the face you're negotiating with this winter. The player who wants to be great, and works very hard to make sure he's healthy enough to be a 180-200 inning pitcher. Yet, seemingly every time he has an opportunity prove his value, like game 2 of the ALDS, he gets yanked out of the game. Does he want to lock his baseball career long term with a team that won't let him spread his wings and fly?

Technically he has a big league hit in the playoffs! And extending him now isn't throwing away money, it's locking in known salary amounts to budget over time. Let's say for example they lock in his first 6 years at $43 million like Chicago did with Jimenez. If you think Kirilloff is going to be a star, his arbitration rates could sky rocket to the $20 million range like Donaldson, Harper, Bryant, etc. That's a huge cost savings by locking him in early.

The comps may not match up, but we can look at some recent examples of players who signed early extensions. Eloy Jimenez - Signed before his service clock began. 6/$43 million with 2 option years for $16.5 and $18.5 to buy out his first 2 years of free agency. Luis Robert - Signed before his service clock began. 6/$50 million with 2 option years at $20 MM a piece. Ronald Acuna - Signed after 165 days of service time. 8/$100 million with 2 option years at $17 MM a piece. Evan White - Signed before his service clock began. 6/$24 million with 3 option years at $10, 11, and 12.5 MM that could make the total contract 9/$55. Scott Kingery - Signed before his service clock began. 6/$24 million with 3 option years at $13, 14, and 15 MM that could make the total contract 9/$66. Tim Anderson - Signed after 99 career games less than 1 year service time - 6/$25 million with 2 option years at $12.5 and $14 MM.

The White Sox have been successful with this strategy in recent years. Robert, as you mentioned in the article, as well as Tim Anderson. And the Braves have their core locked up at under market rates so they can take big swings in free agency to fill the rest of the roster. I'm willing to gamble on this strategy if the FO believes Kirilloff is the super star we've been waiting for.

They’ve offered him and Berrios extensions the previous 2 offseasons and declined. You need a quote to interpret his intentions?

It takes two to tango and it appears Buxton is set to test FA as soon as he's able to. However, I wouldn't offer him 5 years either way without knowing if he can develop more power. His deadly speed isn't going to last his whole career.

Slowly but surely developing I guess. Atlanta has shown to be aggressive early in free agency the last couple off-seasons so I'm not sure if they're a good measurement to use. They lost out on Gausman and Stroman and needed a replacement for Hamels. I could see someone trying to lock in Morton soon on a 1 year deal... Does anyone believe Tanaka is going anywhere besides the Yankees? Bauer's going to have his own market that won't have any bearing on the other pitchers in the class. I don't know man, I still see a very slow winter of activity.

All of this. Not to mention, the Twins don't have a surplus of CF talent in the pipeline... I'm not opposed to re-tooling this offseason by trading a core member or 2 away, but I wouldn't start with Buxton.

This Super Nintendo baseball game was near and dear to mine and my brother's heart. Super Baseball Simulator 1.000. We spent a majority of our childhood playing that game. It is certainly more arcade like than realistic, as players had super powers attached to them. A batter could have a bomb super power that will explode if a fielder attempts to catch the pop fly. Or the pitcher could throw a frozen rope 185 MPH... Regardless, we spent countless hours creating teams and playing against each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPeYb5gQLlI