Vanimal46

I wanted Greg Holland last year, so that interest remains the same. $15 MM is a lot of money to decline, but it's probably his last time to cash in on a long term deal. I'm very interested in Bryan Shaw too. He's been a workhorse for a long time, and it would take away talent from Cleveland. Win win.

Upon further review, Escobar finished the year strong and should probably get the $4 MM arbitration next year. Even with expected regression, he's good 3B insurance. I still wouldn't offer Gibson arbitration and aim higher via trade/FA using the $20 MM in the budget.

Gunnarthor put together a nice spreadsheet concerning the 2018 payroll.

Gotcha. Don't get me wrong, I was just curious if there was another source you used. I've certainly looked at old data before and was way off in a discussion. And there's no doubt Cleveland built themselves a great pitching staff. I believe they have the highest WAR SP staff in the game according to Fangraphs. They gambled on Kluber and Carrasco with long term, team friendly deals that paid off bigly. Andrew Miller is also worth every penny they pay him.

Where do you see less than $40 MM? I'm seeing $50.25 MM which is #12 overall in baseball.

He could always regress his way to a mid-season DFA....

Take care of it now, before it lingers into the 2018 season. Good luck to him and his recovery.

Progression: - Mejia for rotation. He showed flashes of potential, but too many times he couldn't make it to the 6th inning and beyond. Next year he puts it together and be a solid #4 pitcher. - John Curtiss for the bullpen. Really like his stuff from the very limited opportunities I saw him pitch. I could see him building into a high leverage role next year. - Jorge Polanco for the lineup. He gets his bat on the ball too often to not do better, and hopefully he doesn't have an extended slump. Regression: - Erv for the rotation. Obvious choice. - Pressly for the bullpen. I don't think Belisle comes back, and Pressly showed a lot of HR tendencies this year. - Escobar for the lineup. There's no way he comes close to hitting 20 HRs again.

Seth, as long as I've read your work, you've advocated going with low-risk, 1 year signings for FA RP. I'm curious if you still feel that way given the power arm bullpens playoff contenders have put together over the last 4-5 years?

We're heading into the dead of winter. Where we'll discuss if x pitcher is worth the price, if the Twins should sign a rock star SP, or build an elite bullpen. Some aren't afraid to open the checkbook for relievers. Others believe RP is unpredictable and prefer to go 1 year, low risk signings. Let's take a look at the MLB playoff teams this year, and how much they spend on their bullpens: These numbers come from spotrac.com LA Dodgers: $30.29 MM -- 11.62% of total payroll -- MLB rank 6 Arizona: $8.48 MM -- 7.14% of total payroll -- MLB rank 23 Colorado: $23.3 MM -- 16.68% of total payroll -- MLB rank 10 Chicago: $33.18 MM -- 18.19% of total payroll -- MLB rank 4 Washington: $21.64 MM -- 11.52% of total payroll -- MLB rank 11 Boston: $54.07 MM -- 24.35% of total payroll -- MLB rank 1 New York: $30.95 MM -- 13.85% of total payroll -- MLB rank 5 Cleveland: $26.6 MM -- 19.2% of total payroll -- MLB rank 7 Houston: $26.51 MM -- 17.9% of total payroll -- MLB rank 8 Minnesota: $11.76 MM -- 8.5% of total payroll -- MLB rank 16 I know for a fact that spotrac included Glen Perkins in the Twins total, so really they were playing with ~$5 MM. I'm sure other teams had dead money too. There does appear to be a correlation between a successful team, and spending big money on a bullpen. 3 teams in the top 10 failed to make the playoffs: #2 St. Louis -- 25.42% of total payroll #3 San Francisco -- 18.01% of total payroll #9 Baltimore -- 12.82% of total payroll Heading into next year, perhaps the sweet spot for the Twins is dedicating 15-20% of their payroll towards the bullpen. If they shed Perkins' contract, they'll be around ~$6 MM in total salaries, given a couple of arbitration increases. If their payroll is $115 MM, they could spend $11 to 17 MM in order to reach that level of 15-20%.

It only took us 2.5 years to find something we're complete opposites of! Creep is a good song. The rest of their catalog does absolutely nothing for me.

Bon Jovi would be my vote in the old thread "What are bands, TV, movies that people love, but you think is terrible?" Your three votes would be mine as well. They all had more than a few shredders. Radiohead is the most overrated band of all time.

The only one I have an interest in is Jake McGee. No idea how expensive he'll be though.

On this day 10 years ago... Midges decided to organize and try to take over a playoff baseball game. They thought they could take over the world after that! https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=f_GJse-anfk

Agreed on Rodriguez. He shouldn't even be on our radar for potential SP to consider IMO. No way, no how the Twins will pursue Santiago again. Especially so if Molitor stays on as manager. Molitor looked disgusted the last couple of times he pulled Santiago from a game.

Tomato, tom-ah-to!

Minneapolis is fortunate enough to have 4 major sports in the city. Every team has their little slogan, like "Twins Territory", "Vikings Country", "The State of Hockey", and "(insert something Timberwolves' related here)" But what kind of sports town is Minnesota in general? I've always felt that Minnesota was a baseball state, where if the Twins are doing well, many people are on board. Others may feel it's a football state because NFL is king, yadda yadda. There are a lot of good, knowledgeable hockey fans in Minnesota, but even in the state of hockey it's a niche sport. Finally, I've never seen where Minnesota rallies around basketball. Then again, the Timberwolves haven't been good in 15 years. What do you think? Is Minnesota a baseball town? Football town?

I agree that this winter is the time to go for it and make a splash. They need to do something to continue this momentum and get fans back in the stadium. Just the sheer fact that they made the playoffs will help boost attendance numbers a bit. Another big splash in FA would draw more interest in the team.

That's just NY fans. The way they were reacting last night, if a pitch hit the dirt before home plate, they would boo because it was called a ball.

The "missed" strike 3 call was a momentum shift for sure. I still think the umps did a good job last night. Called a tight strike zone, and kept it fair on both sides. Severino could have the same complaints. Kepler got the benefit of high strikes called the other way to draw a full count and smack a double. He was pretty close on a few pitches against Polanco too that ended up being a walk, and a 2 run bomb by Rosario.

The Twins could go after Darvish, but I doubt they would win. Obviously I don't know his motivating factors selecting a team, but Minnesota isn't a big market nor do they have a large Asian community. If they win a bidding war for the top FA pitcher, that would be a first. I'd be thrilled to see it, but not counting on it.

The 2 pitchers mentioned in the other thread was Lance Lynn and Alex Cobb. So let's say those 2. If those 2 are considered the "safe" options, and 29* other baseball teams seeking SP depth, they're going to get expensive. It's a possibility both get $16-20 MM a season for 4+ years on the open market. A lot of cheddar to think about. * I took the Dodgers off because they have what feels like 28 different SP options.

Meh, not really. Pretty skeptical about a career year at 34 years old.

Those are both possibilities. Both may receive a qualifying offer as well. So the Twins would be out a 2nd round pick (I think) if they chose to sign either/or. EDIT: I also agree with your 2nd paragraph. If they go with the mid rotation arm, the bullpen needs a shut down reliever. If they aim higher with a top of the rotation arm, perhaps they can get away with a $2-3 MM signing and internal options for the bullpen.