jharaldson

It is no secret that this offseason has been particularly slow. Judd Zulgad and Phil Mackey had a conversation about it this week on their radio show because the lack of news was taking the excitement out of the offseason. ESPN has set up a free agency tracker and only 2 of the top 10 free agents have signed and only 7 of the top 20 overall. The 4 top pitchers in this market are unsigned as well (Darvish, Arrieta, Cobb, Lynn). This glut of unsigned talent this late in the offseason leaves teams with unique opportunities. http://22927-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Yu-Darvish-3-640x355.jpeg I think the Twins can take advantage of how the market has played out to do something innovative with Yu Darvish. Here are some baseline items I believe are contributing to his unsigned status: The Yankees and the Dodgers are staying out of the market due to a desire to reset the luxury tax threshold and by doing so they are creating a void that has yet to be filled. Darvish has likely not received any 5 or 6 year offers at this point or I think he would have signed. The world series performance by Darvish may be leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many clubs. Here are some baseline items in regards to the Twins: The Twins have a large bubble payment of $50-68 million coming in Q1 2018 from the MLB sale of BAMTech (Correct Source) The Twins need pitching help in the starting rotation, preferably someone with top of the rotation potential. The Twins are adverse to long-term free agent contracts which I am putting at anything over 4 years. My idea is for the Twins to offer Darvish a massively over market contract for 1 year. Here are the details: 1 year/$40 million Vesting team option for a second year at $15 million if Darvish does not pitch at least 100 innings. Majority of the $40 million is in the form of a signing bonus so as to allow a tax favorable payment to Darvish with his current residency being in Texas, a state with no income tax. This deal is advantageous to both parties given the current climate. Darvish gets a number of positive outcomes: Extremely high salary for 1 year. Significant tax savings. The ability to re-enter the market in 2019 when the Dodgers and Yankees will theoretically be back in the mix. The chance to put the bad World Series performance out of teams minds. Ability to play with a team with good outfield defense and that is on the rise. The Twins get a number of things in return as well: They get the services of a potential ace pitcher, similar to what they did in 1991 with Jack Morris. The Twins are not on the hook for a massive 5+ year contract. The Twins have a dedicated funding source (BAMTech money) to fund this initiative. If they don’t spend it in this fashion it is likely just going to go to the Pohlad family and won’t improve the team. The Twins are protected in case of injury due to the team option provision. Will the Twins try to innovate in this fashion? I am not certain. This would be the highest per year contract ever given out in MLB history. The current leader is Greinke with a per year average of $34.5 million. The Pohlad’s have not shown a willingness to be big spenders on the open market and Falvine have yet to show it as well. Darvish may also have some apprehension. He may decide that a 4 year/$100 million offer provides more security. He may blow out his arm at any point in 2018 and want the security of the long term contract, even if it is not as long term and as valuable as he might have hoped. What are your thoughts? Do you like this 1 year approach? Who do you think says no? Please leave comments, thanks!

I have been kicking around the idea of trying to contribute to this site for a number of years. John Bonnes recently posted about the future of Twins Daily and how it might be in jeopardy if more writers and bloggers don’t step forward so that was enough of a kick in the pants to see if my ideas will translate to interesting articles or not. This blog is going to focus on the off the field happenings of the Minnesota Twins. Topics will include free agency, contracts, trades, payroll, drafting, staff decisions, tv and radio deals, medical issues, etc… My first entry will be posted immediately after this and is about an innovative approach the Twins can take on signing Yu Darvish. Hope you enjoy!

Joe Mauer moved to Florida when he was drafted and established residency there in order to pay Florida state income taxes (0%) on his $5 million signing bonus. Here is a quote from a Reusse story back in 2001 that I got off of WestlawNext: I am pretty sure that Darvish would be treated the same way. The signing bonus is taxed by your residency state and your actual paychecks are taxed based on where you played individual games. In regards to the size of the bonus, that is where the innovation comes in. If no other team would do it then it is a differentiator for the Twins offer.

TwinsDaily predicted 5 years/$135 million and MLB Trade Rumors predicted 6 years/$160 million so I think my estimate is close enough for discussion purposes.

The Twins made that statement in the past about their yearly revenue. They haven't had a similar 1-time payout since 1998 when the Diamondbacks and the Rays came into the league and everyone got $10 million. I would argue that unless they have a significant 1-time capital project (minor league facilities, international facilities, IT infrastructure, etc...) that there is not a valid reason for them to apply the 50% rule to this money and it should be available for this purpose.

The Twins are going to get a 1 time cash infusion in Q1 of 2018 of between $50-$68 million due to the sale of BAMtech by MLB. http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2017/12/15/each-owner-will-get-at-least-50-million-in-early-2018-from-he-sale-of-bamtech/ An innovative way to take advantage of this would be to offer Darvish a 5 year/$140 million contract but make $60 million a signing bonus. The signing bonus would be taxed at Texas rates so he saves money plus he can invest that money and make it grow for him instead of waiting for it. It would also be good for the Twins because the yearly rate on that contract would go from $28 million to $16 million and give them more flexibility in the future.

I am going to interpret Nick's question as "Can we win a World Series with Mauer and/or Dozier?". To examine this I am going to first look at how they are doing this year against their peers at their positions. Dozier OPS - .799 Average 2B OPS - .734 Mauer OPS - .733 Average 1B OPS - .819 Based on this I would say that Dozier is an above average 2B and Mauer is a well below average 1B. Next I am going to look at the World Series winners from the past 15 years to see what kind of production they got out of their 1B and 2B positions. 1B 2B As you can see Dozier is effectively an average World Series winning 2B and has a better OPS than 8 of the 15 World Series winning 2B over the past 15 years. You can also see that Mauer is performing significantly below what the average World Series winning 1B has done the past 15 years and his OPS is .048 points worse than the worst 1B in this list. In short, I think that Dozier produces enough to be a 2B on a World Series winner and I think Mauer cannot be the starter at 1B on a World Series winner.

Let's check this out quick. I am going to pull all of our starting position players and compare them to the league average for their positions: I think this shows who the biggest offensive problem after Buxton is.

I am questioning some of the statements here: 1. Line Drives - Joe Mauer's current LD% is 23.5%, lower than his career average and his lowest since the bilateral leg weakness 2011 season. I don't see why you or Beradino are pointing to this as a strength. 2. Walk Rate - Joe Mauer's current BB% is 9.1%, lower than his career average of 12% and his lowest since his rookie season of 2004. This is another drain on his OBP. I would also add some stats that make me this that this .700 - .750 OPS is his high water point. 1. FB% - Mauer currently has his highest FB% since his rookie year. In addition, his HR/FB% is the lowest of his career and at half his career average. This tells me he has lost a good chunk of his already low power skill and that these fly balls will turn into outs with the next point. 2. Pull% - Mauer currently has his lowest Pull% of his career. This tells me that the shifts that have been put on him will continue to be effective. 3. BABIP - Mauer current has a .294 BABIP, close to his .301 and .309 of the past couple of years. I think that is his current skill level and don't expect much more. In addition to these points, I think we need to stop comparing 2017 Joe to 2007 Joe and we need to starting comparing him to his peers, other MLB 1B. He is 25th out of 27 1B in OPS: http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=1&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=10,d His .705 OPS is significantly below the league average for 1B of .818. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 Joe Mauer 2017 is a bad 1B. I hope he gets better and become closer to average or below average so as not to be a drain on the team.

I was interested in the Mauer resurgence described by Nick so I plotted out his OPS by date to see what that showed: It looks like to me that this isn't a clear progression where Mauer is continuing to improve but instead looks like he spiked 120 OPS points from 4/30 to 5/5 and since then has been flat in the .660 OPS range. I would also emphasize Nick's point of comparing this to other 1B. League average OPS for 1B this year is .818 vs his current .660. http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2017&month=0&season1=2017&ind=0&team=0,ss&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

Before I start my response I want to restate that I think any hard decisions on Mauer should wait until at least July of this year. There is no need to make a quick and rash decision and he deserves a decent amount of time to see if this is just a slump. In regards to the roster spot and holding someone back, in the last week Grossman has sat 4 times, Vargas 2 times, and Mauer 1 time. Both Grossman (.780 OPS) and Vargas (.896 OPS) are seeing their playing time impacted by Molitor giving Mauer (.605 OPS) more playing time at their expense. That is just the immediate impact on the 25 man roster. In addition, Palka has a .768 OPS in AAA and Park had a great spring and start to AAA before injury so Mauer is also blocking minor league talent. In regards to the Yankees and Twins comp, I don't fully grasp your point on this. I will grant you that the Yankees have substantially more franchise value, revenue, and payroll than the Twins but what I don't understand is why that matters. The Twins are paying Mauer $23 million in 2017 and 2018 regardless if he is on the team or not. I could see franchise value and payroll mattering if a team wanted to take a chance and absorb a bad contract but I don't see how it matters with a bad contract already on the books.

I agree with the author that we need patience here. We have a substantial investment in him and he should get time to try and fight his way out of this and could be of value if he can get back to a .750 OPS based on high OBP. That patience should be finite though. Joe is the second worst starting 1B over the past 3 years (min 1500 AB): http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=1b&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=1500&type=1&season=2017&month=0&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0 The only guy worse than Joe over this period of time is Ryan Howard and he is no longer in the Majors. There is a comp for Joe and his struggles this year. A-Rod was a highly paid ($21 Million) veteran last year. He had an additional year on his contract for 2017. He was underperforming at 1B/DH with a .600 OPS. The Yankees gave him through July to try an turn things around but when he failed to do so they told him he could either retire or be cut. It will be interesting to see what the Twins do if things continue to go this way. Will they have the guts to follow the Yankee model or will they let him waste a roster spot and AB's with poor production?

Technical Note: Something was really off with the microphones during the Legal Corner segment. I don't know if you used a backup mic for the lawyer but there was a lot of jarring static. Just a FYI.

He was our starting right fielder for much of the season so my expectations are that he is comparable to other starting right fielders in the league. The average RF in 2016 had a .752 OPS while Kepler had a .734 OPS, slightly below average. If you just compare him to RF who had over 400 PA he ranks 29th out of 33, well below average. Looking at his defense the eye test tells me he made a number of stupid looking plays last year. The numbers back this up a bit with his defense runs above average coming in at -5.4 and his UZR was -.7, both below average. Given that he had both below average offense and defense for his role I would grade him in the D/D+/C- range without using unrealistic comps like Trout. Since he is 23 I can see a very reasonable argument that this shows some promise for 2017 because he is still in the growth part of his career so he could rise to average or above average next year but that optimism should not change the realistic evaluation of his 2016 performance.

One of my favorite parts about the handbooks you have released in the past is that they included an interview with Terry Ryan. I think many of the questions your team asks are ones that don't frequently get discussed and I enjoyed reading Ryan respond to a different perspective. Do you have any plans to find a new interview subject among existing staff (Antony, St. Peter, Goins, etc...) or have you reached out to any of the new staff? Thanks!

I won't dispute that these are positive moves but for 2016 they have resulted in 1.7 WAR total.

These are all very encouraging signs but we have seen this before. In 2014 he had a back injury and was out for a month and a half. When he came back he was on a hot streak with an OPS of 1.031 and a K% of 8.8% over his first 13 games back. http://www.fangraphs.com/statsd.aspx?playerid=1857&position=C&type=2&gds=2014-08-11&gde=2014-08-23&season= This gave a bunch of people hope that his concussion symptom issues were behind him. Gleeman had even started trolling Twitter about Mauer and his improved performance: https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/504015286874685440 https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/509019629701054464 https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/514080021238284289 https://twitter.com/AaronGleeman/status/516307905633869824 Then 2015 happened. I am not saying that this is the same situation but let's see what his numbers look like 80 games in. This is nothing but encouraging though. On a side note, I am opposed to way you have laid out the strikeout argument: 1. His 2013 season had over 500 plate appearances and he ranked 9th across all catchers in that stat. I consider that close enough to a full season for evaluation. 2. His 2013 concussion ended his season so it had no impact on his 2013 numbers. 3. His 2013 OPS was his best since 2009 which I define as a strong season. 4. Only giving his career K% for 2012 and earlier and listing out 2013-2015 implies that Joe's Concussion caused the K% increase. I do not believe that to be the case and would submit the following info: K% 2010 - 9.1% - Last year it was below his career average 2011 - 11.4% 2012 - 13.7% 2013 - 17.5% CONCUSSION 2014 - 18.5% 2015 - 16.8% 2016 - 7.5% - Small sample size I know you did not explicitly say "Joe's concussion caused his K% increase" but I feel it was strongly implied.

I partially agree. We know they don't value the newer analysis enough to make their decision based on it but I agree with you that we don't know the reasoning they are taking. Could be ERA like I suggested but it could also be wanting a lefty, gut feel, scouting, money, personality, ect....

I pulled the numbers from last year for the top 6 guys (excluding Nolasco) for just their time as a starting pitcher. What frustrates me outside of the fWAR discussion is that May was second on the team in K/9, BB/9, and FIP. He was last in ERA. The Twins putting him in the bullpen is another indication that they don't value the newer statistical analysis and are valuing Milone's ERA (3.92 vs 4.43) as opposed to May's FIP (3.35 vs 4.30).

Just out of curiosity, do you have any comps to 2014 when he wasn't doing this pitch tipping? Any fancy gifs showing that this is a strictly 2015 problem? Thanks!