Don Walcott

This might be the deal that convinces Berrios, Rosario and Gibson that we're serious about competing and that they should extend as well.

Setting the bar kind of low there. I hope he can play OF better than Grossman. We definitely need a right-handed bat to sub for Kepler or Rosario occasionally against tough left-handers more than we need another lefty bat.

Breaking News!!

Breaking News!!

I'm really happy for Jorge Polanco. He's worked hard to get this deal, and he deserves it. This must be a huge life-changing moment for him. From a selfish standpoint, I love watching him play. I think he'll improve his defense, and he has a lot of potential to improve his already impressive offensive skill set. I'm really excited to see him settle in and produce for a full season. I also hope this nudges some of the other young guys to make similar deals. It does seem like a fair deal to both sides, and if the FO are proceeding similarly with the others, we may have 4, 5 or 6 guys we can count on for the immediate future of this franchise.

Excellent analysis. Hope this strategy works. It makes a lot of sense the way you broke it down.

I feel for Falvey. It’s hard to reason with kids about how to spend their money wisely.

My brother is 3 years older than I am, so I also started collecting way too young to remember my first card. My favorite thing was to collect a card of the same player for every year. I think I have about 12 years of Rod Carew. I also have a few of the Kirby rookie cards. I think my favorites are the 1975 cards (1974 season stats on the back). They had some mini cards that year as well, and I have a Nolan Ryan mini. I thought of him as some mythical figure when I was 6.

That's nothing compared to Kiriloff, who had a .970 on-base percentage. He's a really tough out.

Who would you expect to be better in 2019? Ottavino or Reed? Do you think Reed will be better than any of the top 10 free agent relievers from this off season? I sure hope he bounces back, but it doesn’t look too promising at this point. And that doesn’t speak well of our FO talent assessment. But again, I hope I’m wrong.

Addison Reed had better have a really good season for the sake of our FO and their reputation. Not sure how they could spend $8 million per season for two years of Reed and not go after Ottavino for $9 million per year for three years. And the Yankees had nowhere near the need the Twins have to upgrade their bullpen.

Here's what was written in the article at issue: "The team’s guideline is to spend 52 percent of revenue on player salaries, though the Santana trade will push the 2008 payroll well below that mark—likely somewhere around $55 million after a 2007 opening-day figure of more than $71 million. Twins president Dave St. Peter said the original budget called for an increase, not a reduction. Jim Pohlad said a 2009 payroll that surpasses the 52-percent standard would be acceptable, but not simply to appease fans for their role in funding for the new stadium." "Player salaries" is not particularly ambiguous. The business, legal and lay meaning of "salary" is the amount paid by an employer to an employee. In this case, the term is limited to the amounts paid to players. This does not include payroll tax or benefits in any scenario. I have no idea what your background is nor who the executives you refer to are who you work with. My background is as a lawyer who has advised businesses and litigated business disputes for more than 23 years, and I've been a part owner of my own businesses for more than 18 years. I have worked with accountants, profit and loss statements and general ledgers extensively. I'll give you some free legal advice: don't use the term "payroll" to mean "payroll plus payroll taxes and benefits." Payroll taxes and benefits are not "payroll". In fact, you can't even have payroll taxes without knowing what your payroll is. Payroll taxes are based on payroll. If you added payroll taxes into payroll, you'd get taxed on more than your payroll -- and nobody wants to pay more taxes than required, right? Payroll is a specific defined term for compensation paid to employees. The only time benefits can be counted as part of payroll is when they are deducted from pay due to employees. Similarly, the only taxes included in payroll are taxes withheld from pay due to employees. Using the term "payroll" as you suggest is false and misleading, and I would suggest that the shareholders of companies would not be pleased if their executives were going around making promises about "payroll" when they actually mean "payroll plus payroll taxes and benefits." You can look up the definition of "payroll" on Quickbooks or from an accountant's perspective. You can look up the definition of "payroll" from the IRS perspective. Or you can simply look up the general definition of "payroll." "Payroll" does not include payroll taxes and benefits. From a business accounting perspective, payroll taxes and benefits are considered "labor load" or often they are simply lumped in as "overhead." Similar to worker's compensation, human resources, sometimes legal expenses related to human resources, 401K contributions, and even things like parking and holiday party expenses. These expenses are not considered part of "payroll" nor are they part of employee "salaries." You can insist that you and your executives commonly use the term "payroll" to mean something other than the actual technical definition of "payroll." (Frankly, I've never heard of anyone doing this before now.} But the problem that you'll face is that nobody will know what you are talking about because you are attempting to shift the definition of the word. Then, you can't have conversations like this that get anywhere because you're not speaking the same language. Now, to give the Twins ownership an out, they did say that paying 52% of revenues for player salaries was a "guideline." And if you've seen Pirates of the Caribbean, you know that a "guideline" is not the same as a "code."

Are you saying that when an executive says “payroll,” that they actually mean “payroll, plus benefits, plus payroll taxes”? After reading the exact quote, I guess the better question is whether that is what is meant by “players salaries?”

I see what you are saying. I was thinking in terms of pure payroll. The article states: The calculations for final payrolls are for the 40-man roster, that also “include the average annual values of contracts and $14,044,700 per club for benefits and extended benefits, which include items such as health and pension benefits; club medical costs; insurance; workman's compensation, payroll, unemployment and Social Security taxes; spring training allowances; meal and tip money; All-Star game expenses; travel and moving expenses; postseason pay; and college scholarships,” according to the Associated Press. The totals include “incentive bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options and cash transactions. In some cases, parts of salaries that are deferred are discounted to reflect present-day values.” So that seems to be all expenses related to the 40-man roster plus payroll? I would have assumed that Pohlad representation of spending 52% of payroll meant 52% of "only" payroll, but that could certainly be twisted around a bit.

Actually, $135 million is what the Twins would have spent if they had not unloaded some players and their contracts mid-season. I think they actually spent less than $120 million, and still managed to have very little committed to 2019.

If the Twins don't want to spend money to be competitive, they won't bring back the fans and the revenue that comes with the fans. It's kind of a self-defeating prophecy to be cheap. There are good studies that show that being competitive and making the playoffs will make the Twins much more profitable, not less profitable, this year and next year. This franchise needs some success and optimism. I hope they spend the money necessary to make this team competitive in 2019. It could lay the groundwork for this team being better in the years thereafter with more revenue and more ability to spend on acquiring and keeping good players.

Anecdotal evidence can be the same as no evidence when the anecdote is untrue. So far, I've seen nothing that supports the one tweet about harassment at Chattanooga, and the story doesn't make sense. If I recall the story correctly, the head usher allegedly told a patron about constant harassment of ushers, such that they had to rearrange where ushers were placed. First, the head usher telling someone about this outside the organization does not seem credible. Second, the head usher has an obligation to do something about this, if it had been true. Third, the Twins Organization had an obligation to do something about this, if it were true. Moreover, if it were true, there would be an usher out there somewhere who would likely have an axe to grind with the Twins, and you would have expected them to inform someone about this abhorrent behavior. You would have expected some fans in Chattanooga to have witnessed this abhorrent behavior and reported to someone about it. The fact that this story remains one tweet has, in my opinion, shown that it was not the truth. Although repeating this anecdote likely won't cause someone to shoot up a pizza joint, it is still doing harm -- to Sano's reputation -- unfairly in my opinion. Until there is any substantiation of the strange anecdote, I hope people refrain from using it as evidence. And if it is used as evidence, I hope people here will keep reminding everyone that the Chattanooga harassment story, which should be easily verifiable if true, has no evidence to support it.

I find the argument for Bonds (pre and post-1998) interesting. If we could put an asterisk on his plaque and separate out his statistics pre1998 and post-1998, I might agree. Clemens was not on his way to the HOF when he started juicing to revive his stalled career. My problem with either of them being inducted, is how do you explain not putting Sosa, McGwire and Palmeiro in the HOF (and A-Rod)? I also don't like the "everyone else was doing it" argument, because it justifies anyone doing anything in any era to cheat in any way (even destructive and illegal ways), so long as they aren't the only ones cheating. Pete Rose may or may not deserve to be inducted based on his gambling (which had no affect on his performance). But at least he didn't encourage a generation of young aspiring players to do something illegal and harmful to their health in order to succeed. Rose is a cautionary tale for other reasons, but at least he's not the poster boy for why you should cheat to get ahead in life. I think putting known PED users in the HOF sends a bad message - like putting Bud Selig in the HOF.

Apparently, it is possible to sign a top free agent to a big contract while a team is rebuilding. Imagine that.

Not sure what the topic is of this thread any more. But I'll chime in anyway. There's no simple formula for all players regarding development. Some are ready early. Some aren't. Some benefit from ripping up a level of play before moving up, some seem to rise to the challenge of moving up quickly. Ultimately, I think it's fair to the players to let them move up when they've shown they have mastered a level of play -- including getting them to the majors when the minors is no longer a challenge to them. Conversely, some players need to be demoted when they can't master a certain level -- especially if there's someone ripping up a lower level who deserves a chance to move up. Sometimes, though, everyone knows that a certain player is ready for the majors, even though they struggle. For an extreme example, Mike Trout had a tough first year in the majors. However, the Angels didn't treat him like other guys who might get demoted or discarded. And they were right. They, like everyone else in the world, could see that he would be a special talent. Also, when we talk about the 1987/91 teams, we forget that we got lucky to benefit from the owners' collusion against free agency. The Twins wouldn't and couldn't build a team any other way than to try out their young core players. We were lucky that those players basically had to stay with the organization, and we basically were unable or unwilling to let them develop more in the minors because we were going along with the collusion and weren't signing top free agents. And we were fortunate in 1987 that the free market wasn't allowing teams with superior resources create the kinds of all-star teams we're seeing today. For example, during the 1980s, every AL East team other than the Indians won their division. There is simply no way to compare building a team in the 1980s with how best to build a team today. Circling back to Nelson Cruz, I don't see how he is "blocking" anyone who deserves a place on the Twins. If someone can do better than him, I will expect them to play regardless of his presence. I don't expect that will be the case, and that decision (we can hope) might need to be made when we are deciding whether to exercise our team option for 2020. The young players who are getting a shot at playing on this team will no doubt benefit from working with him, and some pressure might also be alleviated on some of them with him residing in the middle of the lineup. I am also hopeful that his presence will help the team win more, which will also help with the confidence of the young players. Finally, I hope that something will rub off on the younger players due to the presence of and example set by a professional who is able to continue to perform at his age. Looks like a good signing to me.

And especially because his numbers since the positive test have been so good under increased scrutiny, it would indicate that he wasn't "enhancing" so much.

I suspect the league getting younger has more to do with players not being able to compete as well at older ages than it does with players starting their careers younger. There have always been guys who were able to make it right away at a young age, and others who needed time to mature into major league players. I haven't done an exhaustive study, but I'm willing to bet that the age that players break into the league hasn't changed that much since the 1970s (when I specifically remember Robin Yount and Butch Wynegar breaking in as teenagers). Correction: Wynegar was just turned 20 when he debuted.

To put Rooker into context, Nelson Cruz didn't debut in the Majors until he was 25, and didn't have a full season of ML ABs until he was 28/29. Not every All-Star slugger started out like Ken Griffey, Jr.

I would also suggest that with an outfield of Buxton, Rosario and Kepler, some more experience and stability in the infield, and Jason Castro catching, the pitching statistics are bound to improve. That said, even though I'm happy with this move and the Schoop move, I'd like to see us get either Kikuchi or Greinke and a couple of relievers, one of whom I'd like to be Ottavino. Then, I'd be really happy.

We have money to spend. Kikuchi is in his prime, and likely wants to maximize his value. I say we go for it.