Minny505

I think it would be prudent of the Twins to give a ring to the Cardinals about Paul Dejong (28yrs old) and the Orioles about Ramon Urias (27). Dejong is a stud defender on a $4.3aav thru 2023. He could easily slide into a backup infielder role when Lewis is ready. He's a steady 2-4 win player over 5 seasons and is now buried on the Carinals bench due to their own young guys coming up. Urias is a bat first SS on the level of of Javy Baez, Bo Bichette, and Tim Anderson. He is an average-ish defender. He is already 27 and not likely to be the SS on the next good Orioles team due to his age, but they may not want to trade him to slide him to 2B in a couple years with that bat. He is still pre-arb so he may be a little prospect expensive, but the O's may want to cash in on his peak value and they need prospects in the worst way so a quantity package might be the ticket.

The Central is exceptionally weak right now. The ChiSox might not be a .500 team in any other division in MLB, other than the AL East. Unless it's been a "foot off the gas" thing for the second half due to their lead...

Ideally we see Donaldson and Garver split the large majority of DH at bats in 2022. Kiroloff is already an equally valuable, if not more valuable, 1B. Maybe Sano to 1B and Kiroloff to RF against LHP? In fantasy land where the Twins roster is healthy the whole season, Sano probably should only get 80 or so starts between CI and DH. But in reality, where any or all of Donaldson, Kiroloff, Garver and Jeffers are likely to miss time, Sano becomes the largest beneficiary. Possibly even when a corner OF goes down, sliding Kiroloff to OF.

It's as big of an underperformance as 2021, but I would say not as big of a disappointment. In 2016 the Twins were expected to be a 77ish win ball club and not compete for a thing. Fans are really not much more disappointed when a team loses 85 vs 100. It doesn't hold the same emotional weight.

Projection systems had the 2011 team winning about 84 games. That's a -21. It's really one of the biggest negative outliers in the algorithmic projection era. Those same systems had the Twins winning about 87 games this season. The squad would have to lose out this week to really be an argument. I would say 2011 is the worst in the last 15 or so years. It's in the top 5 for biggest negative differences in MLB for projection vs actual over that span. This year's club is likely to finish around -17. That they are within striking distance of making that top 5 MLB list twice in 11 years with a week to play is really frustrating though.

I'm not sure what you are arguing. I'm all onboard with that. Maybe I should have qualified my statement with "Unless we are shopping the top of the RP market, I don't really see the point of signing FAs to MLB contracts."

Currently on 40 and out of options: Farrell, Minaya, Coulumbe, and Gant There's no way I drop Minaya. He's got a multi-year track record of solid at the MLB level. For John Gant, 2021 has been an outlier in an otherwise really good career. I think it would be foolish to drop him. Coulombe is fine, but fungible as a LHP in a bullpen where two of the best relievers are LHP, as well as the top prospect. I'd rather keep him around than sign another $3mil arm from the FA market...but I'd rather do neither. Farrell is a never-will-be. Sorry dude. Active roster holdovers for 2022: Rogers Duffey Thielbar Minaya Alcala Gant Keep on 40 and fighting for last couple spots: Stashak Garza Moran Smeltzer The rest of the guys are depth, but that's about it. Unless we are shopping the top of the RP market, I don't really see the point of signing FAs. RP pitching is volatile. Just fill in-house or trade for <26 year olds.

With the fans, Kepler has more of a perception issue than a performance issue. He is getting paid like a league average player and providing league average value. Fans were hoping for, even expecting, him to overperform that contract and he hasn't...but he has played up to it. From a team perspective, Baldelli keeps treating him in the lineup (until just the last couple of weeks) like one of their core stars. It reminds me of Gardy and Punto. Kepler is better than Punto, but is still getting asked by his manager to provide more value than he can. Bat Kepler somewhere in the 6-8 spot in most years and I think our perception of him changes. In those two or three 90th percentile seasons. like 2019, feel free to move him up...but don't expect that to be the norm.

I'd like to see a list of the longest championship doughts in history by a single sports market that counts every season played by teams in the four major sports leagues. There needs to be some parameters here (such as NY only gets one MLB season, because they all celebrated together when the Giants won). For example, the Twin Cities is around 100 seasons played total in the big 4 since the last championship. Is that the longest active? Is it normal? Where does it lie in context? Someone get on this?

The Pohlads allegedly have an even bigger checkbook, they just don't spend it on our favorite baseball team.

Giving Jeffers 90ish starts at C and starting Garver for 60ish games behind the plate plus 80 games at DH is my ideal scenario going forward. Pencil in Rortvedt for another 15ish games at C and you have catcher covered for the next couple seasons.

Absolutely not. Why do Twins fans continue to pine for 2Bmen to play SS for the Twins? He'd have to hit like Fernando Tatis to make this a consideration. That is not an exaggeration.

I'm on the Big Mike train with you @Nick Nelson. Would love to see him back. He's either pitching and good or not pitching. Twins need to prioritize those kinds of FA on one and two year contracts with the high minors SP depth right now. Gant continues to look like an amazing trade for the FO. Will make a good swing-man/spot starter in 2022.

Once again, Ted brings the satire. I'm gonna be laughing at this all day...maybe all weekend. Looking forward to more.

At 38 though, Happ was ready to fall off the proverbial cliff. Again, it seemed like he would have a higher floor than he did, but he didn't have a higher ceiling. I'd rather have Kluber. I'd rather sign the 2022 version of Kluber than the 2021 version of Happ. The difference is that, when they are on the mound, they have roughly the same floor, while Kluber has a MUCH higher ceiling. The upside of Kluber is so tasty though that I prefer the risk of the extra $3-$4 mil and bypass a Shoemaker-like signing again...especially if it is pushing Ober or Dobnak to the pen.

Bonus points for using the word "abstrusity". Thank you for introducing that one to my lexicon.

Dobnak was one of the most dominant starters thru his first 16 starts that I have ever seen in a Twins uni (sans Liriano, Francisco). He is just 6 months older than Ober and was far more dominant thru his first 16 starts than Ober was, outpacing him by more than a 1.0 run in all past and predictive rate stats...and he was younger when he was doing it. At 24 years old Dobnak was dominating the best hitters in the world, while at the same age, Ober hadn't yet thrown a pitch above A+. I say all this because if Dobnak had any sort of prospect pedigree and dominated the way he did thru his first 16 starts, then got yanked around by the FO and injured in year 3, we would just chalk it up to a lost season. But for some reason the story, the meteoric rise thru the minors, recency bias, and the fact that he looks 36 instead of 26, have soured far too many on Dobnak. I don't think Dobbers will be amazing. I suspect his ceiling is a #3 in his best 150 inning seasons. That said, once a team has a solid #1 and #2, you need five Randy Dobnaks in your system to fill out your rotation.

Desclifani is the product of Giants devil magic. He was the kind of signing we would have all been frustrated with and may not be doing what he's doing with any other team. Ray needed a pillow contract after the disaster of 2020 and he was still on the underside of 30. This is exactly the kind of signing the Twins should be making on one year deals. High ceiling potential here. Rodon is an anomaly. This kind of career turnaround in one offseason is a once-a-decade event in MLB. Walker was a fawned over as a FA this past offseason by the Twins Daily faithful and was expected to easily get more than $30mil by national writers. That he was signed so late in the offseason for only $20mil was considered a steal by the Mets before the ink even dried. I remember the national podcast voices exclaiming a collective "WTF!?" over this signing. There has to be more to the story that we don't know because this signing for this amount doesn't make sense. It would be like the Twins getting Jon Gray this upcoming offseason for 2/20. You also mentioned Kluber and Paxton. Even with the injuries, either one would have been better spent money than Happ+Shoe. Signing a make-good, high injury risk pitcher with a high ceiling is exactly the kind of signing the Twins should be looking to make, especially this upcoming offseason. The problem with Happ, Shoemaker, and their ilk is the upside that can be gained from their signing. Twins need to target pitchers with high upside in FA, not their mean production. At best, the Happ signing is a 4.20 ERA pitcher. At best Kluber is a 3.10 ERA pitcher. The cost is nearly the same for either. Sure, the floor for Kluber is lower, but that just means a AAA guy ready to prove themselves takes his place. That beats 20 starts of 6.60 ERA pitching from Happ, as nearly every pitcher to pitch in Happ's spot since he was traded has performed better. This was also the beauty of the Pineda signing. His ceiling is a 3.50 ERA pitcher. Sure, he's missed a lot of time, but he's generally been outstanding when on the bump. We need more of that high risk/high reward in our FA pitching contracts.

The Twins would have to pay more than 25m/yr to lock up Darvish. He doesn't have a price tag, it's a bidding system. By default the price would have been at minimum 26 per. Then the Cubs counter. Twins have to pay more to stay in the game and a bidding war ensues. In 2018, contract offers being equal, Darvish signs with the Cubs 100% of the time. The Twins have to out-do any bidding on any pitcher right now because half the teams in the league are better poised to win in the short term than the Twins. Yet, as you point out, even paying 4, 5, or 6mil more per year still makes it worth it vs bargain bin shopping. BTW, I want to compliment you again @bean5302. This is the kind of numbers breakdown that drives me to read sites like Twins Daily. I am really looking forward to reading more of your work in the future. Hopefully I can add an email notification for just posts by you...and if not, hopefully a moderator is reading this and can work with the development team to implement a "follow of your favorite writers" notification feature.

I love this study @bean5302. I would like to know what your qualifications are for the Top 8 Frontline starters. Was it total dollars? Dollars per year? Was this cherry picked at all? I hope you see this and can respond. There is a point where the investment does become a bad investment and the Twins, due to total financial resources actually available before taking a loss on team ownership, will always get outbid by deeper pockets. For example, every one of those SPs, sans Greinke, was signed by a team up against the soft cap. This means if the Twins need to throw an extra $4mil a year at Darvish to sign him, that becomes a bad contract, looking more like a Mike Pelfrey level signing than what the Cubs got. Can the Twins be a better team using that kind of approach? I don't think they can. Kind of depressing. I'd like to see a recreation of the same study, but with solid second tier starters. I'm thinking somewhere between $60mil and $100mil, such as a Hyun Jin Ryu signing. What is the value of those contracts and can the Twins compete there? Again, great insight and breakdown. Looking forward to more!

Love the satire here. Looking forward to more.

As of a couple weeks ago (I'm not going to look these all up again) Simmons was the only SS who ranks in the top 3 in the AL in SDI, OOA, DRS, and UZR. If that holds true, he has as good of a chance as anyone to win the AL SS GG and probably the front runner.

That's fair Mike. But why, 16 starts into Ober's career and 20 starts into Dobnak's career, where they have put up very similar peripherals, is Ober seen as a guaranteed spot by so many while most want nothing to do with Dobnak? Whereas the numbers would indicate if the majority of fans think either one of them should be in the rotation next year, the majority of fans should think the same of the other. They have very similar projections at this point. If it matters, Dobnak is only 6 months older than Ober. Dobnak was dominating big leaguers while Ober, at the same age, just got promoted to AA. And don't get me wrong, I do think Ober is the better pitcher, but the difference is marginal, maybe one rung up the ladder in terms of rotation spot ceiling. Is it just recency bias?

Shocked at all the Dobnak FUD. The man's first 15 starts in the bigs were fantastic, better than Ober. In 2021 he's screwed with and yo-yoed by management from opening day and pitches hurt. Just pretend 2021 never happened and you'll sing a very different tune. Even with the dreadful 2021, he still has career numbers comparable to Ober. That's how good he was when he had a regular role as a starter and wasn't pitching injured. For all the talk of SSS by this community being an issue with making snap judgements, it seems the majority are ready to embrace SSS outcomes as true talent when it comes to Ober and Dobnak. Why?

Even in hindsight, I'll take Simmons over Wong...unless you think Wong would make a decent SS. Wong is a vastly superior 2B, so Wong being a league average SS might be possible. He would definitely be better than Polanco. That said, I'd rather have the 2021 version of Simmons on this team than the 2021 version of Wong. In hindsight, Semien is the only FA IF that would have been a superior option for the Twins than Simmons. I call that a front office win, even if it seems like a wash overall. BTW, Simmons is the front runner for the AL SS GG. That's kind of rad. While it's not ideal, I'd be happy with the Twins signing Simmons to another one year contract. It could be worse. They could have signed Kolten Wong.