Respy

The Twins did good to keep Dozier originally and not trade him. I predict a regression for him this year (just a gut feeling, nothing else), so I think this issue will take care of itself.

Thank you for this article. I guess you would consider me to be an 'organically-grown' member, currently in the commentating stage, unsure if I'll move past this point, partly due to a lack of time (baby #3 due April!) and partly due to a lack of writing ability. I have good spelling and grammar, I can tell a good joke here and there, I can do diligent research, but I will have a hard time writing a cohesive story. Before I get to your questions, my first suggestion is to pair people up to write articles. My thought is, I could do (and enjoy) researching a topic, making up my talking points, jokes, and such. But the final stage of making it pretty and readable with good flow is daunting and will take me too much time, to the point where the interest in that particular story might already be past (last week's story is thus, last week's story). Now the hard part of this pairing process, is that I'm guessing there's a low number of people on this site who are quality writers and weak towards baseball/technical stuff. If you’ve written for Twins Daily, what was the experience like? N/A How do we better manage and administer the recruitment and development of independent voices? Might need to look outside of the hardcore Twins fan community. What is a fair price to compensate our writers? Or the person who curates/tends/ manages our writers? Unfortunately I'm assuming you'd be unable to provide what is 'fair,' at least according to what freelance writers make. I do think you should pay per page view, at least for most writers. You might consider paying the senior writers per word or per article, that way they can get paid up front. You know what to expect from your senior writers so you probably won't lose any money on this (as long as you have the money up front). How can we give feedback to our writers as a community? Or let them know just how popular their stories are? I'll have to think on this. I haven't written, so I'm not sure. How can we get the word out that developing writers is a focus of Twins Daily? How would we restructure the site to emphasize that? (And do you agree it should be?) See next response. Would you like to hear more voices? How can we best do that? I'd be interested in hearing more voices, and perhaps having those voices be more focused. I see a bit of this already, but I'd be interested in seeing there be a lead writer on certain subjects (e.g. Red Wings lead writer, Lookouts lead writer, high A lead writer, low A lead writer, and various Twins writers like for starting pitchers, bullpen, lineup, advanced analytics, game recaps, etc. I'd like to be able to go to the front page of the website and find the page of articles in the subject I'm interested in. Right now everything is combined in the scrolling front page, or hidden somewhere that I can't find it. With the setup right now, I feel like the current content will dictate how my visit to the site goes. By all means, keep the feature articles highlighted on the front page. BUT, I'd rather have my mind made up ahead of time (e.g. I'd like to read about AAA prospects and advanced analytics about the Twins fielding today) and already know where I'd need to go on the site to view that material. I can see that there is an attempt to do this with the 5 tabs currently at the top-right of the site, but the selections are limited and a bit hodgepodge. You guys have TONS of articles. If you could find a way to sort them better and streamline the site, you'd get WAY more views, I'd enjoy each visit better, and I'd be more likely to read older articles as they won't be so buried. PS an aside: I'd personally prefer to see replies and comments arranged more like a tree/web, say how Facebook does it (where a reply to one comment gets stacked under that comment), as opposed to the current setup which just chronologically stacks everything. It is so tedious to flip through the comments quickly.

In my opinion, a super bullpen also has a requirement that the pitchers be different. Just like players get used to a starting pitchers 2nd and 3rd time through the order, batters will start to get their timing on pitchers who are all similar. So, a bullpen of three hard-throwing right-handers with normal armslots and only sliders as an offspeed pitch, will find it hard to be dominating on a consistent basis. The Yankees had such a good combo because all the pitcher were so different. Betances is a big guy with a power fastball and slider. Robertson is a righty who throws cutters and 12-6 curveballs. Chapman is a lefty with a mega fastball. I think there's many factors against the Twins making a super bullpen, but they need more variety. Hildenberger has a different armslot, which helps, but has a similar repertoire to Rodney. The Twins don't have any good bullpen arms that can throw in the upper 90's. Ditto for lefty relievers.

If Esco wants to stay in Minnesota, I think they'll make this happen. Possibly not this offseason though.

Well since I will be civil and try not to say anything negative about Rodney, ... ...

Well, one interesting aspect of this, is that Pineda can start the season on the 60-day DL. This will allow the Twins to either make a late signing or place a player on the 40-man roster who excelled during spring training. Does anyone know how early players are eligible to go on the 60-day DL? Perhaps this is a moot point if teams can just give a player a spring training invite with an agreement to sign them officially after the 40-man spot is open.

Unfortunately, being realistic, if the Twins sign 1 ok-good bullpen arm ($5M), 1 questionable veteran bullpen arm ($1M-$2M), 1 somewhat reliable #3 starter ($12M), that already puts them at a record $115M payroll. And, they should still be adding a RH bat, ideally.

According to the TD Offseason handbook, the Twins have about $96M committed already, and their record payroll was $113M. If the Twins sign two good bullpen arms at the rates they are currently going at (let's say $8M and $5M), then add Darvish ($25M), that puts the Twins at *ahem* $134M.

But, is it worth spending about 1/10 of your team's payroll on an 8th-inning bullpen arm?

Thank you for covering the financial aspect of this. I completely agree that these guys are going for high rates right now. Naturally, the most bloated contracts will be handed out first, but it's likely that the days of getting a reliable reliever for 2 years at $2M-$3M are over. A reliable, non-exceptional reliever will give you about, say 1 WAR? 1 WAR is worth about $5M/year. So these initial bullpen signings, teams are expecting above-average or exceptional performances, so they are going for $8M-$10M/year. In my opinion, that's just a lot to expect from, as you stated, "volatile" players. I'd expect at this point that the Twins sign two relievers, one like a Kintzler for about $5M, and one like a Belisle or Breslow for $1M-$2M. No big splashes. They need to focus their $$ on a starting pitcher first.

Hear, hear.

Honestly no idea why Otani requested pitches from all MLB teams if he was that dead-set on the west coast. I'd have to assume some teams are a bit frustrated over the wasted effort.

One could argue that landing Darvish OR Otani would be the greatest Twins off-season ever?

Welp, another quick exit from this list as the Twins voided the contract of #30 prospect SS Jelfry Marte.

Love following this series, thanks.

I agree with the overall assessment by the article. I also agree with some commenters that Austin Jackson is one to consider as well. That will depend on how often he expects to play. He had an OPS of 1.014 against lefties last year.

Unless they sign a closer with several years of closing experience, I hope they sign an experienced reliever or two, and they should be competing for the closer spot next spring with all the internal options you listed. The quality of pitching from Hildenberger, Busenitz, and Moya in their MLB debut seasons was reassuring as we head toward spring training next year. (hopefully not so reassuring that they don't sign any bullpen arms at all)

Breslow D-F Tonkin D-F Turley F Haley D-F That should even it out.

I think the Twins front office for now needs to keep the same strategy as last year: Dozier is a star player and team leader, and they should be willing to trade him but only for an appropriate package of prospects. Teams (specifically the Dodgers) were trying to do a 1:1 of a AAA MLB-ready player, and that just shouldn't cut it. More than likely, because Dozier only has 1 year left on his contract, other teams won't be willing to trade a nice package, and he'll play for us again next year. I was more interested in dumping Dozier after the 100-loss season on a rebuilding team. But with the great turnaround this year, for a transitioning team with lots of young, upcoming talent, Dozier is now REALLY important to have on this team. Falvine and Levine really value veteran presence. Wouldn't you rather have a veteran that can be the team MVP, as opposed to someone like Chris Gimenez or Matt Belisle? Looking long-term after next year, I guess it starts with asking Dozier whether he wants to remain a career Twin. I personally don't think Dozier fits with this team a couple years out. It just doesn't make much sense to have a 33-year old second baseman making $15M/year on a mid-market team.

Well, I don't think you can be too scared off by the injury risk of Buxton or the bust risk of Rosario. Those will go into consideration for negotiating a cheaper contract. My concern with Rosario is that I don't know how many years he can stay in the outfield. Probably only through his arbitration years anyways. I'd leave him alone. Sano, unfortunately I don't think we can afford, by Sano's standards. Sano always wants the best. I think he knows he's no Mike Trout (his buyout was $24M/year), but I think Sano would still ask for something in the $15M-$20M/year range, which I just don't think we can afford. If he plays great the next few years, we'll have gotten some great years out of him fairly cheaply, and he'll price himself out of Minnesota. If he starts to regress after a few years, then maybe we can afford to keep him. Ok option either way. Buxton, on the other hand, I would jump at any opportunity to sign a long-term contract. Now is likely the 'cheapest' he's ever going to be. He also seems to be a confidence-driven guy, and a long-term contract would give him a mega boost of confidence and security, hopefully improving his performance. Lastly, he seems to practice for and play the game the right way, which I think should be rewarded and kept on this team long-term. I don't see Buxton as a big-city team type of player (ala Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs), so I'd say his motivations to turn down a long-term contract are likely low, unless he has a desire to play closer to his home state of Georgia. If they can get Buxton for your suggested starting point of $1M/$3M/$5.5M/$8M/$10.5M, that would be a steal. I'd expect and be ok with something closer to $2M/$5M/$8M/$12M/$15M. Buxton is also 23 (soon to be 24), so I'd expect a 6-7 year contract instead of a 5-year. With the injury risk, I'd make the last year an option w/buyout. Although we'd be buying out some arbitration years, keep in mind that 1 WAR nowadays is valued somewhere about $5M. Buxton was 4 WAR this year, with potential for 6-8 WAR if he hits better. That's HUGE Bux (hehe) on the open market.

I'd like to point out that the Twins odds of reaching the playoffs as of July 27th was 6%. The Twins chance of blowing that first inning least was about 20%. I'm disappointed, but it was an entertaining game and by no means an astronomical comeback by the Yankees. I'm glad they were in a playoff race and even more that they played in the playoffs. I'll be rooting for Cleveland in the next round. Hopefully the front office will give us plenty to talk about in the offseason, so we don't need to lament too much. Thanks Tom for the post-games.

Hicks is starting tonight! I'm shocked, as all statistics I could find, plus him being hurt recently, pointed to him being best left on the bench tonight. Maybe Girardi is trying to get some revenge adrenaline out of Hicks? http://d2s3dt9f4iyeup.cloudfront.net/images/standard_v1/aaca17b9-d16e-4935-998e-4186ac033454.png

So I'm solely in charge of my 2 and 4 year olds during the game tonight. Any experience on how to get them to sit still during the entire game?

I predict the Twins will lay down 2 bunts today. 1 sacrifice and 1 attempted bunt hit.

So.... who's gonna start at DH today? I'd say there's a miniscule chance Sano starts. I was at the game Sunday and he just looked so uncomfortable. Grossman did not play when the Twins faced Severino last. Vargas started that game at first (Joe at DH), and was 1-1 against Severino. Would you dare start Vargas? I 99.9% would not. I'd presume Grossman gets the start, batting 9th like he has lately, with instructions to draw long at bats and get on base for Dozier and Mauer. I'd say the rest of the lineup will be trivial. Castro, Mauer, Dozier, Polanco, Escobar, Rosario, Buxton, Kepler.