Will the Twins ever sign a top free agent or are we all just wasting our time?

[KirbyDome89]

 

If the market cannot support a 6/126 contract, then why were fans told this was a serious negotiation? I would genuinely like some thoughtful responses.

That's a great point. 

 

I think there is a bit of truth to either side.  

 

1) MN certainly wasn't the preferred destination and Darvish apparently made that clear, so the Twins were at a disadvantage. That said, I'm not sure Chicago was ever tops on the list either, and the deal he signed wouldn't have been hard for the Twins to match or beat. 

 

2) I have no doubt the Twins wanted Darvish as part of the team. I think every club wants a pitcher like that. The question all along though was how far were they willing to go to make that happen. I'm certain they knew they needed to compensate either financially or in years offered, for whatever disadvantages they faced. It doesn't look like they wanted to do that, so IMO questioning how serious they were about Darvish is more than fair. Maybe they'll come out with details about the offer they made, but that seems unlikely. You made another good point about $125 M / 5 being a decent deal, and I agree. It makes me wonder why, if the 6th year really was the sticking point with the Twins, they weren't willing to push past $126 M and offer that over 5 years.

[DaveW]

The question should be how much more would Darvish have needed to choose Minnesota over the Cubs. The deal also isn't a straight 6/126 it has incentives up to 150 million, and has an opt-out clause (not sure which year*).

 

*Edit

https://twitter.com/jcrasnick/status/962444660538068992

He has to win multiple Cy Youngs to hit the $150 mark, so sufficient to say if that happens he is easily easily worth it

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

 

The question should be how much more would Darvish have needed to choose Minnesota over the Cubs.   The deal also isn't a straight 6/126 it has incentives up to 150 million, and has an opt-out clause (not sure which year*).  

 

*Edit

Well, right, but the Twins could have offered those same incentives and opt-out. I don't see how the Twins front office comes out of this looking like they did everything they could. Short of "Darvish never wanted to play here" in which case it calls Levine's professed relationship with Darvish into question.

 

And the Twins could still certainly salvage their offseason.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

 

He has to win multiple Cy Youngs to hit the $150 mark, so sufficient to say if that happens he is easily easily worth it

Is that the incentive bonus - Cy Young awards? crikey.

[mikelink45]

I do not believe that the Twins need to make a stupid signing - see CUBS - to make us feel like they will invest in free agents.  The fact that they did not pay six years for a three year pitcher should be celebrated.

 

[drjim]

That's a great point.

 

I think there is a bit of truth to either side.

 

1) MN certainly wasn't the preferred destination and Darvish apparently made that clear, so the Twins were at a disadvantage. That said, I'm not sure Chicago was ever tops on the list either, and the deal he signed wouldn't have been hard for the Twins to match or beat.

 

2) I have no doubt the Twins wanted Darvish as part of the team. I think every club wants a pitcher like that. The question all along though was how far were they willing to go to make that happen. I'm certain they knew they needed to compensate either financially or in years offered, for whatever disadvantages they faced. It doesn't look like they wanted to do that, so IMO questioning how serious they were about Darvish is more than fair. Maybe they'll come out with details about the offer they made, but that seems unlikely. You made another good point about $125 M / 5 being a decent deal, and I agree. It makes me wonder why, if the 6th year really was the sticking point with the Twins, they weren't willing to push past $126 M and offer that over 5 years.

Maybe wishful thinking that the Dodgers and Cubs didn't actually want him.

 

To me, the real blunder for the front office would be if they fail to sign anyone.

 

I don't blame them for not signing Darvish, don't real understand why they hyped the long shot so much.

[jimmer]

 

The question was "will the Twins ever sign a top free agent?" The Twins made Morris the highest paid pitcher in the American League, a distinction which he had previously enjoyed in 1987 and '88, and would again in 1993. 

As is often said, there's really no such thing as a bad one year contract.  It's pretty risk adverse.

 

If he was truly a top FA at that time, he gets a longer contract offer than one year to re-establish his market.  Which is what he did.

[DaveW]

Is that the incentive bonus - Cy Young awards? crikey.

Yeah multiple (and some other stuff where basically if he gets the full $150 mil it becomes one of the best contracts of all time for a team)

[jimmer]

 

Maybe wishful thinking that the Dodgers and Cubs didn't actually want him.

To me, the real blunder for the front office would be if they fail to sign anyone.

I don't blame them for not signing Darvish, don't real understand why they hyped the long shot so much.

Instead of going after Darvish who was never going to sign here, we should have been pursuing other options hard instead (which they may have also been doing).

[howeda7]

_{I get not wanting to give the 6th year, but 5/$125 wouldn't have been out of line, so what's the difference? The question is what did they offer and how much more than 6/$126 would they have had to offer to close the deal? Would they have had to guarantee 6/$150?}

[DaveW]

As is often said, there's really no such things as a bad one year contract. It's pretty risk adverse.

 

If he was truly a top FA at that time, he gets a longer contract offer than one year to re-establish his market. Which is what he did.

Also the FA market, baseball and the world was significantly different back in 1991....but the point still remains, the one time the Twins got aggressive in FA it actually did pay off and they won it all.

 

Since then what have they done? Ervin Santana on a solid but fair and not eye popping deal.

 

Resigned Puckett.

Gave Mauer a ton of money (right thing to do)

 

Other than that there just frankly hasn’t been any real big moves.

[bcs4]

Everything I read was that he wanted to go back to LA, but predictions were that he'd go to the Cubs.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins made as good an offer.  If they didn't think they were in competition, they would have signed someone else by now.  I think Darvish was stringing them on.  Who knows.  Anyone that watched the Super Bowl would have second thoughts about playing games at 25-30 degrees.  How have the players from Asia done at Minnesota?  We'll know if the Twins want to sign someone in the next couple of weeks. The logjam should be broken now. Please Twins, don't sign a bum.

[Doomtints]

DaveW, you seem pretty upset. But, come on, this is what you expected to happen. I purposely avoided most threads on the Darvish topic because I didn't want to get sucked into anything that wasn't going to happen.

 

Chicago is a great city and, all other things being equal, that's where I would go for a job too. Plus, the current Cubs club is built to win, just like the Red Sox club was a few years ago. Darvish can play for the Cubs with high expectations for the team, whereas in MN there is still a chance the team tanks for another five years.

[DaveW]

DaveW, you seem pretty upset. But, come on, this is what you expected to happen. I purposely avoided most threads on the Darvish topic because I didn't want to get sucked into anything that wasn't going to happen.

 

Chicago is a great city and, all other things being equal, that's where I would go for a job too. Plus, the current Cubs club is built to win, just like the Red Sox club was a few years ago. Darvish can play for the Cubs with high expectations for the team, whereas in MN there is still a chance the team tanks for another five years.

Upset is the wrong word.

 

Just feel bamboozled a bit that I would actually think this FO would be anything different then the last. At the end of the day the penny pinching pohlads call the shots on these sort of things, and I fear that we won’t win a title until they sell the team to an owner who actually cares more than the absolute bare minimum OR everything breaks right in a miracle type of post season run.

 

I just don’t see how this team has SP to compete in the playoffs at this stage or in the near future without an ace or something

[KirbyDome89]

 

Maybe wishful thinking that the Dodgers and Cubs didn't actually want him.

To me, the real blunder for the front office would be if they fail to sign anyone.

I don't blame them for not signing Darvish, don't real understand why they hyped the long shot so much.

I believe LA certainly wanted him and he wanted to be in LA, but it just didn't work out. If the year 2 option is correct I think that desire has a lot to do with it. 

 

Agreed, a B- is better than a F. I viewed the offseason as Darvish and then everybody else, but doing nothing other than signing a few back end vets to minor league or one year incentive laden deals would be almost criminal at this point. 

 

It was always a more likely scenario that he didn't sign with the Twins. How that blame is divvied is digging deeper into the rabbit hole. I think the hype by itself wasn't much of an issue, but when you combine it with the modest (by ace standards) contract the Twins wouldn't beat, they do walk away with a little egg on their face.  

[ewen21]

 

Canceling my 20 game plan next year, hope more follow suit.

81-81 baby

Over not signing Yu Darvish to a moronic contract?

 

OK, have a nice summer

[Mike Sixel]

If they can't, or won't, they need to be 100x better at drafting, developing, and trading.

 

Dave's question is, will they? Not all the reasons they won't or can't..... Because if they literally can't, then they need to get a lot better at everything else.

 

I am not surprised at all. Disappointed, not surprised

[Twinfan & Dad]

I guess time will tell whether we missed out on Darvich or not. Just my opinion but I think we'll be glad we didnt pay him. Yes he would of provided us a true #1 when not on the DL but this also allows us to usher in our young pitchers and get the ball to May when he is ready. Santana will only miss a handful of starts so our rotation of Berrios Gibson Meija Gonsalves? Duffey? Or new signing??? vs. 2017 of Santana Santiago Hughes Meija Gibson (Berrios was called up in May) looks in as good as shape to me to start the year. Keep the faith Twins fans all is not lost! Gonsalves and Romero have a lot of UNPROVEN talent so add them to Berrios and we will see the makings of a young core that we can grow with hopefully sometime in 2018.

[TheLeviathan]

Virtually every large money investment in a player is risk you're almost certainly going to lose out on over time.  So if that's why you're scared....you might as well vote for contraction for the team.  There's no point in even trying.

 

This was a very, very beatable offer.  Maybe Darvish didn't really want to come here, but can we save those excuses this time?  Because at some point all the ways we try to reason why this "can't" ever happen sound so defeatist I'm not sure why anyone even cares about the team at all.

 

The team itself has said the factor that matters most is money.  We could've beat the money on this deal.  Handily.  We didn't.  The excuses can end right there.  We don't have to wallow in it, but quit spinning this as anything other than a disappointment we could've avoided.

[bcs4]

I bet they may have backed off Darvish a bit when Santana had surgery.  They need 2 pitchers now.

[ewen21]

 

As much as people didn't want to go 6 on Darvish, I wouldn't want to go 4 on either of those two. I think Darvish was worth the 6th year for the upside in the short term. Those two don't have the same upside to make 4 worth it to me, plus losing draft picks. I'd go 3 on Lynn, he'd be my preferred.

My God, I just cannot see where Darvish is that much far and away better than Lynn or Cobb.  I think Darvish has some illusory cache as an "international signing"

Wash away that and pay attention to what has done.  The guy labors through games throwing lots of pitches.  His pitch counts have long been a problem.  Not sure what his deal is with the six pitches either.  There is something very quirky about his makeup as a pitcher and for his ability to throw gas and strike out a lot of guys I simply do not trust him.  He is going to be yanked from games in the 5th and 6th inning plenty because he nitpicks so damn much.  This is going to work against him as time advances.  Mark my words

 

Six years for Darvish for a lot more money is a bigger risk and the chance a reward that much greater than either of those two might give simply isn't worth it.  This whole Darvish thing has been absolutely nuts.  Now there's going to be a thread screaming about not signing him?

 

Come on.....really?

[Mike Sixel]

My God, I just cannot see where Darvish is that much far and away better than Lynn or Cobb. I think Darvish has some illusory cache as an "international signing"

Wash away that and pay attention to what has done. The guy labors through games throwing lots of pitches. His pitch counts have long been a problem. Not sure what his deal is with the six pitches either. There is something very quirky about his makeup as a pitcher and for his ability to throw gas and strike out a lot of guys I simply do not trust him. He is going to be yanked from games in the 5th and 6th inning plenty because he nitpicks so damn much. This is going to work against him as time advances. Mark my words

 

Six years for Darvish for a lot more money is a bigger risk and the chance a reward that much greater than either of those two might give simply isn't worth it. This whole Darvish thing has been absolutely nuts. Now there's going to be a thread screaming about not signing him?

 

Come on.....really?

He threw the 24th most innings last year, how are pitch counts an issue?

[ewen21]

 

Virtually every large money investment in a player is risk you're almost certainly going to lose out on over time.  So if that's why you're scared....you might as well vote for contraction for the team.  There's no point in even trying.

I want to know what it is about THIS PLAYER that makes the reaction to passing on him so over the top?  He was given an offer not seen EVER by this franchise.  The offer was more than fair given his body of work.

 

I think signing him would have been a horrible decision.  Within a couple of years that would be readily apparent.

[snepp]

 

Now there's going to be a thread screaming about not signing him?

 

Come on.....really?

 

Yes, there is. No rules forcing you to participate in it.

[TheLeviathan]

 

I want to know what it is about THIS PLAYER that makes the reaction to passing on him so over the top?  He was given an offer not seen EVER by this franchise.  The offer was more than fair given his body of work.

 

I think signing him would have been a horrible decision.  Within a couple of years that would be readily apparent.

 

He's a pitcher.  We need two.  And he's a good pitcher.  And he's coming at a relative discount compared to expectations.  And we were on a shortlist that had a shot.

[ewen21]

 

He threw the 24th most innings last year, how are pitch counts an issue?

http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/19385/yu-darvishs-pitch-counts-in-japan

He has a lot of pitches on that arm and there has been concern about his durability since before he even arrived

[ewen21]

 

Yes, there is. No rules forcing you to participate in it.

 

Thank you for not insulting me  

[Mike Sixel]

http://www.espn.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/19385/yu-darvishs-pitch-counts-in-japan

He has a lot of pitches on that arm and there has been concern about his durability since before he even arrived

And yet, he was persued by this team, and others... And just signed for over one hundred million dollars. Clearly, not everyone agrees with you.

[Squirrel]

My God, I just cannot see where Darvish is that much far and away better than Lynn or Cobb. I think Darvish has some illusory cache as an "international signing"

Wash away that and pay attention to what has done. The guy labors through games throwing lots of pitches. His pitch counts have long been a problem. Not sure what his deal is with the six pitches either. There is something very quirky about his makeup as a pitcher and for his ability to throw gas and strike out a lot of guys I simply do not trust him. He is going to be yanked from games in the 5th and 6th inning plenty because he nitpicks so damn much. This is going to work against him as time advances. Mark my words

 

Six years for Darvish for a lot more money is a bigger risk and the chance a reward that much greater than either of those two might give simply isn't worth it. This whole Darvish thing has been absolutely nuts. Now there's going to be a thread screaming about not signing him?

 

Come on.....really?

Oh, come on, really?

 

I never thought Darvish would sign here and have been pretty tired of how the off-season has played out. Throughout this whole ... thing ... I’ve been pretty clear on that without emotional screaming or emotional screaming rebuttals. I’m hardly screaming about anything other than stating an opinion. However, what this team does need is a front-end starter. I do think that Darvish would have provided that for the first 2-3 years of whatever contract he signed, if he had signed with us. I don’t think Lynn, Cobb or Arrieta will provide us with that at all. I think Lynn or Cobb will be very good in our rotation for 2-3 years (not 4) but I don’t think either of them will be the front-end starter that I think we need. And Arrieta? No thank you. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with even only 2 yrs on him. I appreciate you think differently and are welcome to state your opinions, too, but stop the screaming otherwise.

[ewen21]

 

And yet, he was persued by this team, and others... And just signed for over one hundred million dollars. Clearly, not everyone agrees with you.

 

I have no issue with that.  People don't need to agree with me.  I am just presenting concerns that are buttressed by facts.  You can disagree.  My feelings aren't going to get hurt.  I just didn't get the whole Darvish thing going on here and I felt like questioning it.  I don't see how that is a bad thing.  The prevailing wisdom for signing Darvish to that long term deal where we needed to outbid EVERYONE was, "well.....what we get on the front end makes it all worthwhile"

 

I don't see it that way because:

a) We aren't as close as many people think we are so Darvish doesn't put us over the hump.  Even if we were I did not like what I saw from him last postseason.

I care about 3 years down the road and don't see where Darvish will be as good as he has been (he hasn't been great, imo...just good)

c) The Dodgers and Rangers were not interested in signing him, so clearly, not everyone agrees with you.  AND he didn't get the Strasburg money he was looking for.  I never for a second though we should sign him "regardless of price" like so many others did.

 

And again, we can disagree and make our points like adults.  I harbor no ill-will toward anyone disagreeing with me over this.  I am just not moved by it.  The funny thing about it is this is one time I actually support the Twins front office.  I don't usually.