A Former Insider's Thoughts on Losing the Big Fish

[Major League Ready]

11 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Also, how many playoff games has this org won in the last 30 years? Is this approach working?

No.  Instead of getting better at the practices that have proven the most effective, let's follow strategies that have never been effective for teams in the bottom half of revenue.  Perhaps we should more carefully examine what has worked for other teams.  You say this approach but do you know the biggest difference between Cleveland / Tampa / Oaklands and Minnesota?

[roger]

Thanks, Jack for a fascinating glimpse at the real world of baseball, it is appreciated more than you know.

And count me among the few who didn't want the Twins to resign Correa.  Sure, I would love having him as our shortstop, but not at the anticipated dollars and more important, years.  The back end of even the contract they offered would destroy this team right at the time they will need to extend many of these young kids arriving last year and next.  I also believe that Royce Lewis will and should be the Twins shortstop, beginning this summer and that five years from now they would rather have Lewis than Correa.

[jdgoin]

12 hours ago, ashbury said:

Thanks for putting together this concise summary of the way things look from the inside.

I'll limit my response to one thing you said: "They aren't cheap - they are disciplined."  Disciplined can overlap with rigid, and can be the opposite of dynamic. In the last few weeks, the market for the very top end of position players, shortstops in particular, exceeded all (public) expectations. Were the Twins disciplined, or unwilling to adapt?

The concept of an s-shaped curve is well known (to you I'm sure) and IMO applies to free agent salaries:

I couldn't find a great visual so ignore the numbers on the two axes, and imagine salary paid on the horizontal, and value received (I'll think in terms of WAR) on the vertical.  Pay major league minimum (lower left hand corner) and you receive essentially zero in value; pay a little more and you still get zero, keep paying more and you start to receive value better than a minor-league free agent, keep paying more and you get somewhat linearly increasing value, but eventually your additional payment starts leveling off and every extra dollar nets you less and less.

When you go after top end talent, in this case Correa, you know in advance that you're at that upper-right corner of the chart. You've committed to "overpaying" in terms of price-performance. Everybody, literally everybody, wants the difference-maker players on the right of this chart, and the big market teams will pay what it takes.

All of a sudden, the curve changes right from under you. Where you thought you were one place on the curve, now you are way insufficient; way to the left on that graph than you thought. What do you do now?

I am bothered that the Twins FO apparently thought they were committed going in, but then didn't adapt. You call it disciplined, I call it rigid.

 

13 hours ago, ashbury said:

Thanks for putting together this concise summary of the way things look from the inside.

I'll limit my response to one thing you said: "They aren't cheap - they are disciplined."  Disciplined can overlap with rigid, and can be the opposite of dynamic. In the last few weeks, the market for the very top end of position players, shortstops in particular, exceeded all (public) expectations. Were the Twins disciplined, or unwilling to adapt?

The concept of an s-shaped curve is well known (to you I'm sure) and IMO applies to free agent salaries:

I couldn't find a great visual so ignore the numbers on the two axes, and imagine salary paid on the horizontal, and value received (I'll think in terms of WAR) on the vertical.  Pay major league minimum (lower left hand corner) and you receive essentially zero in value; pay a little more and you still get zero, keep paying more and you start to receive value better than a minor-league free agent, keep paying more and you get somewhat linearly increasing value, but eventually your additional payment starts leveling off and every extra dollar nets you less and less.

When you go after top end talent, in this case Correa, you know in advance that you're at that upper-right corner of the chart. You've committed to "overpaying" in terms of price-performance. Everybody, literally everybody, wants the difference-maker players on the right of this chart, and the big market teams will pay what it takes.

All of a sudden, the curve changes right from under you. Where you thought you were one place on the curve, now you are way insufficient; way to the left on that graph than you thought. What do you do now?

I am bothered that the Twins FO apparently thought they were committed going in, but then didn't adapt. You call it disciplined, I call it rigid.

As usual, you make a very articulate and valid point. 

[jdgoin]

9 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

My analogy is for the corporate 9-5 desk warriors out there. Falvey and Levine thought throwing a pizza party and saying “We’re a family here!” was enough to retain an employee vs. paying them what their market rate is. Sorry, millenials and especially Gen Z sees right through that. 

The cynicism is extra thick today. ??

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

Most anybody sees through insincerity  Explain the why Buxton, Pplanco, Kepler and Sanyo all signed team friendly deals

The team still had leverage because the players were not free agents and the Twins were the only offer.

[roger]

19 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

The team still had leverage because the players were not free agents and the Twins were the only offer.

Isn't that the key to being a successful small/mid-market team, DJL44?  Decide which of their own players will likely be top long-term members of the team and extend them a couple years before free agency.  If they don't get extended, then trade them a year or so before FA for good prospects, such as Berrios. 

The fact is that mid-market teams can't play with the big boys in the deep water of free agency.  So they have to be smart managers, make good trades and do a better than average job of identifying talent in the draft, International market and from other team organizations when talking trades.

[old nurse]

35 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

The team still had leverage because the players were not free agents and the Twins were the only offer.

That does not change that they took a team friendly deal rather than eventually the arbitration system. Even if free agency players have taken less money to be with a team

[chpettit19]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

Most anybody sees through insincerity  Explain the why Buxton, Pplanco, Kepler and Sanyo all signed team friendly deals

Because it guaranteed them tens of millions of dollars. Those are not comparable deals to the Correa, or any FA, deal.

Buxton took his deal because he's never stayed healthy and he wanted to be in 1 org for his whole career. The Twins were already Correa's 2nd team and he was here for 1 year, not in the org for 9 years like Buxton.

Polanco guaranteed himself $25 million. Before that he'd made $3.2 million. He'd only played 288 major league games, and hit 23 major league homeruns, when he signed that deal. He had nowhere near the same leverage Correa did. If Polanco had stayed as a 100-110 OPS+ guy for the rest of his career that deal wouldn't be team friendly, it'd be right on the nose. Instead he jumped up to a 120 OPS+ guy and it's now been team friendly. 

Kepler had made $2.95 million before signing a deal worth $35 million. He took his salary from $3.125 million in 2019 to $6 million by signing that deal. And there's people all over these boards that don't think Kepler's deal is team friendly at all and would like to see him traded because they don't think he's worth his $8.5 million this year.

Sano gave up 1 year of free agency in his extension. That's not exactly screaming "team friendly!" He signed that extension to guarantee himself $30 million that he wouldn't have otherwise been guaranteed through the arbitration process.

A young guy from the core you didn't mention was Eddie Rosario. He didn't sign an extension and instead got non-tendered so the Twins wouldn't have to pay him roughly $10 million. Instead he signed for $8 million with Cleveland. He had made $14.4ish million with the Twins. So he got $23.4 million through his arb years. Polanco got 28.2. Kepler got 38.125. And Sano got 37.9. So the guy who didn't sign the "team friendly" deal missed out on 5 million compared to Polanco, and 15 million compared to Sano and Kepler.

It's simply not the straight forward "team friendly" concept you're talking about when the players are still in pre-arb or arb years. That's why Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna are on "team friendly" deals in Atlanta. They wanted to guarantee themselves 10s of millions of dollars without risking a bad injury here or there, or a down year, cratering their value. And they've both missed large chunks of time with injuries so it seems rather smart of them. Julio Rodriguez just signed a "team friendly" deal that guarantees him $120 million dollars. Comparing that to a free agent deal and suggesting he signed that because he just loves Seattle so much is ignoring a whole lot of context. Like $100 million worth of context.

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, Squirrel said:

Oh, come on ... and quite a bit short on the money. Seriously. And Correa is a better SS. It wasn't the years, it was the total dollar amount

Oh come on yourself. The point I made still stands. Yes the money offered by the Twins was far less than San Francisco. It was not far less than the top contract signed this year by a similar player at that point in time. Which of the two is better is an opinion, not a fact. You don’t know if the Twins ever had a chance to match the offer or if negations were ended there. Because one or the other party ended there

[Fire Dan Gladden]

First, thank you for posting this article.  I understand fans being emotional about their teams and wanting them to win, but so few take the time to think things through.  There are always 50 moving parts in a deal like this, but the focus tends to be on the 2-3 things that are made public.

Second, players are not automatons.  For example, an offer may not be made because the player is from Florida and wants to play closer to his family.  Conversely, a player may want to stay closer to his family.  Maybe a player wants to live in a bigger market.  Read up on Kent Hrbek's FA and look what the Tigers offered him vs what he took from the Twins to stay in MN.  Many factors go into these decisions that have nothing to do with the money aspect.
 

[Brock Beauchamp]

15 hours ago, ashbury said:

Thanks for putting together this concise summary of the way things look from the inside.

I'll limit my response to one thing you said: "They aren't cheap - they are disciplined."  Disciplined can overlap with rigid, and can be the opposite of dynamic. In the last few weeks, the market for the very top end of position players, shortstops in particular, exceeded all (public) expectations. Were the Twins disciplined, or unwilling to adapt?

The concept of an s-shaped curve is well known (to you I'm sure) and IMO applies to free agent salaries:

I couldn't find a great visual so ignore the numbers on the two axes, and imagine salary paid on the horizontal, and value received (I'll think in terms of WAR) on the vertical.  Pay major league minimum (lower left hand corner) and you receive essentially zero in value; pay a little more and you still get zero, keep paying more and you start to receive value better than a minor-league free agent, keep paying more and you get somewhat linearly increasing value, but eventually your additional payment starts leveling off and every extra dollar nets you less and less.

When you go after top end talent, in this case Correa, you know in advance that you're at that upper-right corner of the chart. You've committed to "overpaying" in terms of price-performance. Everybody, literally everybody, wants the difference-maker players on the right of this chart, and the big market teams will pay what it takes.

All of a sudden, the curve changes right from under you. Where you thought you were one place on the curve, now you are way insufficient; way to the left on that graph than you thought. What do you do now?

I am bothered that the Twins FO apparently thought they were committed going in, but then didn't adapt. You call it disciplined, I call it rigid.

Excellent post, Ash. And what you outlined here is why I've stayed well clear of "the Twins were played" or other implications of them being, well, stupid in some way.

In the words of LMM...

I believe they mis-read the market but I think a lot of baseball mis-read the market going into November. But once the market solidified, the Twins remained (as you put it) rigid instead of adapting. Whether that meant offering Correa more money or pivoting while it was possible to acquire a Willson Contreras and/or a Chris Bassitt, I don't really care that much. That's where the discipline Jack mentioned comes into play; choosing to bow out of the Correa market or pay the requisite amount to have him seriously consider Minnesota. Either decision is a fine one, but the decision must be made.

But the worst possible outcome is the one they find themselves right now. It's basically "Dansby Swanson or bust" and given the lack of options remaining, it's probably more accurately stated as "way overpay Dansby Swanson relative to his career performance or bust".

[Squirrel]

27 minutes ago, old nurse said:

Oh come on yourself. The point I made still stands. Yes the money offered by the Twins was far less than San Francisco. It was not far less than the top contract signed this year by a similar player at that point in time. Which of the two is better is an opinion, not a fact. You don’t know if the Twins ever had a chance to match the offer or if negations were ended there. Because one or the other party ended there

If the twins offered 10/360 it would have been competitive. 10/285 was not. It’s not about the years

[ashbury]

10 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

If the twins offered 10/360 it would have been competitive. 10/285 was not. It’s not about the years

Your example is certainly true.  As a second-order effect, the years (when it's that many) probably would matter.  Two offers of $350M, but one at 10 years, would be more attractive than 13.  Not because of "average annual value," but because it commits the player to less work.  At that level of pay, the issue likely is more about the charitable foundation the player wants to fund.  Getting out of bed at age 40 to go do strenuous physical activity with 25-year olds trying to beat you, grumbling "I'm too old for this ****, but I'm doing it for the needy kids," is all well and good, but he'd rather have that final grumble at age 37 if he's permitted.

[mnfireman]

Thank you Mr. Goins for coming on here and sharing your insight and experience.

But once again, TD posters still have to come on here and rail the FO for being cheap, not adapting and generally whining that the off-season, the upcoming season, and all future seasons are total losses. Gloom and doom abounds in Twins Territory (maybe I'll change my screen name to this!).

[mk]

Cheap vs. disciplined is an interesting way to put it. What's the definition of disciplined? To never overpay for a free agent?

To be the highest bidder for a free agent don't you need to overpay/overvalue the player in the eyes of 29 other teams? 

[Doctor Gast]

Thanks Jack, I  agree with you that discipline is very important in FA & extentions. LAD has a lot of money but they are very disciplined when it comes to FA, this off season they did sign any big name FA, This year was very crazy with the # of years & total salary, maybe Judge set the mood.

 On the other hand if you look at CO a few years back, they had a very good MLB team. They extended their core with very generous contracts & signed mediocre players to very generous contracts. The following offseason when it was time fill their holes, they had 0 money to spend. For one Arenado was very put out. The team has floundered since then with no hope in sight. 

IMO player evaluation in drafting, promoting & trading should be our foundation along with player development. FA should be considered only as supplementary, being responsible when we are amidst  of negociations. I don't want to end up like CO.

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, roger said:

Thanks, Jack for a fascinating glimpse at the real world of baseball, it is appreciated more than you know.

And count me among the few who didn't want the Twins to resign Correa.  Sure, I would love having him as our shortstop, but not at the anticipated dollars and more important, years.  The back end of even the contract they offered would destroy this team right at the time they will need to extend many of these young kids arriving last year and next.  I also believe that Royce Lewis will and should be the Twins shortstop, beginning this summer and that five years from now they would rather have Lewis than Correa.

The back end will be the cost of one good free agent by the time it comes. That's so far off, we have no idea if one good free agent will matter or not. 

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

No.  Instead of getting better at the practices that have proven the most effective, let's follow strategies that have never been effective for teams in the bottom half of revenue.  Perhaps we should more carefully examine what has worked for other teams.  You say this approach but do you know the biggest difference between Cleveland / Tampa / Oaklands and Minnesota?

Two years ago, you said the Twins should sign a top pitcher. This year you said they should sign a top pitcher or SS. You've already said they should sign a top pitcher next year. I'm not sure where we disagree.

[2wins87]

1 hour ago, roger said:

Isn't that the key to being a successful small/mid-market team, DJL44?  Decide which of their own players will likely be top long-term members of the team and extend them a couple years before free agency.  If they don't get extended, then trade them a year or so before FA for good prospects, such as Berrios. 

The fact is that mid-market teams can't play with the big boys in the deep water of free agency.  So they have to be smart managers, make good trades and do a better than average job of identifying talent in the draft, International market and from other team organizations when talking trades.

This is the general blueprint for a mid market team. 

It does seem to me that they have extension talks with basically all of their young regulars.  They got extensions with the ones that were willing to take the team friendly deals, but haven't signed any of more questionable value.  So I think it's been more about the players deciding that the deals met their risk-tolerance levels than the team deciding who they absolutely needed to keep.  I'm sure they worked longer and harder on the Buxton deal than others, but in the end Buxton was willing to take a pretty team friendly deal.  We probably could have pretty easily seen him walk or be traded had he held the line closer to market rate like Berrios.

Anyway, the FO has been pretty good at that part of their job which led to the payroll flexibility they had to pursue Correa this offseason.  I don't agree that a mid-market team can't ever compete with the big market teams. They didn't literally run out of budget space for Correa, they ran out of space in whatever risk-reward model they had for him.

I'll defend the front office in many respects, but there is a bit of a pattern here.  This is more about pitching side, but whatever the team's risk-tolerance level is on FA deals is, it seems like it must be well below that of other teams.  Their final offers on their top targets always seem to come up short, especially when it comes to the years guarantee.

Pitchers are riskier bets, so it makes some logical sense, but the types of guys where the risk has met the contract demands are the likes of Bundy, Archer, Shoemaker, and Happ.  There's just no upside.  You can certainly look at it as discipline, but if they can't ever land the high impact guys when they've made the payroll space, then instead of applauding their discipline they should probably be asking themselves if they've set their risk-tolerance level unrealistically low.

It's tough for me because it seems obvious that a #1 starter has been the most consistent hole in the roster.  The offense has generally been at least solid over the last few years, and they've done a good job of trading and development to get plenty of cost controlled #2-#4 types now.  I just don't see where the #1 guy comes from if they don't at some point change their strategy.

[Mike Sixel]

You can have one elite player and two rookies, or three ok to mediocre free agents. That's the calculation you need to make. Also, no one is saying build the team with free agents.... No one. We are saying supplement the team you've built in trades and drafting. 

[Squirrel]

2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

I really am glad that Falvine does not tell all the details of his negotiations. I feel that is more professional on their part, even when there is widespread public interest in wanting to know all the details. 

Yes ... they can't. I know they can't. It would be unprofessional. Still, I'm left ... just sad.

[CRF]

Fantastic article Jack! 

[Craig Arko]

5 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

Yes ... they can't. I know they can't. It would be unprofessional. Still, I'm left ... just sad.

Probably have to wait for the tellall book or the Netflix series.

[Mike Sixel]

3 minutes ago, Craig Arko said:

Probably have to wait for the tellall book or the Netflix series.

Which will be cancelled with two episodes to go for tax reasons.....

[roger]

33 minutes ago, 2wins87 said:

This is the general blueprint for a mid market team. 

It does seem to me that they have extension talks with basically all of their young regulars.  They got extensions with the ones that were willing to take the team friendly deals, but haven't signed any of more questionable value.  So I think it's been more about the players deciding that the deals met their risk-tolerance levels than the team deciding who they absolutely needed to keep.  I'm sure they worked longer and harder on the Buxton deal than others, but in the end Buxton was willing to take a pretty team friendly deal.  We probably could have pretty easily seen him walk or be traded had he held the line closer to market rate like Berrios.

Anyway, the FO has been pretty good at that part of their job which led to the payroll flexibility they had to pursue Correa this offseason.  I don't agree that a mid-market team can't ever compete with the big market teams. They didn't literally run out of budget space for Correa, they ran out of space in whatever risk-reward model they had for him.

I'll defend the front office in many respects, but there is a bit of a pattern here.  This is more about pitching side, but whatever the team's risk-tolerance level is on FA deals is, it seems like it must be well below that of other teams.  Their final offers on their top targets always seem to come up short, especially when it comes to the years guarantee.

Pitchers are riskier bets, so it makes some logical sense, but the types of guys where the risk has met the contract demands are the likes of Bundy, Archer, Shoemaker, and Happ.  There's just no upside.  You can certainly look at it as discipline, but if they can't ever land the high impact guys when they've made the payroll space, then instead of applauding their discipline they should probably be asking themselves if they've set their risk-tolerance level unrealistically low.

It's tough for me because it seems obvious that a #1 starter has been the most consistent hole in the roster.  The offense has generally been at least solid over the last few years, and they've done a good job of trading and development to get plenty of cost controlled #2-#4 types now.  I just don't see where the #1 guy comes from if they don't at some point change their strategy.

Agree with much/most of what you say 2wins87.  Where I take a different turn with most is the need for a #1/ACE.  There are so few of them out there not everyone is going to get one.  Add that the ones in free agency have a lot of risk, too much IMO, as they are getting older and you are paying huge dollars for their previous success.  So often teams are stuck with a big name that is well past his prime and has a huge contract for several years.  So I appreciate the fact that they are losing out on these big names who carry too much risk.  After all there only is one Verlander out there and he also may have had his last great year, or not.

Rather, I want them to continue doing what they have and you alluded to.  That is build a rotation with an excellent trio of #2-#3 starters to fill the 2-4 slots in the rotation.  Add another #3 or #4 caliber starter for the #5 slot and they are set to be competitive, pitching wise, in every series they play.  It looks like they also finally have a couple of very good young arms who will be ready to fill in for injuries early this summer.  I believe the above plan is a way that mid-market teams can compete and expect the Twins to do so this summer.

Now the one player I really want to see them get this off-season is a top late inning bullpen arm to go with Duran and Lopez.  Get that pen like the Royale's had back whenver.

[DJL44]

31 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

You can have one elite player and two rookies, or three ok to mediocre free agents. That's the calculation you need to make. Also, no one is saying build the team with free agents.... No one. We are saying supplement the team you've built in trades and drafting. 

I doubt they could get an elite player to come to the Twins as a free agent. They can get someone like Vazquez - an average veteran player - to fill out the roster. They can't ever expect to buy a star player in free agency. They'll almost always get out-bid. Star players want the whole package - money, playoff success, endorsement opportunities. The Twins can't offer that. They have to make their own stars, lock them up with a contract before they reach free agency like Buxton & Mauer, then supplement with average players either through free agency or by obtaining arb-eligible average players from the low payroll clubs in trade.

[Mike Sixel]

4 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

I doubt they could get an elite player to come to the Twins as a free agent. They can get someone like Vazquez - an average veteran player - to fill out the roster. They can't ever expect to buy a star player in free agency. They'll almost always get out-bid. Star players want the whole package - money, playoff success, endorsement opportunities. The Twins can't offer that. They have to make their own stars, lock them up with a contract before they reach free agency like Buxton & Mauer, then supplement with average players either through free agency or by obtaining arb-eligible average players from the low payroll clubs in trade.

That's fine.....but then be aggressive with the next tier, or, like I said, sign three mediocre players. Unfortunately, they've opted for the latter, not the second tier players. That's largely not worked (to be clear, I like the catcher they just signed).

[Major League Ready]

46 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Two years ago, you said the Twins should sign a top pitcher. This year you said they should sign a top pitcher or SS. You've already said they should sign a top pitcher next year. I'm not sure where we disagree.

We don't differ greatly but the two of us have a different idea of the relative importance free agency plays into building a contender.  You generally present it as an absolute necessity.  People here lose their minds when we don't get big names.  The facts are that other clubs have done a much better job than the twins while literally never signing a high dollar free agent.  What they have done better than the twins historically is trade established players for near ready MLB talent.  For example, Cleveland did not go through a lengthy rebuild.  They traded established players they could not extend.  Oakland has done this consistently as has Tampa.  We are starting to see this with the Twins.  Duran and Alcala are just starting to make an impact and we will see what the Berrios trade yields. 

It just does not matter what they do in free agency until they produce talent.  Somewhat ironic is the fact that the better they produce talent, the more discretionary dollars they have to spend on free agents or better yet extensions which generally speaking are much more productive per dollar spent.  IE.  Ramirez  vs  Correa

 

[Malachi]

3 hours ago, MNTWINSWINAGAIN said:

Winning the World Series is the goal.  Houston just proved that a good team does not need Correa to win it all.  

Not the short term goal

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, Major League Ready said:

We don't differ greatly but the two of us have a different idea of the relative importance free agency plays into building a contender.  You generally present it as an absolute necessity.  People here lose their minds when we don't get big names.  The facts are that other clubs have done a much better job than the twins while literally never signing a high dollar free agent.  What they have done better than the twins historically is trade established players for near ready MLB talent.  For example, Cleveland did not go through a lengthy rebuild.  They traded established players they could not extend.  Oakland has done this consistently as has Tampa.  We are starting to see this with the Twins.  Duran and Alcala are just starting to make an impact and we will see what the Berrios trade yields. 

It just does not matter what they do in free agency until they produce talent.  Somewhat ironic is the fact that the better they produce talent, the more discretionary dollars they have to spend on free agents or better yet extensions which generally speaking are much more productive per dollar spent.  IE.  Ramirez  vs  Correa

 

I've literally been on the trade Kepler train for two years now....and now I'm on the deal nearly everyone train. Again, we agree, they need to product talent (and not draft Sabato and the other guy who's name I can't spell in round one). I also said trade Berrios. I'm still not seeing where we disagree.