One "Moore" Bullpen Piece for Minnesota

[Blyleven2011]

The FO hasn't paid for pitching in free agency  much over there time hear  ...

We have young able talent in starting pitching  , give a spot in the pen to a long relief pitcher , varland , swr , etc ,  etc ...

Let the young players play  ...

[Beast]

Don’t know why you wouldn’t do this.  If he does what he’s been doing, he’s our second best reliever.

Do I think they will?  No.  Maybe it’s the right move.  There’s a reason why he’s still out there.

One note:  I’m not sure I’d go as far as calling this team a legitimate contender unless we’re just referring the division.

We still don’t have a front-line horse starter that I think we’d need for a long playoff run.  The FO has done a good job with their limited resources this off-season, but still not sure I feel great about Gray, Ryan, Mahle, or Lopez  taking the mound in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium.  Better than Dobnak…but I think we need a little more juice there before booking ALCS tickets.

[miracleb]

Moore completely RE-transformed his game last year.  I get a little suspicious when that happens.  I would imagine all the other teams are thinking the same thing.  Waiting until the 40-man roster frees up.......is a good idea.

[Otaknam]

They must be confident that Thielbar and Moran will fill the lefty BP role. But given the FO and Baldelli’s insistence that no starter pitch beyond five innings will again melt the bullpen. So adding a veteran lefty does make sense because there will be a constant flow of bullpen arms from St. Paul to make up for short starts every game. 

[Otaknam]

16 hours ago, Galen said:

Doesn't matter if the starters can't get into the 6th inning

Yes it does. It taxes the bullpen and we end up with a constant flow of relievers from St. Paul. That may work for awhile until the relievers run out of options. Also what frontline free agent starter would want to come to a team that doesn’t have confidence in their ability to pitch deep into games? Imagine telling Blyleven, Gibson, Verlander, or even Radke that, no matter how well they are pitching, five innings is the limit because the computer algorithm says so. Whatever happened to a manager trusting his instinct on a player. Ridiculous!

[saviking]

I'm sorry, did you say he's asking for a two year 15 million contract  🤣

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

21 hours ago, Brandon said:

I think we could be fine with this and some of the starter prospects coming up for a few games here and there as needed.  but also finding a better option then Megill/ Coulombe/ Henriquez is a good idea too.  Also this really needs Winder to transition to the pen well.  If he can do that, I doubt we need a reliever.  we could just wait to trade for one at the deadline after we use some time to sort through some of these options.

I have concerns regarding acquiring a RP at the deadline.  Just look at what we gave up at last year's deadline for Lopez.  It would be cheaper prospect-wise to grab a FA RP once we move the long-term injured players to the 60-man to clear up a few spots on the 40-man.  I suspect other teams have the same strategy so the FO should be coming to terms now with FA RP's so we are ready to pull the trigger.

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

The FO may not be high on signing a RP to a two-year contract for ~7MM/per after getting burned in their first year on Addison.

[SkyBlueWaters]

16 hours ago, DocBauer said:

I understand and appreciate your consternation. And as I stated, I'd be fine with Chafin as well. But you have to consider 2 points:

1] Most quality RP...and most all of them in general...were "failed" SP for one of many reasons. And they found new life as a bullpen piece. Just speaking Twins history alone, you'd be looking at Aguillera, Tremblay, Perkins, just to name a few. So Moore's history as a failed SP shouldn't weigh on his potential to continue as a quality BP arm going forward.

2] When ST is about to start, anyone still on the market is probably not going to get some "max value" contract. They will "settle" for lower value, possibly even a 1yr deal. AND, just because a few teams went NUTS and overspent on a BP arm simply doesn't necessarily set a standard that the other 20+ teams are willing to pay.

I wouldn't touch Moore, or any RP probably, for $10M unless he was proven and special. But I'd STRONGLY suggest $7-8M per on a 1-2yr deal for an arm with electricity wouldn't be a bad choice. And right now, there is a dearth of LH BP options for the Twins. 

Thielbar is great, and probably has more life left. Moran has a potentially great future, but has reverse splits and needs to get better against LH bats. Headrick is a SP option on the 40 man who MIGHT help or move to the pen. Coulombe is a non 40 man option AGAIN who can help, and probably will. After that, you've got 2 or 3 arms that pitched for AA last year that are intriguing, and MIGHT find themselves as viable options at some point late in 2023, or, more likely, as 2024 options.

Again, I wouldn't drop $10M or so on Moore or anyone available. But I'd seriously consider something in the $7-8M range for a port sider that could push the bullpen from solid to potentially great.

It will be interesting now to see where Moore ends up. I will say last year’s relative success was intriguing. If we had “Yankee dollars” to spend, I could see the chance as worthwhile. 
 

Unfortunately, we have Twins dollars—or maybe Pohlad dollars. Which, however plentiful, don’t seem to fly around with the abandon of Yankee dollars.

[Brandon]

2 hours ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

I have concerns regarding acquiring a RP at the deadline.  Just look at what we gave up at last year's deadline for Lopez.  It would be cheaper prospect-wise to grab a FA RP once we move the long-term injured players to the 60-man to clear up a few spots on the 40-man.  I suspect other teams have the same strategy so the FO should be coming to terms now with FA RP's so we are ready to pull the trigger.

If the Twins do this it would need to be a pre negotiated contract so the player has enough time in spring training to ramp up for the regular season.  There won’t be time for a bidding war for a reliever and the relievers know it.

[DocBauer]

7 hours ago, SkyBlueWaters said:

It will be interesting now to see where Moore ends up. I will say last year’s relative success was intriguing. If we had “Yankee dollars” to spend, I could see the chance as worthwhile. 
 

Unfortunately, we have Twins dollars—or maybe Pohlad dollars. Which, however plentiful, don’t seem to fly around with the abandon of Yankee dollars.

Agreed. But while the Twins aren't exactly blowing the roof off in yearly payroll, they haven't been shy about spending $ if they believe it makes sense. They've been pretty consistent about being around 16-18 in total team payroll, usually hovering around $140-150M ish to begin the season, going over a bit in final numbers when you factor in trades and some dead $. That might not sound overly impressive, but when you eliminate the top 8-10 large market teams and their $200-300M payrolls, the context of the rankings changes.

They're right about $150M right now, before any additions or incentives paid out. Dropping another $7-8M for someone they THINK could make a difference doesn't blow anything up.

The question is, do they believe Moore or Chafin could make enough of a difference to be worth that? I'd say yes, but I'm not in charge, LOL. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they set their sites lower and grabbed someone like Hand...not what he was, but still effective and coming off a solid year...on something like a 1yr for $5-6M.

[Major League Ready]

12 hours ago, Otaknam said:

They must be confident that Thielbar and Moran will fill the lefty BP role. But given the FO and Baldelli’s insistence that no starter pitch beyond five innings will again melt the bullpen. So adding a veteran lefty does make sense because there will be a constant flow of bullpen arms from St. Paul to make up for short starts every game. 

The Baldelli won't let a pitcher go beyond 5 innings is getting tedious.  He had pitchers that were not good beyond 2 trips through the order.  Not letting them go beyond that is called common sense.

[SkyBlueWaters]

On 2/9/2023 at 5:43 PM, DocBauer said:

Agreed. But while the Twins aren't exactly blowing the roof off in yearly payroll, they haven't been shy about spending $ if they believe it makes sense. They've been pretty consistent about being around 16-18 in total team payroll, usually hovering around $140-150M ish to begin the season, going over a bit in final numbers when you factor in trades and some dead $. That might not sound overly impressive, but when you eliminate the top 8-10 large market teams and their $200-300M payrolls, the context of the rankings changes.

They're right about $150M right now, before any additions or incentives paid out. Dropping another $7-8M for someone they THINK could make a difference doesn't blow anything up.

The question is, do they believe Moore or Chafin could make enough of a difference to be worth that? I'd say yes, but I'm not in charge, LOL. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they set their sites lower and grabbed someone like Hand...not what he was, but still effective and coming off a solid year...on something like a 1yr for $5-6M.

Some years back, I went systematically through year-by-year total payroll figures for all 30 franchises, over a two decade span, sorting them into top, middle and bottom thirds. I then looked at how many of those teams made the playoffs and how many won the world series. At that point, only the '03 Marlins were a bottom third team to win a world series. (The '97 Marlins kind of surprised me, I'd forgotten how they had a number of high-priced veterans.)

I had a friend who was convinced Sabrmetrics was going to be the difference maker for some true-believer to ace out a bigger payroll team. He denigrated the Giants as old school. When they won, he discovered they had an analyst hidden away crunching numbers. He also felt Ned Yost was such a bad manager he cost his teams games every year. When Yost won a WS, he again found KC had a stat-analyst. I realized the cause was lost. Whoever won, he was going to find a Sabrmetrician in the catacombs.

Sorry for the digression. I agree with you the Twins' recent moves have been good. They will once again be good Upper Midwestern fun. One of my yardsticks for becoming wildly enthusiastic is to compare the best pitching staffs. Especially starting rotations. Again, I'm not complaining about our hot stove season moves. The Twins got better. But when I look at the best pitching staffs, how do the Twins rank in spring training?

I'm crossing my fingers. I really hope someone emerges as an ace. And if they signed Matt Moore and he pitched close to what he did in '22, I'd happily admit he earned the Pohlad dollars, and I was wrong to be skeptical.