A Perfect Free Agent Exists for the Twins

8 hours ago, Monkeypaws said:

Rodon has 29 other options out there. What draws him to Minnesota, divisional rival and all?

The appeal of the Twins is: they are always screaming POVERTY, the team seems to lack a PLAN, "fan" interest is waning AND you get to pitch OUTDOORS in MINNESOTA in April, May, September & October !!  (sarcasm intended)

The big question is what will Rondon be looking for.  A big red flag for me is that he was not given a QO.  To me that means Sox were worried he would take it and they would have to pay him 18 mil for 1 year.  Why would Sox be worried about 18 mil for 1 year on a guy that was on way to possible Cy Young Award?  I think there is a lot more to the injury than we all know, else he would have been no brainer for QO. 

17 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

Have you looked at the history of the Twins developing impact pitching?

 

One plan: sign proven guys, hope they stay mostly healthy, and hope your minor leagues eventually provide even more pitching when/if they prove ready. 

 

Other plan: Hope your minor leagues provides ALL the pitching you need, now and forever. 

 

 

If you bothered to actually consider what I said you would have realized my statement in no way suggests they should not sign impact pitchers.  It should not be to hard to deduce that if free agent SPs are far more productive in their first year or two,  then signing them for the "long-term" does not make sense.  If you only get a year or two with a high probability of success it would make sense to add when the other pieces are in place which was clearly the message if you look back.  You have reduced the conversation to twisting it to absurdity in suggesting that this means they should only rely on developing pitching.  

Dan Hayes threw cold water on the Twins going after Rodón unless he's available late in ST on a "prove it deal".

This offseason is going to be such a disappointment.

I just cannot believe that they and some fans think that they can field a solid rotation of Ryan, Ober, Bundy, Balazovic, Winder, Duran etc. It's more than likely that more than half of these guys are total busts or back of the rotation/bullpen guys. Most pitching prospects don't make it, and the Twins success numbers are worse than most.

Ryan looked good in a tiny sample, but the guy throws 90% fastballs under 93 MPH. I know his release is weird, but how long until other teams catch on and crush him?

I liked Ober, but at best he's a number 3.

I just don't expect much from these prospects and until things change and they start to come around, I'm under the assumption that most of them are going to struggle at the MLB level this year.

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

If you bothered to actually consider what I said you would have realized my statement in no way suggests they should not sign impact pitchers.  It should not be to hard to deduce that if free agent SPs are far more productive in their first year or two,  then signing them for the "long-term" does not make sense.  If you only get a year or two with a high probability of success it would make sense to add when the other pieces are in place which was clearly the message if you look back.  You have reduced the conversation to twisting it to absurdity in suggesting that this means they should only rely on developing pitching.  

What you're advocating for isn't a realistic goal. High end starters aren't signing 1-2 year deals and waiting for all the pieces to fall into place, i.e. pulling the trigger when you're "a piece or two away," is a good way to ensure you're constantly short that piece or two. 

2 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

What you're advocating for isn't a realistic goal. High end starters aren't signing 1-2 year deals and waiting for all the pieces to fall into place, i.e. pulling the trigger when you're "a piece or two away," is a good way to ensure you're constantly short that piece or two. 

And where did I ever suggest high starters would sign a 2 year deal?

5 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

Darvish, Wheeler and Eovaldi pitched better a year after signing. Lance Lynn was brutal after leaving St. Louis then rebounded later. You mentioned Greinke earlier as a guy who was consistently good, but he wasn't. He did not pitch well when he signed his new contract in 2016, but he was really good for most of the remainder of his deal.

This isn't the black and white situation you're making it out to be. There is no clear or obvious equation telling us when, if at all, free agent pitchers will peak with their new contracts.

I have previously posted the specific result of ever free agent SP that signed a 5 year or more deal in the past 20 years.  I am not guessing or assuming.  As best I can recall there average WAR after the 1st year was 1.2.  I went back to 2012 and there are not that many.  Take a look at 

David Price / Johnny Cueto  / Jeff Samardzija / Jordan Zimmerman / Anibal Sanchez / CJ Wilson.  There contracts have run there course.  Darvish has never been the answer.  He has never put together a full year.  Arietta got a short deal on a high AAV.  He was never better than mediocre.  Bumbgarner has been bad.  More recently Patrick Corbin started out great and sucks now.  Even Jon Lester was only good for the first half of his deal and then became a detriment. 

The history is quite clear that free agent pitchers are less and less likely to be productive as their contracts age..  You want to know why this team and other teams wait until they are poised to contend to sign them... This is the answer.  You are welcome to assume they just don't understand how to build a team if you like.

If the plan is to rely on development, then spend the money on a shortstop & don't expect to actually be competitive for the next two years.

Rodon is a risk the Twins must take IMO

19 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

And where did I ever suggest high starters would sign a 2 year deal?

You're missing the point; waiting for the stars to align, or assuming that they will, isn't a viable strategy. Teams need to take advantage of an opportunity to get better when available, not hold out until 95% of the roster is set and/or bank of that same opportunity existing down the line.

36 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

You're missing the point; waiting for the stars to align, or assuming that they will, isn't a viable strategy. Teams need to take advantage of an opportunity to get better when available, not hold out until 95% of the roster is set and/or bank of that same opportunity existing down the line.

And you are simply avoiding hard fact or at a minimum history.  I have listed the history of free agent SPs by WAR.  I am not going through the effort again but the production is horrible after year 2.  If free agents SPs perform by far better the 1st two years, why would you want to sign them when you are a year away from contention best case scenario and most likely case scenario 2 years.  Congratulations.  You wasted the years when they were productive and now you have their expense prohibiting you from adding them when it would make a difference.  You have a concept / assumption.  I have proven that assumption to be invalid you are just ignoring fact/history and telling me something has to be done without any data to support your position.

6 hours ago, TwinsFan2005 said:

Rodon is a risk the Twins must take IMO

Would you offer him a 3 or 4 year deal?

2 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

And you are simply avoiding hard fact or at a minimum history.  I have listed the history of free agent SPs by WAR.  I am not going through the effort again but the production is horrible after year 2.  If free agents SPs perform by far better the 1st two years, why would you want to sign them when you are a year away from contention best case scenario and most likely case scenario 2 years.  Congratulations.  You wasted the years when they were productive and now you have their expense prohibiting you from adding them when it would make a difference.  You have a concept / assumption.  I have proven that assumption to be invalid you are just ignoring fact/history and telling me something has to be done without any data to support your position.

The history of FA, or a selective history? 

You want to sign them because you have a hole that isn't able to be adequately filled by internal options. If you aren't filling those holes, and getting better over time, I don't know how you expect to reach the talent and/or win threshold where you yourself would consider signing a top dollar pitcher. If your answer is draft & development, it's clear that doesn't occur linearly. 

We'll just disagree on the generalization that FA SPs turn into pumpkins after 1-2 years. I understand there's risk/volatility involved, but the same goes for drafting and developing players. It makes zero sense not to utilize each avenue concurrently if the goal is to win a WS. 

In 2019 the Twins loaded up with free agents, and the record shows it; now they are all gone, and the record shows it.

11 hours ago, KirbyDome89 said:

The history of FA, or a selective history? 

You want to sign them because you have a hole that isn't able to be adequately filled by internal options. If you aren't filling those holes, and getting better over time, I don't know how you expect to reach the talent and/or win threshold where you yourself would consider signing a top dollar pitcher. If your answer is draft & development, it's clear that doesn't occur linearly. 

We'll just disagree on the generalization that FA SPs turn into pumpkins after 1-2 years. I understand there's risk/volatility involved, but the same goes for drafting and developing players. It makes zero sense not to utilize each avenue concurrently if the goal is to win a WS. 

No doubt we disagree.  The difference is you have come to a conclusion based on assumption on the relative merit of this strategy.  After reading this same idea here in the past, I was curious as to how the strategy would have worked out historically.  More specifically, it made sense to determine how well the FAs did after the first year of their contract before drawing any conclusions as to its merit.    

Other than a couple truly elite guys (Scherzer / Greinke) the production from these contracts after the first year has been horrible.  This is hard fact if you are actually willing to look at the facts.  If you go purely on past results it would be gross incompetence to sign this specific type of free agent in a year when a team is not a realistic contender.  It’s a small sample size so I would not hold to rigidly to what this data suggests but it certainly illustrates why teams don’t sign top free agents SPs until they believe they are ready to contend.  If you have examples of success stories, go ahead and make your case with actual evidence.  Right now you are telling me something has to me done where the facts strongly dispute your opinion.

4 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

No doubt we disagree.  The difference is you have come to a conclusion based on assumption on the relative merit of this strategy.  After reading this same idea here in the past, I was curious as to how the strategy would have worked out historically.  More specifically, it made sense to determine how well the FAs did after the first year of their contract before drawing any conclusions as to its merit.    

Other than a couple truly elite guys (Scherzer / Greinke) the production from these contracts after the first year has been horrible.  This is hard fact if you are actually willing to look at the facts.  If you go purely on past results it would be gross incompetence to sign this specific type of free agent in a year when a team is not a realistic contender.  It’s a small sample size so I would not hold to rigidly to what this data suggests but it certainly illustrates why teams don’t sign top free agents SPs until they believe they are ready to contend.  If you have examples of success stories, go ahead and make your case with actual evidence.  Right now you are telling me something has to me done where the facts strongly dispute your opinion.

Removing prime production years and using a SSS don't really jive with "hard facts." 

Teams spend money on FAs that make them more competitive every offseason. I'm not going down the rabbit hole of debating the merit of signings on an individual basis. 

19 hours ago, USAFChief said:

This seems so obvious to me. 

 

It also ignores the obvious point that if somehow you COULD wait until you have your entire team set up save for that last perfect piece or two, YOU'VE PROBABLY JUST MISSED OUT ON A WORLD SERIES. You should have added those final pieces sooner, so that you had them in place for that season when everything else came together. Now it's too late, you missed your perfect season. 

Are you really going to tell me this year is the year that should be expected or that they even have a realistic chance.  You are pushing the concept to absurdity.  

12 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Removing prime production years and using a SSS don't really jive with "hard facts." 

Teams spend money on FAs that make them more competitive every offseason. I'm not going down the rabbit hole of debating the merit of signings on an individual basis. 

I took literally every free agent SP with the appropriate profile.  I then simply removed the first year which could not possibly be more consistent with answering the question of is it it good idea to sign pitchers a year or two in advance of the team being in a position to contend.  I noticed you are completely avoiding any conversation about the fact that the SPs who have completed 5+ year contracts over the past 20 years have performed very poorly outside of the first year and especially the first two years.  What could be more valid than how these FAs performed outside the first year when assessing a strategy to sign them a year or two before the team is ready to contend?

21 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

You're cherry picking; Darvish, Wheeler and Eovaldi; poor starts with their new teams, but they turned it around. But there have hardly been any top flight starting pitchers hit the free agent markets this past decade or so. A few years we've had three or four, but some years guys like Jeremy Hellickson and Dallas Keuchel are at the top of the lists. It's not like we have a huge sample size of starters getting giant contracts as of late.

And again, Greinke was NOT good his first year on his new deal, he got better in subsequent years. You need to stop acting like you found some golden equation that proves all starting pitchers on long contacts will bust; you didn't. They might be more likely to bust than they are to do well, but it's not a proven or even predictable outcome. You don't have to want long term deals because they are risky, that's fine and a justifiable stance, but everyone else is allowed to prefer to take that risk and preferring to take that risk doesn't mean everyone else is somehow blind to your wisdom.

Back when I did this two years ago, I literally took every 5+ year free agent SP so it's hardly cherry picking.  I posted those results here and as I recall the average war after the  first year was 1.2 WAR which is obviously extremely poor.  Wheeler / Eovaldi were new deals then so I did not consider them.  No Grienke was not good the first year but please tell me how that is relevant when the basis of their value beyond year 1 has literally nothing to do with their 1st year performance.  The entire point is their value after year 1 when the debate is the validity of signing a SP a year or two early. 

12 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

What could be more valid than how these FAs performed outside the first year when assessing a strategy to sign them a year or two before the team is ready to contend?

Attributes I'd consider to be more important: age, past performance, injury history, pitch repertoire/style, which franchise they're moving to, on and on. 

If you want to say that SPs are more likely to perform better earlier in their contracts, you'll get no argument from me. What I'm not on board with, is distilling these contracts down to their least desirable results, painting with a broad brush, and calling it hard fact. Blue Jays fans shouldn't be angsty over locking up Berrios long term because Jordan Zimmerman was a bust 6 years ago. 

I went back and found the data I put together in 2019.  There just have not been that many SPs that have gotten five years or more but the production past year 1 and espcecally past two years is horrible.

2012
Alber Pujlos 10/240/AAV 24
WAR 3.3 / .5 / 2.7 / 1.6 / .7 / -1.9 / -.2 / -.4 / .2 / -.2  Ave .59 / 40.77M per 1WAR   

Prince Fielder 9/214/AAV 23.77
WAR 5.0 / 2.7 / -.4 / 2.0 / .7 / -1.9 / 0 / 0 / 0  Ave .95 / 26.75M per 1WAR

Jose Reyes 6/106/17.66AAV
WAR 3.8 / 2.5 / 3.8 / .7 / 1.5 / 2.0 /   Ave 1.75 / 10.09.75M per 1WAR

CJ Wilson 5/77.5/AAV 15.5
WAR 2.2 / 3.2 / .7 / 1.5 / 0 /   Ave 1.52 / 10.19.75M per 1WAR  .73 WAR/yr after year 2.

2013

Zack Greinke 6/206/AAV 34.4
WAR 3.5 / 4.3 / 5.4/ Opted out in 2016

Josh Hamilton 5/125/AAV25
WAR 1.3 / 1.1 / .4 / 0 / 0  Ave .56 / 44.46M per 1WAR

Anibal Sanchez 5/80/AAV 16
WAR 6.0 / 3.2 / 1.0 / .8 / .4  Ave 2.28   /  .73 WAR/yr after year 2

Melvin Upton 5/72.5/AAV 14.5
WAR -.9 / 0 / 1.5 / 1.3 / 0  Ave .38 / 38.16M per 1WAR

2014

Robinson Cano 10/240/AAV 24
WAR 5.6 / 2.8 / 6.2 / 3.1 / 2.9 / .8 / 1.4 / 0

Jacoby Ellsbury 7/153/AAV 21.1
WAR 3.5 / 1.1 / 1.7 / 1.6 / 0 / 0 / 0  Ave 1.131

Shin-Soo Choo 7/130/AAV 18.6
WAR .4 / 3.4 / .6 / .5 / 2.4 / 1.7 / 0  Ave 1.5 / 

Brian McCann 5/85/AAV 17
WAR 2.3 / 2.9 / 1.3 / 1.7 / .5  Ave 1.74 / 9.77M per 1WAR

2015

Max Scherzer has been great.

Jon Lester  4/9 / 4.2 / 2.9 / 1.8 / 2.7 / .3  A difference maker the 1st two years and a solid pitcher the remainder of the contract

James Shields  .8 / -1 / -.2 / 1.2 / 0  Averaga of .225 WAR after year 1.

Pablo Sadoval – 5 yrs/$95M Played below replacement level

2016 

David Price 7/217/AAV of $31M – WAR 4.4 / 1.5 / 2.4 / 2.3 / 0 / .7 an average of 1.88 total and 1.38 after the 1st year.
Chris Davis has been below replacement level.
Jason Heyward has had 1 year over 2 WAR (2.1 in 2018)
Johnny Cueto   4.9 / 1.2 / .3 / 0 / .5 / 1.5  Average .7 WAR after year 1.
Justin Upton  7 Yrs/ $150M  1/9 / 5.2 / 2.9 / -.3 / -.1 / .3  Still has 1 year left
Jordan Zimmerman   1.4 / 1.2 / 1.0 / 1/3 / 1.2  Did not have even 1 good year
Jeff Samardzija   2.2 / 3.8 / -.1 / 1.5 / -.5   Average WAR of .3 after first two years

2017 did not have much.   The top 3 in AAV were Cespedes / Chapman and Fowler. Cespedes has produced 2.5 total WAR for 2017-19. Chapman produced 5.3 WAR so he has been good, not great. Fowler has averaged exactly 1 WAR over 3 years.   Jansen was great in 2017 and has produced a total of 1.5 WAR over the past two seasons.

2018

Yu Darvish 6/126/AAV 25 – Obviously added nothing to 2018.  Was mediocre the 1st half of 2019 and hard a good 2nd half.  Was great in the shortened 2020 season and the 1st half of 2021.  Was terrible the 2nd half of 2021.  Basically, he has had one good season where he was good all year and that was the Covid year.

Arrieta – 3/75/AAV 25 – Produced 1.9 WAR in 2018 and 1.1 WAR in 2019 and .5 in 2020. The guy we settle for (Odorizzi) produced 2.6 WAR in 2018 and 4.3 WAR in 2019. 

Carlos Santana / Wade Davis & Alex Cobb – All serviceable but not much above replacement level.
 

9 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Attributes I'd consider to be more important: age, past performance, injury history, pitch repertoire/style, which franchise they're moving to, on and on. 

If you want to say that SPs are more likely to perform better earlier in their contracts, you'll get no argument from me. What I'm not on board with, is distilling these contracts down to their least desirable results, painting with a broad brush, and calling it hard fact. Blue Jays fans shouldn't be angsty over locking up Berrios long term because Jordan Zimmerman was a bust 6 years ago. 

I just don't know how to explain it in terms you will acknowledge.  The debate is signing players a year or more before the team is ready to contend because then you will have them when you are ready.  If this is a good idea is 100% the product of how they perform after that 1st year,  There is zero "painting with a broad brush or taking least desirable traits.  Please PLEASE explain to me how it is not appropriate to look at ALL of the performance after the 1st year when the entire debate is the wisdom of signing players before the team is positioned to contend.  The only thing that matters is their performance after year 1 in the context of this debate.

Example:  Let's take the 3 big SPs / Price / Cueto / Samarzija /  from 2016 now that we have full history.   Price and Cueto were great in their first year.  Would that make a difference if the rest of the team was not ready to contend.  After that 1st year the 3 of them produced exactly 1 impact season above 3 WAR and 11 seasons at 1.5 or less.  These are not outliers. This pattern is common among all of the 5+ years SPs in recent free agent history.  I won't even go so far as to say this is conclusive but if you look at the history and don't question this strategy you have to have an extreme unwillingness to consider what history implies about this strategy.

23 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

I just don't know how to explain it in terms you will acknowledge.  The debate is signing players a year or more before the team is ready to contend because then you will have them when you are ready.  If this is a good idea is 100% the product of how they perform after that 1st year,  There is zero "painting with a broad brush or taking least desirable traits.  Please PLEASE explain to me how it is not appropriate to look at ALL of the performance after the 1st year when the entire debate is the wisdom of signing players before the team is positioned to contend.  The only thing that matters is their performance after year 1 in the context of this debate.

Example:  Let's take the 3 big SPs / Price / Cueto / Samarzija /  from 2016 now that we have full history.   Price and Cueto were great in their first year.  Would that make a difference if the rest of the team was not ready to contend.  After that 1st year the 3 of them produced exactly 1 impact season above 3 WAR and 11 seasons at 1.5 or less.  These are not outliers. This pattern is common among all of the 5+ years SPs in recent free agent history.  I won't even go so far as to say this is conclusive but if you look at the history and don't question this strategy you have to have an extreme unwillingness to consider what history implies about this strategy.

I think arriving at a conclusion based on the worst years of these contracts, and then projecting that judgement onto future contracts is painting with a broad brush, and far from "hard fact." You said it yourself, it's a small sample, and I'd add that it's an inconsistent one as far as talent level is concerned. The certainty that these later years won't be productive and the timing/strategy of approaching them is the crux of the disagreement. It seems we've reached an impasse.