Choose Your Own Path: Three Ways for the Minnesota Twins to Use Their Remaining $35MM

The only issue I can see with these three plans is that it uses ALL the remaining payroll of $135 MM to sign free agents. What happens if you want to sign Buxton, Sano, Berrios, etc... to multi year deals? Does the projected payroll then go up?

I would imagine there is a little flexibility in the 135-140. But in the spirit of 135. I would rather have an innings eater than Hill but I would want Donaldson. So Keuchel and Donaldson works for me. Add Gausman if we can hit 140ish.

I guess I should add we can always move Graterol to the bullpen in late July to save some wear and tear and have a better pen.

Leave Sano at 3rd for now. Sign either Eric Thames or Edwin Encarnacion to play 1st. Encarnacion would probably be best used in some sort of a platoon for 1st.  Plenty of bodies on the team to give him plenty of time off.

Julio Teheran would be my pitcher of choice.

As for the rest I would let the market play itself out and then jump in for some bullpen help if Romo won't be back. The worst thing is to chase a hot RP and overpay and get burned.

I think the $135 is a little low.  The window is open, so up the payroll into the $150 range.  Like the idea of Donaldson, but takes a lot of flexibility out of play.  Unless your play is for Sano to DH starting in 2021.  

Ryu and Donaldson would be around $40, but still leave some for raises and Ryu would be shorter term than any of the other front line pitchers.  Donaldson would only be about 4 years, so long term would not block anyone.  

Oh man, I like and dislike parts of each of these 3 plans. I’m playing this your way so in my mind that says I have to pick one of the three without mixing and matching or making plan 4... that’s a hard choice so I gave each move points.

Plan 1: this has us getting one of the top 4 remaining pitchers which is my one big off season desire so since you give me a choice I will take Ryu happily at 21 million.+4 pts The negative to this is the Bailey signing. I don’t want another reclamation project unless his name is Tehran. I really think Wes Johnson can make Tehran into what he always had the potential for so Bailey is a -2 on this plan. Shaw I do not have a solid opinion on. +0 Romo seems too obvious a resign that I will be disappointed if we don’t bring him back. +2

Plan 2: I don’t think we need him but Donaldson would be fun. +4 pts. Rich Hill? -1 Drew Smyly? Please no! -2 pts. Brandon Kintzler? No, No, NO!!! -2 pts. This has the most steamer fWar? Ok, fine but really?

Plan 3: Keuchel as our headline pitching addition is a real bummer to me. He would get a +2 pts if I wasn’t disappointed on missing on the top 4 remaining so only +1. Tehran? Already expressed my opinion above. I like this +2. I believe our in house guys will have someone emerge and ready out of Spring Training but Thames is solid so I will still give him a +1 as insurance. Rather have Romo than Betances for the veteran leadership and personality but as a decent reliever so +1.

At first glance I liked plan 1 best, by steamer fWar I should choose 2 but when counting my points, I guess plan 3 is my pick. That leaves me disappointed though both in what we didn’t get and in myself for choosing plan 3.

I'd be pleased if ANY of those plans came to fruition. Let's just do something SOON rather than waiting around and seeing more potentially good free agents get snapped up by other teams

I think that my argument for this is that if they have a rock solid cap of $135 million, that's pretty pathetic. The idea that they can't afford to go beyond this is absolutely ridiculous regardless of what the front office may tell you. In my opinion, there shouldn't be a salary goal below $150 million and even that would leave you money to give extensions.

That's a pretty emphatic statement that it would be pathetic given you provide no supporting information. Have you calculated break-even and what are you using as a reasonable profit in determining they could spend $150 on payroll and still have money left over for extensions. You also forgot they will need money for arbitration increases next year to retain several key players  Cruz will be coming off but we might want to keep him around another year too.

Out of the proposed options I like Option 1 the best but would pass on Homer Bailey. If they add a Bumgarner, Ryu or similar pitcher to Berrios, Odorizzi and Pineda I believe they'll roll with a competition among Dobnak, Thorpe, Smeltzer, Graterol, etc for the 5th starter slot and frankly as a fan I'd rather see them go that route. 

Talking strictly free agents I'd really like to see the Twins make a bold statement and leave the winter meetings with contracts for both Bumgarner and Donaldson.

Plan 1 is overall my preference, but I too would muck around at the edges. I don't want Bailey as the second SP in the mix and would prefer Gausman who wouldn't cost much more and could transition to the bullpen effectively if starting isn't gonna work for him or someone in the system passes him by the time Pineda comes back. If not Gausman, then I'm more interested in Rich Hill. But I really dunno about Bailey.

I'm willing to agree to whatever the FO thinks is best in terms of signing one of Travis Shaw/Eric Thames/CJ Cron to fill in at one of the corner spots for a salary of somewhere between $5-7M.

If Plan 1 is a no, than I'd go with trying to sign Donaldson, Rich Hill and then making a deal for Price/Sale/Darvish with the hope that Bos/Chi would eat at least a little of the salary.

Plan 4:

Gregorious SS 15 MM

Treinen RP 7 MM

Keuchel SP 13 MM

The only issue I can see with these three plans is that it uses ALL the remaining payroll of $135 MM to sign free agents. What happens if you want to sign Buxton, Sano, Berrios, etc... to multi year deals? Does the projected payroll then go up?

Generally, the "this year" of the multi year would be about the same as they would get in arbitration. Your scenario doesn't affect things at all.

However, the more interesting scenario is if in the middle of the season or at the deadline, they want to take on a big contract. Let's say the Cubs are slightly under .500 and want to get out from under Darvish's contract. That's about $7 million at the deadline, I think, plus the issues of his contract and those other ones you've signed, who are more often than not going to be on multi-year deals.

If the infield defense was good, I'd go with the Keuchel plan, but no way I do that with Sano, Polanco, Arraez in the infield. No way. And I like Keuchel.....

 

I can't decide between the other two. I lean the expensive pitcher plan, because I just don't see how they get another good pitcher w/o spending money on one, and I don't think they have enough pitching to be elite as a team right now......but Ryu makes me nervous, and I have no idea what Bumgarner is or is not going forward (I think good, like #3 or better with flashes of #1 sometimes).....But the 3B is a much safer bet.....but then, you can find good 3B much easier than good SP (and next year's FA pitching class is meh)......

 

So, um, Bumgarner I guess.

This is my thinking as well. Ryu might be as good as Madbum in 2020, but both will require a multiyear deal. I'd rather have Madbum for 5 years than Ryu for 3. Ryu has been the opposite of durable and reliable.  

Kuechel would be a great signing if we also improved the infield defense. 

If you can really get Didi Gregorius for $15 million, sign me up for him and MadBaum at $21 million. If that is over the cap, trade Rosario to free up $ for one more RP.

Of the 3 options, I vote for #1.

That being said, I'd like to replace Bailey with about 3 or 4 others I think. Just don't know he's the best cheap/bounce back option.

How about Shaw at 1B and keep Sano at 3B? Greater continuity, a good 1B, and Shaw can still bring value by playin 3 positions if/when Raley/Rooker/Kirilloff are ready to take over 1B.

Zero reason that payroll shouldn't be around $150-55...other than the obvious of people writing the checks not wanting to go that high.  150 is not out of bounds IMO.