Dreaming On Trevor Story to the Twins

  On 2/3/2022 at 12:33 AM, Major League Ready said:

You do realize he has not played in 2 years, right?

Expand  

Just how long do you wait.  Just saying give him this year and if he is not MLB ready will he ever be?

  On 2/3/2022 at 2:40 PM, MABB1959 said:

Just how long do you wait.  Just saying give him this year and if he is not MLB ready will he ever be?

Expand  

Had you taken this stance I would not have asked if you realized he had not played in two years.  However, you are now changing your statement.  Originally, you said "I would bring him up give him 2022 and stop the if's/guessing."  That's a pretty adamant stance.  Giving him a year is entirely different.  I am confused on your position.  

  On 2/2/2022 at 6:02 PM, Minny505 said:

Story, playing with a bum right elbow for almost all of 2021, was still a 3.5 WAR SS. He played at a 5+ WAR pace per 600 PA from 2018-2020. That is elite. 

A healed up elbow puts Story as the best, most reliable player on the Twins roster for 2022. He is rarely injured and played elite defense his entire career prior to the elbow injury. 

He is projected as a 4 WAR, 30hr, 10sb, gg contending SS, in 2022. His upside is better than anyone on the Twins not named Byron Buxton. At 29, he has the bat to move down the defensive spectrum as his defense declines, but he has been so good on defense he likely has 3-4 years before that move will have to be made.

Expand  

How do we know his elbow will be fine going forward?  You said he has generally been healthy, so we have nothing to judge how he will bounce back from it, or if it will be lingering issue.  Even if he does bounce back, very few SS stay elite on the other side of 30.  

Also, what evidence is there that he will produce anywhere close to the same level of offense with Twins as he did in CO.  His home road splits are terrible over his career.  I have not done a deep dive into each park, and how he may compare to Target Field, but his history has shown he does not hit well away from Coors Field. 

I commented saying I would be fine on a shorter term deal for him, but I think any team that signs him to anything more than 5 years will really regret anything after 5, and may regret anything after 3.  Maybe I will be wrong, but I feel Twins cannot take those long term risks. 

  On 2/3/2022 at 1:12 PM, HrbieFan said:

Not that he is horrible on the road, it is that he wants to paid on his Coors Field stats. Top 18-20 SS doesn't warrant $20m+ per with OK glove. Strong pass at that price. Now if it was 1 year around $10-12m, sure. 

Expand  

The poll on MLB rumors (for what it's worth) only has 15% believing he gets less than $100M.  52% believe he will get $140M or more.  My guess is 5/120 or 6/130.

  Trevor Story Contract

When I read the comments about Story being too expensive and over the hill, I wonder about the expectations for 2022-2026 of those who oppose signing Trevor Story. The current roster will compete with Baltimore for the lowest position in the AL. I'm not in on a rebuild.

However, I do recognize that fans have zero say on the players that will constitute the roster. Falvey may have a number of fair options on his mind to fill shortstop. The decisions seem straight forward, but there are many obstacles to assembling a roster. Free agents have to want to play for the team they ultimately sign with and it takes two teams to put together trades. These challenges seem much more daunting than whether the Twins should sign a free agent or two and complete a few trades. Additionally, Pohlad sets a budget. The final roster budget may float by $10-20 million, but we have no idea if that means $95-115 or $120-140 million. The budget will determine any potential push to convince Trevor Story to continue his career in Minnesota, not his talent

No person can state with 100% certainty that a player will perform at a predictive level. Injuries, accidents, illness, and even death happen. It is inconceivable that the Twins could receive a better performance from someone currently on their roster at shortstop than would be delivered by Story. He is in the prime of his career. We cannot know whether Royce Lewis will be better than Tatis in 2023. Analytics are all the rage across baseball and on TD and the numbers say that Trevor Story would be a real plus for the Twins, if they managed to sign him. The real challenge would be to convince Story. There is room financially under any budget near $115 million. 

  On 2/3/2022 at 2:54 PM, Trov said:

How do we know his elbow will be fine going forward?  You said he has generally been healthy, so we have nothing to judge how he will bounce back from it, or if it will be lingering issue.  Even if he does bounce back, very few SS stay elite on the other side of 30.  

Also, what evidence is there that he will produce anywhere close to the same level of offense with Twins as he did in CO.  His home road splits are terrible over his career.  I have not done a deep dive into each park, and how he may compare to Target Field, but his history has shown he does not hit well away from Coors Field. 

I commented saying I would be fine on a shorter term deal for him, but I think any team that signs him to anything more than 5 years will really regret anything after 5, and may regret anything after 3.  Maybe I will be wrong, but I feel Twins cannot take those long term risks. 

Expand  

The elbow concern is valid, but would likely show up in a physical if there is structural damage. As with most MLBers, I don't worry too much about lingering elbow injuries, unless it is a UCL problem that doesn't get addressed. The UCL doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere, so I believe it is not a risk factor, pending physical, but to each their own.

As the research by many smarter people than you or I has repeatedly pointed out, you can disregard the home/road splits for Rockies players. In fact, more players put up better numbers after Coors than get worse. This is a good recap from a few years ago > https://roxpile.com/2020/02/24/coors-field-colorado-rockies-offense-effect/3/

That doesn't include DJ LeMeheiu, who has been better, and Nolan Arenado, who has put up the exact same wRC+ in a Cards uni as he had during his Rockies career.

Allstar caliber FAs, by the nature of the FA market, are overpaid and bring risk on the backend of the contract. Story is no different. If you aren't willing to overpay a FA Allstar, then you are rarely going to sign a FA Allstar. 5/$100mil seems very fair. I'd even go a bit higher. He probably deserves something close to Correa, Lindor, Semien money. In that light, $100mil/5 seems like a steal. 

In an era of unprecedented SS greatness, he's been one of the Top 5 in baseball over the last four years. That's a long way from $20mil AAV to fall before his value falls below the cost of the contract. 

Just a quick update on this topic.  Yesterday I was listening to Power Alley on MLB radio and they were discussing where Story might end up.  They mentioned that the Twins were among the teams often mentioned as a possible landing spot but they quickly dismissed that idea.  And the reason they gave for the Twins not signing Story was that it would be a waste of money with Royce Lewis poised to take over the shortstop position.  Both commentators agreed that Lewis will be the Twins' shortstop in the very near future.  I found that to be very good news.  These guys (as former GMs) know a lot more than I do (and I believe most of the rest of us on TD) and that gives me a good feeling going forward about the shortstop dilemma.  They went on to say that the Twins were much better served by spending that kind of money on pitching.  So we all agree with them on that point.

With the signing of Donaldson instead of a pitcher the Twins have devoted too much of their budget to position players. You could argue that at the time they signed Donaldson there were no pitchers left to spend that money on. It wasn’t a one year decision though.

I think there are some parallels. The Twins really needed to spend on a pitcher. They didn’t and Story is left with space in the budget this year but it won’t be a short term deal and commitment to another position player with at least a few reasonable question marks.

Are we confident that we can ignore the home road splits?

Shortstops don’t age well. Are we ready to accept that he may quickly move to average and then below average in the first few years? Will there be space at 3B or 1B when that happens? At 1B he will be very overpaid.

I would rather overpay to win Rodon and take the injury risk of a pitcher over the decline of a SS. When they don’t win Rodon I still am not in on Story. I am looking to trades to spend on pitching.

Any discussion of Story and potential resource allotment  is pointless unless you are firm on the idea that the Twins are destined to budgets below $120 million. There is money for Story on any budget above $115 million. I understand that a great number of folks on TD want to see the prospects or to spend money on pitching and many also want a budget beneath $120 million. That's fine. However, in the event that the Twins would set a budget of $115 million or higher Trevor Story is a solid addition and there is still money for pitching. This is all left to Pohlad and Falvey.

It is pure folly to suggest the Twins spend too much on position players unless you specifically state that you want the Twins to go forward year after year with budgets closer to $100 million than to what we saw the last few years. Just state your position on a budget. Of course, you may feel that Story, or Correa for that matter, are not as good as Royce Lewis. I just want folks to be real clear on what they want to support with their dollars as Twins fans. Clarity makes it easier to understand each person's ideas.

To be clear I wanted the Twins to offer Ryu the money they offered Donaldson. I wanted the Twins to offer any Story money on starting pitching and it appears Rodon is the last one standing. Investing in starting pitching has a positive impact on the whole staff in terms of less burden on the bullpen.

I guess I could go the place that there isn’t anyone left this year to spend that money on so they should spend it on Story. It isn’t a one year deal though so the pitching problem persists. If not Rodon trade prospects for a pitcher from the Reds or A’s or Marlins and then use the Story money to sign that guy to an extension. Signing Story and then getting guys like Pineda or Odorizzi who would not be any playoff teams top 3 is not a direction I think they should go.