Early Offseason Rumors

Yeah, I admit I tend to overuse the term "overpay" at times, too. You can argue that whatever the "winning" price is for a FA contract, it was what the market would bear, so it is not "overpaying." Then again, you can argue that the "winning" bid is pretty much always more than any other team deems to be the appropriate value for the FA, so every FA signing is "overpaying."

When I use the term, I'm usually defining it as, "more than what the specific team should reasonably expect to receive in value, given the player's likely performance over the term of the contract."

While i get what you are saying, how much more risk is a 1 year, $7M deal to a guy like Anderson, or a 5 year, 105M  deal to a guy like Shields or 4/65 to Santana?

 

If Anderson stays healthy you could have a very nice pitcher either to sign to an extension or a great trade chip.  If he can't, you only committed to 1 year and a younger player gets starts.

 

With a vet like Shields/Santana you lose a draft pick, pay considerably more per season and become committed to multiple years on players on the wrong side of 30. 

 

I do really think both of these kind of signings have a fair share of risk involved.

How much risk is there on a 1 year deal to the Johan?   Santana can probably be had on a minor league deal.  Plus he helps fill the reunion tour quota. 

Really though I think the Twins would be better off trading for a starter.  Less risk than a long term contract.  plus next year there will be lots of good free agent pitchers.

The idea of a 72 win team giving up valuable prospects for a pitcher makes my stomach turn.

Ya, but you've always been known to have a weak stomach. Suck it up pansy.

The idea of a 72 win team giving up valuable prospects for a pitcher makes my stomach turn.

That's understandable. It's an uneasy proposition.

Still, the downside of having a relatively stacked farm organization is that the time will come when you can not make room on your MLB roster for all of your legitimate MLB-ready players at every position. You would like to hold on to them until you're relatively certain which are going to turn in to the best big leaguers, but part of being a GM is knowing when to take a calculated risk and turn some of your projected "surplus" of talent at one position in to big league talent at another position where your organizational depth is more shallow.

If the Twins could turn some of their minor league OF/MIF talent in to big league pitching that will be around for a while, that would be a risk I'd consider worth taking at this point.

Which prospect for which pitcher? If you have "one of the best farm systems EVAR!", that is your surplus to deal from. Would you trade Kepler for a real MLB pitcher (not that I think that gets it done)?

 

let's not forget, most prospects don't have good, long term, MLB careers. You are trading a possible MLB player for an actual MLB player.

Correct.  And every MLB player (including future HOF players) were prospects at one time. 

There isn't anything wrong with trading prospects, or not trading prospects, per se.  It really depends on the situation the team is in at that time.

And no, Kepler alone isn't getting you anything close to a quality MLB pitcher.

I'm ok with taking a flyer on an Anderson/Masterson-type with upside. I'm all for taking a shot at the Korean pitcher, if it turns out they did win the bid for him.

But my preference, with regard to pitching, is to acquire a guy who is as close to a top-of-the-rotation arm as they can get, provided it comes with 3 years of team controlin some manner (years/options).

How they acquire such a pitcher, whether through free agency or trade, is secondary to me. I'm not saying you pay any asking price, whether in dollars or return talent, but money and prospects are both essentially assets and you shouldn't rule out using either form if you believe you can improve your team over the next 3 years.

I don't think any such pitchers are available for less than $100+ mil in FA or a king's ransom in prospects, and I am thoroughly against paying the latter price.

If the price is excessive, you don't make the deal.

My point was simply that you keep an open mind. Going in to an offseason with a mindset of, "we won't spend over $100 million," or, "we won't trade prospects," is foolish. It costs absolutely nothing to listen to any proposal.

The thing you ask yourself is, "will making this move make a championship, at some point, more likely or less likely?" Then say yes or no, accordingly.