Report: Twins To Sign LHP J.A. Happ

Good 4th starter adition. Fill the 5 in house and I think we are in good shape.

I don't understand why replacing Polanco is viewed as such an emergency by some. I understand and have read the data. It just seems like we need a reliever and the rest is in house. Oh and also sign Cruz.

He's an asset.

Look, like any business, a Club takes its money and turns it into a physical asset.  Hopefully you fairly value the asset and he produces. 

At some point during the season, depending on needs, depth, performance, place in the standings, you flip that asset for something else.  Or you keep him.

Not a big deal.  Standard operating procedure for MLB clubs.  And certainly not worth getting worked up over.  Or excited. 

Sometimes you overpay, sometimes under, sometimes you hit the jackpot.

But, you definitely roll the dice.  If you don't spend money, you just pay more in taxes next year.

Could have signed Kirby Yates instead and saved 2 million  or more.. Bad move.

I am just happy to see them spending money on pitching.  They need to sign or trade for another pitcher.  The young guys are coming but best to break them in slow.  We have room a for few more guys lets go getem.

Still think Odorizzi would look good in the #4 hole

Why do Twins fans think every off-season the team will turn into the Yankees or Dodgers. No one went to games last year and probably won't this year either.

I love this signing! Happy isn't a Cy candidate, but he is very good and very reliable. Anyone remember the rag arms we had at the 4 & 5 spots in our WS years? Now please go out and resign Cruz, get a backup MI and another RP

Happ's postseason line with the Yankees: 5 G, 8.1 IP, 11 H, 10 ER, 6 BB, 7 K, 4 HR, 10.80 ERA

Now that is down right depressing.

I guess I should rephrase my initial disappointment. O still am disappointed. But since he cost market price, as well as everyone else, I'm expecting the payroll to be at least 150

Typical Twins move. Add Depth. Trying to catch Lightning in a Bottle. Hope and a Prayer. 

The talk has been a 4th or 5th starter because we have our top 3 on the board at SP right now.  So this should be viewed as a 4th and 5th guy.  Is it a splashy name, probably not, but it is a solid addition based on stat lines.  38 years old that has been very reliable and a workhorse.  With analytics the twins love, he is 5 innings every time you hand him the ball and an occasional 6 or 7 and we are glad we have him.  

Splashy SP signing, do we need it for big bucks?  Don't think so.  I believe the 5th spot will be filled with the young guns and that is fine with me.  Signing Cruz, won't happen until MLB decides on NL DH position.  So, Cruz is playing his options as FA and I'm fine with that.  Middle of Feb and Cruz can hop on board or not.  Cruz is valuable but at $15M, he potentially is a team moves liability financially.

I am just ok with this move, if he hits a steep decline, you can just cut ties, if he pitches ok he is worth the $8.  Better than tying up $12 million a year for 3 or 4 years and then have the pitcher fall off a cliff.  Also, you give you up and coming pitchers a year to see what they have and some of them will be here later this year or early next.

But then please add a very good reliever or two. Most of the ones I wanted have already been signed.

I'd rather spend $8M on a depth starter than that kind of money on a reliever. It's just got much higher potential for real impact. He's the #4, behind Pineda, but expecting all your starters to be healthy the entire season is unrealistic, which is why you don't want to go into the season needing to fill 2 slots in the rotation from unproven guys in your system: those guys are probably going to get their shots anyways as we go 7-8+ guys getting starts.

It's possible Happ is cooked, but that's why this is a 1 year deal.

It's not a major splash move, but it's a "raise the floor" move and those have been critical to the team's success in the Falvey/Levine era: trying to make sure they don't hand off piles of innings to guys who can't pitch/aren't ready to pitch in MLB. Yes, you need top-end talent to compete for a title, but reducing the number of ABs taken and innings pitched by bad players is also important in getting you there in the first place.

It would appear to me that Happ has outpitched Odorizzi for the past 5 seasons.  My opinion is this signing does improve the team.  Plenty of time left in the offseason for more constructive roster moves.  It may seem right now that we are “losing” the off-season to the White Sox.  Perhaps we will.  I trust this front office and I respect that they play the “long game” rather than reacting to other team’s moves.

Now that is down right depressing.

Thankfully the Twins aren't counting on their #4 starter for the playoffs, more of a depth piece for the marathon regular season.

it's strange to me that $8 million for one year of a left-handed starting pitcher who has had a sub-4 ERA in 5 of the last 6 seasons is an 'overpay', but so many people want to pay Nelson Cruz whatever he wants... 

 

I like this signing. He's probably the Twins #3. He could be their top guy. Yes, he's 38, but he's not reliant on velocity. If he stays healthy, which he has, I think this is a really solid signing for the Twins. 

This isn’t a godawful signing, but it brings up two issues.

If he is better than anything your minor leagues can produce in the SP area, then there ain’t much down there. 
 

A) If he ends up the teams #1, as you speculated,  then it’s gonna be a long year. 

I like this signing. If he pitches as well as he has the past couple years he could battle Pineda and a yet to be signed/acquired starter for the #3 spot in the rotation...my hope is they bring Odorizzi back. If age starts to take its toll and he slips a bit, he then battles Dobnak and others for the #5 spot. 

Should he be in the hunt for #3, then Dobber and the other kids provide much needed depth after Odor or someone else is brought in. As for blocking the young starters, our only concern would be for Balazovic or Duran and neither of those will be ready until mid-season, at the earliest.

OK. Let's get a SS!

Was hoping a rookie would take the number 5 spot, or a series of rookies until one stuck......

Same here.  I'm a big fan of Dobnak, but say he continued to trend downward, I think we'd put him in the pen w/that slider of his, and open up an opportunity for Balazovic or Duran.  We're finally getting to a point where we have highly touted rookies on the cusp.  They're going to take their lumps too, but we just need to let them grow, as we did with Berrios.  It's going to be hard to stay patient in a playoff push if our glorified rookies wouldn't be successful.  We let Berrios grow, but we weren't all too competitive then.

Just remembered though, that we also have Lachlan Wells, Griffin Jax, and Bryan Sammons also wanting to make a debut.  It seems like we're more likely to see one of those guys first being Balazovic and Duran haven't been above a very short amount of AA.  Although, I'd LOVE to be wrong about that.

All I can say is we are better off today than we were yesterday ..