The Beginning of the End for Phil Hughes

At the very least, he feels some allegiance to the money he would have to spend to fill his roster spot.

I know Jim isn't a great baseball mind, but the FO has to convince him that the replacement costs $500k if it's a prospect.

I don't think Hughes pitching well for another team is a realistic concern. That's no reason to keep him on the team while providing negative value.

He certainly hasn't impressed me for a while and I'm currently not optimistic... but it is a lot easier for you and I to be certain because we have absolutely no consequences for our assessments. 

They will have to be completely certain. This isn't the remainder of a 5.6 million Matt Harvey contract. This is 26 million remaining on a contract.  

If a broker spent $100,000 of your money on a stock and then after it crashed sold it. If that stock came back to the near the purchase price. You'd be looking for a new broker. 

He certainly hasn't impressed me for a while and I'm currently not optimistic... but it is a lot easier for you and I to be certain because we have absolutely no consequences for our assessments.

 

They will have to be completely certain. This isn't the remainder of a 5.6 million Matt Harvey contract. This is 26 million remaining on a contract.

 

If a broker spent $100,000 of your money on a stock and then after it crashed sold it. If that stock came back to the near the purchase price. You'd be looking for a new broker.

In this case, im only spending 500k, and reinvesting that for almost two years, instead of sitting on a worthless stock, only to get nothing in two years, most likely.

But, fear of loss is much more powerful than hope for gain, as research shows.....

If Falvine need to be 100% certain that a decision isn't going to backfire before they make it, then they have zero chance, zero, of winning a WS.

Most teams have situations like this. From Josh Hamilton to Pablo Sandoval. Part of the manager and GM's job is to manage those situations. 

However... If they cut 26 Million. You can be reasonably certain that the GM is without a doubt convinced that he will not rebound. 

But it's not possible to know that.
You either hold on to him, or you let him go and take that risk.
There are no crystal balls.

There are no crystal balls... and that is probably why he is still on the roster. 

Which has been my point. 

The difference being that bigger payroll teams (Red Sox and Angels in this case) can absorb a bad contract and not have it severely affect their roster. The Twins can’t. Hughes’ $ 13 mil is 10% of payroll.

I can't tell if you are making my point or responding to a point that I wasn't making. 

My guess is that we are talking past one another now.

I was responding to Mr. Brooks who said that the Twins have no chance of winning a world series if they have to be 100% certain before flushing $26M.  

That was the context that led me to reference Josh Hamilton and Kung Fu Panda as an acknowledgement of previous flushes. My point was never intended to be budget/revenue/market size related. My point in that response to Brooks is that all GM's have bad money on the books and can still figure out how to compete for a title. 

My point was always... the Twins will not flush $26M unless they are sure and I believe I am right and every day he remains on the roster... it seems to support my hypothesis. 

All teams have to absorb a bad contract or two. The Twins are not alone. Hughes isn't the first and he won't be the last.

A Majority of teams have dead money on the books... Very Few of them have anything close to $26M with one player. The cases of Sandoval or Hamilton are pretty rare and I imagine those two players angered the organization to the point that they swallowed the pill. 

White Sox: I have no explanation on why James Shields is still in the Major Leagues. Other than a 4 year $75M contract that the Sox still owe $21M on. 

Tigers: Jordan Zimmerman has been about as bad as it gets. The Tigers owe him $74M. Zimmerman still gets the ball every 5th day. 

Royals: Nobody can really explain the necessity of Alex Gordon on the Royals roster right now other than they owe him $40M. 

Indians: They are probably looking at Jason Kipnis right now and thinking they could find an alternate use for the $28M they owe him. 

Mariners: They probably have some data that suggests that the final $53M of the deal with King Felix might be really bumpy. 

Giants: Matt Cain was terrible from 2013 onward. During that time the Giants paid him $100M. They finally walked away when it became a less painful $7M. 

Dodgers: There was plenty of speculation that Kemp and his $43M would be cut from the Dodgers. He was not cut and Kemp seems to have gotten better which suggests that they sometimes do get better.  

Rockies: If Ian Desmond doesn't start resembling a baseball player... the Rockies will hang on to him regardless with $60M on the books. 

D-Backs: They tried to jettison that Tomas money but nobody was going to take on the responsibility. However... They don't have to worry about Yasmany Tomas joining the Padres and hitting 3 home runs in a game against the D-Backs while paying him $42M for the privilege because he doesn't have the service time to refuse minor league assignment without forfeit of the $42M. However... He's still with the D-Backs and could be an addition to the 40 man roster if the need arises. They didn't just ship him back to Cuba.

Reds: Something has kept Homer Bailey tethered to their roster. I'm guessing it was the $63M owed and the possibility that he might get better. 

Yankees: Ellsbury is still hanging around. They owe him $63M. 

Orioles: I'm guessing that Orioles have had enough of Chris Davis. They still owe him $115M. 

Jays: They probably don't like the way Martin has declined with $40M still due. They would probably like to get away from the $54M remaining on Tulo's contract. They could use the DH position for a Vlad Jr. call up but Kendrys Morales is about 23 Million reasons why Vlad will just have to continue destroying New Hampshire for the time being. 

Braves: Now they are interesting... They ate 33 Million this year... They just tossed it in the garbage and they did it on purpose. This is an outlier compared to everybody else. They took all that final year dead money the Dodgers were hanging on to with Adrian Gonzalez and Scott Kazmir and they did it so the Dodgers would take the two years of Kemp. These were a trade of bad 1 year contracts for a bad 2 year contract that would clean up the contract situation for next year when the big FA's hit the scene.  The Braves payroll will be loaded with young talent and around 36M on the books. They can put in a competitive bid for Harper or Machado if they want. 

I'm not saying the Twins won't eventually walk away from Hughes and swallow something but one of four things will probably need to happen first. 

1. Desperation for the Roster Spot. This could happen if the Twins are stuffed to the rafters with MLB talent and the team is in contention and thinking about a playoff roster and need the space. 

2. When the price is down to a less painful number in 2019. 

3. If Hughes were to do something horrible off or on the field. Such as stab someone with a butter knife. 

4. The scouts, trainers, coaches in unison say... there is no chance that he is ever going to be productive. 

BTW... Phil Hughes doesn't "severely" affect the Twins Roster. He merely affects the roster because as you can see every GM will face these situations and have to bake it into the game plan. 

But we don't know if ownership has even made his release possible.
For all we know, Falvine are willing to/ want to move on, despite not having a crystal ball, but ownership won't let them.

That is Quite Possible.

Either way... the Twins won't be creating $26M in dead money (which is my point)... unless they are able to convince ownership that Hughes will not be able to help the team during the duration of the contract. 

If they convince Pohlad that Hughes won't be able to help the team and Pohlad authorizes the Dead Money. 

If Hughes signs with the Royals for the minimum while the Twins pay that 26M and he throws a shut out against the Twins.

Pohlad will call both Falvey and Lavine into the office to have a serious, squirming in your seat type discussion. At that point, Falvey and Lavine will have to start throwing scouts, trainers or each other under the bus or take full responsibility for the wrong diagnosis that led to the mistake.

Neither of those options will be good for Falvey or Lavine or those under the bus. 

Almost every player you listed here either has been good somewhat recently, still have enough value to justify a roster spot - even if they are no longer worth their salary, or are playing for tanking teams- in which case their roster spot is not only meaningless, their poor performance is actually beneficial to their goal of gaining a high draft pick.

Look, I agree that Hughes likely isn't going anywhere.
But I don't agree that it's because Falvine think there is any kind of realistic chance he burns them. Nor do I think it's because they need to feel 100% sure he won't (again, that is impossible).
I think it's because Pohlad isn't yet to the point where he's willing to accept it as a total loss.

You might be right. I won't speculate on the office politics of 1 Twins Way because I don't know but either way you get the same result. The Twins won't just toss $26M out the window regardless if:

1. The owner won't allow it

2. The GM will be held responsible for that large of a mistake. 

Also there are varying degrees of bad contracts. I was just making a point that there are players with big numbers attached out there. Players that the teams might be better off without. 

The only things that I'm reasonably sure of are: 

1. No team is going to volunteer to take the responsibility of the contract so the Twins will pay the $26M unless Phil Hughes volunteers to void the contract. 

2. There is a very tiny list of players who were thrown away with anything close to $26M attached to them so we really don't have any consistent precedent. 

3. Outside of baseball, in any other profession. Employees in charge of budget management, even when you reduce it to the proper scale, will have a hard time surviving a similar mistake. 

In my opinion... it is unfair to expect Falvey and Lavine to do something that nobody else in any other profession would be allowed to do unless they are absolutely sure that Hughes will not be able to come back to haunt them. 

When any of us say... "Just cut Hughes right now". They have no responsibility for the comment and they haven't thought about those who do have the responsibility and the consequences that follows an unprecedented mistake of that magnitude... not matter how unlikely. 

Riverbrian with excellent points.... Which I agree with, despite not wanting to

If I was Falvey or Lavine. 

This is how I would handle Phil Hughes. 

I would support him.

I'd thank him for all of his efforts to work his way back.

I'd tell him that he will continue to have full use of every resource the Twins have in his efforts to work his way back. 

I'd tell him that the medical staff, pitching coaches and trainers have been instructed to research new ideas and discuss them with you and I'd encourage him to bring any new ideas that he would like to try and have a discussion with the team to decide what is worth trying. 

I would communicate with him honestly and appeal to his sensibility with the hope that he:

A. Improves

B. Understands that the organization has done everything it could... it has been a good faith employer so when you need to have the discussion about agreeing to a minor league assignment... he might for the good of the team. 

And my point is that I feel Falvine already know that Hughes is done.
Aside from that, I agree with you, he's not going anywhere.

I'll add, Falvine are equally responsible if Hughes puts up negative 1.5 WAR, and the Twins miss the playoffs by one or two games. It's not like releasing him is the only side of the coin that carries risk.
I'll also add that Falvine had nothing to do with the signing, which makes it easier to explain if that dreaded meeting with the owner that you describe ever comes, than it would if they had signed him, then later asked for permission to release him.

Agreed

It's a tough job being a GM. It ain't like running my Fantasy Baseball Team.

They do have to try and produce a winner and they are responsible for that but there are things they can do to Mitigate the Phil Hughes results, such as bury him in the back of the pen and pick your spots for implementation or the D.L. 

And you'll hire the broker that bought the stock from your OLD broker if he can explain the fundamentals that caused him to like the crashed stock your old guy hated.

 

IMO, the FO will cut the cord the minute the field people are convinced Hughes has close to a zero percent chance of reacquiring those fundamentals. Because with pitching there's such a fine line between failure and success, it seems like organizations give guys like Hughes as many chances as they can to come back. Usually the guy is cooked, but there are enough examples out there to inspire hope.

 

They don't always pay enough attention to the opportunity cost of parading that guy out there instead of just going with a Romero, Gonsalves or Sleger as you pointed out. It's this factor that would cause me to "risk" a bounce-back with another organization after I cut him.

Well stated. And I agree, it is what I would do.