sdangus

I think I heard that the front office has hired a whole swarm of analytical people. It seems to me that maybe one of them might know more than we do about what Perez is capable of. I for one am excited to see what they can do with him.

I don't know that we need to sympathize with either. Nor do we need to demonize or be jealous of either the players or owners.

I failed to fully elaborate about what I see as limiting current teams from being fully competitive because of albatross contracts. We have the Los Angelos Angels, Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Miami Marlins, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, and even the Dodgers are all either currently or very recently curtailed competitively because of very large unproductive contracts they carry on the books. All those unproductive contracts restrict what is available to teams to pay other players.

The thing that sticks in my craw about free agency is that before ANY player makes it through 6 or 7 years to make it to free agency, they have already made at least several million dollars even under today's rules. It makes it real difficult for me to feel any real sympathy for any player who thinks they are being mistreated. That being said, I certainly don't have a problem with anybody getting as much as they can, and using any means available to them to enhance their value. I don't, however, agree that driving a wedge between the players and management, much less between players and the fans, is in anybody's best interest. I know player agents, of course, would not ever agree that many players in years past may have been overpaid. And now since the front offices have tools available to them to more precisely determine what a player's value is going forward, the are able to adhere to contracts with more favorable terms. While many contracts in the past worked out to be of acceptable value, we all know that many put teams in positions where they were unable to be competitive because of albatross contracts. We have had a few of those right here in Minnesota (think Phil Hughes, Joe Mauer, Ricky Nolasco, many more). But think about other such deals, like Josh Hamilton, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriquez, Prince Fielder, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jason Hayward, Yu Darvish and the list goes on. Do you really blame management for their caution. I think in today's environment, more players may find benefit in negotiating long term extentions while they are in the productive years of their contracts and still under team control, thus locking in bigger pay days early, then be willing to accept what the market bears when they hit the market in maybe their early 30's, instead of maybe at 29 or 30. Another market force at work here is that there seems to be an abundance of very productive young players coming through the pipeline right now. Is that maybe because modern analytics has made teams more productive in preparing their young players? The players I really have empathy for are the ones that will end up without a contract at all. And there will be many.

If you think the Twins are spending another $50 million you better pack up and become a Yankees fan. I see they overpaid for ottavino today.

I do not favor either. I just see no need to be jealous of ownership just because they have money. A lot of these rules are in place to protect the smaller market teams from being ravished by the big market ones. What kind of position do you think the Twins would be in if the Yankees were allowed to come in and take all their good players just as the Twins get them developed and ready to produce at a high level. And don't give me that "the Twins are not a small market team" because they are all small market if the yankees and red sox etc. are allowed to spend at will.

I for one am getting sick of all the sniveling on this site about how owners need to pony up even more money to a bunch of guys that are bringing in millions already, and claiming they are "underpaid". People that can't get over their jealousy that the owners have ridiculous wealth need to get off their butt ends and go out and earn some themselves. This country is being taken over by a tsunami of complainers that think eeverybody should be "entitled". I've got news for you. All of those people that think they should be "entitled" are the ones at the bottom of the economic scale because they spend all their time setting around feeling sorry for themselves. Get a life. Go out and kill something and drag it home. While I certainly think that every player is entitled to whatever he is capable of taking home, I don't think he is entitled to more simply because his employer is on a higher economic scale. The owner is entitled to keep all the market will bear as well. It is called "Capitalism". It is what this country was founded on, has always survived on, and will continue to survive on until the jeolousy overtakes all sanity. Then we will be Russia. Seems like a lot of people in DC think that isn't a good idea. All of that being said, back to the budget. Just because there are a few dollars available in this year's budget does not mean we can run out and sign a bunch of long term contracts for a bunch of expensive players. All that accomplishes is tying up your budget for future years, when a lot of our current young players will be getting more and more expensive. As players like Berrios, Rosario, Kepler, Gibson, May, Buxton, Polanco, Sano, Garver, and the list goes on, get more expensive, the budget will get more than tight in coming years. You, of course, are suggesting only short term contracts here which are fine, but for every one of these short term deals that are signed, a player with longer term control for the club is forced from the 40 man roster. That may come back to haunt the team in the end. Players like John Curtiss have the potential to be important cogs down the road. I'm sure all those things are being balanced by the front office as they make these decisions.

While I understand every player's desire to make as much money as possible, I do not understand the concept that any of these players that have made it as far as free agency are in any way suffering or in need of being felt sorry for. Why, as fans, would we want to make things more cushy for them early in their careers, thus removing the incentives for them to perform at a high level to get an opportunity to cash in on the payday of a lifetime for almost any of us. While I acknowledge that the players have every right to negotiate as lucrative of a CBA as they possibly can for their benefit, I certainly do not think it is in any way not the owner's rights to also negotiate an agreement that is in their best interest. When we are talking about players getting contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars and holding out for more, I for one do not have any feelings of pity for any of these players. I do, however, feel a degree of sympathy for all the thousands of players who have tried and failed to reach this pinacle of the sports world. The ones that toiled as hard or most likely harder than a lot of these guys that now stand to make a mere "million" dollars a year because they are being so "abused" by front offices and ownership. Thus is life. Get used to it.

Just what more did you expect him to do there? He was too far from the plate for any kind of slide. He hit the catcher and his arm and went over him and managed to get his knee on the plate. The only thing that didn't happen is the catcher didn't drop the ball, which goes to the credit of the catcher. The real goat here was the third base coach.

I think we are not thinking through what the FO plan is for the bullpen this year. I see several of these guys on the AAA shuttle all year long as they work to find out who can perform in different spots while keeping fresh arms on the roster at all times. It also gives them the option of increasing or decreasing the bench as circumstances warrant. Therefor, the guys that have options remaining will be more important than those that don't. The use of the opener could also make it necessary to move fresh arms up and down throughout the season as the opener pitches in a game and then may be shuttled down to bring up a fresh arm for the bullpen the next day.

Yes, I have been promoting Austin as a possible outfield fit all along. That does leave them without a decent defensive replacement OF if they go with a 13 man pitching staff, however. So I guess it depends on what kind of bench Rocco wants. That big right handed bat against left handers would sure look good in the lineup, though.

Rather than a coin flip I see a lot of young players with a chance to break out and a few guys that had either some injury issues or hopefully just a temporary letdown in there production with a chance to be corrected. But I think they need to find out who can step up before they start attempting to plug any holes. And I think we could perhaps see Tyler Austin in the OF if someone such as Cruz is signed to DH. Austin's bat could be a big factor against LHP, and set either Kepler or Rosario early in games. I think there is a lot to be worked out as far as roles on the pitching staff. I don't look to see very many outside arms coming in. I think they are comfortable looking to see what they have.

I am not sure they should extend either one. I will leave it up to the front office to make a decision on if they think that is smart. As far as what would be the better option, keep in mind that Gibson is probably getting a lower arbitration figure THIS year, so he may be more amenable to working a 3 year deal to up his pay this year and add on a couple years. Oddorizzi has a pretty sweet pay rate this year as a guarantee, so he will have less to gain from signing an extention at this point, and trying to sign him to an extension this year would probably have to ever push him into a pay scale that he should not be at. So my thought is that Gibson is the only one that they will be able to sign at a reasonable rate that is acceptable to both sides. Of course, perhaps Michael Pineda can also be signed to an extension during the season if he looks good, so leave that as a possibility as well.

Several things here. First, the Twins added a lot of high end talent to the system over the last year, so eclipsing the top 10 is a major accomplishment for any of them, with Thorpe being the one who probably fit into the class easily. As for Jay, I am not totally convinced that he is healthy yet, despite any evidence to support that claim. And of course Jorge was injured, so that concludes that, other than to say that his build probaby always did leave that as a possibility, probably a bullpen option at best. I think the others presented themselves well, especially Miranda.

Not sure what his issue may have been last season, but I would trust the FO and their scouts and metrics to know more about whether he is worth the risk or not, and at what price. I guess I will just wait to see if the Twins make any moves to acquire him as my answer to that question.

I believe the plan is to include all these guys in the plan eventually (including Stewart) to get them MLB experience before next year and see who might be able to be starters next year when they are needed. We all know that in a long season there will be need for injury replacements and spot starters as the season goes along, so all of these guys, at least the closest ones, will see time during the season. I think the FO likes to have a lot of depth, thus hanging on to guys like Magill and DeJong, as well as not using their depth in trades to maybe bring in an upgrade starter, although this could sure be an option. I look for them to maybe bring in another guy at closer, but not pay much to bring in guys that are questionable upgrades in the bullpen. They will work those other starting options s bullpen pieces to get them experience if they are not starting, especially Slegers, Littell, Romero and Mejia.

I am not an expert at the analytical data, but wouldn't fielding be included in the WAR number already, so this would then sort of doubling up on the fielding end of things, which weren't impressive to start with.

What good player are you going to sign to sit on the bench behind Sano? Nobody. And you don't have roster space unless you eliminate Adrianza. That means it would have to be someone who could also play shortstop. I don't think this is any different than if you lost say Polanco like last year. Last year they were lucky enough to have Escobar as a captive player at that point. If you want a decent player to be the backup, it will have to come via trade. Or move Sano off 3B completely to DH and cripple his value.

Unfortunately, there are only so many roster spots available. You have to commit to a plan of action, and if it doesn't work THEN you have to make adjustments on the fly. The Twins can not afford to give up on what are supposed to be the 2 cornerstones of this team going forward. They have to exhaust all their options before they move on. Remember all the players from teams gone by that it would have been easy to give up on. Remember Aaron Hicks? Torii Hunter was sent back to the minors when he couldn't GET it. Michael Cuddyer had many fits and starts. Kubel was held back by injuries at the beginning of his career. Corey Koskie took a while. I think the outfield will be OK even if Buxton struggles. And if healthy, he brings enough to the table with defense alone to make him playable while we wait for the offense to catch up. I agree at this point that 3B will be a problem if Sano struggles again. It's not like you are only going to give him a month to prove himself, though. Maybe by midseason, someone else will step up and take his place if he doesn't perform. That's how it's supposed to work.

I think reality setting in may be the emphasis behind these moves. The Twins are in a precarious position with what they planned to be the core of the team at this time having for the most part under performed and disappointed, but still probably exhibiting enough talent and potential to be worth waiting for. Unfortunately, I think they believe the coaching staff that had been in place, as well as those in the developmental levels below have failed to bring the best out of these players. So, with little choice but to see if new coaching can bring the talent out of these players, it makes little sense to make long term commitments to free agents that might not be enough to push them over the top. Their preferred choice of using trades to suppliment the existing team probably has been unfruitful as well, given that most of the Twins prospect talent is at lower levels and not going to be at peak demand at this point. Some of the trades I see happening don't make a lot of sense. Carlos Santana was supposed to be a Twins target since Philly was motivated to move him to free up a spot for Hoskins. Given that he was already being overpayed and the expensive end of his contract yet to come, it made sense that Philly would need to eat a lot of money and/or give up prospect capital to get him off their books. But in the end they turned Santana into Segura and Pazos, and only had to chip in Crawford. Any wonder the Twins weren't in on that? I saw a suggestion here that the Twins try to get Santana from Seattle by trading Cave and a couple prospects. Why? Santana is being over paid. He has negative trade value. Why would the Twins do that? I think the FO may be correct to just look for bargain pieces for this year, try to put a team on the field that can be competitive if the players perform, and see how things shake out. There are a lot of pitching pieces that need to be evaluated before they will really know where they are. Would it make sense to start trading any of those pieces away before they had a better idea what they really have? Seems like that would be a bigger gamble than just letting things develop and shake out.

Like I said on another thread, they need to have players that are MLB capable on their roster with options available so they can move them on and off the roster as they need to adjust the size of their bullpen throughout the year. The same thing applies to some of the bottom options in the bullpen.

I like this. He's definitely playable because of the defense and the power. There is room for tremendous upside if he returns to 2017 form, which may be a good bet if he was indeed playing with an injury last season. If it doesn't work, it's only for a year and they move on to Gordon later in the year. If it turns out good he could lead them to the playoffs. And if he has a 2017 season and then walks, he could be a Qualifying offer guy after the season and get the Twins a high draft pick. All the other 2B candidates come with a lot of warts as well, some of them with a lot more than Schoop.

Like I said, the last player on the bench should be a player that can be optioned up and down depending on their pitching needs. I forgot they had Astudillo for that purpose. And now they have torreyes. so they should be in good shape for bench players.