smartfred

Just a friendly reminder... 2021 high end pitcher signings; Bauer: 1.8 WAR @ $34 million Morton: 4.6 WAR @ $15 million Everyone else signed high-end accepted qualifying offers. Thank goodness the Twins avoided that. 2021 Mid-tier Signings Smyly: .4 WAR @ $11 million Kluber: 1.5 WAR @ $11 million Richards: 1 WAR @ $10 million Minor: 2.3 WAR @ $9 Million Paxton: 0 WAR @ $8.5 million Odorizzi: 1.1 WAR @ $8.5 million Wainwright: 3.8 WAR @ $8 million Happ: .5 WAR @ $8 million Quintana: .3 WAR @ $8 million Ray: 3.9 WAR @ $8 million Walker: 1.4 WAR @ $7.64 million 2021 Low End Starters 21 Starters signed between $2 million - $7 million (Shomaker was signed at $2) Notabler signings DeSclafani 3.2 WAR Wood 2.5 WAR Rodon 4.9 WAR Wacha 1.1 WAR Tyler Anderson 2.5 WAR Hill 1.7 WAR Williams 1.2 WAR Flexen 3.0 WAR The point I'm trying to make Everyone keeps saying, "Sign big name pitchers because the Twins need a #1 or #2 starter" and every year, a large percentage of high end pitchers don't live up to their expectations/get hurt/get into trouble. The payoff doesn't make sense for a team like the Twins. Mid tier teams find their #1 and #2's by trading or growing them. Of the top 30 SP in 2021, only 5 of them were signed as a FA. The chance of signing a game changing SP is pretty low. Of those 5 that ended up in the top 30, 2 of them were signed in the low tier. Flexen, Desclafani, and 2 were the mid tier, Ray and Wainwright. The Twins did the right thing in gambling on players from each tier, they just gambled wrong. I find the article interesting. It seems like a decent gamble going for Bundy looking at the stats and won't break the bank.

To me it looks like the perfect contract. $15 million a year with incentives is win-win for both parties. Starling Marte whom is a dude with injury questions and age regression, signed for $19.4 million a year x 4. Buxton could be the best player in the MLB, Marte most likely won't. Even if Buxton busts, $15 million won't kill the Twins payroll. Nice work Twins front office.

2020 FA Class Stephen Strasburg - 0 WAR over the last 2 seasons and probably headed for more ($245 million) Hyun Jin Ryu - 4.3 WAR over 2 season and $40 million = $9.3 million/ WAR with 2 years remaining and a 75% chance (due to injury) that 1 of the remaining 2 years will be lost. Zack Wheeler - 8.4 WAR over the last 2 season and cost $47 million which is $5.5 million per WAR. He has 2 years left so that's still a 75% chance that he will miss significant time due to injury. All 3 guys would take up 20-30% of our payroll if we signed them to their current contract which would have been more if we a part of the bidding. Yikes that's a lot. 4 seasons to gamble on 1 player is a really tough thing to do. If it doesn't work out or Tommy John surgery knocks him out for half of his contract, Ouch. If anything, it now makes even more sense why low market teams should continue to go after mid to low salary guys and hope they pull a Robbie Ray or Kevin Gausman out of their hat. Happ IMO was a good gamble since he pitched in Yankee Stadium and still had good numbers despite giving up lots of long balls. Moving to a pitcher friendly ballpark could have really been a sneaky great season for him but as we all know, it didn't work out. At least Gant is looking good! Making the playoffs is the ultimate goal according to analytics. The sample size of a 1 game Wildcard or 7 game series is small enough that a weaker opponent still has a decent chance to win. (Yes... what's happened to the Twins in playoffs is extremely unlucky). I don't understand the gap you're referring to as winning the WS every year versus not going to the WS in 30 years. It's to be expected that the Dodgers, Yankees, and other large market teams will make it. Look at the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics on what they've been able to do as far as making the playoffs versus their divisional rivals. Boston and New York should never not make the playoffs with their salary and with how much the Angels spend, they should dominate teams like the Athletics. Also, where is the ace that's on the A's or Rays? Rays don't have one! A's don't have one! I really like your post though, it's a great conversation to have with fellow Twins fans!

The problem I have with your list list is that you're cherry picking players that are fitting your narrative. For example... 2021 FA Class of High End Starters Trevor Bauer - WAR - 1.7 @ 3 years for $34 million = $20 million/WAR Charlie Morton - WAR - 3.6 @ 1 year for $15 million = $4.15 million/WAR Kevin Gausman - WAR - 4.2 @ 1 year for $18.9 million = $4.5 million/WAR Marcus Stroman - WAR - 3.1 @ 1 year for $18.9 million = $6.1 million/ WAR That's it for higher end SP's for 2021 The middle guys Corey Kluber - WAR - 1 @ 1 year for $11 million = $11 million / WAR Mike Minor - WAR - 2 @ 2 years for $18 million = $2.25 million / WAR James Paxton - WAR - 0 @ 1 year for $8.5 million = INF / WAR Robbie Ray - WAR - 3.7 @ 1 year for $8 million = $2.16 million / WAR Drew Smyly - WAR - .2 @ 1 year for $11 million = $55 million / WAR The Twins Picks J.A. Happ - WAR 0 @ $8 million Matt Shoemaker - .7 WAR @ $2 million The Twins have had 15 different starting pitchers in 2021. Less than 60% of SP's in the rotation will end the year with 30 starts. This means the Twins need at least 10 - 15 starting pitcher. I don't see any logic why the Twins FO will sign a SP that will cost 15-25% of the payroll and only has a 50-60% chance to make it through the entire season. We could have signed 2 mid tier pitchers and gambled on their success, or do what the Twins did and signed 1 mid tier pitcher and 1 low end pitcher and roll the dice. Unfortunately the dice roll didn't end up. The Twins Plan That Didn't Work Sign elite defenders so mediocre pitchers have a better chance to thrive at Target Field Josh Donaldson Andrelton Simmons Buxton in CF Polonco is a + defender at 2B Keplar is a + defender in the OF Realistically the Twins made some good decisions, they just lost the dice roll. Sure beats being stuck with a lost season from; Noah Syndergaard, Justin Verlander, Chris Sale, Luis Severino and many others.... 25% of your payroll just thrown in the trash.... that would hurt... I like the Twins strategy better.

Those Bailey Ober splits look encouraging. Hopefully it continues. Nice find! If you add Ryan that gives you two SP's to start the season. If we've learned anything from the Twins the last few years, they are far more comfortable taking chances on 1 year rentals than long term deals. J.A. Happ, Shoemaker, Homer Bailey, Rich Hill to name the ones most recent. That means they will be shopping in the average/about to retire SP pile come FA time. It looks like there will be plenty to choose from. Twins will need to sign 3 starters and it looks like Charlie Morton would be the best case scenario however he'll probably resign with the Braves or go to a contender. Then it would be on the Twins to sign 3 of the following: Corey Kluber, Mike Minor, James Paxton, Drew Smyly, Anthony DeSclafani, Adam Wainwright, Alex Wood, Martín Pérez All of the other FA SP that are available will most likely get multi-year deals which seems to be something the Twins don't seem willing to spend money on. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just something that seems to be a trend from the Twins. My guess is the analytics team discovered something. The question will be, what depth will the Twins have when players start getting hurt. Griffin Jax, Dobnak (coming in from the pen) and Charlie Barnes could fill-in, however with the Twins using over 30 pitchers so far in 2021 that might not be enough. In AA the Twins have a little more depth with Balazovic, Sands, and Winder so maybe we'll see them sometime in 2022 once people start getting hurt. Lastly, if the Twins were to trade for someone, they clearly like a player that's under control for several more years. To get a player of this caliber, they would have to part with a high end prospect. This seems like something that they would never do especially for a team that is on the verge of finishing last place in the division.

Nelson Cruz was a good signing agreed. Genius in fact. Justin Turner, Michael Brantley, Carlos Santana were all possible options These dudes all signed multi year deals. Santana has already been a flop, and Justin Turner and Michael Brantley run injury risks. Twins don't need more of that and to lure them alway from the Dodgers and Astros would have been a bidding war between two teams with a lot more money. Simmons was also a great signing. Yes I said it. Simmons was signed for his defense. His defensive WAR puts him as one of the best defensive SS's of all-time. If Simmons plays an elite SS, it allows the Twins to save money on pitching. The plan was clearly, Buxton in CF and Simmons at SS saving enough runs that you could throw mediocre pitchers out there and still get some results. Simmons defense has been good, but not legendary unfortunately. In hindsight this looks bad, however the Twins aren't stuck with him for 2-4 more years. Other options - Kolton Wong would have been cool, however moving Polonco to 2B has given Jorge his first season with a positive DRS (defensive runs saved). The true other option would have been Didi Gregorious. He signed a 2 year deal which is turning out to look bad for the Phillies because they are stuck with him another year. Based on the Twins options, Simmons was the best option after losing out on Semien. J.A. Happ is another good signing. Yes I hate to say it but it's true. J.A. Happ gave up 10 HRS in 2020 and if he was pitching in target field, only 6 of them would have gone out. He had an excellent track record previously and for an organization that badly needed starting rotation help, it's an easy gamble. Other options - Several, but not Robbie Ray. Robbie Ray had a disgusting 2020. 6.62 ERA with a 5.84 xFIP? You can't even say he was unlucky with those numbers, just bad. J.A. Happ was a much safer play and a better call. It didn't work out, however it's great to hear about Robbie's success. The dude certainly figured it out. Lets not forget, we received a couple of players for Happ that might help out the Twins next season so it's an easy win. RP Alex Colome very bad Alex Colome had a pretty cool 2.92 ERA in 2020 but since his xFIP was 4.53, any amateur could see that his success was lucky. The Twins didn't care and they signed him anyways and now his ERA matches his xFIP with a 4.26 ERA to an xFIP of 4.53. When this happened, I figured the Twins saw something to tweak with him, however he's remained steady on his fastball/cutter combo from previous years with not enough success. RP Hansel Robles ok. Robles also had a terrible 2020. It was easy to see why the Twins wanted to take a chance on him. He has electric stuff. What I'm surprised about is that they didn't try to "tweak" him in anyway. He's improved his GB% pretty significantly, however he's throwing all of his pitches pretty much the same from previous years. Other Options - For the price they signed Colome, it would have been good to see a few more chances being taken. I do like the Sergio Romo option, Just keep in mind this is hard to do. Brad Hand is pretty much out of the league. Keona Kela is out indefinitely, Matt Wisler would have been an amazing signing for the results he keeps getting. Anthony Bass was another one that I heard Twins groan about that we missed signing but that turned out good. Jake McGee would have been nice since he actually had a good track record. All in all, I'm disappointed in the Twins RP signings the most. However, it's a little bit of a crap shoot, however we could have taken chances on 3 different RP for the price we signed Colome to and that would have been a better use of the salary. Luckily, we aren't stuck with either of those guys after the season so at least that's the positive.