Here are the major Twins free agents..
Gallo, Gray, Mahle, Taylor, Pagan, Maeda, Solano, Kuechel, Floro. They have club options on Polanco and Kepler for around 10 million each or they can become free agents. Lots of decisions to be made. I would love Gray and Taylor back for sure. Gray's price may be too high. Maybe Pagan and Maeda depending on the price. They made around 3.5 now.
I really like the Twins young arms, the hitters just need to cut down on the strikeouts.
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
Does Gray want to come back? Didn't he have some unhappy thoughts regarding handling of pitchers at one point?
Yes, but if the Twins offer up enough cash, I'm sure all be be forgotten.
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
Does Gray want to come back? Didn't he have some unhappy thoughts regarding handling of pitchers at one point?
He was mad about not getting more innings in 2022.
Twins SPs were at the top of the leaderboards in innings/start this season so I'd expect his complaints were quelled.
The questions for Gray, however, are interesting. This was the most IP he's pitched in a season since like 2013-2014 range. It was also arguably his best overall season. He'll be 34 in a month so he's likely looking for one more contract, so a 4-5 year deal that would likely be $20-25 million a year (at minimum) seems likely.
Are the Twins going to be willing to pay him $25mil a year based on his best year ever when he'll likely be hitting a downturn in his career? Or can they convince him to take a shorter term for more money?
https://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
Good teams find ways to overcome things like that. If someone wants to blame the series loss on that, in my opinion, they are completely missing the point.
I have mixed feelings on this as someone who isn't really into baseball. The over-analysis that we do now in sports takes away a lot of the fun, for me at least. X and Y happened so now we must do Z, simply no other choice. Taking all "feel for the game/situation" out of it. Booming robotic to the stats and in different to the situation.
Being a hockey official, when referees call penalties, someone is almost always whining about it. If the team who is ahead late in the game has a player how marginally hooks a guy in the neutral zone; if the referee calls it they are "just looking for a chance to give the trailing team a PP late" if they let it go, then they are just "trying to let the leading team win so they can go home early." You cannot please all the people, and most times someone is going to be upset. I always hated when people whined about penalties late in a game: "let the players decide the game" Yes, we are trying to. If I call it, I have an impact by calling a penalty late. If I don't call it, then I am having an impact by letting one team break the rules. So which would you rather? Again, it depends on the degree of the infraction and the outcome - "feel for the game/situation." A hook isn't always a hook. A slash isn't always a slash. 7 guys on the ice isn't ALWAYS too many men on the ice.
During a USHL training camp I got to meet an MLB Umpire one season. They specifically talked about feel for the game, and why certain pitchers or certain hitters seemingly got more calls than others. He talked about if a batter is up there trying to have a legit AB or if they are trying to draw a walk. If they have swung at pitches close previously in the game or even same AB, then they might get the benefit of the doubt and get a close pitch called a ball. If they've hardly swung the bat and are eye-balling every pitch going back it gets much less likely to get a close call go in your favor.
As a fellow official, I have no problem with that. I don't feel like everything in sports can be black and white, there are shades of gray all over the place. If a hockey official called an NHL game by the letter of the rulebook everyone on the ice would be pissed, the fans would be booing, and the people on TV would say it is un-watchable.
Baseball, like hockey, is an imperfect game, played by imperfect players, coached by imperfect coaches, often on imperfect playing surfaces, and officiated by imperfect officials. They get a helluva lot of both calls and non-calls correct. If we cannot live with a little bit of human error in sports, I really don't want to watch them anymore, let alone officiate them. The constant challenges/reviews in the NFL have just completely sucked the fun/flow/energy out of the game. But there was one really bad call one time, so we better make sure that never happens again.
Kepler watching strike 3 to end the season is unacceptable to me. I had a visceral reaction watching that. He didn't even half swing at it. You cannot sit back and play it safe there. Season is on the line bud. I'd rather him strike out swinging at a splitter in the dirt than not even offer at a potential close ball to end the season. If you're not even going to swing at pitches like that... you're going to rack up a lot of Ks which is exactly what the Twins did. If they are looking at every close pitch expecting a ball, that it doesn't surprise me that they had more incorrect balls get called strikes than other teams.
But hey, lets bring in more coaches challenges so we can further slow down play by reviewing balls and strikes. Even though I think the quicker game just allowed baseball to have their highest ratings in quite some time.
Sorry Beauer, this isn't directed at you personally, so please do take it that way. More of a reaction to the over analysis of statistics and tiny margins in that tweet - or whatever you call it on X now.
https://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
Good teams find ways to overcome things like that. If someone wants to blame the series loss on that, in my opinion, they are completely missing the point.
I have mixed feelings on this as someone who isn't really into baseball. The over-analysis that we do now in sports takes away a lot of the fun, for me at least. X and Y happened so now we must do Z, simply no other choice. Taking all "feel for the game/situation" out of it. Booming robotic to the stats and in different to the situation.
Being a hockey official, when referees call penalties, someone is almost always whining about it. If the team who is ahead late in the game has a player how marginally hooks a guy in the neutral zone; if the referee calls it they are "just looking for a chance to give the trailing team a PP late" if they let it go, then they are just "trying to let the leading team win so they can go home early." You cannot please all the people, and most times someone is going to be upset. I always hated when people whined about penalties late in a game: "let the players decide the game" Yes, we are trying to. If I call it, I have an impact by calling a penalty late. If I don't call it, then I am having an impact by letting one team break the rules. So which would you rather? Again, it depends on the degree of the infraction and the outcome - "feel for the game/situation." A hook isn't always a hook. A slash isn't always a slash. 7 guys on the ice isn't ALWAYS too many men on the ice.
During a USHL training camp I got to meet an MLB Umpire one season. They specifically talked about feel for the game, and why certain pitchers or certain hitters seemingly got more calls than others. He talked about if a batter is up there trying to have a legit AB or if they are trying to draw a walk. If they have swung at pitches close previously in the game or even same AB, then they might get the benefit of the doubt and get a close pitch called a ball. If they've hardly swung the bat and are eye-balling every pitch going back it gets much less likely to get a close call go in your favor.
As a fellow official, I have no problem with that. I don't feel like everything in sports can be black and white, there are shades of gray all over the place. If a hockey official called an NHL game by the letter of the rulebook everyone on the ice would be pissed, the fans would be booing, and the people on TV would say it is un-watchable.
Baseball, like hockey, is an imperfect game, played by imperfect players, coached by imperfect coaches, often on imperfect playing surfaces, and officiated by imperfect officials. They get a helluva lot of both calls and non-calls correct. If we cannot live with a little bit of human error in sports, I really don't want to watch them anymore, let alone officiate them. The constant challenges/reviews in the NFL have just completely sucked the fun/flow/energy out of the game. But there was one really bad call one time, so we better make sure that never happens again.
Kepler watching strike 3 to end the season is unacceptable to me. I had a visceral reaction watching that. He didn't even half swing at it. You cannot sit back and play it safe there. Season is on the line bud. I'd rather him strike out swinging at a splitter in the dirt than not even offer at a potential close ball to end the season. If you're not even going to swing at pitches like that... you're going to rack up a lot of Ks which is exactly what the Twins did. If they are looking at every close pitch expecting a ball, that it doesn't surprise me that they had more incorrect balls get called strikes than other teams.
But hey, lets bring in more coaches challenges so we can further slow down play by reviewing balls and strikes. Even though I think the quicker game just allowed baseball to have their highest ratings in quite some time.
Sorry Beauer, this isn't directed at you personally, so please do take it that way. More of a reaction to the over analysis of statistics and tiny margins in that tweet - or whatever you call it on X now.
Berrios agrees with you.
gotta believe that Jeffers has a lot to do with the Twins pitchers getting squeezed. He's pretty bad behind the platehttps://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
gotta believe that Jeffers has a lot to do with the Twins pitchers getting squeezed. He's pretty bad behind the platehttps://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
This is true. He is 50th of 63 in pitch framing. However, 63rd is the astros catcher.
I for one am sick of pitch framing. Just catch the ball instead of trying to make a ball look like a strike.
End of rant
I for one am sick of pitch framing. Just catch the ball instead of trying to make a ball look like a strike.
End of rant
Pitch framing has been around forever! No one seemed to mind Joe Mauer or other Twins doing it...Brad Radke benefited from it his entire career as did most of y he great Twins. It's part of the game...
Pitch framing is an art. If you over-do it, EVERYONE knows it, and you're done with that. If you do it right...hoo-boy.
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
https://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
Good teams find ways to overcome things like that. If someone wants to blame the series loss on that, in my opinion, they are completely missing the point.
I have mixed feelings on this as someone who isn't really into baseball. The over-analysis that we do now in sports takes away a lot of the fun, for me at least. X and Y happened so now we must do Z, simply no other choice. Taking all "feel for the game/situation" out of it. Booming robotic to the stats and in different to the situation.
Being a hockey official, when referees call penalties, someone is almost always whining about it. If the team who is ahead late in the game has a player how marginally hooks a guy in the neutral zone; if the referee calls it they are "just looking for a chance to give the trailing team a PP late" if they let it go, then they are just "trying to let the leading team win so they can go home early." You cannot please all the people, and most times someone is going to be upset. I always hated when people whined about penalties late in a game: "let the players decide the game" Yes, we are trying to. If I call it, I have an impact by calling a penalty late. If I don't call it, then I am having an impact by letting one team break the rules. So which would you rather? Again, it depends on the degree of the infraction and the outcome - "feel for the game/situation." A hook isn't always a hook. A slash isn't always a slash. 7 guys on the ice isn't ALWAYS too many men on the ice.
During a USHL training camp I got to meet an MLB Umpire one season. They specifically talked about feel for the game, and why certain pitchers or certain hitters seemingly got more calls than others. He talked about if a batter is up there trying to have a legit AB or if they are trying to draw a walk. If they have swung at pitches close previously in the game or even same AB, then they might get the benefit of the doubt and get a close pitch called a ball. If they've hardly swung the bat and are eye-balling every pitch going back it gets much less likely to get a close call go in your favor.
As a fellow official, I have no problem with that. I don't feel like everything in sports can be black and white, there are shades of gray all over the place. If a hockey official called an NHL game by the letter of the rulebook everyone on the ice would be pissed, the fans would be booing, and the people on TV would say it is un-watchable.
Baseball, like hockey, is an imperfect game, played by imperfect players, coached by imperfect coaches, often on imperfect playing surfaces, and officiated by imperfect officials. They get a helluva lot of both calls and non-calls correct. If we cannot live with a little bit of human error in sports, I really don't want to watch them anymore, let alone officiate them. The constant challenges/reviews in the NFL have just completely sucked the fun/flow/energy out of the game. But there was one really bad call one time, so we better make sure that never happens again.
Kepler watching strike 3 to end the season is unacceptable to me. I had a visceral reaction watching that. He didn't even half swing at it. You cannot sit back and play it safe there. Season is on the line bud. I'd rather him strike out swinging at a splitter in the dirt than not even offer at a potential close ball to end the season. If you're not even going to swing at pitches like that... you're going to rack up a lot of Ks which is exactly what the Twins did. If they are looking at every close pitch expecting a ball, that it doesn't surprise me that they had more incorrect balls get called strikes than other teams.
But hey, lets bring in more coaches challenges so we can further slow down play by reviewing balls and strikes. Even though I think the quicker game just allowed baseball to have their highest ratings in quite some time.
Sorry Beauer, this isn't directed at you personally, so please do take it that way. More of a reaction to the over analysis of statistics and tiny margins in that tweet - or whatever you call it on X now.
Don't get me wrong, I mostly agree with your overall point. The issue I have with MLB umpires is that they have all of this data readily available almost instantly, let alone the night after the game or all offseason and year in and year out we see the same terrible umpires calling games with no repercussions for their terrible performances. It just gets magnified now with K-zone on every broadcast and the data becoming easily available for the masses.
I'm not even in favor of the robot umps - there are plenty of issues with those too. I'd just like to see guys be held accountable when they are consistently bad.
https://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
Good teams find ways to overcome things like that. If someone wants to blame the series loss on that, in my opinion, they are completely missing the point.
I have mixed feelings on this as someone who isn't really into baseball. The over-analysis that we do now in sports takes away a lot of the fun, for me at least. X and Y happened so now we must do Z, simply no other choice. Taking all "feel for the game/situation" out of it. Booming robotic to the stats and in different to the situation.
Being a hockey official, when referees call penalties, someone is almost always whining about it. If the team who is ahead late in the game has a player how marginally hooks a guy in the neutral zone; if the referee calls it they are "just looking for a chance to give the trailing team a PP late" if they let it go, then they are just "trying to let the leading team win so they can go home early." You cannot please all the people, and most times someone is going to be upset. I always hated when people whined about penalties late in a game: "let the players decide the game" Yes, we are trying to. If I call it, I have an impact by calling a penalty late. If I don't call it, then I am having an impact by letting one team break the rules. So which would you rather? Again, it depends on the degree of the infraction and the outcome - "feel for the game/situation." A hook isn't always a hook. A slash isn't always a slash. 7 guys on the ice isn't ALWAYS too many men on the ice.
During a USHL training camp I got to meet an MLB Umpire one season. They specifically talked about feel for the game, and why certain pitchers or certain hitters seemingly got more calls than others. He talked about if a batter is up there trying to have a legit AB or if they are trying to draw a walk. If they have swung at pitches close previously in the game or even same AB, then they might get the benefit of the doubt and get a close pitch called a ball. If they've hardly swung the bat and are eye-balling every pitch going back it gets much less likely to get a close call go in your favor.
As a fellow official, I have no problem with that. I don't feel like everything in sports can be black and white, there are shades of gray all over the place. If a hockey official called an NHL game by the letter of the rulebook everyone on the ice would be pissed, the fans would be booing, and the people on TV would say it is un-watchable.
Baseball, like hockey, is an imperfect game, played by imperfect players, coached by imperfect coaches, often on imperfect playing surfaces, and officiated by imperfect officials. They get a helluva lot of both calls and non-calls correct. If we cannot live with a little bit of human error in sports, I really don't want to watch them anymore, let alone officiate them. The constant challenges/reviews in the NFL have just completely sucked the fun/flow/energy out of the game. But there was one really bad call one time, so we better make sure that never happens again.
Kepler watching strike 3 to end the season is unacceptable to me. I had a visceral reaction watching that. He didn't even half swing at it. You cannot sit back and play it safe there. Season is on the line bud. I'd rather him strike out swinging at a splitter in the dirt than not even offer at a potential close ball to end the season. If you're not even going to swing at pitches like that... you're going to rack up a lot of Ks which is exactly what the Twins did. If they are looking at every close pitch expecting a ball, that it doesn't surprise me that they had more incorrect balls get called strikes than other teams.
But hey, lets bring in more coaches challenges so we can further slow down play by reviewing balls and strikes. Even though I think the quicker game just allowed baseball to have their highest ratings in quite some time.
Sorry Beauer, this isn't directed at you personally, so please do take it that way. More of a reaction to the over analysis of statistics and tiny margins in that tweet - or whatever you call it on X now.
All. Of. This.
The over nerdifying of baseball is why they now have to change the rules just to make it watchable. Greg Maddux made his career stretching strike zones so far the on deck players were in danger...nowadays some out of work stats geek in his moms basement will create a stat to show he is overrated. Situations used to matter...the nuances used to matter. Now people would rather watch homogenized bs.
If you go back and watch old World Series you will see all sorts of inconsistencies based on who is pitching, who is at bat, where the game is, the score, the crowd and who was behind the plate. And ya know what, people liked the game better back then too.
Bring back the brushback pitch.
Half of that plate is mine. Now you have to figure out what half I'm coming after. -Bob Gibson
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
I am sure some nerd came up with a stat to prove it has no value...
“When your best friend is the son of God, you get tired of losing every argument.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bring back the brushback pitch.
Ryan threw a doozy to Alverez on the first pitch he threw him last week.
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
Craig Breslow. Huh.
https://twitter.com/pitchprofiler/status/1712483047411728842?t=MMjSr5yanX-nFXSrxrtoSw&s=19
Not great
Good teams find ways to overcome things like that. If someone wants to blame the series loss on that, in my opinion, they are completely missing the point.
I have mixed feelings on this as someone who isn't really into baseball. The over-analysis that we do now in sports takes away a lot of the fun, for me at least. X and Y happened so now we must do Z, simply no other choice. Taking all "feel for the game/situation" out of it. Booming robotic to the stats and in different to the situation.
Being a hockey official, when referees call penalties, someone is almost always whining about it. If the team who is ahead late in the game has a player how marginally hooks a guy in the neutral zone; if the referee calls it they are "just looking for a chance to give the trailing team a PP late" if they let it go, then they are just "trying to let the leading team win so they can go home early." You cannot please all the people, and most times someone is going to be upset. I always hated when people whined about penalties late in a game: "let the players decide the game" Yes, we are trying to. If I call it, I have an impact by calling a penalty late. If I don't call it, then I am having an impact by letting one team break the rules. So which would you rather? Again, it depends on the degree of the infraction and the outcome - "feel for the game/situation." A hook isn't always a hook. A slash isn't always a slash. 7 guys on the ice isn't ALWAYS too many men on the ice.
During a USHL training camp I got to meet an MLB Umpire one season. They specifically talked about feel for the game, and why certain pitchers or certain hitters seemingly got more calls than others. He talked about if a batter is up there trying to have a legit AB or if they are trying to draw a walk. If they have swung at pitches close previously in the game or even same AB, then they might get the benefit of the doubt and get a close pitch called a ball. If they've hardly swung the bat and are eye-balling every pitch going back it gets much less likely to get a close call go in your favor.
As a fellow official, I have no problem with that. I don't feel like everything in sports can be black and white, there are shades of gray all over the place. If a hockey official called an NHL game by the letter of the rulebook everyone on the ice would be pissed, the fans would be booing, and the people on TV would say it is un-watchable.
Baseball, like hockey, is an imperfect game, played by imperfect players, coached by imperfect coaches, often on imperfect playing surfaces, and officiated by imperfect officials. They get a helluva lot of both calls and non-calls correct. If we cannot live with a little bit of human error in sports, I really don't want to watch them anymore, let alone officiate them. The constant challenges/reviews in the NFL have just completely sucked the fun/flow/energy out of the game. But there was one really bad call one time, so we better make sure that never happens again.
Kepler watching strike 3 to end the season is unacceptable to me. I had a visceral reaction watching that. He didn't even half swing at it. You cannot sit back and play it safe there. Season is on the line bud. I'd rather him strike out swinging at a splitter in the dirt than not even offer at a potential close ball to end the season. If you're not even going to swing at pitches like that... you're going to rack up a lot of Ks which is exactly what the Twins did. If they are looking at every close pitch expecting a ball, that it doesn't surprise me that they had more incorrect balls get called strikes than other teams.
But hey, lets bring in more coaches challenges so we can further slow down play by reviewing balls and strikes. Even though I think the quicker game just allowed baseball to have their highest ratings in quite some time.
Sorry Beauer, this isn't directed at you personally, so please do take it that way. More of a reaction to the over analysis of statistics and tiny margins in that tweet - or whatever you call it on X now.
All. Of. This.
The over nerdifying of baseball is why they now have to change the rules just to make it watchable. Greg Maddux made his career stretching strike zones so far the on deck players were in danger...nowadays some out of work stats geek in his moms basement will create a stat to show he is overrated. Situations used to matter...the nuances used to matter. Now people would rather watch homogenized bs.
If you go back and watch old World Series you will see all sorts of inconsistencies based on who is pitching, who is at bat, where the game is, the score, the crowd and who was behind the plate. And ya know what, people liked the game better back then too.
on one hand, sure, it kind of sucks. Problem is, it works.
Right but it's just so weird to hear that name and praise attached to it. It's like hearing Rocco Baldelli and season awards being mentioned.
Breslow is supposed to be wicked smart
'29, '40, '74, '76, '79, '02, & '03
GPL's Resident Cabin Enthusiast & Cadets Hockey Fan
The point is, I still remember breslow as a mediocre journeyman reliever. Irrespective of his current status among GPLers as GM Supergod.
Bremer leaving the Twins broadcast booth after 40 years. Will remain with the organization as a "special assistant" in the front office
It will be interesting how this all shakes out. With the next TV deal in question, do they get a cheaper, younger guy to replace Dick? At one time LaPanta wanted that job, and has filled in for him at times, or is LaPanta happy doing hockey and studio work for baseball? Provus does the radio call, but he does TV for other sports, so is he in consideration?
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
I'm 50% factual and 50% sarcastic. When you get to know me, you will know which is which.
Sonny Gray receives qualifying offer
https://twitter.com/jeffpassan/status/1721652248676044809?s=46&t=XUVGW7l9-e4aWvIPbf1tXw
'29, '40, '74, '76, '79, '02, & '03
GPL's Resident Cabin Enthusiast & Cadets Hockey Fan
Like I know this is how it works, but it's still astonishing to see "qualified offer" next to "Ohtani"
Baseball has the goofiest rules for contracts. If anyone understands half of it they qualify as a super fan.
Like I know this is how it works, but it's still astonishing to see "qualified offer" next to "Ohtani"
Think "poison pill" style for NFL contracts. The infamous one of recent history was the Brett Favre/Jets/Packers deal to prevent Favre going to the Vikings, or that OLine (IIRC) guy with MN and SEA.
Qualifying offer is to prevent certain teams acquiring a guy.
When you tell somebody somethin', it depends on what part of the United States you're standin' in... as to just how dumb you are.
Like I know this is how it works, but it's still astonishing to see "qualified offer" next to "Ohtani"
Think "poison pill" style for NFL contracts. The infamous one of recent history was the Brett Favre/Jets/Packers deal to prevent Favre going to the Vikings, or that OLine (IIRC) guy with MN and SEA.
Qualifying offer is to prevent certain teams acquiring a guy.
Not really. It's not specific to any particular team. The rules are just in place to try to keep some semblance of balance between the rich teams and the "poor" teams more than anything else.
The idea of it is to ensure that if the qualifying offer (QO) player signs somewhere else the team that loses the QO player gets competitive balance picks. It is basically MLB's way of trying to protect lower salary teams from getting abused by teams like NY, LA, SD, Texas etc. in a bidding war for their best players by giving them another pick early in the draft and taking one (or multiple) away from the team signing the star player. That's why all these teams offered a QO even though I'd be surprised if any of these players settled for that amount (MAYBE Hader because 20+ million for a reliever is really really good $). The rest will likely get bigger deals with their current teams or other teams.
The rule (paraphrased) is that teams that are over the Collective Bargaining Tax (CBT) threshold and lose a qualifying offer player to a team, they are awarded like a 4th-5th round pick (so on that list I would guess Nola, Ohtani, Hader, and Snell would fall in this category). If a team is a revenue sharing recipient and lose a QO player to a contract over $50 million (total value) they get a pick after the first round in the competitive balance round A (this would likely be what would happen for the Twins if Gray goes elsewhere, as I assume he'd get close to 60-70 million depending on term). If the QO player were to sign for less than $50 million total value they get a pick after the second round in competitive balance round B.
Teams that sign a QO player that rejected their QO from the previous team (like most players on the above list will likely do) forfeit a draft pick but their first first round pick is exempt (if they have a second pick in the first round, like from a previous competitive balance player, for example, they would lose that one).
The draft pick forfeiture is largely determined by how much money the signing team already has on the books. If they're over the CBT threshold for salary they forfeit their 2nd AND 5th round pick as well as $1mil from their international signing bonus pool. If they are a revenue sharing recipient they forfeit their second pick and 500k from the international signing bonus pool.
So if the Twins, for example, were to lose Sonny Gray but sign Shohei Ohtani (lol), they would lose their 2nd pick but also gain one next year.
I hope fans tell them to go pound sand via ticket sales.
Anybody who didn't see this coming with the TV deal in flux hasn't been paying attention. I'm really interested to see how much the RSN deal collapse impacts free agency this year, as that is a big source of income for a lot of teams.
As the roster sits right now, 16 of the players are under contract for under 3.5 million next season (basically Correa, Vasquez, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, and Lopez are the only ones above 3.5 million). Lets say they reduce the payroll from 155mil to 145mil.
If they non-tender Kyle Farmer they would be at about 112mil and would have 1 utility/bench player, 1 SP, and 1 bullpen arm to fill their active roster.
The players they are losing (or likely to lose):
Gray, Maeda, Gallo, Mahle, and Michael A. Taylor -- that is roughly 38 million in salary they have coming off the books. 3 are all either already replaced or can be replaced by players on similar contracts and the team would still be reducing salary.
The Gallo (11 million) loss isn't really a loss and his replacement is already on the roster for cheap (Wallner or Larnach save them roughly 10 million).
Mahle (7ish million), like Gallo, isn't likely to be considered a huge loss considering he's missed almost the entire season and wasn't great when he was healthy. His replacements are already in the organization as well (Paddack, Simeon Woods-Richardson, Varland, etc. save them between 3-6 million).
Maeda was on a dirt cheap contract (like 3.5 million) and is a FA this year. As a 35 year old pitcher who missed the first half of the season coming off an injury he pitched OK last season. I have no idea what kind of value his contract would be, but lets just say 8 million. The Twins have SPs in the system they can use to replace Maeda if they choose to do so, but I wouldn't hate bringing him back for a similar contract, but I am guessing they'll go internally to replace him and roll with a Lopez-FA SP-Ryan-Ober-Paddack rotation.
Then we get to the guys they'll likely need to go outside the organization to replace:
Michael A. Taylor (4.5ish million last season) would likely be in the 6-10 million range. They could also bring up a kid like Austin Martin to fill that outfield role for cheap as Buxton insurance but I think they'd rather have a proven MLB player there and then use Martin in case of injury. There have been rumors that the Twins have been interested in Kevin Keirmaier, another defensive wizard like Taylor, that would probably be in the 12-15 million range (he made 12 million this year).
Gray is obviously the big name. He was extended the qualifying offer of 20 million a year. He's indicated that he is open to returning to the team but I'd be surprised if he does. My gut says the Twins want to spend heavier on one of the FA LHP in the market (Snell, Rodriguez, Montgomery) which would likely be upwards of 20-25 million a year on a 5 year, 100 to 125 million contract. I'd prefer any of those 3 at that type of term over the return of Gray at the same type of rate next season personally.
Say they sign Kiermaier to a 1 year $13 million deal and Rodriguez to a 5 year $100 million deal. That's adding 33 million to $112 million which would sit us at 145 million. It's technically reducing salary but still likely makes the team as good or better than last year in most positions.
I hope fans tell them to go pound sand via ticket sales.
They never really do, though. It's been like this as long as I remember.
As the 4th richest owner in MLB in 2023 (a sport with no salary CAP) of course the Twins plan to reduce payroll in 2024! lmao. They obviously regard all their fans as saps…
balls
Corey Provus is doing the gopher basketball game on BTN tonight.
I assume he's been a regular there? He's fairly good. I still think there's one guy I could listen to all day long and that's Mike Grimm. He's such a spectacular radio guy.
I know Grimm went from doing just basketball and then added football. I assume Provus went from baseball to add basketball?
I imagine going from baseball radio to just about anything has got to be difficult.