23:59:59

Green Man and the Geek Green Man and the Geek Green Man and the Geek Talking baseball every week Because they're Green Man and the Geek And

0:31

welcome to Green Man and the Geek

0:34

The Where Do We Stand Now? episode.

0:37

John Bonas of Twinsdaily.com with me, Aaron

0:40

Gleeman of The Uplift. We're both sitting. We are both

0:42

sitting. Neither of us are standing. We're not standing

0:44

now. We are literally sitting in the

0:46

conference room. I really spend the

0:48

majority of my life trying not

0:50

to stand, which is why

0:53

the beat writing job is so difficult for me because

0:55

so much, I would say, 35% of that job is just standing around. Like

1:00

literally just standing, waiting

1:02

for things that may or may not ever happen. So

1:04

when you go to the winter meetings in four

1:07

or five weeks, similar? Yeah. Oh, God. Or is that

1:09

a lot of sitting? A lot of walking too, which

1:11

is my least favorite, truly my least favorite

1:13

thing. Other than running, certainly. Kind

1:15

of your crossfit. Yeah. Walking

1:18

piece. Yeah, I'm staying, I just booked

1:20

a hotel. It's in Nashville at the

1:22

Opryland. There's

1:23

a chance I'm going to be joining you. We'll see. We

1:26

can share an Uber, the

1:27

Eat Black. I'm not Ubering Eat Black. Well,

1:30

this is what I was going to say. I had this

1:32

discussion with Betsy in Houston. We're

1:35

at the same hotel, Betsy Helfand, former

1:37

and future guest. Yes. I always

1:39

say that because I realize when I say like former

1:41

guest, it's like, yeah, we've parted ways with

1:43

them. They're done. But

1:46

my ideal –

1:47

That's not how we wanted to break it to Betsy, but sorry.

1:50

Yeah, sorry. You're out. You're

1:52

out. Bobby's

1:55

in. Bobby – oh, yeah. Actually, we

1:58

just had people who aren't Patreon.

1:59

subscribers we just had Bobby Nightingale, the

2:02

Star Tribune's newest beat writer who joined

2:04

the beat in June on

2:07

the show as a first-time guest. So

2:09

yeah, one in, one out. Lots of good conversations,

2:11

learned a little bit about him, got his view on the

2:14

twins post- or off-season

2:16

or what they might be doing, and we had a pretty long

2:18

discussion about the difference between the

2:21

twins organization and

2:23

twins culture and twins social media

2:25

culture versus Cincinnati where

2:28

he spent what five, six years last there. He's also

2:30

covered the Detroit Tigers so that's one of

2:33

the advantages of bringing in somebody new to the

2:35

Star Tribune like that in a position like that is you've

2:37

got somebody who's seen other major league organizations

2:39

and that was an interesting conversation for

2:42

those people who you know don't pay attention

2:44

to other teams as much. Yeah,

2:46

plus I've tried to encourage

2:49

the beat writers, there's

2:52

like what six of them or something like that who

2:54

I see every day during the season and I like.

2:58

Excuse me.

2:59

Except doe. Yeah,

3:02

no he's a villain at this point. I don't

3:04

know why, I don't know. I'll go along with whatever you say.

3:07

But I've been trying to encourage them like I think

3:09

it's fun to watch them like

3:13

get reactions from people from stuff they say

3:15

on the show because we're so

3:18

used to it. Right. I know this is gonna sound like

3:20

a humble break or whatever but like when someone comes up and says

3:22

like hey you guys whatever you like Chinese

3:24

food or whatever it's like yeah I know where that's coming

3:26

from. I talk about that endlessly. Right.

3:29

The Glimon I'm surprised he's standing

3:31

you just hated him said how much you hate standing well

3:33

I'm like yeah we said that on the podcast but then people come

3:35

up to Betsy and they're like hey Betsy how was

3:37

it doing that and she's like how do they know that? I

3:40

was like hey you think Bobby I can't pay what to say hey

3:42

fellow Jaguar. Yeah so I already saw

3:44

on Twitter people are like hey you were in uh Lawrence

3:47

Kansas. I'm from Lawrence Kansas. Yeah

3:49

welcome to our weird people Patreon comments.

3:52

I'm also Jefferson Grant. Right exactly.

3:54

So yeah I

3:56

like that but yeah what was I gonna say oh my least

3:58

the worst distance the best The best distance on

4:00

road trips, not that I go on a lot, but now I've gone

4:02

to Houston, I'm about to go to Nashville, is

4:05

staying in the hotel where the thing is happening.

4:08

For me. Yes, right. For me. Yes,

4:11

right. The best. Sure. The

4:13

second best instance, you might say, well the second best distance is

4:15

six or eight blocks away. Because

4:18

if you're a normal human with functioning legs,

4:20

and your weight starts with a two or a one,

4:23

let's say. But that's the worst

4:25

distance for me. The best distance for me is like

4:27

a mile and a half. Sure. I feel as guilty

4:29

taking an Uber. That's right. And I can

4:31

maybe talk other people in my hotel to take an Uber.

4:34

Right. But your reaction

4:36

when I said, hey, we can take an Uber eight blocks, and

4:38

you said, I'm not taking an Uber eight blocks. The

4:40

morning, whatever in Houston, Betsy was

4:43

at the same hotel, or I was at Betsy's hotel, and

4:45

I'm like, I'm gonna take an Uber. And she's like, isn't

4:47

it like seven blocks? And I'm like, yeah,

4:49

I don't care. She's like, oh,

4:51

whoa, okay. And I was like, here's the catch 22.

4:54

I need you to come with me, because I have no idea

4:57

where I'm going once I get to the ballpark. And

5:00

I'm like, I'll pay for your Uber. And she's like, well, it's

5:02

not really a money thing. It's like a pride

5:04

of not taking a seven block Uber. Anyway,

5:07

that's a long way of saying, yeah, I'll be in Nashville.

5:09

The winter meetings, they're like, it's the first week of December.

5:12

So they'll have the Rule Five draft, which we're gonna

5:14

talk about a little bit. We'll be doing some special Patreon

5:16

episodes likely from winter. Probably, yeah, from there.

5:18

We'll also be at the end of this, putting a little clip from the

5:20

Bobby Night Gale. Yes. Probably

5:23

so. You picked the most incriminating things he

5:25

said. No. So

5:28

World Series is about to start. Your

5:31

wife's beloved Phillies did not make it. Yeah.

5:34

We are in a situation

5:36

where there is a 40 something percent

5:39

chance, probably, that the Arizona

5:41

Diamondbacks are gonna be the champions of Major

5:43

League Baseball, which is fascinating

5:46

to me. And the funny

5:48

thing that happens every, we've

5:50

joked about this in the past, but every October is,

5:53

whatever the successful team or

5:55

teams, the teams that make the World

5:57

Series, or even sometimes

5:58

just make it to that LCS. people

6:01

want takeaways from that lesson to learn

6:03

from it and when

6:06

the Royals were winning 10 years

6:08

ago it was you got to have a great bullpen and put the ball

6:10

in play and I was

6:12

like well actually no then you know sometimes it's

6:15

rarely almost every year like this year

6:18

teams that out homer their opponent are 21

6:20

and three but no one ever takes

6:22

that lesson away no one likes that

6:24

lesson which has hit the ball over the fence you win a lot of

6:26

games because people hate that lesson something

6:29

the opposite if the opposite ever happened right

6:32

that would be the lesson to take away by the way the opposite

6:34

will never happen because hitting home runs is good

6:37

but I feel like the Phillies

6:39

last year and sort of

6:41

again this year because they did make the LCS was

6:44

star power right yeah I'd done

6:46

big superstars those are the guys that come

6:48

up big in October and then in the offseason

6:51

they added Trey Turner right right and

6:53

they made it back to the LCS and I do think the

6:55

lesson from Texas's

6:57

standpoint is similar to that yeah that checks

7:00

was terrible for you're right you know five

7:02

years basically or three years and

7:04

they bought Corey Seager and they bought Marcus

7:06

him and they also bought the Grom which turned out

7:08

poorly and some other guys that turned out poorly they

7:11

got Scherzer at the deadline which cost them a ton

7:13

of money it hasn't all worked out but

7:16

you know Seager is an example of yes that's

7:18

a guy you can't just grow home homegrown

7:21

that's right like that's the guy you had to give 300 million

7:23

dollars to and now you have one of the best players in the world

7:25

right so I'm sure that will be a lesson

7:28

to be taken away I don't really know what the lesson

7:30

to take away from the Diamondbacks is except

7:32

it leads it bleeds into the lesson that I try

7:35

to always take away

7:37

from every playoff which is that there is no lesson

7:39

that take away there is no there is no master

7:41

plan right you right you find

7:44

something you're good at and you'd be really good at it yeah

7:46

that's where we strip it down further than that which is get into the playoffs

7:52

and get hot for three weeks and that's the

7:54

plan and you can't script that

7:57

necessarily obviously the better you them

8:00

The better team you build, and

8:02

I would say specifically within that, the more

8:05

frontline talent you have, because depth

8:08

becomes kind of a shrinking asset

8:10

in the playoffs, the better

8:12

off you are. And we saw that from the twins even,

8:15

from a pitching standpoint. It doesn't matter who your fifth starter

8:17

is, it matters who your first, second, and maybe third

8:19

starter is. And we're seeing that. But

8:23

this thing where people are like, you got to build your team

8:25

for October, there's no such thing. And

8:27

you see it every year. There isn't a person in the world

8:30

who predicted an Arizona Diamondbacks Texas

8:33

Rangers World Series. These teams,

8:36

it's not like they went in hot even, which hasn't

8:38

been proven to be anything correlation

8:40

wise. And so I know it's deeply

8:42

unsatisfying. I honestly think when I saw

8:45

the World Series odds at

8:47

the beginning of the postseason, I think

8:51

there were only a couple of teams that

8:54

had worse odds than the twins. Yeah,

8:57

and it might have been both. I

9:00

think both of these might have been there. And

9:03

I think the Diamondbacks were literally the worst odds. I'm

9:05

sure. I mean, think of who they had to go through.

9:07

They had to go through Dodgers and– Right?

9:10

Braves? No. Dodgers

9:12

and Phillies. Dodgers and Phillies, yeah. No. Dodgers

9:16

and then– Whatever. Who cares? I

9:18

think they went in the first series versus that was the question. Dodgers

9:20

were the second series. Brewers. Oh, yeah,

9:23

right. That's right, yeah. Central. It

9:25

was the same as the twins set up. Yeah, so, you

9:28

know, yes, you can always say, oh, it helps

9:30

to have speed or it helps

9:33

you have good defense or it helps to have a good bullpen. It

9:35

does. Or it helps to have– And all

9:37

those things do affect you. Absolutely. But it's such a warped

9:39

way of viewing things where we have to say, yeah, of

9:42

course that helps. That's like

9:45

saying you're in the NBA. It helps to have good shooters.

9:48

Yeah. But you can win without good shooters

9:50

if you have great defense. You can win without great defense

9:52

if you have great offense. And so really, and

9:55

I would even take that your point a step further on that, which

9:57

would be like it also you can say,

9:59

oh, well, okay. Okay, what you need then is a well-balanced

10:02

team. You need a lot of tools, maybe.

10:05

Or you can just like just not out of the ball sometimes. And

10:07

you have a couple of really hot pitchers. Yeah, I mean

10:09

that is... Right, I mean that happens too. You

10:12

can be a lopsided team as well, it still

10:14

is. Right. And

10:17

I know that's deeply unsatisfying for

10:19

people. And it seems especially

10:21

unsatisfying to what

10:24

I would call like old schoolers who

10:26

don't want to hear that home runs drive winning

10:29

more than anything in October. They want to

10:31

hear that great base stealing and all

10:33

that. Yeah, that's fine. But

10:36

that's not why these teams are in the World

10:38

Series. It's helped them maybe. And so

10:40

yeah, as it applies to like the twins

10:42

and twins fandom and all that, I mean

10:45

I think we saw this offseason. Could

10:47

you make the argument that this team was

10:50

better equipped to win in October than past

10:52

twins teams? Yeah, except that's a

10:54

retroactive argument. Of course you're going to think that

10:56

after they actually win it. And it

10:58

was, it's just they got in, which

11:01

by the way, that's why I'm not

11:04

someone who dismisses winning the Central as valueless.

11:07

You punched your ticket to the tournament. That's

11:09

all you need. That's the number one thing. I

11:11

can tell you the surefire way to not win

11:13

a World Series is to not make the playoffs.

11:16

There's my California math mat. And so watching

11:18

this play out, I'm not someone

11:21

who's going to denigrate the matchup. I'm

11:24

fascinated by how many people seem to care about

11:26

television ratings. How

11:28

does that affect my life in any way? Who cares?

11:31

I'm going to watch it. I bet you they're good games. They've

11:33

played good games so far, these last couple

11:35

of series. Unless you think baseball

11:38

is in danger of folding as

11:40

a sport, why would it possibly matter

11:42

what the television ratings are? Like slightly

11:44

fewer people are going to watch this? Who

11:46

cares? But

11:49

I also am not going to sit at the end of

11:51

it and say, well, this proves

11:53

that the Arizona Diamondbacks or even the

11:55

Texas Rangers who are, I would say, a more

11:57

fitting champion, but not that fitting of a

11:59

team. the champion, well, this proves that they were

12:01

actually the best team. No, they weren't. It just proves

12:04

that the playoffs are much different than the regular season.

12:06

It doesn't mean one is any

12:08

better than the other. I mean, I would

12:10

say the one that takes six months gets

12:13

a little more weight generally than the one that takes a month,

12:15

except in reality, that's not how it works because

12:17

people remember the champion. So I don't know

12:19

to watch like all the narratives sort of clash

12:22

and the, the search for meaning

12:24

in everything in sports

12:27

is always fascinating to me. And there has

12:29

to be, no one is willing, very

12:31

few people, especially like in media are

12:33

just willing to say stuff S

12:36

happens. We don't have to

12:38

explain it retroactively. We don't have

12:40

to say everyone has to try to build a team like

12:42

this Diamondbacks team or this Rangers

12:45

team. I'm to me, I'm

12:48

perfectly satisfied by saying these

12:50

were one of the 12 teams that made a 12 team

12:52

tournament. And they played a little bit

12:55

better than most of the other teams during this

12:57

last, you know, three, four weeks. And

12:59

now here they are at the end. Like it's, it's strange

13:01

to me, the need to find more than that. And I think that's

13:03

actually good news for the twins

13:07

because the odds of the twins. Being 110

13:09

wind team powerhouse,

13:12

number one seed, get the first round by. If

13:14

the twins are going to make a world series here

13:17

in the next five to 10 years, let's say it's

13:20

much more likely to come via the

13:23

Rangers Diamondbacks route, which

13:25

is they got in, nobody thought

13:28

they were going to do anything. And they just made a

13:30

little run. They got halfway there, but you know,

13:32

a third of the way there now, maybe

13:34

next year they get halfway there. Maybe they just keep

13:36

going because that's the thing you

13:38

look at the diamond. Another 0 for 20. Yeah,

13:41

who knows? I mean, that's, it works both ways. Absolutely.

13:44

So yeah, that was my, that's my big takeaway from the,

13:47

from the world series. I know that people

13:49

are like, well, it'd be so much better if this

13:51

was, you know, Dodgers, Yankees, so

13:54

much better for whom? Rob

13:56

Manfred and fans of those two teams.

13:58

Like I don't, to me. You

14:01

either want parity or you don't. And

14:04

most leagues talk about wanting parity.

14:06

I know the NFL always talks about that. And

14:09

MLB,

14:11

despite being

14:13

the most lopsided in

14:15

terms of resources and revenue and payrolls,

14:18

because they don't have a salary cap like the other leagues, the

14:22

unpredictable nature of baseball itself

14:25

not only cancels

14:28

out the revenue and payroll disparities,

14:31

but then even further, like it cancels

14:33

out and then some. So that if you look

14:35

at the last, I don't know, 20 champions

14:37

in Major League Baseball or even the last, you know, you

14:40

do get teams like the Astros or the Dodgers

14:42

who are there all the time. But even those teams only win

14:44

a couple of World Series over 20 years. I

14:47

know the Red Sox, I guess the Red Sox probably have three over the

14:49

last 20 years, whereas in football and basketball. Astros

14:52

have been the dominant team, and we've mentioned they've been

14:54

to the ALCS seven years in a row. I've won two

14:56

championships. Right. That's amazing.

14:59

Yeah, that's fantastic. The parody is kind of built

15:01

in to the nature of baseball where

15:03

and nature of the postseason in particular. For sure.

15:06

So yeah. Okay. Twins

15:09

wise, there's a whole lot going on. This is definitely

15:11

like kind of the dead zone for non-playoff

15:13

teams or, you know, the other 28 teams at this

15:15

point. They've had a little bit of 40-man roster

15:17

house cleaning, which we can touch on in a second. The

15:20

two bits of somewhat notable

15:22

news, I guess, one Alex

15:25

Kirilloff had the shoulder surgery that we talked about

15:27

last week. It was

15:29

good news in the sense that they

15:32

basically were going to open them up and look,

15:35

and they thought there might be a partially torn

15:37

labrum that they had to deal with. Right.

15:40

Turns out, not a torn labrum, or at

15:42

least nothing beyond the normal fraying

15:44

or whatever that you see. They

15:47

took out a Bursa sack that was causing

15:49

a lot of the inflammation. That's a pretty minor. So

15:52

it's good, because that's arthroscopic surgery. Yes. It

15:55

was basically, right? It was a case scenario, but it was far,

15:57

far, far from the worst case scenario for him. like

16:00

he should have a normal, relatively

16:02

normal like once the you know January

16:04

rolls around, a couple months to get ready

16:06

basically for spring training can have a normal spring training.

16:08

Now we'll revisit that because we've

16:10

heard that before with players and then they show up to spring training

16:13

and they're not ready but good news on that

16:15

front because even a partially torn labrum is

16:17

going to be months of rehab and recovery

16:19

for him. The other

16:21

bit of news was we talked about actually

16:24

with Bobby on the Patreon a few days

16:26

ago but Thad Levine out

16:29

of the running for the Red Sox job

16:31

he went through the first round of the interview

16:33

process sounds like he wasn't going to be part of

16:35

the second round of the interview process. I

16:38

don't know that they've made it official yet but Craig Breslow

16:40

is going to be the guy to get

16:42

the job. No I think they yeah I don't know if

16:44

they made it officially there but yeah but it's right.

16:47

Twins fans may remember Craig Breslow he

16:49

was a left-handed reliever during the Garde

16:52

era kind of middle of the Garden Hire era.

16:56

The talking point on him always was

16:58

too damn smart. Yeah well

17:00

from Garde yeah. I

17:03

heard some great stories there was a ex-Garden

17:05

Hire player in town and

17:08

I asked him I was just chatting about

17:10

that era I heard some great

17:12

stories about Kevin Sloey and Garden Hire

17:14

on that front but anyway Craig

17:17

Breslow the talking point was always he's the smartest man

17:19

in baseball. He's the smartest player in baseball

17:22

and he's like Brown University? Yeah

17:24

one of the IVs who knows. You

17:28

know it's no Carlton. Yeah exactly.

17:31

Or my alma mater. Is it even

17:33

an alma mater if you don't graduate? Yeah you're still

17:36

an alumni because they'll still hit you up for money. Yeah

17:39

they do ask me for money. I always have the same

17:42

response when the University of Minnesota asked me for money.

17:44

At childhood at freshman convocation they

17:46

said the first week they tell you you are now

17:49

officially an alum of college. What

17:51

they really mean is we're now officially

17:54

going to start asking you for money. Yeah

17:56

I haven't been asked. I'm not on any lists or

17:58

anything.

17:59

Like

18:01

when they used to, University of Minnesota

18:03

journalism school or whatever, used to see

18:06

LA, liberal arts college, used to say

18:08

like, we want some money, I would always have the same

18:10

response. I'm willing

18:13

to pay for a degree. I would like a degree.

18:15

Yeah, that's, I only need like 14 credits.

18:17

So you know, you've given worse to other

18:20

people and they never, never came through.

18:23

I mean, I'm willing to give like hundreds for a degree

18:25

because at this point, who cares? So,

18:28

Sad Levine's out of the running for that. I

18:30

don't know, I'm assuming that means he just stays in

18:32

the same role with the twins and it's just kind of business as

18:34

usual. I don't know that to be true. It's possible that

18:36

he's, looks around for other jobs. I haven't

18:38

heard anything on that either way. But, so

18:41

that was that. And then the 40 man roster house

18:43

cleaning that I said, I

18:45

would call this the first round, basically. There's

18:48

going to be more, I mean, there's going to be some natural

18:52

pruning of the 40 man rosters from

18:54

free agents. We've already started to see it. Right.

18:56

A little bit. A little bit. I figure it. Yeah.

18:59

Well, he was a waiver claim, but I mean, I

19:01

just mean like Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda, Emilio

19:03

Pagon. Those guys just come off 40 man. Five

19:06

days after the war. Free agents too. But

19:09

yeah, the Oliver Ortega was

19:11

DFA'd or waived and claimed off waivers

19:14

by the Astros. He

19:16

was originally a waiver claim in January from the

19:18

Angels and he pitched, I don't know, 15 innings

19:20

or something for the twins was on the aisle at

19:22

the end of the year. Jordan Luplo

19:25

cut loose, passed through waivers unclaimed.

19:28

Andrew Stevenson, same thing. And then Jose

19:30

de Leon, who's recovering from Tommy

19:32

John. Right. Surgery.

19:34

I think he's going to be out for most of this

19:36

upcoming season. He was dropped and passed

19:39

through waivers unclaimed. All three of those guys chose

19:41

free agency, which is sort of a paperwork

19:44

aspect. The twins could attempt to resign

19:47

any, all of them to just

19:49

minor league deals, but no surprises

19:51

there. I would expect, you know,

19:54

at least the two, three more drops

19:56

like that.

19:59

And then... the trickier

20:01

decisions are what we're actually going to spend the majority

20:03

of the show talking about which is the arbitration

20:05

guys, the free agents, the theme

20:07

of the show is going to be payroll and

20:10

what the twins can do, how much room they get to spend on free

20:12

agency but also what is the state of

20:14

each of the players of the organization, are they eligible

20:16

for arbitration, do they have to make a decision, do

20:19

they have team options, do they have player options?

20:21

There's a kind of forced pruning of

20:23

the 40-man roster that comes with each of those

20:25

things. We kind of go step by step through

20:27

that, I don't know, it's like off-season primer

20:30

a little bit, primer, it's supposed

20:32

to be primer. Is it really? Yeah, because there

20:34

used to be a website called Baseball Primer, P-R-I-N-E-R.

20:37

I remember Baseball Primer well. That's where I got my

20:39

start. Yeah. Truly, Dan

20:41

Zimborski, that was my editor. Was

20:43

that Baseball Think Factory before that?

20:46

No, you reversed it. Baseball Primer became Baseball.

20:49

Yeah, I remember that the forum for

20:51

years. I wrote there and I was on the forum

20:54

there and then somebody said to me, oh, you

20:56

say it wrong. I was like, what do you mean? Baseball

20:59

Primer. No, it's primer. It's

21:01

a primer. It's the British pronunciation.

21:03

I was like, well, I'm not British, so what do I

21:05

get? Anyway, before we

21:07

dive into that stuff, let's cover a couple of our quick sponsors

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They pick a couple each day that are like, here are our strongly

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24:36

so just

24:38

to kind of Clean

24:41

slate it the twins

24:43

spent like

24:45

a shade under 160 million this

24:47

year on

24:48

the payroll and

24:50

I think it was like 158 or

24:53

something like that, but that is

24:55

the highest in twins history by

24:58

a decent margin Yeah, however. It's

25:00

also 17th. It was 17th out of 30 in MLB Which

25:05

is you know exactly average basically?

25:09

This year's payroll was 17th their

25:12

payrolls the last five years were

25:15

17th 16th 17th 17th 18th We

25:21

know the level that they're sort of comfortable being

25:23

at under Derek fall be right and

25:25

we've talked about this a lot before I Personally

25:28

look any any team any

25:30

fan of any team in any sport? You

25:33

shouldn't salary cap sports. It's like they could

25:35

spend more they get up you can always spend more and especially

25:38

in baseball Yes, there's limitless spending if

25:40

the pole ads wanted to have a 600 million dollar

25:42

payroll I really want to be a top five payroll It

25:44

could be a number one payroll they get a billion

25:46

dollars a year whatever you get up to 350 million

25:49

dollars or something But they could do it if you're being realistic

25:51

which we try to do because look if we say Let's

25:54

pretend the twins are gonna spend 300 million on payroll,

25:57

and let's prove you the offseason Well, what good does that

25:59

do anyone they're not? going to do that. We

26:01

have a pretty good sense of where the twins are comfortable

26:03

spending given their market size,

26:05

given their revenue, given the contracts

26:08

they have, and it's basically average out

26:10

of 30. And we should also just say for the

26:12

most part, you'll get the occasional

26:14

renegade owner that will, Steve

26:16

Cohen or something. Even those are usually short

26:19

term because it doesn't always go well. You'll get the occasional

26:21

renegade owner that might put

26:23

all those chips onto the table for a

26:25

two or three year period. Yeah, San Diego just did

26:27

that. They didn't go well and now they're about to

26:29

trade away. The Mets are doing it right now and that's not going

26:31

well. But in general,

26:34

what you'll find out of those 30 teams is this

26:36

is about where they line up. The twins

26:38

are not an outlier

26:40

in terms of how they are spending

26:42

money given their market size. Right.

26:45

I mean, I would say for years, look,

26:48

we get outliers on both sides. Actually, you'll get somebody who's

26:50

overspending and you get the A's. Cleveland.

26:53

Right. For years, we kind

26:55

of banged the drum of they need

26:57

to spend more. And we haven't done

26:59

that as much of late, not because

27:02

our opinion of what teams

27:04

should spend has changed, but their spending

27:06

has increased. And they've gone

27:08

from often under Terry

27:11

Ryan being 22nd, 24th,

27:14

bottom third to now being average.

27:17

And that may seem like a small thing. And like I

27:19

said, you can always spend more, especially in

27:21

baseball. I'm not saying that's wrong. It would be great

27:23

if teams spent more. But why?

27:26

The thing I try to come back

27:28

to on the payroll arguments where people aren't

27:30

necessarily all that logical on it, which is why

27:34

would the Minnesota twins, given

27:38

the market size and the ballpark

27:40

and the revenue and the TV market, all the –

27:42

And the new TV catch. Everything. Yes.

27:45

Why would they be higher than average?

27:48

And kind of tied to that, if you're a person who thinks

27:50

the team should just spend more. Right. Well,

27:53

that's true of the other 29 teams too, right?

27:56

And so if the twins spent – should just spend more.

27:58

Sure. Yes. So should the Tigers

28:00

and the White Sox and the Yankees and the Dodgers

28:03

and everybody and I'm in bags. I don't know that you're

28:05

sort of standing within the 30 is going

28:07

to necessarily change. No matter how you slice

28:09

it, the twins are not a big

28:12

market. They're much closer to a,

28:14

you know, second or third tier market

28:17

or middle tier market. And so to me,

28:20

especially within the American League Central, where

28:22

by the way, their payroll was second out of five

28:25

in the American League Central behind only the White

28:27

Sox, I think there's a decent chance

28:29

that they lead the central in payroll this

28:31

upcoming season. Payroll is no

28:34

longer any kind of excuse for a lack

28:36

of winning. Once you have an average payroll

28:39

in a division where average puts you

28:41

neither top in spending because you're with Kansas City

28:43

and Cleveland and Detroit, the

28:46

payroll is an excuse anyway. And

28:48

so you can always push for spending

28:50

more. But to me, if you're going to spend an average amount

28:53

in with Minnesota as a market, you're

28:55

at least kind of doing your due diligence, checking

28:58

the box. I don't think they deserve a

29:00

parade thrown for being 17. But

29:02

I just think it's no longer kind of a point

29:05

of emphasis as a criticism. Would

29:07

it be great if they're 14 instead of 17? Yeah.

29:10

And this year is going to... Now, COVID

29:13

put it to the test because

29:15

revenue dropped across the board. This year is going

29:17

to put it to a test in a different way because as you

29:19

mentioned, as we've talked about quite a bit over the last

29:21

few months, but if you want a much deeper dive

29:23

into sort of the TV situation, whether it was a Patreon

29:26

episode that we did right after

29:29

speaking with Fallview and... Look for the one with the Fallview and Baldelli

29:31

recap where we kind of dove into that topic

29:34

quite a bit. But basically, they have

29:36

been making $55 million

29:38

a year

29:39

from Valley

29:40

to broadcast their games on Valley

29:42

locally. That contract is up.

29:45

It's done now. Yes. It's

29:48

all wins. Yes. It expired at the end of the

29:50

season. I mean, maybe it goes through the first year. I don't know. But

29:53

it's so effectively over. And

29:55

that whole situation

29:58

is just in chaos. television

30:00

market, not just in Minnesota, but across

30:02

baseball. The Diamondbacks and the Padres

30:05

have already kind of cancelled out their contracts and gone

30:07

under the umbrella of MLB. Teams are going to be scrambling

30:10

as their contracts expire. But

30:13

what it means for the twins for 2024 is, you know, you're taking 55

30:16

million in revenue out

30:20

of a pool of total revenue that's probably 250

30:22

to 300 million, roughly. So

30:25

that's, I don't know, 20% of your overall revenue. They

30:28

have no, I mean, they have some idea, but you're not

30:30

going to be able to recoup that. Even in a best

30:32

case scenario, if they land a new deal,

30:34

someone swoops in, tries to give them

30:36

a five year, it's not going to be for $55 million

30:39

a year, I don't think. And so then the question becomes,

30:41

well, how close to it is that? Is it 40 million

30:43

a year? Is it half? Is it 25 million a

30:45

year? And then from there, if you lose half

30:48

of your television revenue, that's

30:51

going to affect the payroll. And

30:53

typically it's about 50%. So if

30:56

your television revenue goes from 55 million to 25 million,

30:58

that's 30 million less you're

31:01

taking in, does that mean the payroll

31:04

goes down by 15 million? Or can

31:07

they put together a television package

31:09

that's at least closer than that so

31:11

it isn't a big drop off? The other option is

31:13

the poll is just say, screw it. You

31:16

know, we just signed a television deal that's half

31:18

what our last one was. That's unfortunate. We're

31:21

just going to make up for the lost revenue and just spend

31:23

the same amount anyway. Certainly, if

31:25

I were asked by them, I don't

31:28

expect that to happen, but if a Joe poll had called

31:30

me

31:31

up,

31:32

I would certainly make the case to them that

31:34

the kind of marginal spending,

31:38

you know, another $8 million, another $10 million

31:41

to at least maintain this level of payroll

31:43

can have outsized benefits that

31:46

go beyond just the next season.

31:48

It can be, that will help. It will help you add

31:50

a center field or it will help you add a starter, whatever

31:52

it is. But I just mean to keep the growth

31:55

or the morale of the fan base kind of rolling

31:58

here. I think if you

32:00

at least maintain the payroll, most

32:03

of the people, if they read a little bit about

32:05

the television situation or whatever, can at least make

32:07

sense of that. It didn't grow. But if

32:09

you drop it from 158 to 145, it's going to be very easy for people to say, they

32:15

finally want a playoff game and now they roll it back

32:17

and they do this. I would very much

32:19

tell them to avoid that at all costs. Yeah,

32:22

I think I agree with you. I think what

32:25

I would say is that in

32:27

every team's, especially

32:29

mid-level teams

32:31

cycle, there is a competitive window and the time

32:34

to invest more than you should is at

32:36

this point of that competitive cycle. I

32:38

think you've seen it with both

32:40

the Phillies and the Rangers where they

32:43

were like, hey, you know what? We've got a good

32:45

young core. Now is the time that you throw an extra $30

32:47

million a year in at signing Bryce Harper.

32:52

And then they did that over and over

32:54

and over again. They continued to do that. But

32:57

the point is that because you have that young core,

33:00

this is a pretty good time to invest. Yeah,

33:03

I will say that as we get

33:05

to the payroll, one of the things I'll just bring up, the

33:07

core is going to start getting more expensive too,

33:09

like in 2025, et cetera. But this

33:11

is the time of that cycle. And

33:15

maybe you approach it like, listen, we're going to try and keep

33:17

around the same payroll enough that we feel like

33:19

we've got a reasonable team. But if an opportunity

33:21

comes along, similar to

33:24

like, you know, Korea is a lot more

33:26

available than we thought it was or alternately,

33:28

Josh Donaldson is a lot more available than we thought

33:30

he was. I mean, that's not a great example, but this one,

33:33

the market for sunny gray

33:35

is less than we expected. Right. That

33:37

potentially would be a two or three year deal at a more reasonable price. We jump

33:39

back in there. If you see an opportunity

33:42

there, I would say don't be afraid

33:44

to say, certainly

33:47

if I was ownership, I would say, well, if we see an

33:49

opportunity like that, we need to go get that opportunity.

33:51

Now, it's easy to spend other people's money. I get

33:53

that. But also you do hear it, not necessarily

33:55

from the twins specifically, but from kind of everyone,

33:59

the opposite of. When a team

34:01

is in the building or rebuilding

34:03

cycle, part of the cycle, and

34:06

it's not a good team, the Rangers were like

34:08

that, even the Phillies were like that, the twins were like

34:10

that for half a decade or whatever, you

34:13

always hear, yeah, our payroll is low

34:16

now. We're only spending 80 million.

34:18

We used to spend 135 million or whatever. We're

34:21

only doing that. But once the winning starts

34:23

back up and the winning window opens back

34:25

up, well then we'll push all this

34:27

money and more into the middle here. Not

34:30

that we're literally taking unspent money

34:32

and putting it for a few years, but what you said,

34:35

and so you need the time to invest. You actually

34:37

have to see that come to fruition, I would say. I

34:40

don't really have a strong indication of what

34:42

I think will happen because it's so tricky without

34:44

knowing what the television situation is. Maybe we'll get some news at

34:47

the winner meetings. Maybe

34:49

not though. I

34:51

don't know that they'll have the television stuff figured out by

34:53

the winner meetings. The

34:55

revenues are dependent on that. You

34:57

could have your hands tied. They're not alone in that. There

35:00

are a handful of teams and then there are also teams

35:02

like Next Off season and another handful come up. With

35:06

that as sort of your overall

35:08

notion of payroll and spending, I would

35:10

say somewhere between 150 and 160

35:13

million seems like a reasonable baseline

35:16

that's average-ish spending, which they've been at, like

35:18

I said, for five years in a row. Here

35:20

are the guaranteed contracts that they have on

35:22

the books for 2024. These

35:26

guys are getting paid no matter what by

35:28

someone. They could get traded, obviously.

35:30

Some of them could be. But these are the salaries

35:33

that are on the books. So you have 32 million

35:36

for Correa plus there's a prorated

35:38

bonus amount that he gets, but I'm just going off

35:41

the base salary. It's essentially 36 overall,

35:43

but yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.

35:47

No, it's like 33 point because you've

35:49

spread it over the life of the contract. The bonus is

35:51

for like the luxury tax. For

35:54

luxury tax, yeah. Yes. He's

35:58

got a 32 million dollar base salary. Byron

36:00

Buxton has a $15 million base salary.

36:04

Christian Vasquez has a $10 million base

36:06

salary. Pablo Lopez

36:08

has an $8 million base salary. And by

36:10

the way, this is the last cheap year of

36:12

Pablo Lopez than his extension. One of

36:14

the reasons things start getting expensive at 25. He kicks

36:16

in and he starts making $21, $22 million a year.

36:21

So you have $8 million for Pablo Lopez, $2.5

36:24

million for Chris Patek, and

36:26

then $2.3 million for Randy Dovnek,

36:29

who has been injured and is not out

36:31

of the 40 minutes. So you add all that up, and

36:34

that's roughly $70 million. It's $69.8

36:36

million, something like that. Let's call

36:39

it $70. But that's actually misleading in

36:41

that, well, that's how many is that? Six

36:43

guys that I list? You got to then have,

36:46

even if that were all you had, you

36:48

got to fill out the roster with minimum salaries at that

36:50

point. So even with a $70 million commitment

36:53

to those guys, six guys or whatever, the

36:55

actual kind of lowest baseline

36:57

is about $85 million because the minimum

37:00

is $740,000, I think, for this year.

37:03

So you'd have to

37:04

fill out

37:05

the whole roster. $800,000, $750,000, I guess. So

37:08

then the next, not

37:11

guaranteed, but effectively guaranteed given

37:13

the actual players involved this time,

37:16

they have two team options. Now there are certainly

37:18

a lot of years, I looked back at last year, and

37:20

they had like five or six team options. The

37:22

vast majority of them were easy to climb, Miguel

37:24

Sanocris, Archer, that type of thing. Well,

37:26

this year's different. They have two team options to

37:28

decide on, and both of them are just absolute

37:31

no-brainers to exercise, pick up, say

37:34

yes to these options. And they're expensive.

37:36

Yes. Jorge Polanco, $10.5

37:38

million, Max Kepler, $10 million,

37:41

although that's not even... No, that's not that expensive.

37:45

But there's $20 million left of the remaining room

37:47

that you had. Both

37:50

those deals, if you don't exercise

37:52

at those prices, they each get a $1 million

37:54

buyout, which actually makes it even

37:57

easier, because it's only a $9 million decision

37:59

on Max Kepler. Kepler basically. Uh, Polanco,

38:02

so this is, this will be 2024 will

38:05

be Kepler's last year under team

38:07

control. This $10 million

38:09

option is his last year of his

38:12

entire contract. He will be just an outright free

38:14

agent after this year. Polanco has

38:16

one more, he has this year's upcoming

38:19

option for 10 and a half. And

38:21

then a 2025 option at 12 and a half. But

38:25

obviously if you were to decline the 2024 option,

38:28

you're also declining the 2025 option. Right.

38:31

So by exercising the 2024 option,

38:34

which to me is a no-brainer at 10 and a half million,

38:36

you know, for a above average starting second

38:39

baseman, you also then

38:41

keep alive the 2025 option,

38:43

which could matter to the twins or it could

38:45

also matter in terms of a trade

38:48

value. Even if you don't think

38:50

that you want Polanco or Kepler on the team,

38:53

it's a no-brainer to exercise those options

38:55

because they're tradable asset. Yes,

38:58

they both have more value than $10 million.

39:00

And if you're worried that they don't, well then just

39:02

make sure you do the trade before you actually have to pick up

39:05

the option. Well that's true. Right.

39:07

No, I mean they do. And that option by

39:09

the way, it has to be picked up the same time

39:12

that free agency starts. Yeah, so they know five

39:14

days of the end of the world series. Last out of

39:16

the world series. So that's 20.5

39:19

million that, well not guaranteed, it's

39:22

essentially guaranteed. Now again, you can trade

39:24

those guys. It's no-brainer. No, guaranteed versus

39:26

no-brainer. So now you're at roughly 90 million

39:30

in guaranteed salaries, effectively guaranteed

39:32

salaries. Okay, then you

39:34

get to the arbitration eligible players, which

39:37

are players who have completed like

39:40

three but can be two and

39:42

change seasons of service

39:44

time in the majors. You make the minimum

39:47

salary initially and then you get to a point,

39:49

let's just for the sake of simplicity call it three

39:51

years. It can be like two years, 2.9 years or whatever. You

39:56

then get built in raises. Actually this year

39:58

they've got a couple. But it's irrelevant. Team

40:00

control just means more money. The

40:04

arbitration system is set up for, you know,

40:06

guys are young, they make the minimum salary if

40:08

they prove worth keeping past two or

40:10

three years, then there's built-in raises.

40:13

You know, you jump from $700,000 to $2 million

40:15

and then the next year you might jump to $6 million and then

40:18

to $10 million, that sort of thing. Well,

40:20

they got a bunch of arbitration eligible guys. That's true

40:22

every offseason basically. They

40:24

have to me four

40:27

no-brainer, like you said, guys,

40:29

which is Willie Castro at $3.2 million.

40:33

These are, by the way, these projections are from MLB trade

40:35

rumors which has a, every

40:37

year they put out the arbitration projections based on

40:40

the, you know, mathematical system

40:42

that they have which generally, you know, big

40:44

picture is pretty accurate. It's the best thing we

40:46

got to try to figure out what these are. You

40:49

know, it can vary by $500,000 or a million or something like that. Willie

40:53

Castro, $3.2 million. Caleb Thefieldbar, $3

40:55

million. Ryan Jeffers, $2.3 million.

40:59

Alex Kirilloff, $1.7 million. I

41:02

think all four of those will be easy

41:05

decisions for the twins to keep those players.

41:07

They would be foolish not to do it. So

41:10

that's roughly $10 million right there.

41:12

Now you're at $100 million.

41:14

If you keep those four guys. Then

41:18

I would call these the borderline decisions.

41:21

There's three in my mind, arbitration wise, which

41:23

is Kyle Farmer at $6.6 million, Jorge

41:28

Alcala at $1 million, and Nick Gordon

41:30

at $1 million. And obviously, you know, the minimum

41:32

salary is almost $1 million anyway. It's $740,000.

41:36

So when I say Alcala or Nick Gordon

41:39

are borderline, it's not because they're going to cost $300,000 more

41:42

than the minimum. That's irrelevant basically. It's

41:45

a rounding error. But

41:47

the question with them is will they

41:49

be kept period? Do the

41:51

twins want to continue commitment

41:55

to them or will they just be dropped from

41:57

the 40-man roster? If you are going

41:59

to stick with one. or both of them, the million

42:01

dollar price tag is irrelevant. It does not scare

42:03

you off at all. And the

42:06

farmer is a much different situation. The twins would love

42:08

to keep farmer, but 6.6 million, 6.5

42:12

million is a lot for

42:14

a utility infielder

42:16

who's, you know, you probably want to give 300 at

42:18

bats a year or two, something like that, 250, 300 at

42:21

bats. You know, he's 33, I

42:23

think. He made

42:25

a little over 5 million this past

42:28

season, and so what's his difference? This isn't a huge

42:30

raise, right? No. But last

42:32

year when they traded for him, there was a possibility he would

42:34

still be the starting, he would be the starting shortstop,

42:36

right? I think his kind of importance to the

42:38

roster at the moment they acquired him

42:40

was much higher than it would be now because you

42:43

have Correa in the mix now, you have Royce Lewis at

42:45

third base, you got plenty of other infielders,

42:47

you know, in the majors or soon to be in the majors.

42:49

You know, he does fill a role. He's a guy

42:52

who hits lefties. He can play everywhere

42:54

in the infield. He's certainly well liked in the club

42:56

house. I don't think 6.5 million is

42:59

an outrageous salary for

43:01

the role he would likely fill, but

43:04

if the monetary issues

43:06

that we just discussed from revenue and payroll

43:10

are a factor, that is a very

43:12

easy way to cut, you know, $6 million right

43:15

there is to just replace him

43:18

with, you know, a lower-salaried veteran,

43:20

maybe making a million or two, or replace

43:23

him with a young player or try to bring him back

43:25

in a smaller salary, whatever it is. I would go as far

43:27

as saying, I think

43:30

one way or the other that $6.6 million isn't on the

43:33

twin roster next year. I don't

43:37

know. I really genuinely do think they would

43:39

like him back on and off the field, but

43:42

you're limited with what you can do in arbitration.

43:45

You can't give a guy like a true,

43:47

you know, demotion for salary. Exactly. So,

43:51

yeah. I mean, you could cut him loose and try to bring him back,

43:53

but one moment you cut him loose, he can go negotiate.

43:55

My point is, I think they'll try and trade him

43:57

to somebody before the actual arbitration

43:59

deadline. I think that is I think I think it'll

44:02

be similar to what we saw with Gio or shell last

44:04

year What they will do is they will shop it

44:06

or maybe even Eddie Rosario the

44:08

year before Yeah, but he's not just I

44:10

mean who's gonna want Kyle farmer at six point

44:12

six if the twins don't want them six point six So

44:14

somebody who's got a looking for

44:16

the same thing the twins were last year somebody who's

44:18

looking for a floor setting role for

44:21

Stomp played ten games at shortstop this year.

44:24

Yeah, but it's not like you can't play shortstop.

44:26

They just saw it the year before Well,

44:29

yeah, but he means playing behind Carlos Koreas that

44:31

his fault He wasn't playing sure I thought their plan was to

44:33

play him at shortstop But John how

44:35

many 34 year old short stops are there each

44:37

year at the age? Kyle farmer

44:40

is You lose a real high percentage

44:42

of your ability to play shortstop in the majors just big

44:44

picture and the fact that he didn't play Short stop

44:47

hardly at all this year. Isn't I his fault? Sure,

44:49

just read Korea had to be but he was coming off

44:51

two years as the Reds primary shortstop Well

44:53

now he's 33 and he really hasn't

44:56

been a primary shortstop now for a year Because

44:58

he didn't even finish two years ago as the Reds primary

45:00

shortstop. I just I would have a very

45:02

hard time Picturing a

45:05

team that both is willing

45:07

to spend six and a half million dollars

45:09

on Kyle farmer

45:11

one year Right because any bad

45:14

or rebuilding team isn't gonna do that right because

45:16

why we spend the money and any contending

45:18

team I don't think is gonna view him as a viable

45:21

everyday shortstop Agree

45:23

with you on the latter half of that. I'm not sure I agree

45:25

with you on the former half. So You

45:28

know if you were to pick up Keep

45:30

those three guys that adds another

45:33

what eight million or something like that So then you're at like 110 something

45:35

like that then the the

45:37

note the easy knows They've

45:40

already made the decision They dropped both guys from the 40-man

45:42

roster, which was Jordan Luplo who was projected at 1.6

45:44

million He's already been dropped and

45:47

Jose de Leon who was projected at 700,000 basically

45:50

the minimum salary. Yes, and he's already been dropped

45:52

too So really the only decisions

45:54

that they have arbitration wise are

45:57

do you want to keep farmer as sort of a? premium

46:00

backup and

46:02

then are you just keeping period,

46:05

Nick Gordon and or Jorge Alcolyte?

46:08

But even then you're not really a fat, with those

46:10

two it's not like you're impacting the payroll in any real

46:12

way. Either way they're gonna be replaced by somebody,

46:14

it's just whether or not it's a minimum salary person.

46:16

So it's a different combined of like half a million

46:18

dollars. So and again, you

46:21

have to fill in the blanks with minimum salaries, all that

46:23

stuff. So essentially, you

46:26

know, it can vary

46:28

eight million or so depending on those three guys.

46:30

But the actual kind of, as

46:32

it stands now baseline payroll

46:35

is like 110 million, roughly. You

46:38

know, you add farmer, go ahead and add

46:40

six million to that. If

46:44

they're willing to spend at the level

46:46

they did this year, which is 155, 160 million, you

46:51

got 45, $50 million to spend. But

46:55

if you're dropping payroll to 140 million, well

46:58

then all of a sudden you got 25, $30 million

47:00

to spend. That's a lot different because, and

47:03

we'll talk about free agents here in a second, you

47:06

do have some significant free agents

47:08

leaving, Sunny Gray being the most significant,

47:10

but also Ken D'Amida. I think

47:12

Joey Gallo. Yeah, that's right.

47:16

Tyler Mallia, it's gonna be hard to replace him. Dalles

47:20

Keichel. You'll never

47:22

replace him in Ted Schwerzler's heart,

47:25

no matter the price. But

47:28

I guess, in theory, saying, oh,

47:32

they got 40 or 50 million to spend, that

47:35

sounds like a lot of money. And you know, it

47:37

is a lot of money. But if you

47:39

need to sign a Sunny Gray equivalent,

47:43

well, that's like half that money probably. Or

47:45

trade for a Sunny Gray equivalent, or a third of that

47:47

money, let's say. And if you need to sign a center fielder,

47:51

that's, you know, eight to $10 million there. It

47:53

goes quick. Even if you're just gonna re-sign

47:56

guys like Donovan Solano, I mean, it starts to eat

47:58

into that. I think... Last

48:00

off-season when we kind of set this same table,

48:03

there was much more possibility in part because of the

48:05

Korea situation looming over everything but there

48:08

was much more possibility of being like, all

48:10

right, they could they could throw around a little money

48:12

here. Like they could actually target

48:14

some high-end guys and they ended up doing that. They

48:16

gave Carlos Korea $200 million. I don't really

48:18

see that happening necessarily this off-season.

48:22

They could. But that would mean potentially

48:27

short-suiting themselves in center field or something

48:29

like that and that one thing we know about this organization

48:31

is they care at

48:33

least as much about the floor as they do about the

48:35

ceiling. That's probably right. Now,

48:38

the Kiriloff thing, the

48:41

fact that they think they're going to have a healthy Kiriloff

48:43

at first base also changes

48:46

my perception of things a little bit

48:48

more than it was a week and a half ago. Yeah,

48:51

although what's a healthy Kiriloff? When

48:54

has that been, you know what I mean? Like

48:56

a skinny, erring gleam. It existed

48:58

at one point, but people have

49:01

seen it. It's like the Loch Ness Monster.

49:05

But so now

49:08

within that you can

49:10

create payroll space and

49:14

I really, these are self-imposed limitations.

49:17

I need to be very clear about that. But

49:21

again, we're trying to kind of be realistic with

49:23

their recent spending. You know,

49:25

if you were to trade Christian Vasquez

49:27

or Polanco,

49:30

Kepler, that sort of thing. I mean, you

49:32

can very easily clear 10, 20, 25 million in

49:37

addition to the 40 or 50 million that you

49:39

kind of already have. If you were to do that,

49:42

then yeah, you would have the ability to go sign someone

49:45

at 20-something million dollars a year or go make a trade

49:47

for a guy making significant money, even

49:49

maybe two guys, but that also creates holes

49:51

that you have to fill. I mean, trading Kepler

49:54

means, well, who's your right fielder? Or

49:56

who's your left fielder? Well, who's your right fielder? Trading Polanco means,

49:58

well, who's your right fielder? starting second baseman

50:01

on opening all that stuff. So

50:03

yeah, I mean I think, I don't think they're in a bad

50:05

spot. They're not, well look, if

50:08

the television situation is just worst

50:10

case scenario and it's going to affect the payroll,

50:12

they are going to be in a bad spot. But if that plays out, I think

50:14

most teams are going to be in a bad spot. I

50:17

think if they're at least willing to spend

50:19

similarly to last year or

50:22

this past season, they've got some room. They're

50:24

in a decent spot. At least they have enough

50:26

spending room that the money shouldn't affect

50:29

their decisions. In other words, they

50:32

can keep or cut Kyle

50:35

Farmer and not have to say,

50:37

we just don't have the money for Kyle Farmer. We have

50:39

to cut Kyle Farmer. You can at least make

50:42

logical decisions under that umbrella

50:44

of the spending. It looks like they've got $40,

50:47

$45 million to spend if they kind of keep it at a similar

50:49

level. And that's not even including if they actually

50:52

say, you know what, we could actually just

50:54

go up a cost of living wage here. Which

50:56

is generally what happens. If

51:00

they spent $155 million last year,

51:02

we'd be saying, they should probably be spending about $170 million

51:05

last year, next year. That would take a look

51:07

at it and go, geez, we've got a lot of money

51:09

to actually spend here. I don't

51:11

think so either. I mean, when we get

51:13

to, this is probably a good time for a

51:15

programming note, you also want

51:18

to have something to spend that money on. So

51:22

we're going to be doing a deep dive into probably

51:24

free agent pitchers and free agent hitters

51:27

as Patreon episodes, probably within the

51:30

next two weeks. I should just give us, this is a good

51:32

time to do a programming note. We will not have

51:34

a new free podcast coming out next

51:36

Friday. We're going to be doing it probably a week

51:39

and a half from now. Our availability

51:41

to do free podcasts, my availability to

51:43

do free podcasts basically in November

51:45

is going to be really tricky. So you're going to get about

51:48

a couple of free podcasts about every week and a half

51:51

or two weeks throughout November. So we're

51:53

going to have to skip a couple because if you want more

51:55

shows running around, subscribe to the Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N,

51:57

patreon.com slash gleeman. We'll be doing a. One

52:00

episode upcoming looking at all

52:02

the starting pitching free agents and who we

52:04

think is at the top of the list who the twins

52:07

could Target all that and then we'll do a second

52:09

one similar to that on hitters,

52:11

right? You know who would be the best fit center fielders

52:13

first base options that sort of thing We'll try to

52:15

cover that at a very high level here

52:18

But the truth is is that if you really

52:20

want to get into that they kind of see what's available

52:22

to spend that Yeah, 40 to 50 million dollars on

52:24

a patreon get on that page Yeah, you can

52:27

you can improve our revenue so that

52:29

our payroll 2024 that's right.

52:32

We got expenses to you think Bobby

52:34

Nightingale comes on the show for free. He hates

52:36

us We got to pay him millions of dollars

52:38

exactly, right? Yeah, you pay we

52:40

do pay I will say this and this was I

52:42

as partly my doing because I felt strongly about

52:45

this as someone I did too who has gone on radio

52:47

and podcasts for many years for

52:49

no money, right? We pair

52:51

get I challenge anyone To

52:54

show me an independent podcast that pays their

52:56

guests more than we pay. Yeah, there isn't one

52:59

I'll guarantee it because if there is one I'm gonna

53:01

be trying to be a guest on it We

53:05

get a we buy our friends Okay,

53:15

so that's kind of where

53:17

we're at in terms of You

53:20

know, I would say think of their

53:23

kind of starting point they're at the starting gate

53:25

of the offseason Right all the teams

53:27

pull up to the start line

53:29

They're

53:30

at about 110 think about that

53:32

in your head And if you think they're gonna maintain

53:34

a payroll that they had this past season

53:37

They have about 50 million to spend if you

53:39

think they're gonna if you're really pessimistic You think it's

53:41

gonna drop by 15 million then they got

53:43

about 35 million to spend 30 million to spend

53:45

and within that You got to do something with

53:47

the rotation because you're losing two-fifths of

53:49

your rotation and you got to do something in center

53:52

field Because you're losing Michael a Taylor who was your

53:54

starting center fielder Beyond that there

53:56

aren't a lot of and I think this is different than last

53:58

offseason to last Last season they just had

54:01

like very clear holes. It was clear they needed

54:03

to find a second catcher. It was clear they

54:05

needed to find a shorter stop. And then even

54:07

within that, there were a couple other areas. And

54:10

so this time around, starting

54:12

pitcher, they just need somebody who's

54:15

as good as gray or near that level, something like

54:17

that, in my mind, or even Maeda. And

54:20

they need somebody to go play center field, depending

54:22

on what happens with Bayern-Bucks. Beyond that,

54:24

you could kind of roll this whole thing back if

54:26

you wanted to. And I don't even

54:28

mean you'd have to re-sign everybody. I just mean

54:31

you could fill in the blanks with a young player. That's a not

54:33

trade away guy. Right. Right. And kind

54:35

of roll it back. And that's also potentially

54:37

an interesting position. Part of me thinks, well,

54:39

it could be an easy off season then. Yeah. You

54:41

just re-sign Kenta Maeda, or you sign a different

54:44

veteran starter. You re-sign Michael Taylor,

54:46

or you go get, I don't know, Harrison Bader

54:48

or somebody like that, Kevin Kiermaier to play center field

54:51

on a short term deal. And then you just sit

54:53

on your hands for three months. I

54:56

don't know how much we talked about this in the Favi Levine,

54:58

when we're sort of like previewing some

55:00

of that. I'm going to be interested to see

55:03

how aggressive this off season, how aggressive

55:06

the front office is this off season. Because you're

55:08

right. What they could do is say, listen, we're

55:10

going to get not kicked out of us on this TV revenue thing.

55:13

We know we've got a bunch of raises that we're giving out next

55:15

year, because not only do we got Lopez and Patek making

55:17

more, we've got a bunch of guys hitting arbitration

55:20

next year. Both Ober and Joe Ryan are going to hit arbitration

55:23

next year. This is the year we need to

55:26

keep our powder dry, so to speak. You know what I mean?

55:28

We're going to roll out $130 million payroll. We're

55:31

going to react to the

55:33

TV revenues thing. We're going to get ourselves

55:35

a center fielder, maybe fill in a couple of other

55:37

small gaps for some bluffs, and then call it

55:40

a day. They could do that. And

55:43

that's not a totally unreasonable stance.

55:45

But it hasn't really been their MO, necessarily. But

55:49

this ownership group, not ownership

55:51

group, this front office, has,

55:54

for the last few years, been big game hunters

55:57

in a lot of the big ones. I mean, certainly relative

55:59

to the last. 40 years of this one. Yeah,

56:01

but I mean, yeah, the Korea thing was one now. Obviously,

56:03

they lucked out on a lot of things for that

56:06

to happen, right? But Josh Donaldson was another

56:08

example. Korea was twice. Josh Donaldson once. Trading

56:11

for Pablo Lopez with Luis Arraison. I mean, that's

56:13

an example. I mean, trading for Malley, trading for

56:15

Sonny Gray. You can argue the

56:19

intelligence of some of these movies or how they

56:22

turned out, good or bad, in the moment or in

56:24

retrospect. Absolutely. But

56:26

one thing they generally haven't done. Right.

56:29

You know, it's a mixed bag for sure. I mean, just from

56:31

the ones we just mentioned. Yeah, but 50-50, right? And

56:35

so I'm not phrasing this as like

56:37

praise necessarily, but

56:40

they very rarely just kind of gone,

56:42

yeah, we're fine. We're fine as is. It's

56:45

fine. Like, let's just sit here. The mentality seems to

56:47

be, let's get better, let's get better, let's

56:49

get better. And if that means taking

56:53

a risk on a big trade or

56:55

on a big signing,

56:58

yeah, there are certainly levels to which

57:00

they are comfortable or uncomfortable. They have not offered

57:03

a seven or eight or nine year, ten year deal.

57:05

We talked about that the offseason with

57:07

Falvy last year. Well, and they haven't really spent

57:10

on free agent pitching at all. Like they

57:12

got Pablo Lopez and expended him, but that wasn't

57:14

free agent pitching. But yeah, they haven't, I don't want to call

57:16

it, I don't know, complacency is probably the wrong word, but very

57:19

rarely, and I think it stems in part

57:21

from their tolerance

57:24

for risk is just much higher than Terrians

57:27

was in general. I

57:29

think they view risk as like a positive thing,

57:32

partly where Terrian was definitely

57:34

afraid of it. And I

57:36

think one of the foremost

57:39

characteristics of this regime, as individuals

57:43

but certainly collectively is, they

57:46

want to turn over every stone. You

57:48

know what I mean? They want to kick every tire.

57:50

They want to look behind door number three

57:52

and door number four and door number 500. And

57:55

if you do that enough, you are going to come

57:57

across, you know, if you do

57:59

that enough versus saying we're

58:02

kind of sad here. We don't really have any holes.

58:04

Why make calls and why try to see who's available

58:07

and why do this and do that? Why feel

58:09

offers on building block guys that we like

58:11

like Louisa Rise let's say. But

58:13

they're so willing and place

58:16

so much value on kind of figuring

58:19

out what all the options truly are. Trade

58:22

market, free agency, all this

58:24

stuff like could we sign this guy and move this

58:26

guy to the bullpen? Could we sign this guy and move this guy

58:28

to another position? What would be like could we

58:30

just have this guy as a high-end backup? Like they're

58:33

trying to uncover.

58:36

I get when I go to the grocery store with Becky,

58:38

she hates going to the grocery store with me because

58:41

I walk up and down every aisle every

58:44

time I go. It takes me five hours

58:47

unless you know it's all right. I'm grandma one thing. If we go to the first

58:49

you're kicking the tires on everything. Here's

58:52

why. I want to see new

58:54

products. I want to see what's on sale.

58:57

I want to see maybe I just spot something that I've never

58:59

seen before and I go that looks pretty good. Mostly

59:02

it's the chip aisle that I'm spending my time in. You go shopping

59:04

in the grocery store the way she goes shopping for clothes.

59:08

I think

59:11

Fauvie and this regime take

59:13

that approach which is they're walking up

59:16

and down every aisle not because they're going

59:18

to go nuts and fill their whole cart. They

59:20

don't know in the second to last

59:23

aisle of the grocery store maybe there's some end

59:25

cap that

59:27

something's half off and you go well that's

59:29

good. It's cheap. Why not?

59:32

Or maybe there's something that's a brand new

59:34

product that you've never seen before. It's like Oreo's

59:36

got French toast flavoring

59:39

now or whatever. It's like let's get that. As a result

59:42

the second week of January are going crazy because

59:44

they're not spending the money that we think that they should

59:46

be having. She refuses to go to the grocery store

59:50

with me anymore. That I think

59:53

lends itself to expecting

59:55

not

59:56

Blockbuster moves although they have had plenty

59:58

of those the last three or four hours. off-seasons. But

1:00:01

more movement than I guess like this current

1:00:03

state of the roster would necessitate

1:00:06

and that could mean trading someone like Polanco or a

1:00:08

coupler. It could mean you know signing

1:00:11

or trading for a gray replacement

1:00:13

that we just kind of don't see coming. It

1:00:15

could mean trading a young player that

1:00:18

people currently perceive as a building block

1:00:21

and they just think there's good value. And so they

1:00:24

are going up and down the aisles. They are kicking

1:00:26

all the tires and so I think well it's possible

1:00:28

that we laid out that they could just kind of go

1:00:30

you know what, re-sign Michael Taylor,

1:00:33

bring back Ken Tamayeda to

1:00:35

be a third starter, add a piece or two

1:00:37

as depth you know a new Kyle Farmer, a

1:00:40

new Donovan Solano or those guys themselves

1:00:42

and let's just go out and do this again. It

1:00:45

seems unlike them not

1:00:48

because they're against the idea of kind

1:00:51

of status quo but just they're too

1:00:53

curious to do that. They're

1:00:56

too wanting to push the margins

1:00:58

and they want to see all the new products. They

1:01:00

want to see everything that's available. So you can't

1:01:02

spend you know the first the

1:01:05

two weeks of the postseason and then the week after

1:01:07

the postseason talking about how awesome

1:01:09

it was being there and how important it was

1:01:12

and how it means something to the franchise and

1:01:14

you know preaching that to the fan base

1:01:16

and hoping that they're gonna be signing up for some season

1:01:19

tickets and all this other stuff. We're gonna

1:01:21

do nothing for five months. I don't

1:01:23

think you can do that. Although I guess the argument

1:01:25

would be this team finally was different,

1:01:28

this team finally broke through, why do we want to change

1:01:30

it? But that's not how sports work.

1:01:33

If you're staying, if

1:01:35

you're staying status

1:01:38

quo you're likely getting passed and

1:01:40

I don't mean like Cleveland's passing on but

1:01:42

the idea of let's just roll back this exact

1:01:44

same roster, I mean you see this all the time like a Super

1:01:47

Bowl winning team or something will be like oh we got the same,

1:01:49

we have no big losses and then they lose three

1:01:52

more games than they did the year before or whatever. I

1:01:54

think that's kind of how I view it which

1:01:56

is you could go with the status quo

1:01:58

this offseason. Tinker around the margins,

1:02:01

try to replace Gray and or Maeda,

1:02:03

find a new short-term center fielder and

1:02:07

just kind of say, well, we'll be

1:02:09

favored to win the division. We'll have depth. We

1:02:12

can make in-season moves. You could always trade Jorge Polanco

1:02:14

mid-season if Brooks Lee is ready or whatever like

1:02:16

that. I think they're too curious

1:02:18

to do that. At

1:02:21

least that's my hope because not

1:02:23

that I think rolling it back would be bad, but

1:02:26

it's not as interesting. I mean, it's also,

1:02:29

you know, you've got a good base like that.

1:02:31

You just want to stay on there or do you want to build on

1:02:33

that base? This feels like an opportunity. You

1:02:36

can view it two ways. You can view it as a, you

1:02:38

know, a nice safe thing to do or you

1:02:40

can view it as, we've got this opportunity now.

1:02:43

Like we just laid out they've got

1:02:45

some real money. Now they might not have the free

1:02:48

agents, the free agent market that we were hoping

1:02:50

for to do it. But I think it almost lends itself

1:02:52

to being

1:02:55

more creative. Yes. Because

1:02:58

it's like we can go out there and try to make

1:03:00

a few nutty things happen or just

1:03:02

off the radar outside the box things

1:03:04

happen. If it doesn't happen, we can just sit

1:03:06

with what we have and we're fine. But

1:03:10

yeah, I don't know. I would expect some moves. So

1:03:12

before we talk about the free agents and

1:03:14

some rule five stuff and just finish up and then we'll play

1:03:17

a clip from the Bobby Nightingale interview too.

1:03:19

Right. Let's talk about our last couple of sponsors here. Speaking of

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1:04:39

gleeman. Wolves season

1:04:41

just started. We got the first home

1:04:43

game coming this Saturday night and if you're looking for tickets

1:04:47

and you've also, by the way, Wilds just started

1:04:49

up. They got the snot kicked out of them by the Flyers

1:04:51

unfortunately. I'm going to hear about that for a long time. You know about that snot kicking?

1:04:53

I've noticed. Yeah. Yes,

1:04:55

you can get. The same time is

1:04:58

the app. Their specialty is

1:05:01

hard to find tickets, not just for sporting events but

1:05:03

like concerts and shows and stuff and

1:05:05

last minute. Yeah, it's not a website. It's an

1:05:07

app. It's an app on your phone. Download the app and

1:05:09

what you'll find out there is yeah, you get lots of different tickets

1:05:11

out there. You'll get tickets for sporting events.

1:05:14

We've been talking for six months about twins

1:05:16

tickets but the truth is they've got them for Wolves and they've got

1:05:18

them for Wilds and they've got them for Vikings and they've got them for Gophers.

1:05:21

And the beauty is you can kind of do your shopping as

1:05:24

last minute as you want. You can be walking to Target

1:05:26

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1:05:28

some cheap tickets here in section whatever and by the

1:05:31

time you get to the door, you got it on your phone,

1:05:33

you just show them, you go right in. John has done that to

1:05:35

many a twins game. That's right. All

1:05:37

the concerts too. So all you need to

1:05:39

do is again, it's an app,

1:05:41

not a website. GameTime

1:05:44

is the name of it. Yeah, so you download the GameTime

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app. Then you create an account and

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when you use the code Gleeman, you're

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going to get 20 bucks off your first purchase to kind of try it

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Yeah, I've never I

1:06:14

don't love my last name, but it's easy

1:06:18

And a huge fan of it. It's a weird a lot easier

1:06:20

to spell that bonus Yeah, not

1:06:22

a change did it Ellis Island or wherever you guys

1:06:25

got into the country originally. I just go with bonus

1:06:27

B2N US better Or

1:06:31

bones that have been sure they call you on the morning

1:06:33

show anyway Johnny go Johnny bones

1:06:35

Johnny boons. Yeah Bony

1:06:38

yeah, I've got a lot of

1:06:40

nicknames of my life Yeah,

1:06:43

and also people we've known for 15 years

1:06:45

call you bought us all the time you're right always

1:06:47

funny Okay,

1:06:50

so to finish up on this You

1:06:53

know we've kind of laid out the different types

1:06:55

of commitments They can make before

1:06:57

the offseason begins They

1:07:00

also have we mentioned most of them, but

1:07:02

just to go over it more completely a decent

1:07:05

sized group of free agents,

1:07:07

so Sunny Gray's the headliner

1:07:10

obviously yep Also

1:07:12

on the pitching side you have Ken to my Ada yep

1:07:14

You have Emilio Pagan you have Dallas

1:07:16

Kiko and then we mentioned Tyler Malloy He's

1:07:19

gonna be rehabbing from from surgery

1:07:21

for most of the most of the season on

1:07:24

the hitting side Michael a

1:07:26

Taylor who was their starting center fielder Donovan

1:07:28

Solano? Who was you know

1:07:30

played a much bigger role than he was certainly brought

1:07:32

in to play and did a pretty good job I would say yep,

1:07:35

and then Joey Gallo who we just joked

1:07:37

about but of that group

1:07:41

You know I would say Under

1:07:44

the right circumstances they

1:07:46

should be or would be interested in certainly

1:07:48

gray coming back sure Ken to

1:07:50

my Ada probably Emilio

1:07:52

Pagan perhaps Michael

1:07:55

a Taylor perhaps and Donovan Solano

1:07:57

perhaps. I don't think Joey Gallo will be

1:07:59

back You

1:08:01

didn't laugh that hard at it. I

1:08:03

don't think Tyler Malley will be back. And if

1:08:06

you were back, it wouldn't be a 2024 factor anyway. And

1:08:09

I don't think Dowel would be back. I did give some thought

1:08:11

to whether or not they would consider giving Malley

1:08:14

a Pineda kind of deal. I

1:08:16

just can't believe they would do that. So

1:08:19

if you have, what did I just say, five guys

1:08:21

that you might be interested in bringing back

1:08:23

under the right circumstances, for

1:08:25

Gray, I feel like we've discussed this endlessly

1:08:28

except every time we do a mail bag for

1:08:30

the podcast or I do one for the athletic, those are always

1:08:32

the questions. They will make the qualifying

1:08:34

offer to Sonny Gray, which will be

1:08:36

in about, I don't know, two, three weeks or whatever. The

1:08:39

qualifying offer is effectively a one year, $20

1:08:42

million contract that he can accept

1:08:44

or decline. He will decline

1:08:46

it because he can just do much better

1:08:48

than a one year, $20 million contract as a free agent.

1:08:51

At the point at which he declines it, then

1:08:54

he's just a straight up free agent. The twins

1:08:57

are free to negotiate with him as they would any

1:08:59

other free agent, but they have no more kind

1:09:01

of advantage other than any team

1:09:04

that signs him that isn't the twins will

1:09:06

have to lose a draft pick, like effectively

1:09:09

a second round draft pick to sign him, which

1:09:11

does drag down his market value a little bit.

1:09:14

If he does sign elsewhere, the twins

1:09:16

will get what is effectively a late

1:09:18

first round draft pick as compensation.

1:09:21

That factors into even their view of it,

1:09:23

which is, let's say

1:09:25

Sonny Gray's market is a little bit down from

1:09:28

what you would expect or what he would expect. Let's

1:09:30

say he's available, I don't

1:09:32

know, on a three year, $60 million deal,

1:09:35

which to me would be a bargain given some

1:09:37

of the contracts guys like Chris Bassett have gotten

1:09:39

in recent years. But

1:09:42

for the twins, yes, would you want

1:09:44

Sonny Gray back three years, $60 million?

1:09:47

I would certainly say if you want him back, you'd

1:09:49

want him back at that price because that's on the low

1:09:51

end, except you're not going to get a first round pick,

1:09:54

which carries a value of about $5 million. So

1:09:56

that's part of it. I think that

1:09:59

we're going to see.

1:09:59

I

1:10:02

would not expect him back. I

1:10:04

think they're open to it and they're interested

1:10:06

in it but I just don't see them, I mean

1:10:09

we just mentioned they've just the most they've

1:10:11

ever spent on free agent pitching, the

1:10:13

most this regime has ever spent on a free agent pitcher

1:10:16

is 20 million. Total,

1:10:18

not per year, total. I think they are, listen

1:10:21

I think they like Sonny Gray a lot but I think they also have

1:10:24

other guys out there that they like a lot.

1:10:26

He's 33. Kind

1:10:29

of similar to what we just talked about. It feels like that's

1:10:31

their retreat staying on your base and

1:10:34

trying something a little more creative and this group tends

1:10:36

to want to try stuff. Yeah I mean put it

1:10:38

this way, if Sonny Gray weren't leaving

1:10:41

the twins, if he were just Sonny

1:10:44

Gray and let's say I'd spent the last two years with the

1:10:46

Reds, had the exact same performance,

1:10:49

would we be sitting here saying I bet the

1:10:51

twins try to sign him for three years 75 million? Well

1:10:54

no, we would never expect the twins to pay 75 million

1:10:57

over three years or even 65 million over

1:10:59

three years to a 33 year old starting pitcher who's

1:11:01

thrown you know more than 150 innings

1:11:03

once in the last six years or whatever. Sonny

1:11:06

Gray's a really good pitcher, they would love to, first of all they would

1:11:08

love it if he accepted the qualifying offer. Sure.

1:11:10

Because then that's a one year 20 million dollar deal,

1:11:12

you get to bring him back and you don't have to make a long-term commitment

1:11:15

but he's never gonna accept that and so then

1:11:17

it just becomes a question of what is his market,

1:11:19

you know what are they willing to commit

1:11:22

on

1:11:23

a you

1:11:24

know a two-year deal would be a lot different than

1:11:26

a three year deal. I kind of think there's some

1:11:29

possibility he gets a three year plus an option

1:11:31

or a three year plus a vesting option type of thing.

1:11:34

I think a straight up four year deal given some

1:11:36

of the the revenue issues teams

1:11:38

are facing seems kind of unlikely but it only takes one.

1:11:40

I mean he's a 33 year old all-star,

1:11:43

he's certainly one of the three or four best

1:11:45

pitchers on the free agent market. Well

1:11:47

I mean we'll have some actual rankings probably next week on the

1:11:49

patreon but I just I

1:11:52

think it's unlikely not because of Sonny

1:11:54

Gray just because

1:11:57

not because they don't want him back or he doesn't want to be back

1:11:59

just because

1:11:59

because

1:12:00

they've never spent, what it would

1:12:02

take to get Sonny Gray back is not

1:12:04

a level they've ever spent on for agent pitching

1:12:07

this regime. Now, Kenta

1:12:09

Maeda, much different. If

1:12:12

you want Kenta Maeda back, you're not going

1:12:14

to – I was right, he's not going to get the qualifying

1:12:16

offer. People were so mad at me during

1:12:18

the middle of the season or even late

1:12:20

in the season when I was like, he's not getting

1:12:22

the qualifying offer. Yeah, I mean, one of those things where

1:12:24

if he would continue to pitch like he had

1:12:26

all the way through in July and

1:12:29

August and September, but that was – But the

1:12:31

things that make him unlikely to get the qualifying

1:12:33

offer also make that unlikely, which is he's 35.

1:12:36

I mean, that was certainly unnecessary. He's 35.

1:12:41

He pitched very well after

1:12:43

the April and May injured list

1:12:45

stint. A lot of strikeouts. He's

1:12:48

not someone who's ever lived on velocity,

1:12:50

so the fact that he was like 91 miles an hour with his

1:12:52

fastball doesn't scare me that much. Is he

1:12:55

a guy you

1:12:57

want to commit multiple years to at this point?

1:12:59

No. But if he were available

1:13:01

at a one year, I don't know, $12

1:13:04

million deal or one year

1:13:06

in an option or even two years, 20 million

1:13:09

or something like that, I think that's a much more

1:13:11

realistic possibility than Sonny Gray. I

1:13:13

haven't gone through the free agent pitchers and sort of ranked

1:13:15

to them right now and kind of said like here's where they're all going

1:13:17

to fall down, but that strikes me as about the right

1:13:20

range, right? One year, $12 million, one

1:13:22

year maybe, one year 14. Something

1:13:24

like that, yeah. Maybe two years, 20 maybe

1:13:27

two years, 22, 24. I

1:13:30

mean, we'll see. It depends. I also just

1:13:33

think there's even... It's not a great free

1:13:36

agent pitching class relative to like the last three or

1:13:38

four. It's relatively

1:13:40

deep though in like mid rotation

1:13:42

starters, which is where I would put Maeda

1:13:44

at age 35. And so, yes, I

1:13:47

know twins fans are fond of Maeda and the twins

1:13:49

are fond of Maeda too, but I think the way they tend

1:13:51

to view these things is they would have him in a

1:13:53

bucket or in a group with three or four

1:13:56

other guys that they also view as kind of aging

1:13:59

mid rotation. guys and if he has

1:14:01

a market that's gonna get two years 25 million

1:14:04

they'll just move on to the next. And so if

1:14:06

they view themselves of already having sort

1:14:09

of a floor set, which they

1:14:11

have five star, I mean if they had to they could go

1:14:13

with Louis Varlin as a good starter. Chris

1:14:15

Paddock is going to effectively replace

1:14:17

one of Gray and

1:14:20

Maeda. What we've seen from

1:14:22

this group is that once they feel they got that floor

1:14:24

set they don't feel the need necessarily

1:14:26

to shop in the mid-range. They

1:14:28

tend to shop on the higher range, which is why I'm,

1:14:32

you know, again that kind of comes down

1:14:34

to the earlier conversation. They just roll

1:14:36

it back with, you know, let's bring back

1:14:39

Maeda for 12 or 13 million dollars. I

1:14:41

mean I think that would make sense. Because

1:14:44

under that scenario, you're

1:14:46

starting rotation, like opening day starting

1:14:49

rotation would be Pablo Lopez, you know,

1:14:51

and then in some order Joe Ryan, Bailey

1:14:53

Ober, Chris Paddock, Kenta Maeda. I'm

1:14:56

not saying that is a championship caliber starting rotation.

1:14:58

It's less good than this year's starting rotation

1:15:01

because funny Gray is better than all those other guys. But

1:15:04

that pushes Louis Varlin likely to either

1:15:07

trip away or the bullpen to begin the season. We

1:15:09

talked a lot about that on last couple of Patreons, bullpen

1:15:12

possibility for him, if you're curious about that. I

1:15:15

think that more fits their approach. And

1:15:17

then with Maeda, I don't know that you can count

1:15:19

on him at age 36 making it through 30

1:15:21

starts or whatever, except the goal there would

1:15:24

be get the value early

1:15:26

in the season. And then if he does fade or

1:15:28

gets hurt or whatever, you have Louis

1:15:30

Varlin then ready to step in or you have David Festa

1:15:32

in the second half ready to step in a prospect of young

1:15:34

guys something like that. On the hitting side,

1:15:38

I guess I'll include Pagan in this too. Pagan

1:15:43

was really good this year. However,

1:15:46

he very rarely got anything resembling

1:15:48

a high leverage situation. I mean, they

1:15:50

were clearly handling him in a

1:15:53

way that kind of protected or

1:15:56

shielded him from true downside. Now

1:15:58

within that he pitched really well. Is

1:16:01

he a guy that given how

1:16:03

well he pitched and the durability he showed

1:16:05

which they really value a lot He's always available

1:16:08

like you know, I think he led the bullpen

1:16:10

in the innings 70 innings or something like that. Yep You

1:16:13

see a guy if he wants to take a one-year, I don't

1:16:15

know six million dollar deal or something like that to return

1:16:19

Would they be into that maybe although

1:16:21

they just have spent such little money

1:16:23

on pitch on free agent relievers Over

1:16:26

the years even like last season we were like

1:16:29

it was mind-boggling They were like they're doing nothing

1:16:31

with the bullpen at all Yes And even

1:16:33

two years ago Joe Smith was their big pickup

1:16:35

for the bullpen And so I that's kind of

1:16:37

why I view that as unlikely not necessarily

1:16:40

because of anything but gone I would just put the

1:16:42

over under how much they're gonna spend on bullpen at 4

1:16:44

million right? I just right especially

1:16:47

maybe four and a half especially given the payroll

1:16:49

situation. It's the easy right spot to not spend

1:16:51

money, right? Then that leaves

1:16:54

Taylor and Solano and he's

1:16:56

kind of how I view this Both

1:17:00

of those guys did a really nice job. Yes They're

1:17:04

well respected veteran guys Taylor's 32

1:17:06

and Solano was 35 or something like that.

1:17:08

I think They

1:17:11

both were brought in as depth and ended up

1:17:13

serving much bigger roles than expected

1:17:15

and did just fine and at times thrived

1:17:18

In those roles, I think Solano had like the third most

1:17:20

played appearances on the team Taylor ended up

1:17:22

starting 110 games in center field They were both

1:17:24

really good But for whatever

1:17:26

reason so neither of those guys are gonna get

1:17:29

big long-term offers as reagents course. There's

1:17:31

no reason Maybe

1:17:34

Taylor could get a two-year offer But I would kind of expect

1:17:36

both those guys get one year offers as free agent

1:17:38

man. Let's I mean you never know I

1:17:40

mean, yeah view him much the same way

1:17:43

as farmer, you know Yeah, like

1:17:45

easy, you know, he's he's somebody who's you

1:17:47

know, except he's actually played a lot of center

1:17:49

field this year He's a little trickier though, but they

1:17:52

traded for Taylor right at the

1:17:54

second year of a two-year contract So we don't

1:17:56

know really what his free agent market would have been we

1:17:58

have but we know with Solano Solano

1:18:00

was unsigned into spring training last year and then

1:18:02

took a $2 million deal from the twins. It's

1:18:05

fair, but we also know they didn't give up hardly anything for Taylor

1:18:07

at $4.5 million for one year. But

1:18:09

there wasn't people, and he was available all

1:18:11

off season. Right. So

1:18:14

theoretically, you could again just say, you

1:18:16

know, Taylor made $5 million, give him one

1:18:19

year $8 million deal to come back as your center

1:18:21

fielder. Give Solano a one year $3.5 million

1:18:24

deal to fill the same platoon

1:18:26

role with Kiriloff at first base. I

1:18:29

would have no problem with that as

1:18:32

a bigger picture idea or

1:18:35

individually with those two guys. But

1:18:37

for whatever reason, the twins have just very

1:18:39

rarely done that with

1:18:42

their kind of one year fines. Sure.

1:18:44

Like, I go back to like Matt Whistler. Most

1:18:47

of them haven't worked out as well as Taylor

1:18:49

and Solano did. The Tyler Clippers

1:18:51

of the world and the Matt Whistlers of the world

1:18:53

and I think about some of the other, I mean, they've

1:18:55

had some one year stopgap guys that

1:18:58

have worked okay. And for the most

1:19:00

part, they don't seem to get like kind

1:19:02

of overly attached to the specific

1:19:04

player. Right. What they

1:19:06

try to do is let's find the next Michael Taylor. Let's find the next

1:19:09

Donovan Solano. And if the next Michael

1:19:11

Taylor ends up being Michael Taylor, that's

1:19:13

fine. But I don't think they place more

1:19:16

emphasis on retaining what you

1:19:18

have. I think they just view them. They

1:19:20

view Taylor as the

1:19:23

number four best center fielder. If

1:19:26

we need to sign him, we can sign him. They're fairly fungible

1:19:28

with other options as well such as, you

1:19:30

know, Kiermaier or some of those other guys who might be available

1:19:33

where you're like, you

1:19:35

know, also if, you

1:19:38

know, Michael Taylor playing as

1:19:40

much as he did and having as much success as he did is

1:19:43

based on the fact that they gave him 130 starts

1:19:45

out there and because as a result of that, he's available

1:19:47

and somebody on the market wants to sign number seven and a half

1:19:49

million dollars. Well, maybe they move on to the

1:19:51

guy who doesn't have that for four and a half million

1:19:53

dollars. Yes. I think that's about

1:19:55

right. Yeah. I wouldn't expect. I

1:19:58

mean, I

1:19:59

I

1:19:59

People will say this about pretty much every free agent every

1:20:02

year. If

1:20:04

you don't expect them to return, you're more

1:20:06

likely to be right than us. Of course. That's

1:20:09

just how free agency works. Everyone likes to talk

1:20:11

about the duckies and bunnies and say, we

1:20:13

loved it here, we love this guy. But

1:20:16

when the – And they do. But

1:20:18

when you can negotiate with 30 teams, the

1:20:21

one team that you just came for, 18 players, right,

1:20:24

doesn't have that big of a leg up. And I

1:20:26

think that, to me, out

1:20:30

of all these free agents, would I expect at least

1:20:32

one to return?

1:20:33

Yeah.

1:20:35

But individually, I would not

1:20:37

bet 50% even on any of them, including

1:20:39

like Maeda or including Taylor

1:20:41

or Solano. I agree. Rank them in terms of

1:20:43

likelihood to come back.

1:20:46

Taylor's number one. Well, so we just do

1:20:48

the five that we think they'd be interested in, basically.

1:20:51

Yeah. I guess Taylor would

1:20:53

probably be number one. I would say maybe Maeda

1:20:55

number two, Pagan number

1:20:58

three, Solano number four, Sonny

1:21:00

Gray number five. Now there's a lot of different reasons

1:21:02

for those. Right. That's right. Part

1:21:04

of it is I don't think they've – I think they feel like Donovan Slalom

1:21:06

is 36 and he was good, but that's

1:21:09

a role that you can fill pretty easily.

1:21:11

Right. Whereas with Sonny Gray, they'd

1:21:13

love to have him, but he's going to be more expensive.

1:21:15

Would you give any of them other than Taylor

1:21:19

even a 20% chance of coming back? A 20%

1:21:23

chance, yes, but not a 50% chance

1:21:25

of coming back. But who would you give at 20%

1:21:27

chance of coming back? I think Maeda has got a decent chance

1:21:29

of coming back. Again, 20% is high. That

1:21:31

implies – I know. That's what I'm saying. If

1:21:34

five teams are interested in them, you're one of five

1:21:36

teams, basically. See, I see what you're saying there. Yeah,

1:21:38

I mean, I just think in general – I don't think I'd give any

1:21:40

of them other than Taylor 20%. Yeah, I mean, that's

1:21:42

fair. Even at 20%, if

1:21:45

there's five or six of them, you

1:21:47

might expect one out of the five or six to come

1:21:49

back. Right. But yeah,

1:21:51

that's where they're at with free agents. I think, to

1:21:55

me, the biggest single question

1:21:57

of the entire offseason –

1:21:59

and it really

1:21:59

relates to Gray and Maeda, but bigger picture

1:22:02

is, how are they gonna approach

1:22:05

losing both those guys and then just the

1:22:08

rotation in general? Because like we

1:22:10

said, you could just say, we're

1:22:12

gonna go with Louis Varlin in the fifth spot, we're gonna go with

1:22:14

Chris Paddock, rehabbed, and he's ready to

1:22:16

go in the fourth spot. Certainly, Pablo

1:22:18

Lopez, Joe Ryan, and Bailey Ober, they feel pretty

1:22:21

comfortable with in three of the spots. Yes,

1:22:23

you're down Sunny Gray, but if Chris Paddock

1:22:25

can kind of do something close

1:22:27

to replacing Sunny Gray, which is gonna be a big

1:22:30

challenge, and then Louis Varlin can kind of step

1:22:32

in for Kenta Maeda, it's a drop

1:22:34

off, but also it's, the entire rotation

1:22:37

would make, what, 12 million dollars

1:22:39

or something like that at that point. So I

1:22:42

think that's a route they could take, but to me,

1:22:46

after seeing the extent to which the rotation

1:22:48

carried them all season and carried

1:22:50

them in the playoffs and just was the

1:22:52

foundation of this team, the success of this

1:22:55

team, I feel like if you're not gonna

1:22:57

re-sign Gray, you

1:22:59

need to either find someone who's as

1:23:01

good or better than Maeda

1:23:03

to at least bring back. And ideally,

1:23:06

you'd find someone who's as good or better than Gray, but I think

1:23:08

that's gonna be above their price point. I

1:23:10

agree, I think the number one need is a

1:23:13

top of

1:23:14

the,

1:23:16

a

1:23:18

play off caliber

1:23:20

starting pitcher, that's a pretty good way to do

1:23:22

it, a number two pitcher or

1:23:24

better, I was gonna say. We're

1:23:27

in okay shape here to start a play off. And by

1:23:29

the way, as we saw, that you're gonna trust

1:23:32

to make an actual start in the playoffs, which

1:23:34

was. Number two I put at center field, and then

1:23:36

after that I put. That, I

1:23:38

don't know. Yeah. Platoon first

1:23:40

baseman. Different backup in field. If

1:23:42

you're off news, we gave me a little, like

1:23:44

I probably would have put Solano at a better than 20% chance

1:23:47

before I heard the care off. Although even if you have a

1:23:49

healthy care off, you're gonna need a Solano type potentially.

1:23:52

Platoon one potentially.

1:23:53

Okay, and then the last thing before

1:23:56

we send you off with some Bobby Nightingale

1:23:59

chat.

1:23:59

is rule five draft which

1:24:02

the deadline I just wrote about this this morning so

1:24:04

I guess I can just quote my own I can plagiarize

1:24:07

myself here the deadline

1:24:09

to protect players for the rule five

1:24:11

draft is November 14th so that's about

1:24:13

two weeks from now the actual rule

1:24:16

five draft itself will be Wednesday December

1:24:18

6th which is part of the winter meetings I will be there

1:24:22

among the more excited repeat

1:24:24

the arbitration one what's the date no

1:24:26

okay I'm sorry rule five okay rule five

1:24:28

gotcha yeah November 14th okay

1:24:31

two weeks two and a half weeks from

1:24:33

now basically and the way it works

1:24:35

is every year prospects

1:24:40

either with four or five professional

1:24:43

seasons depending if they were drafted our high school

1:24:45

or signed out of high school college

1:24:47

rate become

1:24:50

they kind of age into being eligible for

1:24:52

the rule five draft and the entire purpose of the rule

1:24:54

five draft basically is to

1:24:56

stop teams from hoarding minor

1:24:59

league talent like in the

1:25:01

old days the very old days like if

1:25:03

you were a shortstop in

1:25:05

the Baltimore Orioles system and

1:25:08

there was no rule five draft and they didn't

1:25:10

want to trade you you just spent

1:25:12

your life at triple-a watching Cal Ripken

1:25:14

above you on the depth chart the idea basically

1:25:16

is if you don't if if you're if your

1:25:19

team doesn't want to give you an opportunity after

1:25:22

four or five years the

1:25:24

door is at least open for another team to grab

1:25:26

you and give you an opportunity and we've seen that happen

1:25:29

for the twins we've seen that happen against

1:25:31

the twins obviously and so this year

1:25:34

it's not a huge group of guys

1:25:36

I would say there's only really two no-brainers plus

1:25:38

maybe two or three guys that I would probably

1:25:41

add which will go through here in a second but

1:25:44

the other thing I'll say is you

1:25:46

can't if you add a guy to the 40-man roster

1:25:49

which is how you protect someone from the rule five draft

1:25:51

a prospect you can't just

1:25:53

remove them from the 40-man roster after

1:25:55

the rule five right you literally can't like

1:25:58

there's a it's against the rules right spring

1:26:00

training starts or whatever. Might even be end of the

1:26:02

year. But then also end

1:26:06

of the year would be the forest spring training. No, into the

1:26:08

year. Oh, yeah. But then

1:26:10

also you can't just remove guys

1:26:12

from the 40-man roster anyway,

1:26:15

under any circumstances. The only way to

1:26:17

remove someone from the 40-man roster is expose

1:26:19

them to waivers or trade them. And so

1:26:21

if you were to add a prospect right now to

1:26:23

protect them from the Rule 5 draft, and then

1:26:25

the Rule 5 draft passed, and then you thought, well

1:26:27

now I'll just take them off the 40-man roster. Now they're just

1:26:29

on waivers. They're more susceptible

1:26:31

to being claimed off waivers than they are to being drafted

1:26:34

in the Rule 5, because the other thing to remember with the Rule 5

1:26:36

draft is, anybody

1:26:39

selected in the Rule 5 draft costs $100,000

1:26:42

for a team to select a player. That

1:26:45

player then must remain on that, selecting

1:26:48

teams active. Which is a bargain, by the way. Yeah, $100,000.

1:26:51

It doubled though, it used to be $50,000. Yeah, that's right. That

1:26:55

player must remain on that team's active

1:26:57

Major League roster for the entire

1:26:59

season,

1:27:00

or

1:27:01

be offered back to their original team

1:27:04

for $50,000. And we've

1:27:06

seen that quite a bit. I mean, the majority of players

1:27:09

selected in just a random Rule 5

1:27:11

draft do not stick

1:27:13

with the team that selects them. I mean, only

1:27:15

a handful of guys typically make it through the entire

1:27:18

year. Some of them just were picked

1:27:20

as kind of flyers, we'll evaluate them in spring

1:27:22

training. They didn't really have a fit. They

1:27:24

offer them back midway through spring training. Sometimes

1:27:27

teams work out a deal where they just keep

1:27:29

them and you send them some compensation or whatever. A

1:27:31

lot of times, because this is early

1:27:34

off-season, you might take a catcher or

1:27:36

a reliever and think, well, this guy

1:27:38

can be on the roster if we just do nothing this off-season,

1:27:40

but then you end up signing a catcher and then you don't need

1:27:43

the guy you drafted. So there's also just been a lot

1:27:45

fewer Rule 5 guys taken in

1:27:48

the drafts. Last

1:27:50

year there was a lot. I mean, they canceled the year before

1:27:52

because of the lockdown. Well, maybe that's why

1:27:55

you had a carryover there. The COVID year where

1:27:58

the twins actually lost, but do Andrew. Tyler

1:28:00

Wells was tricky because there hadn't

1:28:02

been a minor league season. So how are you even evaluating

1:28:04

that at that point? Uh, okay. So

1:28:07

with all of those, uh, I

1:28:09

don't know,

1:28:11

caveats, the two no-brainers

1:28:13

that the twins have to add that

1:28:16

I'm 100% confident you'll see added

1:28:18

to the 40 man roster over the next two weeks, one

1:28:20

is Emmanuel Rodriguez, who's a 20 year

1:28:23

old outfielder who played

1:28:25

this year at high A probably

1:28:27

I'm assuming we'll begin next year at double a, uh,

1:28:31

he is been a top prospect

1:28:33

since the moment they signed him as a 16 year

1:28:35

old. They gave him two and a half million when he was 16. Um,

1:28:39

he, I would say now has established himself

1:28:42

as a consensus top 100 global prospect,

1:28:45

and I would put him a very strong

1:28:48

cemented number three in the twins farm

1:28:50

system, and he's certainly good enough

1:28:52

that he could be a number one for a lot

1:28:54

of teams and a lot of past years for the twins. He

1:28:56

would just be the number one prospect, but

1:28:58

they have Walker Jenkins and Brooks Lee, so he's number

1:29:01

three. Although I wouldn't be surprised if some people

1:29:03

maybe rank him a little head of or equal to

1:29:05

Brookley. Um, but that's an easy addition

1:29:07

to the, to the 40 man roster. If you did

1:29:10

not protect Emmanuel Rodriguez, not

1:29:12

only would he be the number one pick

1:29:14

in the rule five draft teams would be

1:29:16

fighting over themselves to trade for the number

1:29:19

one pick in the rule five draft to get him, um,

1:29:21

to a lesser extent, but also a no brainer

1:29:24

is Austin Martin, who

1:29:26

was the headline prospect in the 2021 deal for

1:29:29

Jose Barrios had a down 2022

1:29:32

and then missed basically the first half of last

1:29:34

year with the elbow injury that he

1:29:36

had during spring training. Uh, they feared

1:29:39

that he might need Tommy John surgery. He was able

1:29:41

to rehab it and then he returned. He joined the lineup

1:29:43

at triple a like in late

1:29:46

June, early July kind of shook

1:29:48

off some rust for a few weeks. And

1:29:50

then his last, I got the numbers here. His last 44

1:29:52

games. So a third of a season

1:29:55

basically for the saints hit 329 walks.

1:30:00

in 44 games, 15 steals in 44

1:30:02

games, 428 on base percentage, 473

1:30:05

slugging percentage, I think you have like five

1:30:07

or six homers, decent number of doubles.

1:30:10

His stock has definitely dropped. I

1:30:12

mean, he was the number five pick in the 2020 draft.

1:30:14

Yeah, I think 2020 draft. Out

1:30:16

of Vanderbilt, he was a great college player. He

1:30:20

dropped in 2022 and I've been in the injury.

1:30:25

Half of 2023. But he really

1:30:28

played pretty well and I will say even beyond

1:30:30

the good numbers, talking to some

1:30:32

people who scouted him with St. Paul and

1:30:34

even some people who just played or coached with him

1:30:37

in St. Paul, he was impressive. And

1:30:39

five or six home runs in 44. 44 games

1:30:41

is crazy. I mean, the hope with him coming out

1:30:43

of college was he had good bat to ball skills, he

1:30:45

controlled the strike zone, he's a good athlete, speed.

1:30:48

People were hoping that he'd become, you know, 15, 20 homer

1:30:50

type of guy. I don't think that's likely,

1:30:53

but... And he tried to

1:30:55

kind of revamp his swing and that played into the down 2022

1:30:57

and all that. But he's

1:31:00

not, you know, Luis Arise

1:31:02

from a power standpoint. And I mean, Luis Arise

1:31:04

is a better player than Austin Martin probably will ever be. So

1:31:06

that's not a criticism. But I do think he's a guy

1:31:08

who could be a 10 homer guy and hit some

1:31:10

doubles and triples. Like he might have enough

1:31:13

power to make pitchers pitch to him. Yeah, I think

1:31:15

that's probably right. Or be careful when

1:31:17

they pitch to him. But yes, if he were left off

1:31:19

the 49er, he would again be the number one

1:31:22

pick in the Rule 5 draft. He's a caliber of prospect

1:31:24

that is never left to

1:31:26

be picked in the Rule 5 draft. So he'll be added. And

1:31:29

in fact, like, I think there's a decent chance

1:31:31

kind of going back to

1:31:33

the Michael Taylor discussion, the center field discussion

1:31:35

for agency and all that, that I don't think he would be

1:31:37

the opening day center fielder unless they just

1:31:39

whiff on what they would actually like to do

1:31:42

in center field. But I think part

1:31:45

of the equation

1:31:47

for resigning Taylor or going

1:31:49

after a similar short-term

1:31:51

veteran to Taylor, trying to trade for a true

1:31:54

number one. He's like, well, if we

1:31:56

think Austin Martin might just be ready to be the

1:31:58

center fielder in June. What are

1:32:00

we really, aren't we just kind of keeping that

1:32:03

warm for him? Yeah. Right. And that's maybe a little

1:32:05

bit of a leap, but I think he can handle it from

1:32:08

a speed standpoint and a range standpoint.

1:32:11

He's also played shortstop in second base, but I think

1:32:13

that's probably his best bet. So those are the

1:32:15

two no brainers. And then just to run through,

1:32:17

I would say there are three, I

1:32:20

personally would add them to the 40 man roster because

1:32:22

I'm not interested in losing these guys for nothing. But

1:32:24

I think it's more of a coin flip from the twins

1:32:27

perspective. One is Deshaun

1:32:29

Kersey, who had a kind

1:32:31

of a breakthrough year, late blooming,

1:32:33

has always been a speed and defense

1:32:35

guy. And then this year hit almost 300, stole 40 bases,

1:32:39

hit 15 homers this year after totaling 14

1:32:42

homers for his entire career at this point. Finished

1:32:46

here at triple A, did a pretty good job

1:32:48

there, was really good at double A for two thirds

1:32:50

of the season. He's a legit

1:32:52

center fielder. Again, I don't know

1:32:54

that he's going to be for opening day, but

1:32:57

if it's not Austin Martin in center field, mid

1:32:59

season or late season, it could certainly be

1:33:02

Deshaun Kersey. He's a left hand

1:33:04

hitter. You could platoon him and Martin and use the

1:33:06

other guy as a backup outfielder. Martin

1:33:08

can be a super utility guy infielder

1:33:10

too. He has a skill

1:33:12

set that is very easily targeted

1:33:15

in rule five drafts, which is a fourth

1:33:18

outfielder profile. He can play every place.

1:33:20

He's a good defender. He can run a little bit. He's

1:33:22

shown some offensive upside. He's probably major

1:33:25

league ready because he finished the year at triple

1:33:27

A and he's also 25 years old. So

1:33:29

I think, would that be a huge

1:33:31

loss? Would that affect the twins' long term planning

1:33:34

if you lost Deshaun Kersey? No. But

1:33:36

I do think, you see, a little redundant with Stevenson?

1:33:39

Well, they don't have Stevenson anymore.

1:33:40

They cut Stevenson. Oh, okay. You should listen

1:33:43

to the podcast though. We've been recording for the last long.

1:33:45

They cut Stevenson, first of all, we talked

1:33:47

about this. Lupo and Stevenson were dropped from the

1:33:49

40-minute range. Okay, got it. All

1:33:52

right. We need like a, pardon

1:33:54

the interruption, scroll of

1:33:57

the topics that we talked about. All right. But

1:33:59

yes. He's a Stevenson type, but four

1:34:02

years younger and has maybe more

1:34:04

upside or something like that. Junior

1:34:07

Severino is another guy who led

1:34:10

the minor, all of minor league baseball tied for the

1:34:12

lead with 35 home runs. That's the most

1:34:14

homers by a twins prospect since

1:34:17

Miguel Sano 10 years ago. He

1:34:20

is sort of a Miguel Sano type offensively,

1:34:24

which is a lot of power. He's a switch hitter,

1:34:26

so that's different. But a lot of power from

1:34:28

both sides of the plate, draw some walks,

1:34:31

a lot of swing and miss. He's

1:34:33

an all or nothing slugger. He's a guy who

1:34:36

was signed for like two million

1:34:39

as a teenager, never

1:34:41

really became a top top prospect, but

1:34:44

has kind of grown into much more power than

1:34:46

was expected. Within that though, he's moved

1:34:48

down the defensive spectrum. He was a second baseman,

1:34:50

now he's a third baseman. I would say most

1:34:52

likely he's a first baseman DH type of guy.

1:34:55

He's a bat mostly. I

1:34:58

think he would be picked if you were to leave him

1:35:00

unprotected, a guy who just hit 35 homers

1:35:02

and finished the year at AAA, switch hitter

1:35:04

can play multiple positions, all that stuff. It

1:35:07

was once a pretty highly regarded prospect, but

1:35:09

I will say he's

1:35:11

been left unprotected twice

1:35:14

already and not picked. He

1:35:16

hasn't been coming off quite this

1:35:19

good of a season. This was his

1:35:21

best season and he reached AAA, so that's

1:35:23

different. He was left unprotected

1:35:27

coming off good seasons at AA or high

1:35:29

AAA and was unpicked just because the player

1:35:31

profile is not often in that much demand,

1:35:33

kind of a low average, high

1:35:36

power first base switch hitter. Isn't that

1:35:38

amazing? But I personally would protect

1:35:40

him and I think he could potentially

1:35:42

fill the role of platooning

1:35:45

with Kirillof at first base at some point or

1:35:47

even replace Kirillof at first base if Kirillof

1:35:49

is injured again. I just think a

1:35:51

switch hitter with 35 homer power who's performed

1:35:54

pretty well in the minors, why are you

1:35:56

losing that guy for free? But

1:35:58

they've taken that risk before. He hasn't been chosen.

1:36:01

And then the last guy that I would say is someone

1:36:03

I would personally protect is J.R.

1:36:06

Camargo, who's a catcher

1:36:08

and had a really nice season at trip. You look

1:36:10

at his overall numbers. 503 slugging

1:36:13

percentage, 21 homers and 90 games. Throughout 25%

1:36:15

of steel attempts, good arm. Gets

1:36:18

pretty good reviews for pitch calling and

1:36:20

framing and all that stuff. He

1:36:23

definitely looks like a backup catcher. I

1:36:26

like to say he's built like a fire hydrant. The

1:36:29

overall numbers were good. He

1:36:32

had a horrible April. Like he hit

1:36:34

like 080 in April. If

1:36:36

you look at his numbers after April,

1:36:40

he hit 288 with a 569 slugging percentage, 20 homers and 74

1:36:45

games. And that's like a 40 homer

1:36:47

pace. Now, I will give the caveat that

1:36:50

the International League, which the Saints are in, was

1:36:53

very high offense. And the Saints especially.

1:36:55

CHS plays as a real, inner friendly

1:36:58

part, especially for power. And

1:37:00

the team OPS was like eight something this

1:37:02

year. So his was more above

1:37:05

average than great. But also above

1:37:07

average for a good defensive catcher at AAA certainly

1:37:11

suggests he's capable of being a backup.

1:37:13

And we talked about Vasquez. If they were

1:37:15

to try to move off of Vasquez's contract,

1:37:18

he could certainly be timeshare

1:37:20

with Ryan Jeffers if

1:37:22

you felt that moving off of Vasquez's contract. Also,

1:37:26

it doesn't hurt you to have a third

1:37:28

catcher. I know they only used two catchers

1:37:30

this year, but that is very much not the norm. You

1:37:33

generally want a third catcher somewhere on the 40 man roster.

1:37:35

And I'm not, my view on

1:37:38

the rule five is will

1:37:40

you feel silly losing this guy for nothing? Not

1:37:43

so much I think Jeric Camargo's got some big

1:37:46

future in the majors. And

1:37:48

he's going to be on Cooperstown stage someday.

1:37:50

And you're going to be regretting that you lost him.

1:37:53

If this guy were available for nothing, you would gladly

1:37:56

add him. Why not just protect him with

1:37:58

a 40 man roster? Yeah. So that's gonna

1:38:00

migrate and then just very quickly a few

1:38:03

other names to consider Couple utility

1:38:05

type of guys who did well at double and triple

1:38:07

a Anthony Prado and Michael Hellman

1:38:10

Who I think would be very easy rule five.

1:38:12

I kind of wondered if Hellman might get a call up And

1:38:16

then two Low miners

1:38:19

single a guys one of which Ricardo.

1:38:21

All of our had a really nice season at low a

1:38:24

21 years old

1:38:26

He's a pretty good prospect. It's just jumping

1:38:29

from low a to the majors right as

1:38:31

a bat first guy You just

1:38:33

very rarely see teams willing to take that

1:38:35

and then Jose Salas who

1:38:37

is an infield prospect They got in the

1:38:40

arise Pablo Lopez trade

1:38:43

who they talked up as like a borderline

1:38:45

top 100 prospect at the time had

1:38:47

a horrible season horrible year at high a

1:38:49

hit like 190. No and Is

1:38:53

There gonna be one of the other 29 teams You're

1:38:56

gonna need one of them to still think highly

1:38:58

of him after a horrible season and also

1:39:01

think He's worth keeping in the majors

1:39:03

after struggling at high a right whole

1:39:05

season. No, it's not impossible Sure, but that's kind

1:39:07

of the risk. I mean anything's possible given some of

1:39:09

how much some of these teams are tanking these days Yeah,

1:39:12

like you've got a couple of teams I mean if someone just thinks

1:39:14

he's a legit prospect and you're a terrible major

1:39:16

league team who cares Stick them in the

1:39:18

majors, but you work with them by me at high a

1:39:20

doesn't necessarily scream legit pride Those

1:39:23

like anybody beyond that that they were

1:39:25

to lose. Let's say in the rule five There's

1:39:28

some other players, you know that I

1:39:30

think could have roles in the majors But those

1:39:32

are the those are all the names that I would be like, oh, that's

1:39:34

a shame. They lost that guy So

1:39:36

that's where that with the rule five

1:39:38

I think of the second

1:39:41

tier guys that you were talking about. I think Camargo's

1:39:43

a lock I don't think so Reno is

1:39:45

gonna get a lot to be added to the formula to be at it I

1:39:47

don't think about I don't think so. Marina will be here's

1:39:50

the thing. But I know and Camargo by the way

1:39:52

They are both technically minor league free

1:39:55

agents. Yeah last year Camargo

1:39:57

was also a minor league phrase, right? Which after

1:40:00

six years in the minors, it's

1:40:02

sort of like major league for agency, you just become a free

1:40:04

agent if you're not on the 40 man roster. Last

1:40:06

year, where Kamar go ahead like an okay year

1:40:08

at AA, they just re-signed

1:40:11

him to a standard minor league contract and

1:40:13

he didn't get picked in the Rule 5 draft.

1:40:16

They could just sign him, to re-sign

1:40:18

him to another standard minor league contract

1:40:21

and say, hey, we'd like to stash you at AAA

1:40:23

again. There's a decent chance somebody else would also be

1:40:25

willing to sign him to a minor league contract. If

1:40:27

you sign a guy to a minor league contract and you do it

1:40:30

between now and the Rule 5 draft, that

1:40:33

player is then eligible for the Rule 5 draft. There

1:40:35

it is. A little bit of a, I think a gentleman's

1:40:38

agreement that like, hey,

1:40:40

we just signed this guy to a minor league contract,

1:40:43

don't take him in the Rule 5 draft, but there's

1:40:45

nothing prohibited. And it's the

1:40:47

same thing with Severino, who is also technically a minor

1:40:49

league free agent. So I would say if you

1:40:51

feel strongly enough that you want those guys back

1:40:54

in the organization, I would put them on

1:40:56

the 40 man roster to protect them from being taken.

1:40:58

Or you could also just do this, if you really

1:41:01

want to play fast and loose with it, let

1:41:03

them become minor league free agents, essentially

1:41:05

tell them, we'll give you a nice

1:41:08

little bonus here to come back on a minor league contract,

1:41:12

but let's wait until after the Rule 5 draft

1:41:14

to do that. But again, that's a lot

1:41:16

of work to just avoid putting them on the 40 man roster. Well, not to mention

1:41:18

like, why are they granting us any

1:41:20

favors when they're minor league free agents? You

1:41:23

have to pay them more. So yeah, that's-

1:41:26

If I'm Kimaro, I could think, you know, I'm stuck behind

1:41:28

a up and coming guy who's entering his first

1:41:30

year of arbitration and the guy's got two more years

1:41:33

of $10 million on his contract. Maybe I just

1:41:35

go to another organization that's got a backup

1:41:37

that I can replace midway through the year. And

1:41:40

to me, like, plus they're, plus they

1:41:42

both stay healthy. I

1:41:44

mean, the news- Kimaro's gonna

1:41:46

be like, what's the matter with this guy? I mean, I do think both

1:41:48

of those guys

1:41:49

would be picked probably.

1:41:51

I know we talk a lot about the, like

1:41:54

the value of 40 man roster spots

1:41:57

and they are valuable and you don't want

1:41:59

to go- Overboard and protect

1:42:01

just to protect right like

1:42:04

some of the guys like Hellman or whatever like it's definitely

1:42:06

a decision that you have To make because you can't

1:42:08

undo those you stick with that and so later

1:42:11

in the offseason if you're at 37 spots

1:42:14

and you want to sign three guys you're

1:42:16

just gonna run into You're

1:42:18

gonna have to drop talent from your 40-minute routes to do that

1:42:20

So you don't want to just protect everyone like you do want

1:42:23

to make some tough calls But I would say yeah

1:42:25

those those five guys are guys I would protect okay,

1:42:27

so to finish the show yes we

1:42:30

We're gonna leave you with let's say thank

1:42:32

our sponsors here because we we

1:42:34

game time and better help and Shops

1:42:46

We're gonna now leave you with a little chunk

1:42:49

of the 90-minute Show

1:42:53

we do with Bobby Nightingale of the Star Tribune Which

1:42:56

you can get in the patreon archives

1:42:58

entirety if you subscribe to the patreon you

1:43:01

get the entire archive free including

1:43:03

like the last three shows were Bobby Nightingale a Mailbag

1:43:06

where we did a lot of talk about a lot of different topics

1:43:08

and then before that was the fall the Baldelli

1:43:11

breakdown right so the three good episodes

1:43:13

to start with so here's just a little

1:43:15

taste of the conversation we had Like

1:43:22

the differences in What

1:43:24

type of access they get? Sort

1:43:26

of how they're treated by media relations

1:43:29

kind of how the GM works in terms of like

1:43:31

fall We talks probably more than most

1:43:33

and like what are the daily debris prepared to

1:43:35