A Few Thoughts

I'm safely in Silverton, CO and I do indeed have access to reliable high speed internet. Time constraints are an issue, though, so don't expect any major updates this week. While I have a moment, here are some thoughts on the big day the Twins had yesterday:

1.) If I had time, I'd write a fairly long piece on the Joe Nathan extension. As it is, let me just say that I agree with this signing. Now, before some of you SABR-minded folks come after me for failing to recognize that closers don't deserve the money they're paid, etc. etc. etc., let me say that I agree that this is probably true. Nonetheless, Nathan is a very good pitcher, he does the job effectively, and there's no reason to think that he'll suddenly become ineffective during the life of his contract. This move allows the Twins to save a bit of face with the fans who think that letting Torii walk and trading Santana were the wrong decisions (they weren't, of course, but the majority of the fan base doesn't pay enough attention to realize that).

More importantly, the Twins could actually afford this extension, and this is a very important point. The Twins have Mauer, Morneau, and Cuddyer locked up each for at least the next three seasons. Meanwhile, the next wave of guys the Twins will need to re-sign (Delmon Young, Francisco Liriano, et al) won't be eligible for free agency for at least that long either. Add to that the fact that the Twins don't seem to be a big destination for free agents, and it became apparent that the money might as well be spent to give Nathan a contract more in the market-value range. Are closers overpaid? Yes. But sometimes you can afford to overpay, and all things considered this is one of those times.

Now, one of the things that makes no sense to me is the complaint from some fans that, if the Twins could afford to sign Nathan to this deal, they could have afforded to sign Santana. Simply put, that makes no sense whatsoever. Santana just got nearly $140 million, while Nathan got just over $40 million. That's slightly less than a $100 million difference. Do I really need to belabor the point? We're talking a whole different ballpark here, friends. I suppose the Twins could have decided not to extend Nathan, Morneau, or Cuddyer in order to sign Santana -- but that might not have been enough, because Morneau and Cuddyer would, of course, have continued to get arbitration raises for a few years. So now, to afford Santana, we were maybe talking about trading one of those two. This is all speculation, but I hope it puts to rest the notion that the money should have been used to extend Johan -- you can't cover $140 million with $40 million, last I checked.

So, the bottom line is that I'm perfectly satisfied with this signing. Sometimes you have to look beyond the bottom line, and considering all of the circumstances involved here, I don't think this was a bad decision.

2.) Carlos Gomez won the CF job, and while I think that was the right decision, I do feel bad for Denard Span. Hopefully, Gomez is fantastic -- but if he's not, I hope the Twins give Span a chance to show what he can do at the big league level. If nothing else, Span establishing himself as at least a moderately capable big leaguer would be good for the Twins because it would raise his trade value. We'll see what happens.

3.) I can't really argue with the decision to keep Matt Tolbert over Brian Buscher. How disappointing has the play of guys fighting for infield jobs been this spring, though? Obviously, that category excludes Mike Lamb, Adam Everett, and Justin Morneau -- but look at how bad Brendan Harris, Nick Punto, Buscher, and Tommy Watkins were (amongst others). Did anybody really want to make the team? I'm guessing Tolbert will get a shot to play a little at 2B, SS, and 3B -- we'll see if he sticks. If so, he's next year's Nick Punto (in terms of versatility, hopefully not in terms of batting average).

4.) Obviously, Nick Blackburn and Brian Bass are left in camp fighting for what might be just one roster spot (the 12th pitcher spot). I stand by what I said on Sunday -- I think Bass has the last spot in the bullpen sown up, and I expected Blackburn to be kept around in case either Scott Baker or Francisco Liriano starts the season on the DL or on a rehab assignment, respectively. It's sounding more and more likely that Blackburn will make the team one way or another -- and there's even a possibility that Philip Humber could find himself in a Twins uniform getting a start if both Liriano and Baker are shelved early on. I'm going to continue arguing the point that Baker and Liriano will actually make the team -- but I seem to be a minority at this point. Ah well -- if I'm wrong, I'm wrong!

5.) Congrats to the Red Sox for winning game 1 of the regular season. I have to say, though, that I hate everything about these season openers in Japan, down to the advertising on the helmets. You want to play exhibitions in Asia? Fine. Regular season games, though, should be played in a team's home ballpark, and the audience here shouldn't have to get up between 3 AM and 6 AM (depending on location in the US) to watch the first game of the season. I don't know -- call me provincial if you want, but I don't like it and I probably never will.

Twins Go Long Term

Back when the Twins agreed to terms on a one-year deal with Justin Morneau to avoid arbitration, I suggested that the team might be hesitant to sign Morneau to a long-term contract -- and that waiting another year was the right approach. It's fair to say that I was wrong on both counts. The Twins today proved just how wrong I was about their willingness to go long term with Morneau by signing him to a 6-year, $80 million deal. As for whether that was a good decision or not, I have to admit that it's hard to say no. Morneau's value was going to continue to rise (even though I attempted in that previous post to suggest why waiting just one year might work out).

Further, this is a gesture of good will for a fan base that was starting to get a little antsy following the departures of Torii Hunter and Carlos Silva (as misguided as that angst was), and the expected departure of Johan Santana. Morneau's signing, along with the 3-year deal (with a team option for a fourth year) given to Michael Cuddyer, should indicate the fan base that the Twins are most decidedly not in a rebuilding mode -- they're just doing what they have to in order to try to maximize the opportunity to win.

The interesting question that has been bouncing around message boards today has been what, if anything, these signings mean for Johan Santana's future with the Twins. Personally, I don't think this changes much -- but that's because I didn't think the Twins could afford a Santana extension even before today. If, however, there was any doubt about this point, it should now be laid to rest. The Twins have said that these two contracts won't affect any other players -- and perhaps I should take them at face value on that. However, to my mind these signings indicate that, barring a dramatic increase in payroll, the Twins are far beyond being able to sign Santana to an extension. There's a good chance that, within the next couple of weeks, we'll find out for sure.

Morneau's Contract and Other Arbitration Tidbits

I'm a bit late to the party on this thanks to a busy schedule today, but the Twins have avoided arbitration with Justin Morneau by agreeing to a one-year, $7.4 million deal. The Strib also notes that the Twins agreed to terms with Jason Kubel yesterday for one year and $1.3 million, while the Twins website mentions that Juan Rincon signed a one-year deal for $2.475 million. Those signings leave the Twins with two arbitration eligible players in Michael Cuddyer and Matt Guerrier.

The Morneau signing is interesting because it is another one-year deal, rather than the multi-year contract that many Twins fans were hoping for. After all, last season the Twins agreed to a 4-year deal with Joe Mauer that bought out a year of his free agency and will keep him in a Twins uniform through at least 2010. Why not former-MVP Morneau?

First, I have to note that it seems as if the Twins weren't particularly interesting in talking about a multi-year contract with Morneau this off-season. Morneau last week stated that "no discussions [on a long term deal] have been had." It would be one thing for the Twins and Morneau not to be able to agree on the terms of a deal, but to not even be having discussions? Clearly, the team is focused elsewhere. Why?

I think the answer lies both in the amount of time remaining before Morneau becomes a free agent and in the team's expectations of Morneau's value in a year or two. First, Morneau has 3 years and 168 days of service time as of the end of the 2007 season. A full year of service time is defined as 172 days, so he's 4 days short of 4 full years of service time. In order to become a free agent, a player must have accumulated six full years of service time -- which means that the Twins will have Morneau for at least three more seasons, through 2010, even though Morneau will be ever so close to the magic service time threshold for free agency after the 2009 season.

This is important, because it means that for a multi-year deal to make sense at this point, the Twins would probably need to go for at least 4 years to buy him out of a year of free agency. That isn't necessarily true, of course -- the Twins could sign Morneau to a 3-year deal and so avoid arbitration with him, therefore gaining cost certainty. There is some value in that, but there's also some risk; the contract could potentially end up costing more than year-to-year arbitration (or one-year deals) if Morneau underperformed.

Ultimately, it's that uncertainty in Morneau's future performance that I think is the most significant factor driving the decision not to pursue a multi-year deal this year. After all, Morneau is just a little over a year removed from his MVP season, when he hit .321 with 34 homers and 130 RBI's while posting an OPS of 934. His agent is obviously going to be pursuing a contract based on the promise of that 2006 season -- and the farther removed you are from numbers like that, the lower the contract demand will be. Again, that's not necessarily true; if you believe that those numbers represent Morneau's true potential, and that he'll duplicate those numbers in the next year or two, then he should be paid accordingly. That's the nub of the argument, though -- will Morneau repeat those numbers, or won't he?

While I think Morneau will continue to be an important contributor for the Twins, and while I want to see him remain a Twin for the foreseeable future, I'm not convinced he's going to regularly put up 2006-type numbers. Last year, Morneau took a slight step back -- he still hit 31 homers, but his batting average dropped to .271, his OPS to 835, and his RBI total to 111. There's nothing wrong with those numbers -- they just weren't on par with 2006. If Morneau's average output is going to be more like 2007 than 2006, then he's not worth as much to the team. The Twins seem to have either determined that Morneau's average production will be closer to '07 than '06, or they just aren't sure -- and they seem to be waiting for the price to come down.

The most significant danger to this approach is that the market doesn't remain stable. Every year, there is an inflationary effect as free agents sign bigger and bigger contracts. If the Twins wait too long, any advantage they would gain by being right about Morneau's future production would be offset by the new contract paradigm -- and that would make it significantly more likely that Morneau would leave via free agency when his time comes after 2010.

Ultimately, though, the Twins will probably only wait for one more year. If they have guessed correctly, and Morneau has another solid but unspectacular season like he had in 2007, rather than an MVP season like 2006, the Twins should be able to go after a 3- or 4-year deal next off-season that will cost them less than such a deal would have cost this year, with the added bonus of buying out a year or two of free agency. I understand this approach, and I think it's the right way to go. That said, I am of course rooting for Morneau to have a monster 2008 -- I would love for the Twins to have to backtrack on this course of action a little bit, so long as the team can still afford him.

UPDATE: This Star Tribune article includes a quote from Twins Assistant GM Rob Antony to the effect that the Twins are interested in sitting down over the next few weeks to try to get Morneau signed long term. This, of course, contradicts the main argument in my post -- that the Twins are in a "wait-and-see" pattern with Morneau. Or does it? I don't think it's wrong to say that the Twins want to sign Morneau long term -- they just want to do it for their price rather than his price. If a deal is done this offseason, I think it will be because both sides compromised a bit. Remember, though, that just because the Twins have expressed interest in signing a long-term deal by no means guarantees that it will happen; as the article mentions, the team wanted to sign Morneau last year, too, and that never got done.

Crain Locked Up

The Twins announced this morning that they have agreed to a three year contract with Jesse Crain that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2009 season. Crain almost certainly would have been eligible for arbitration after this season (to not be, he would have had to spend the majority of the season in the minor leagues), so this move pre-emptively removes him from the list of players that Terry Ryan will have to worry about next year.

I can't say yet whether this was a good move or a bad one, simply because terms of the deal weren't disclosed. I will say, however, that Crain could be a vital piece of the bullpen if he pitches like he did late last year. He could become even more important if the Twins feel the need to deal one of the other members of the bullpen, such as Juan Rincon (not that there's anything in the works that I'm aware of on that front).

Hopefully the Twins will now turn their attention to Joe Nathan and Johan Santana. An announcement on either before the start of the season would be extremely welcome news, and an announcement on both would probably make me euphoric.

Spring Training: Day 1

I don't want to just re-hash what's said in the Star Tribune or any other source, so there's a good chance that I won't be posting every day running up to the first spring game of the year. However, when I feel like I can add something to the commentary being delivered by my source news outlets, I will do so. Today is one of those days.

1.) The Sidney Ponson weight watch is, for me, over. It was an interesting story leading up to camp, but as soon as La Velle E. Neal said that Ponson didn't look particularly heavy (Ponson is suggesting he's around 250), I stopped worrying. This would have been a big story if Ponson had clearly come into camp out of shape. Since that's not the case, fans can start worrying about how he'll pitch.

2.) Josh Rabe and J.D. Durbin are the only two players for whom injury concerns are being mentioned. While I like Josh Rabe, there isn't any room for him on the Major League roster anyway, so even if his injury slows him down in camp it's not going to be a really big deal. Durbin, on the other hand, needs to pitch well this spring to have a chance of earning the fifth starter spot (or, less likely, the 7th bullpen spot). The nerve injury which ended his season last year is still a concern this year, and that could mean trouble for Durbin fans - the fewer chances he has to show what he can do, the less likely he is to secure a roster spot, and the more likely that he's placed on waivers at the end of the spring. For the record, while I'm not projecting him to earn a spot, I AM pulling for him. I'd love for the Twins to give him a month to prove himself as the fifth starter. With plenty of early off days, the Twins would probably only need him to make 3 starts during that time, so he would probably get a chance to pitch a little out of the bullpen as well. I think it makes sense, and I hope he pitches well enough in spring training to earn that shot.

3.) It sounds like talks are with Johan Santana are underway (it's not said explicitly anywhere I can find that this is the case, but it seems to be implied), while talks with Justin Morneau and Joe Nathan are likely to start soon. According to Neal, the Twins don't have much interest in pursuing a multi-year deal with Michael Cuddyer at this point. Let's hope at least one more player gets sown up this spring (and please let it be Johan . . . )

4.) Torii Hunter and Luis Castillo are the only two starters not to report. They have until the 23rd to get to camp, so the fact that every other starter is already there is a testament to the energy and excitement surrounding this team.

5.) Another reason to hate President's Day (the first being that it stops the mail): Ramon Ortiz's visa situation is languishing for at least another day because the consulate was closed. What a joke.

6.) It's much too early for the Twins to be worrying about "setting" their rotation for the start of the season. If they were going to worry about such things, however, then Johan Santana would make his first appearance (probably throwing about 2 innings) in the third game of the spring, against Cincinnati on March 2 in the home opener for the Spring. Seems like a good bet. That means the opener on February 28 would rightfully be started by the 3rd starter - so don't be particularly surprised to see Carlos Silva throw for a couple of innings during that ball game. And, with so many guys vying for the 5th starter spot, I would expect 1 or 2 of them to get involved in that game as well.

Reporting Update

The Strib is reporting that Ramon Ortiz is the only player not to report to camp on time, due to a visa issue. Such situations are by no means unusual for international players, but I've always wondered - when you know you have to report by such-and-such a date, and when these issues are always resolved within a couple of days, why don't players go out of their way to make sure that they get the visa on time? I would be incredibly frustrated if I were a GM.

There is also talk that the Twins and Justin Morneau will continue to negotiate this spring on a long-term deal. While I would be very happy to see a deal done, I don't expect it to happen. Unless Morneau agrees to a bit of an "uncertainty discount," or the Twins just give in to his demands, I don't see the basis for an agreement. Morneau has had one great, MVP-caliber year that was proceeded by disappointing years. While I certainly hope that he continues to produce at his 2006 level, that's not guaranteed. Of course, the game theory involved in this is that the uncertainty cuts both ways, and the Twins might want to get a deal done specifically because Morneau would get much more expensive if he had another great year. It's a tough call, but I trust Terry - and I hope a deal gets done.

Mauer Locked Up

It took awhile, but the Twins came to an agreement with Joe Mauer today on a 4-year, $33 million deal. I don't know yet how the deal is structured, but you can bet that there is a significant escalation in contract value throughout the years. The Twins can now rest easy knowing that they will never have to go through salary arbitration with Mauer, and will have him through at least through the 2010 season. By that point, Mauer is likely to cost even more per season - barring injury, most people expect him to have firmly established himself as the best catcher in the big leagues, easily, by that time.

Terry Ryan deserves a lot of credit for getting this deal done. Locking up Mauer was incredibly important for the future of the franchise. Now, if only the Twins could figure out an extension for Santana . . .

Incidentally, this signing leaves Michael Cuddyer as the last remaining arbitration eligible player on the team. As I've said before, I expect either a mid-point deal or an actual hearing in Cuddyer's case. His hearing is set for Thursday, so if the Twins are going to get out of the gauntlet of arbitration without having a single hearing, they'll need to act fairly quickly. Even if a hearing is required, however, it's hard to argue with how the Twins have handled their 6 arbitration hearings this off-season.

Could Be A Big Weekend

Twins executives should be gearing up for a busy weekend about now, as they enter the final negotiation push with Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer. Mauer's arbitration hearing is set for Tuesday, February 13; Cuddyer's is set for Thursday, February 15. As of last week, the Twins were reportedly talking with Mauer about a 4 year, $33 million deal, and that seems to be about in the neighborhood that you would expect the AL Batting Champion and one of the best (if not the best) catchers in baseball to get. It would also remove the year-to-year worry about going through the arbitration process, and keep Mauer a Twin for at least one year beyond when he could first become a free agent. For the record, I expect a multi-year deal with Mauer to get done before Tuesday.

As for Cuddyer - well, I expect the Twins to either come to a midpoint agreement or take Cuddyer to a hearing. There seems to be little reason to lock up Cuddyer to a multi-year deal at this point, and a one-year contract (either negotiated or arbitrated) seems the most likely scenario.

Let's hope the Twins make some good news this weekend and get these deals out of the way - then they can move on to Santana! (And yes, that's probably just wishful thinking).