Fire Gardy

While perusing the Twins section of the startribune website this morning, I came across Joe C’s Twins offseason to-do list.  I glanced over it and it made sense to me.  Extend Mauer’s contract, find someone to play third, etc.  All pretty standard stuff.  Then I noticed what #2 said:

2Explore trades for an ace, such as Josh Johnson or Roy Halladay.

Roy Halladay?  The same guy who nobody was able to trade for last summer due to JP Riccardi’s incompetence.  I can kind of understand Josh Johnson because he plays for the Marlins and will soon be making more than league minimum, therefore there is no place for him in Miami.  But Halladay?  Are we just throwing names of good pitchers out there?  Very unlike Joe C to petition for the Twins to make a fantasy baseball type move.

In other somewhat related news, the Phillies have declined Pedro Feliz’s option. I haven’t done a ton of research on him, but does anyone think he might be a decent option for a year or two?  His hitting line doesn’t jump out at me, and he is middle of the pack defensively.  Both of those things are better than most of what we have had at third over the years. Obviously I’m not saying lets go out and sign him today, but rather let’s add him to the list of possibilities.  Which is pretty short at this point. If one of the options is re-sign Joe Crede and his impressive injury history, you know its slim pickings.

The JJ Hardy trade has been sufficiently covered by pretty much everyone in our blogroll, and by us.  Get up to date here and here

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Well, I haven’t posted anything since the Twins season ended, and a lot has with the Twins since then.  Sirsean has covered most of it, but I’ll give you my analysis.

• Earlier this week the Twins traded defensive specialist Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for power-hitting shortstop JJ Hardy.  When you say it like that, it sounds as though the Twins got a steal of a deal.  Hardy is coming off a career worst season, and spent time in the minors last year.  This benefits the Twins because he remains under team control for one additional year.  I’ve always been a big JJ Hardy fan and hoped the Twins would make this move at some point.  I assumed we would have to give up pitching, which you always hate to do.  However, the Twins have a ton of back of the rotation type starters so I wouldn’t have had a problem with them shipping someone like Perkins to the Brewers. So when I heard that we gave up just Gomez I was thrilled.  Gomez is an elite defensive centerfielder, and with our flyball pitching staff he was quite the asset.  Hardy has shown he can be a good hitter at the major league level, so hopefully his 2009 season was just a fluke.
• I’m cool with exercising Cuddyer’s option.  Nyer can suck it.
• There are still a few items left of the offseason checklist. I think we need to address one of second or third base.  Possibly re-sign Pavano or someone similar. I don’t want to trade Joe Nathan, so we won’t be doing that.
• I hope to get an offseason goals post up sometime this week.

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Craig Calcaterra links to Ken Rosenthal’s take on the Twins’ moves this week, explaining:

Rosenthal thinks that the Twins’ moves thus far — trading for Hardy; exercising Michael Cuddyer’s option — are all a part of the plan to get Mauer locked up long-term. They were probably the right moves independent of that, but I tend to agree that the Twins are doing what they can to make sure Mauer can’t play the only non-monetary get-out-of-Minnesota card at his disposal, and that’s claiming that the Twins aren’t committed to winning.

I agree completely with Calcaterra here, and this is part of what I’ve been trying to say about these moves the past few days.

While Calcaterra unabashedly hates the Twins,* his Twins-related analysis is, as usual, quite even-handed.

* He’s a Braves fan, and hasn’t forgiven us for winning in 1991. I’m pretty sure you can’t fault him for that. At least, I don’t.

Hopefully these Mauer-wooing moves successfully woo Mauer.

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This morning, the Twins announced that they’ve picked up Cuddyer’s option for 2011, and will be paying him $10.5M; so Cuddyer will be on the team for the next two years. While it seems weird to me that his contract required the Twins to decide on his 2011 option within 5 days of the end of the 2009 World Series, it’s not at all surprising that they picked it up. Given the reality of his contract, the Gomez trade virtually assured that the Twins would keep Cuddyer around.

As I quoted this morning, Rob Neyer’s take on the Gomez trade was that it was a mistake because the Twins need four outfielders in case Cuddyer gets injured.

So how does Neyer feel about the Twins keeping Cuddyer?

For a franchise that routinely cries poor, $10.5 million is a decent chunk of change.
Particularly for a player like Michael Cuddyer.

He then admits that Cuddyer was worth roughly that much in two of the last three years, before pointing out that by the time 2011 rolls around, Cuddyer is surely destined to be half the player he is today — after all, that’s what happens when a baseball player turns 32.

That airtight logic leads to this conclusion:

No, the difference between Cuddyer’s salary and his value is not a great deal of money. But the Twins have a history of overspending on decent players while complaining about the high price of truly great players. Remember, it was just a year ago that they couldn’t afford Johan Santana but quite happily blew $9 million on Craig Monroe and Livan Hernandez. And if they’re not able to keep Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer in the long term, their money mismanagement is simply going to drop them from contention.

Firstly, I don’t see how the $9M the Twins spent on Monroe and Livan prevented them from spending $120M+ to keep Santana. Secondly, Morneau already has a long term contract, and will be with the team through (at least) 2013. Thirdly, passing on Cuddyer’s option would have been enough for Mauer to forget about signing with the Twins; players want to be on a team with other good players, and Mauer has basically said as much already.

But perhaps most importantly, I just don’t understand how Neyer thinks it was foolish for the Twins to lose Gomez because they need four outfielders, and thinks it was foolish for the Twins to keep Cuddyer because they’d be better off with fewer than three.

The non-Cuddyer RF options for the Twins would have been:

• Jermaine Dye (36 year old Type A free agent)
• Vladimir Guerrero (35 year old Type A free agent)
• Austin Kearns (30 year old not-event-Type-B piece of crap)
• Xavier Nady (31 years old and not as good as Cuddyer)
• Eric Hinske (32 years old and worse than both Kubel and Cuddyer both offensively and defensively)
• Or an internal option like the replacement-level Jason Pridie or the probably-not-ready Rene Tosoni

Or they could switch Delmon Young to RF and go for an LF:

• Garret Anderson (38 years old)
• Jason Bay (31 year old Type A free agent)
• Marlon Byrd (32 years old and probably very expensive)
• Johnny Damon (36 year old Type A free agent, and expensive)
• Matt Holliday (30 year old Type A free agent who’s demanding a Teixeira-sized deal)
• Wily Mo Pena (28 year old former-prospect who once had the potential to be a Cuddyer-like player, but never panned out)
• Gary Sheffield (41 year old malcontent who can’t really play any more)
• The same Pridie/Tosoni options as before

Does anyone really think the Twins would have been better served by sending a message to Cuddyer that they don’t want him around and to Mauer that they’re not dedicated to putting a team together around him, and by giving up a first round pick to spend more money on an older player who’s already been showing signs of age-related decline?

It’s easy to say that spending $10M on Cuddyer is a foolish thing to do, and that therefore the Twins aren’t allowed to complain about not having enough money to sign elite-level players. But when the actual alternatives are giving up a top draft pick for the right to spend more money on an older player who’s essentially the same as Cuddyer, is the criticism really valid?

Once again, Neyer’s Twins-related analysis leaves a whole lot to be desired.

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Apparently we here at Fire Gardy weren’t the only people who were interested in and excited by the Hardy trade: 379 people came to visit this blog yesterday, which is a huge number for us and is the second most* of any single day in Fire Gardy history. Normally, we only get about 25-50 visits in a day. An increase like that is probably why Fangraphs went down minutes after the trade was announced! Great showing, Twins fans!

* The most ever was 700, which happened within the first couple of weeks of the blog’s birth. It only happened because Gleeman linked to us, saying essentially “I don’t like these guys.” Thanks, Gleeman. If there’s anything that’ll keep a young blog going, it’s the local titan giving compliments like that.

So I want to say thank you to everyone who visited yesterday, and we hope to see you around here again.

Meanwhile, given that there hasn’t been much news of note since the big deal went down, I figured it’d be worthwhile to go around the league and see what people are saying about the trade.

Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs:

Big thumbs up to the Twins here, who got better in a hurry. The Brewers had their hands tied a bit due to the logjam at SS, but it’s still hard to imagine this is the best they could do.

Christina Kahrl at Baseball Prospectus:

It’s way too early to talk about the best trade of the winter, but this one looks very good as an answer for immediate needs for a team whose core is already in place, and from an executive who’s quickly moving from non-descript organizational guy to an operator who isn’t going to let the Mauer/Morneau years slide by.

According to Tony Massarotti at Boston.com, the Red Sox were trying to get Hardy too:

Milwaukee wanted either starter Clay Buchholz or reliever Daniel Bard for Hardy. The Sox were not willing to offer either pitcher. Milwaukee was not interested in righthander Michael Bowden, whom the Sox would have been willing to part with, and the Sox did not have a center field prospect who could match Gomez’s skill set.

Could it be that the Twins just benefited from the Red Sox’s penchant for only doing deals that are landslides in their favor? Or is Smith getting more respect around the league, such that he can actually start making respectable deals? Either way, it feels good to beat the Red Sox. (Also, this indicates that there was no god damned way we were getting Hardy for Perkins.)

Evan Brunell at The Hardball Times:

For Minnesota, that’s a tremendous value coupled with his defense: the Twins will boast one of the top shortstops in the league and have him under control through his age 28 year.

Rob Neyer:

And of course you have to love this deal for the Twins, who got a player they really wanted (for good reason) in exchange for a guy they didn’t really want at all. That said, unless they get another outfielder, this move means more playing time for Delmon Young, and it’s not at all clear that that’s a good thing. And if anything should happen to Michael Cuddyer …

Of course, Neyer would be the only person to openly criticize the Twins for not carrying four starting-caliber outfielders at once. Unless he thinks 4th outfielders are irreplaceable, for some reason.

Tim Dierkes at MLBTradeRumors:

Hardy is a huge addition for the Twins, who entered the offseason needing upgrades at shorstop, third base, and second base. Due to an August demotion by the Brewers, Hardy is under team control for 2010 and 2011 (Hardy says there are “no hard feelings.”) He slumped offensively this year, but maintained his strong defense.

Aaron Gleeman:

In isolation swapping Hardy for Gomez is a quality move for the Twins, but the trade is not without risk given Hardy’s problems this season and comes with some potentially negative ramifications. If it turns out that Span simply isn’t a very good center fielder or Young fails to step forward offensively the Twins will have downgraded the outfield and upgraded the infield using $5 million of precious payroll room. Still, the front office deserves credit for getting good value for Gomez and I’m cautiously optimistic.

I believe Gleeman was “cautiously optimistic” that the Twins were going to the playoffs after winning Game 163.

Erin at Plunking Gomez, whose blog’s name either needs to change now, or can become increasingly delightful as the months progress:

This also means that the Twins won’t be bringing Orlando Cabrera back. Not gonna lie: that makes me a little sad. I liked O-Cab, even though he couldn’t really field the position anymore, and he didn’t get on base very much, either. I would much rather have Hardy at short, since he’s younger and cheaper and better in almost every way, but I feel a little bad that O-Cab (and his family!) will have to find his fifth new home in three seasons. Gosh, what a sucky day for Alexi Casilla, too. His best friend gets traded and now his mentor probably won’t be back, either.

Nick Nelson, whose blog was recently added to Neyer’s Sweetspot network:

My initial reaction is that I’m very sorry to see Gomez go, as he was a personal favorite, and I’m very concerned about the team’s outfield defense over the next few seasons. But perhaps the writing was on the wall during a month of September in which the Twins were making a fierce charge and Gomez was seeing virtually no playing time.

The last couple show that there’s really more to this trade than the numbers. None of us here are actually running this team; the wins feel good and we all want to contend, but our true investment is in the players. Gomez was well-liked all across Twins Territory, despite not actually being a very good baseball player.

There are still plenty of players Twins fans are invested in, and I’ve never heard anything bad said about Hardy, and there’s still a pipeline of young talent coming up. So there’s nothing, really, to worry about from that perspective.

But I have this feeling that a whole lot of Twins fans will be watching what Gomez does for the Brewers, and hoping he does well. I’m pretty sure I’ll be one of them.

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Holy crap, folks.

According to a tweet from the Brewers*, the Twins have traded Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for JJ Hardy.

* Confirmed by both Aaron Gleeman and Joe Christensen

I’m going to let that sink in for a second.

Yes, Wild Bill Smith has done some more dealing. He just unloaded one of the last (disappointing) pieces we got from the Mets for Johan Santana … for a promising shortstop entering his prime years (he’ll be 27 in 2010).

Gomez and Hardy are both coming off down years in 2009; before this season, Hardy was widely viewed as an upcoming star in the game, posting WAR totals of +4.5 and +4.9 (All Star caliber totals) before crashing to +1.4 wins in an injury-plagued 2009 season. Gomez, meanwhile, played himself out of the Twins’ outfield by posting a typically terrible offensive line accompanied by a significant step back in terms of his defense.

This move helps the Brewers shed some salary, as Hardy is entering his third year of arbitration and is probably set to make around $6-7M this season. The Twins, moving into their new stadium, are in position to add some payroll, and this is a strong move that does that while helping the team considerably.

The shortstop question is answered, loudly, for 2010 … and there’s no reason the Twins can’t ink Hardy to a long term extension midseason if they like the cut of his jib. Or get draft picks as compensation if he leaves as a free agent — Hardy is probably set to be at least a Type B free agent. A big year would make him a Type A. But given the dearth of quality middle infield options in the upper levels of the Twins’ system, I’d say an extension is more likely.

Meanwhile, the Twins have sacrificed some excellent CF defense by losing Gomez — and, importantly, some excellent corner-OF defense by having to move Span to a permanent position in CF. Span is a mediocre defensive CF and an elite defensive RF; this move promises more playing time to Delmon Young in LF,* and removes elite defense from both Gomez and Span.

* Unless Gardy finally switches Young and Cuddyer now that the baggy is no longer a consideration?

At the same time, the offense is set to look a whole lot better with this acquisition. Hardy is solid defensively, and has the potential to be a top offensive performer from the shortstop position. He doesn’t have much in the way of plate discipline, but does have some good pop in his bat. I can see Gardy sliding him into the 2-hole, where he’d be a better option than everyone but Mauer, or to shore up the bottom of the lineup.

All in all, I think this is a fantastic move for the Twins. It’s definitely a win-now move, too, which presumably will send a message to Joe Mauer and to prospective free agents that the Twins aren’t playing around.

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I can’t believe I missed this, but a little while back Fangraphs posted an article about a White Elephant Contract Party … and I think it’s worth a visit. A mental visit, that is. Feel free to click the link and make it an internet visit too, I don’t care.

Here’s the concept: Every team has a bad contract, right? And every GM takes flak for that bad contract. So every GM takes their bad contract and they go into a room and put all those contracts into a big pile. They then begin pulling contracts out, one at a time, in some order. Each GM that pulls a contract either has to take that contract or attempt to trade it — if another GM is willing to make a trade.

Setting aside, for a moment, the fact that the only GM in the league that would agree to something like that is JP Ricciardi,* let’s imagine what it’d be like if it actually happened.

* What do you mean, he’s not a GM any more? How long have I been gone?

Firstly, let’s go through a mental exercise. Who’s got the worst contract on the Twins? I figure there are a couple ways to look at this: Who has the biggest contract (which are the ones you least want)? versus Who is the worst player (which are the ones you least want)?

Biggest contracts:

1. Morneau
2. Mauer
3. Nathan
4. Cuddyer
5. Kubel
6. Punto

Worst players:

1. Casilla
2. Young
3. Harris
4. Tolbert
5. Redmond
6. Buscher

Okay. Well, that really didn’t help. The players with the biggest contracts are (almost) all of our best players; if we put any of those contracts into the middle of the table, our reward would be watching one of the other GMs doing an extended — and presumably obnoxious — happy dance. And the crappiest players on the team all have small contracts; Redmond and Buscher are already as good as gone, and Young is the only one remaining on the list that makes more than the minimum.

Before the 2009 season, I’m sure a lot of people would have said that Cuddyer’s contract would definitely be the Twins’ white elephant contract; in fact, I had to defend Cuddyer and his contract earlier this year when it was singled out as one of the worst in the game. I don’t think many people are clamoring to get rid of Cuddyer at any cost after his 130 OPS+ season.

Similarly, I’m sure Punto would get some support for worst contract. How can Punto be making more money than Kubel? How can $4M for Nick Punto not be a bad contract, when so often he comes up to the plate and fails, and his presence continues to encourage Gardy to make bad decisions … it’s a bad contract, right? Well, I think by now everyone knows my feelings about Punto. He’s not a very good baseball player, but his versatility has value. His versatility probably has more value than we’re paying for.* It’s not a bad contract. Plus, someone with an $8M total contract, in the walk year, can’t really be considered a terrible contract.

* I think it’s worth pointing out that the Twins have never overpaid Punto based on his contributions. Even in his down years (like 2005, 2007, and 2009), he produces more value than we’re paying him. 2009 was close, in that he was worth $5.5M vs his $4M salary, but if you’re getting more than you’re paying for you really don’t have all that much to complain about. Right?

Reusse and his fans* would probably say that Nathan’s is a bad contract; after all, he blew a save in the postseason when Alex Rodriguez, one of the greatest hitters of all time happened to come up while he was in a “god damn it I’m hitting .500 with power right now, what are you going to do about it?” hot streak, hit a home run. Also, Nathan wasn’t completely dominant this season … if you’re not Mariano Rivera, you’re nobody. I mean, Rivera-like dominance is available everywhere on the cheap, that’s why every team’s closer is perfect every year except Shitty Joe Nathan.

* Wait, does Reusse have any fans? Does he even have anyone who agrees with him, ever? Seriously, I want to know. Someone please point me to a pro-Reusse blog, or something.

Okay, so that probably wasn’t all that necessary. But suffice it to say that a lot of teams would probably love to be able to pay Joe Nathan $24M over the next two seasons. If we’re going to unload that contract, we’re going to be getting something in return, not just dropping it. It’s a market value contract for an elite player playing at an elite level. We might not be able to afford many of those, but it’s not a disaster to have one.

I’m just going to go ahead and assume nobody wants to just drop Mauer, Morneau, or Kubel for nothing. If that’s not okay, let me know.

So it seems none of the Twins’ big contracts are bad ones. What about the bad players?

Casilla was awful this year, one of the worst players in the AL. I’ve been a big pro-Casilla guy for the past few years, and he only briefly looked like the player I’d hoped he could become. I’ve begun to think that his ceiling is much, much lower than I previously thought it was; he’s still young, with time to grow and get better, but his performance is so bad, and his demeanor still so immature, that it might not be worth waiting around for.

Delmon Young was one of the worst players in the AL too, until he got hot over the last few weeks of the season and showed some of the hitting talent that we thought he had when we got him. It seems like he’s Gardy’s fourth-favorite outfielder, and is getting squeezed out of the outfield situation; if he’s going to play, he’s going to have to really hit the ball. He hasn’t yet, and he looks terrible at the plate, and I’m this close to wanting to give up on him. But I can’t just yet. Can you?

Tolbert sucks, and is useless to a team with Punto already on it; but I have the feeling that if Bill Smith showed up at the party with the minimum contract of a second-string utility man, he’d be kicked out (and possibly beaten) by the people lugging in the contracts of Vernon Wells, Alex Rios, Barry Zito, etc. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Alright. Either I’m totally missing the boat on something, or the Twins simply have no bad contracts. If you’re a mid-payroll team, the only way to contend regularly is to develop your own players and avoid bad deals; obviously, the Twins have been able to do that and have reaped the rewards for it.

Now we get to see if this success continues once they move into the new stadium and have some more money to spend.

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After a far-too-long hiatus* from posting things here, I’ve got an update about Mauer and his health here that I’d like to talk about briefly.

“He’s doing very well,” Smith said. “We’ve gotten all good reports. I think he’s pleased and looking forward to a fairly normal offseason and normal preparation for spring training.”

Mauer apparently was in Baltimore to see a doctor for an examination — why do so many of the Twins’ players seem to see doctors in Baltimore? Can’t they go to local doctors, or the Mayo clinic? — and the doctors gave him a clean bill of health. Great, right?

* I’ve had a lot of work-related work to do over the last few months. We just hit our deadline, though, so I’ll hopefully have time to get back to Twins stuff for much of the offseason.

Well, I think we’ve all made the joke that Mauer’s (lack of) preparation for the 2009 season may have led to his offensive explosion; he wasn’t tired from working out all winter, and that extra energy may have been converted into fly balls to left carrying an extra 8 feet or so. Impossible to say, really, but Mauer’s power output declined as the season progressed and dwindled back to normal levels by the time September rolled around.

A “normal” offseason of weight training and expending his apparently-much-needed energy may well be the last thing the Twins want. Unless, of course, they want to wait a year to extend his contract and are hoping he doesn’t have another career year, driving his price tag way up.* I hope that’s not what they’re thinking, because that’s exactly what they did with Morneau a few years back, and waiting a year added probably $30M to his price tag.

* Also, I seriously doubt that the Yankees and Red Sox will sour on Mauer if he has another “pedestrian” Mauer-year, dropping to something like .290/.380/.420 like he did in 2005 and 2007 … it’s worth pointing out that that still makes him the best offensive catcher in the game, and also that those teams are too smart to make a long-term judgement about a player based on a small sample. His value isn’t going to go down no matter what he does in 2010, short of a career-threatening injury which I’m certain the Twins aren’t hoping for, and can only go up. If he wins the Modern Triple Crown again and manages to top 30 HR and 100 RBI, and the Twins don’t have him under contract, we can kiss him good bye.

Joe C got Mauer’s input on the health update:

Mauer confirmed via text, writing, “Things r looking good.”

And I have exactly one thing to say about that: Is it even remotely possible that Joe Mauer doesn’t have an iPhone? It’s time to give up that old-school text-spelling, Joe.

Oh, and speaking of Mauer’s contract, his agent is in Baltimore too, and they’re expected to discuss his next deal. So in case you didn’t have anything to worry about right now, at least there’s this.

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