Fire Gardy

Well, it looks like Nathan’s injury is much worse than we’d hoped. FunBobby was out of town this weekend, and so he didn’t hear about the injury when it happened; he asked me for an update, which looked like this:

He came in in the 3rd inning, struck out the first batter, then walked the next two and was taken out with right elbow soreness. He’s gone back to MN to get an MRI.

One theory is that this is just a normal setback after his offseason surgery to break up scar tissue in that elbow. Another is that it’s a more severe injury. There’s no real information about it, but it’s definitely a reason to worry.

My optimism was invalid, though, now that we’ve learned that Nathan actually has a torn UCL, which is the very same ligament that needs to be repaired in Tommy John surgery.

They’re not certain if it’s a full tear or a partial tear — Gardenhire called it “significant” — and Gardenhire says it’s the sort of thing you can’t tell until you get in and do surgery. Tommy John surgery.

Apparently, they’re saying it’s “totally Nathan’s decision” as to whether to have surgery or not. The plan, for now, is to try to avoid surgery:

While surgery certainly looks to be imminent, Nathan will take two weeks to let the swelling in the area subside. He’ll work with the trainers to strengthen the muscles around the elbow. And then he will try to pitch. He’s prepared to pitch in pain – given the huge expectations placed on the 2010 Twins – and is prepared to tests the limits of his tolerance level.

Personally, I’d be shocked if he’s able to pitch with a torn UCL … and perhaps more shocked if the Twins even let him. The Twins famously prefer to let pitchers do several months rest & rehab prior to doing the surgery that was obviously necessary from the start (see Crain, Neshek, Liriano, Bonser) … and that looks like what’s going to happen here. I kind of expect them to string us along until June, when they finally have the surgery they should be having now, delaying Nathan’s eventual return to the second half of 2011, at which point he still won’t even be full strength. Nathan should have the surgery now, and Nathan won’t be part of it.

Or at least, that’s my opinion. I know the Twins don’t share it. But that raises the question about what the Twins should do for a closer this year. Here are the options, as I see them:

• Blindly hope Nathan is okay
• Neshek
• Rauch
• Crain
• Mijares
• Slama or Delaney
• Someone else from the minors
• A new acquisition
• Closer by committee

Alright … so I’m guessing most teams who lose an elite closer like Nathan don’t have so many internal options to choose from,* so the Twins probably aren’t totally screwed here.

* It’s worth noting that there aren’t very many teams with an elite closer like Nathan, and that they are probably really deep. The Yankees and Red Sox probably do have similar bullpen depth … only the Royals have a closer of Nathan’s caliber without a bunch of bullpen arms behind him. Maybe the Mets. So maybe I’m wrong to make that statement.

I think Mijares is out, given that Gardy doesn’t trust him and he’s a lefty, which will be more useful in a non-closer role. I don’t think much of Crain at the moment, and I don’t think Gardy does either.

If it were me, I’d go with the committee. La Velle disagrees:

I don’t think the Twins will go with a closer-by-committee. They had all kinds of trouble in 2008 when they tried a set-up man by committee, and Gardenhire regretted doing that. We’ll be on the watch for any signals that point to whomever fills that role.

And that’s a good point, though it explains more why the Twins won’t than why they shouldn’t.

So I don’t know what the Twins are going to do. We’ll keep you posted on the news as we know more. But I don’t believe this sinks the Twins’ playoff hopes; regardless of how great Nathan is, the Twins have a deep bullpen, some good arms, and even the best relievers don’t make a huge difference. Given the same innings and leverage, Nathan isn’t much more valuable than a healthy Neshek, for example.

Apparently all this talk of a Mauer contract has got Bill Smith’s negotiative juices flowing.

According to a tweet from Joe C:

The #Twins have signed Nick Blackburn to a four-year, $14 million contract. The deal includes an $8 mil club option for 2014.

At the moment, that’s all the details I have on his deal. But let’s take a look at it, shall we?

He has two years of service time, which means he’s currently entering his third and final pre-arbitration year. Thus, this 4-year deal buys him out through all three arbitration years, plus an option for his first year in free agency.

Normally, arbitration salaries are set at 40%/60%/80% of your free agent value in each year. Blackburn produced 2.5 WAR in 2008, and 3.0 WAR in 2009 (and is currently projected for 2.5 WAR in 2010). If we set his true talent level at 2.5 WAR, this four year contract should look something like this:

1. $1M (typical value for final pre-arbitration year, this could go up or down by a few hundred K)
2. $3.5M (2.5 WAR x 40% == 1 WAR … free agent salaries are $3.5M/win this winter)
3. $5.25M (2.5 WAR x 60% == 1.5 WAR at $3.5M/win)
4. $7M (2.5 WAR x 80% == 2 WAR at $3.5M/win)
5. $8M team option (2.5 WAR at $3.5M/win is $8.75M)

As you probably noticed, these values add up to more than $14M. Normally, players give a discount for the security of a long-term contract. This deal is about 83% of what Blackburn could have expected if he’d gone year-to-year (and performed as well as he has the last two years every single time). That seems like a larger-than-normal discount, which means the Twins did a good job at the negotiating table (even the option is discounted from his expected value).

It’s possible that the Twins have managed to value wins at an even lower rate than this discounted winter shows … the value of this contract makes sense at about $3.2M/win.

So the Twins negotiated themselves a good, team-friendly contract here. Maybe all that practice trying to deal with Mauer has been good for them. But is the value of the contract really the most important consideration here?

For starters, they’ve now locked up perhaps their most consistent starting pitcher for four seasons; Blackburn has also shown himself capable of stepping up in big games (which can’t be measured, but teams and teammates and managers and fans all love those guys). Blackburn is the team’s only groundball pitcher, during an offseason in which they’ve re-upped on infield defense with the addition of Hardy & Hudson. If they expect to make a commitment to Hardy, it makes sense to lock up Blackburn. Plus, this will lend some consistency to the starting rotation. They’ve got a solid, consistent starter for his age 28-31 seasons, which are often a pitcher’s best.

Of course, there are downsides — Blackburn could get hurt or be ineffective. He hasn’t shown much risk of injury, but that could happen at any time for a pitcher. Plus, it blocks the pipeline of pitching talent. With both Baker and Blackburn signed to long-term deals, the space in the rotation for younger (perhaps more talented) pitchers is pretty thin; especially until Baker and Blackburn are considered “veteran presences,” thus removing the need to sign a guy like Pavano (or Livan Hernandez, or Ramon Ortiz, or whatever other guy they feel will give them a 5.95 ERA every 5 days).

I think you can’t be too worried about injuries in this situation. They could happen, but if you go by that logic you’d never sign anyone. And if a group of young pitchers starts knocking hard on the door and Blackburn seems like he should be the odd man out, plenty of teams are looking for consistent workhorses who are groundball machines, excel in big moments, and are signed to team-friendly deals — it shouldn’t be hard to find a taker in a trade and get something back for Blackburn. Especially if he pitches well, besting his 2.5 WAR valuation.

I didn’t really expect to like a long-term deal for Nick Blackburn, but I do. This was a good move for the Twins, and hopefully is an indication of the kind of successful negotiations they can execute, when it comes to the Mauer deal.

The Twins signed Jacque Jonesto a minor league deal today.  They also cut ties with Jason Pridie, to make room on the 40 man for Orlando Hudson. This is an odd move since Pridie projected to make the team as a backup OF, and Jones hasn’t played in the majors since 08. Oh well, no big loss.  Speedy outfielders who can’t hit are pretty easy to find on the scrap heap, so I’m sure the Twins will find some cheap player who can fill in at all 3 OF spots and pinch run occasionally.

Does anyone have Jason Tyner’s number?

The Twins made a big splash yesterday by signing their second ex-Dodger, Orlando Hudson. This is excellent news because Hudson fills two needs. A secondbaseman and a #2 hitter. Last season with the Dodgers Hudson hit .283/.357/.415, that will look pretty damn good between Span and Mauer.  Defensively, Hudson has lost a step or two lately, but that didn’t stop him from winning a gold glove in 2009. He had a pretty bad UZR/150 number (-3.7), but he must be flashy enough that people think he deserved one.   Regardless, I think he will be adequate defensively, especially if Punto is covering some extra ground at third.

Last season Hudson was paid $3.4 million, but according to fangraphs he was worth a cool $13 million. He was worth 2.9 wins above replacement in 2009, nothing to sneeze at.

For $5 million dollars and one year, I think this is an excellent signing. The biggest question has to be what happens to Punto? There is no way Gardy doesn’t start him, and I guess I don’t have a huge problem with him starting at third. Maybe platooning with Harris, who has historically hit well against lefties. I see the batting order working out like this Span-CF Hudson- 2B Mauer-C Morneau-1B Cuddyer- RF Kubel-DH Hardy- SS Young- LF Punto/Harris- 3B

That’s a pretty solid lineup. Throwing in Thome every once in a while won’t be taking a step backwards, like it usually is when you rest a starter.

So the way I see it, the Twins payroll is now around 95 or 96 million.  I’m glad the Pohlad family wasn’t just blowing hot air when they said payroll would increase with the opening of Target Field.  Everyone get excited, spring training is just around the corner.

Well it’s official, the Twins signed Jim Thome.  The deal is reported to be for $1.5 million, with up to $750K in incentives.  I’m assuming these are plate appearance incentives.  The price tag on this deal seems too good to pass up, so I’m OK with it.

I have two fears that arose with this signing.  The first is that we won’t pursue any middle infield candidates.  The second is that Jim Thome will stunt the development of Delmon Young.  While Thome has better numbers against righties than Young does, Delmon is still very raw.  Maybe Thome will help him develop as a slugger.  Ideally, the Twins will acquire either Lopez or Hudson in the coming weeks, and Thome will be used primarily off the bench and occasionally as the DH depending on the matchup. If we are facing a pitcher who Thome has historically crushed, then by all means start him.

So, let’s hope that Bill Smith isn’t done making moves, but I am not overly optimistic.

See what I did there? Eight is Enough was apparently a tv show at some point in time.

The Twins had eight arbitration eligible players and they signed them today in order to avoid arbitration.  Arbitration is a pretty ugly process, so avoiding it is great. A player basically has to convince a third party why he deserves X dollars, and management has to convince that party why the player doesn’t.  Can you imagine how bridges can be burned if Smith is in a room listing the reasons why Liriano sucks.  With Liriano present. Not fun.

So, here are the contracts:

Pavano- 1 year, $7million

Harris- 2 years, $3.2 million, with various plate appearance incentives included.

Liriano- 1 year, $1.6 million

Hardy- 1 year, $5.1 million

Crain- 1 year, $2 million (that is terrible, by the way)

Guerrier- 1 year, $3.15 million

Young- 1 year, $2.6 million, with various plate appearance incentives.  Should be interesting to see if Gardy benches him down the stretch.  Although the incentives aren’t very significant.

Neshek- 1 year $625K. With a minor incentive  that can kick it up to $700K.

Today was a pretty expensive day for the Twins. I don’t like the 2 million they gave to Crain, I think we would have been better off non-tendering him.  That figure for Guerrier seems a little high.  Especially when we are paying Nathan a boatload of money, you combine that with Crain and that is one pricey bullpen.

I thought Liriano would make a little bit more, but given his crappy year in 2009 I guess I’m OK with throwing him a million and some change in what might be one of his last chances with the team.  If he ends up in the pen, that makes it that much more expensive and upsets me even more.

I don’t really have a problem with giving Harris two years.  He is a useful player who will still be making much less than Nick Punto.

What does everyone else think of the (relatively) big bucks tossed around by the Twins this afternoon? Was it worth it to avoid several ugly arbitration cases? Or would you have like to see Smith take that worthless Canadian Crain down a peg or two?

Last night at midnight eastern was the deadline for players to accept or decline arbitration.  Carl Pavano took his sweet time, and acceptedlate last night.  I think this is a good thing for the Twins.  I was afraid they would foolishly give him the multi-year deal he was looking for.  However, but accepting arbitration, we now know that nobody wanted to give Pavano more than a one year deal.  Prior to 09, Pavano pitched just 145 innings over the course of his stay in the Bronx.  He will need to have a second consecutive 200 ip season to prove he is worth anything more than a one year deal. I obviously hope he does that for the Twins in 2010.

We now have 4 of our 5 rotation spots filled.  With Baker, Slowey, and Blackburn taking the other three.  The fifth spot in the rotation will most likely be fought over by Liriano, Duensing, Swarzak, Manship, and Perkins.  I hope Smith tries to trade the last one, as it seems Perkins and Management aren’t getting along.  At this point Perkins is the definition of expendable. We have 4 back of the rotation guys who have major league experience (3 if you think Liriano is a bullpen arm and nothing more).  We don’t need all four of them.  If someone is willing to give us much of anything for Perkins I say we do it.  Ideally we get some pieces that fill a hole, but the best move now is to just clear out the logjam at the back of the rotation and amongst middle relievers.

What do you guys think? Are you excited to have Pavano back? Who should take the fifth spot in the rotation? What should we do with Perkins?

The deadline to offer arbitration to pending free agents was midnight last night.  As expected the Twins offered it to Carl Pavano.  Pavano  is a Type B free agent, so if he decides to sign elsewhere the team will get a compensatory draft pick.

This move was a no brainer because if he accepts we have him for one year at a reasonable price, and if he doesn’t we get the pick.  Let’s just hope Bill Smith doesn’t sign him to some huge extension to prove to Mauer “we’re building a winner here, and everyone knows Pavano is a winner”. That would piss me off.

Polanco and Orlando Hudson were not offered arbitration so the Twins wouldn’t have to forfeit a draft pick to sign them.  Thus making them more appealing.  I have always been a bigger Polanco fan than Hudson fan but either would give the Twins a huge boost, adding one of them plus JJ Hardy would turn the Twins middle infield from a huge liability to a strength.  Not sure if I can handle that.  I’m so used to the Twins having really crappy middle infielders, and I don’t think Gardy would be happy if we had two GOOD ones.

I’ve talked a good amount of shit about Dave Cameron and his Neyer-esque hatred of the Twins over the years, but he’s not totally blind. When someone — even a Twins player — has an absolutely historic season and is far and away the obvious choice for MVP, he believes that person should, you know, win the MVP. Today he wondered how in the world someone voted for Miguel Cabrera for MVP over Mauer:

Seriously, there is no argument for a first place vote for Miguel Cabrera. Mauer’s team made the playoffs, beating out Cabrera’s team for the last spot. Mauer hit better. Mauer fielded better. Mauer played a more important position.

None of those facts are disputable. A vote for Cabrera being more valuable in 2009 is like a vote for the sum of two and two being five. It’s not an opinion – it’s a lack of understanding.

And as you all probably know, I agree with him. Personally, I debated putting Cabrera somewhere on my ballot, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it; he was essentially the same player as Teixeira and Youkilis this year, and I had them at 9 & 10, respectively. I can easily see an argument for having him in the top 10 … but I simply can’t see how he can be #1 over Mauer, or Zobrist, or Jeter, or Greinke, or Longoria.

Of course, Cameron wasn’t necessarily defending Mauer. Instead, he’s taking up the torch in the ongoing battle between old media and new media:

So, writers who criticized Law for his vote and pointed to it as evidence that he’s screwing up the process, you are hereby required to do the same thing to the Cabrera voter. At least Keith had a reasonable explanation for his vote. There is no reasonable explanation for a Miguel Cabrera first place MVP vote. It’s just stupidity on display.

I like that battle as much as the next guy, I guess. But I don’t think Keizo Konishi should lose his BBWAA voting rights because of this*, just like I don’t think Keith Law should have lost his vote because he didn’t go with the crowd on a particular vote.

* On the other hand, it’s worth pointing out that Miguel Cabrera got a $200K bonus for getting that single first place vote. That’s nothing for Cabrera and his $152M contract; it’s a whole hell of a lot for some nearly-anonymous sportswriter that even Dave Cameron — a Seattle-based blogger/fan — has never heard of. If it turns out that that had anything to do with it, well, then Konishi should absolutely lose his vote. But there’s no reason to suspect that right now.

So let’s all just relax, and not get too worked up about the fact that Mauer got only 27 of 28 first place votes. The voters didn’t blow this one.

Juan Morillo and Justin Huber have both signed with the Hiroshima Carp of the Japanese League.

This isn’t a very big loss.  Morillo could throw really, really hard, but that’s about it.  During his time with the twins in 2009 he didn’t show much progess in his ability to harness the fastball. It would have been nice to keep him around and see if the minor league instructors could work with him, but I’m glad the Twins didn’t bend over backwards to keep him.  That would have been foolish.  But hey, the team is going to make at least one foolish decision this offseason, so here’s to Bill Smith trying to keep them at a minimum.

Justin Huber was a very average player.  He had a decent minor league track record, but no real position.  He will probably have some success in Japan, due to the moderate power he flashed in the minors.  I wish them both the best of luck overseas.