However, if the price is reasonable, the Twins should pull the trigger.  Bell isn’t making much this year ($4 million according to the article) and would fit nicely in the back of the bullpen.  The two major red flags on Bell are he is coming from an extreme pitchers park in the NL, so who knows how that will translate to Target Field.  Like I said, it can’t hurt to kick the tires on some proven guys to replace Nathan, but I don’t see any fire behind this smoke.

Meanwhile, Buster Olney is reporting that the report of a preliminary agreement is not accurate, and both Jon Heyman* and Joe Christensen agree.

* What, you think he has no place reporting on the negotiations of a non-Boras client? Well, you’re probably right.

“Dan Cook,” whoever that is, points out that Rosen is talking to Mauer’s people, while Olney and the rest are talking to Twins officials. We may not be quite as close as we all want to hope (though I’d take Cook’s report with a big, rock-shaped grain of salt given his lack of reporting history).

All that said, I think it’s about time to look at the Mauer situation in a little more depth, couched in what we know about free agency this offseason and the rumored frameworks of this deal.

With contracts of this length, it’s practically impossible to say whether it’s going to work out. It’s just so much time, and anything can happen. Mauer is 26 now, but he’ll be 37 when this contract ends. Will he be the best player in the game at age 37? Will he even be a catcher by then? It’s literally impossible to know the answer to these questions (but it’s not that difficult to guess that the answers go something like: “No,” and “Maybe”).

But let’s just try and project what Mauer would be worth over this time period.

According to FanGraphs, since his first full season (2005), Mauer has been worth* 3.5, 6.1, 3.0, 5.8, and 8.2 WAR; in dollars: $12M, $22.4M, $12.2M, $26.2M, $36.8M.

* Remember, FanGraphs WAR takes into account that he’s a catcher, but does not take into account how good he is at being a catcher. In fact, their glossary page says this about measuring catcher defense:

If you think Joe Mauer’s catching abilities and leadership are worth one win, just add one win to what we display as his win value here. Quantifying catching defense is something that we just haven’t figured out yet, and so we’re not pretending that we have. Consider it an opportunity to fill in the blanks.

And yes, I do think it’s telling that they specifically mention Mauer as being more valuable than their WAR values state. For the purposes of this column, however, I am not going to inflate Mauer’s value beyond what is stated on the FanGraphs page.

The problem is … those WAR numbers don’t actually tell us all that much. Is he a 3 win player like he was in 2005 and 2007? Or a 6 win player like 2006 and 2008? Or is he a legitimate superstar, 8+ win player like 2009? All these numbers come before his prime; great players tend to peak around 27-29, and the truly great players’ skills diminish slowly through their early thirties. (Plus, you can’t plan for good seasons and bad seasons throughout a contract; you have to value a player at his “true talent level,” pay for that, and then basically hope he meets or exceeds that level in as many years of the contract as possible.)

If we put Mauer’s “true talent level” at around 7 WAR, and assume that he maintains that talent through age 30 at which point he will start to decline at 0.5 WAR per season, his value would look like this over the next ten years:

7 7 7 7 6.5 6 5.5 5 4.5 4

for a total of 59.5 WAR over the life of the contract.

To translate that into dollars, though, there are a few things to consider. First is that for the last several years, 1 win above replacement has been right around $4.5M on the free agent market … but this winter that has plummeted to the point that teams are only paying $3-3.5M per win on the open market.

Additionally, Mauer is not currently on the open market; the Twins can expect to get a (small) discount for extending him a year early, a year during which he could very well get injured and lose a shit-ton of money (this is standard procedure for all contracts). Beyond that, players on long-term contracts like this sacrifice about 10% of their fair market value in return for the security of the guaranteed contract. And both of those adjustments come before the possibility of a hometown discount — I don’t expect there’ll be much of one, but it’s possible.

So if we’re paying $4.5M per win like teams have been doing for years, that 59.5 WAR over 10 years will cost $267.75M, minus the 10% for security and fudging downwards a bit for extending early … around $230M, making Mauer one of the highest paid players in the league and giving him the third largest contract in baseball history (after ARod and ARod).

On the other hand, if the Twins are using the 2009-2010 offseason as an opportunity to spend less per win on Mauer’s contract, say $3.5M per win, then the deal would cost just $208.25M, and adjusting downward for security and moving early, it’d get down to the $180-190M range.* If the Twins used the current free agent climate to negotiate this lower price, it’d be a remarkably savvy move from a front office that hasn’t been known for that for some time. (And has never been known for shrewd contracts as much as player acquisition.)

* It’s worth pointing out that there will presumably be deferred money in this deal, which further reduces the total value in “today’s dollars.” I don’t know enough about baseball economics to estimate how much of the contract will be deferred and how much it will effect the real value of the contract. So I’m ignoring it here. Just know that deferred money generally means that the contract is worth less than the number of dollars on the bottom line, so you should watch out for the word “deferred” anywhere in reports about his contract.

Of course, these are just the rumored details. Other reports insist that the Twins aren’t going as far as 10 years on a deal. If, as some reports say, it’s just a 7 year contract, we’re looking at just 46 WAR,* putting it in the range of $140-190M range (depending on whether we’re valuing wins at $3.5M or $4.5M).

* I lopped off the final three years on the above projection of Mauer’s value.

On one level, I want Mauer in a Twins uniform until his career ends. On another level, I felt the same way about Torii Hunter and Johan Santana and other players before them; those feelings went away shortly after they signed contracts that the Twins clearly couldn’t afford, which will be paying them top-dollar even after they’ve declined to the point where they’re not even close to worth the money any more. I certainly don’t want to be paying Joe Mauer $20M+ to be a 36 year old former-catcher with bad knees and a balky back.

Long contracts always carry a ton of risk for the team. In Mauer’s case, the Twins are essentially backed into a corner where they must take the risk; that dynamic did not exist in the Hunter & Santana negotiations. Mauer is the hometown hero, the Golden Child, the Baby Jesus of baseball in Minnesota. He, personally, is a big reason the Twins even have a new stadium to move into; if he’s not on the team in 2011, the fans are going to be furious enough that they may well stop coming to the stadium, and the team knows it.

And frankly, the fact that it’s Mauer’s people that are leaking the information about the contract tells me that the Twins just may have done enough this offseason to convince Mauer that they’re dedicated to building a team around him. Both Morneau and Nathan have recently come out and raved about the roster, saying they’ve never seen anything like this in their time with the Twins. Undoubtedly, Mauer has seen the same things.

Maybe I’m just getting swept up in the giddiness of tracking a rumor as it lives and breathes on the internet, but I’m getting more and more confident that we’ll see a deal before Spring Training, and we can all rest a little easier.

Aaron Gleeman opines that he platoon at DH with Young while Kuble takes most of the reps in left. I wouldn’t mind seeing that happen, Thome hits righties too well to be a bench player. While Young is pretty terrible at everything. The biggest question at this point has to be his price tag. The Twins payroll already looks to be in the $90 million range with gaping holes in the infield. Would Thome accept a pay cut down to the $1 million range? I don’t know which AL teams have a hole at DH, but it seems like a team like the Yankees or Red Sox can give Thome more money to do the same job. 

I like the thinking that the Twins need to upgrade their bench, but I don’t think the price on Thome will come down to the point where it is worth it to sign him as a bench player.  If they are committed to giving him the bulk of DH at bats against righties, then I think they should go for it.  Given the current payroll level and glaring holes elsewhere, maybe we are better off going after someone like Ryan Garko as a bat off the bench.  Any money we have available should be put towards a second or thirdbaseman.

What do you guys think about Jim Thome in a Twins uniform?

Figgins is the top infielder on the free agent market, and very well should have had his pick of suitors this winter — and given his value over the past few years and his stellar glove and his high OBP, the offers should have been pretty big.

I don’t know if the Twins offered him a contract, or talked to his agents, or even showed any interest in upgrading from a Tolbert/Harris platoon at 3B. I really, really hope so, but the Twins are being as secretive as ever* and we simply have no idea.

* That works great if you’re Apple or Google or something, and are constantly doing awesome stuff and springing it on people when they had no idea it was coming, and you keep on doing it over and over again. But when the secrets end up being “we signed Nick Punto to a multi-year deal” or a shit sandwich like “we traded our top pitcher and our starting shortstop for the worst player in the league,” or “we think the team that wasn’t quite good enough last year is good enough next year,” well, it doesn’t work quite as well.

But it’s at least possible that the Twins engaged Figgins; I’d like to hope that they offered him more than 4/$36M — he’s been worth more than $9M in every season he’s been a starter except for 2006, and his skillset figures to degrade slowly over time. I’d say it’s a good bet that he’ll be worth more than $36M over the course of the next four years. Like I said … I hope the Twins offered more than that.

But maybe it wasn’t good enough. People always talk about how “money isn’t always the biggest thing” for some players; that there are other things they take into account, and that the biggest offer doesn’t always get the player. At the same time, though, doesn’t it seem like players always sign for the largest dollar amount? Last winter, Teixeira was considering the Nationals and (moreso) the Orioles because he’s from the area, and they offered him a staggeringly large deal. The Red Sox offered a contract in the same ballpark, and he’d love to play for the Red Sox because he loves their history and their city and he wants to win. And then the Yankees came in, just about Boston’s offer, and it turns out that Teixeira’s dream has always been to wear pinstripes, so in the end he got exactly what he wanted … but he also got the biggest contract that anyone offered him. Is it all bullshit? Maybe. I don’t know.

Today, though, we learn that sometimes players do turn down the biggest offer to go somewhere they like more. In this case, the A’s offered the largest contract to Marco Scutaro, but he opted for the Red Sox instead because he “preferred the chance to win a World Series with the Red Sox.”* So sometimes, money isn’t everything.

* If someone had said that six years ago, what would you have said?

Realistically, of course, Figgins can’t think he has a better shot at a title with the Mariners than he would with the Twins. The Twins are very close to being built to win now, and as a playing situation, slotting into the 2 spot in the order between Span and Mauer can hardly be beat.

Maybe those things aren’t what’s important to Figgins. Maybe he wants to stay on the west coast rather than coming to the midwest. Maybe he doesn’t like the prospect of being the 6th or 7th best player on the team and would rather be the 1st or 2nd best — I think it’s believable that a guy would rather be the biggest fish. Maybe his postseason struggles, and the attention they’ve gotten, have effected him and he’d rather be in a situation where they don’t come up.

At the end of the day, we don’t know. It’s possible that Figgins would have loved to play for the Twins, but they just didn’t call, or they wouldn’t offer enough money, or years. Maybe the Twins do actually believe in Danny Valencia (despite some evidence to the contrary), and don’t want to block him with an expensive signing.

But at the same time, I’m torn. Is it promising that players might actually be considering more than money when it comes to signing long term contracts — thus lending hope to the idea of a Mauer extension? Is it a bad sign that free agents might choose to avoid the Twins, for intangible reasons? Is it a bad sign that the Twins won’t offer enough money to get key free agents, possibly sending a message to Mauer that they’re not dedicated to building a great team around him? Is it a good sign that perhaps they’re saving their money for Mauer’s contract, and don’t want to lock up money they may not have before they know about how much he’ll cost?

The only thing I’m sure about is that it’s a bad sign that I’m worrying so much.

What do you think?

Remaining needs to be filled

A second or thirdbaseman

One or two mid rotation starters

some bullpen help.

In the comments let me know if you agree, or disagree, or have specific players in mind to fill these and any other holes.  We are approaching the winter meetings, so lets give Bill Smith some suggestions.

Glen Perkins has dropped his grievance against the Twins as the sides reached a settlement this week, avoiding a hearing that was scheduled for Friday in New York.

He was pissed off at the Twins for optioning his contract to the minors rather than sending him on a rehab assignment after activating him from the DL at the end of August. He’d been on pace to become a Super-2 player and become arbitration eligible this offseason, but the Twins’ move pushed back his arbitration eligibility a full year.

First of all, teams do this all the time to save money; and it’s been happening more and more often as front offices are getting savvier and are trying to do a better job of controlling costs and keeping their young players cheap (and around) as long as possible. On the other hand, players are understandably irked when it happens — it’s essentially a billionaire owner screwing a young guy out of several hundred thousand dollars (which is nothing to the billionaire, but is a massive pay increase for the player, often more than 100%). Neither side is right when it comes to this stuff, as I see it.

But with Perkins, things are a little different. Perkins has repeatedly complained of injury during his time with the Twins — but only immediately after a bad performance. (Before those starts he said he felt fine, and after he lays the egg he claims to have been injured all along. Each time, this is news to the Twins’ training staff.) The Twins have repeatedly had him checked out, and doctors can’t find anything wrong with him — Perkins then demands a second opinion and the team has to fly him around the country for other doctors to see if the Twins’ doctors are wrong. They usually don’t find anything either.

Meanwhile, Perkins is not pitching for the team; when he does, he pitches badly, for the most part. But the biggest problem with this back and forth is the building animosity between Perkins and the Twins; Gardy has voiced his frustration with Perkins in the past, usually after Perkins blames his performance on a previously-unknown injury. Not surprisingly, Perkins has quietly been on the trading block for several months (or more).

But it’s awfully hard to trade a guy who has a currently-open grievance against his team. It signals potential trade partners that the team and the player want to split up — and thus lowers his trade value.*

* And Perkins’ trade value probably isn’t very high as is, given his performance. The only thing he has going for him is that he’s cheap during a time when teams are trying to save money. And he’s left handed.

That’s why this move is significant: the Twins somehow* convinced Perkins to drop the grievance, giving him some extra service time but keeping him under Super-2 status, which completely removes the artificial anchor to his trade value.

* My guess? They kicked some money to him under the table in return for dropping the grievance so he can be traded more easily. If I were running the team and another GM told me he’d be willing to trade me something decent for Perkins if not for the grievance, this is exactly what I’d do.

So don’t be surprised to see Perkins moved to another team, and possibly soon. We’ll try to keep you posted.

The thirdbase market consists basically of Chone Figgins and Adrian Beltre.  Both will probably be very expensive, with Beltre probably getting more because he is a power hitter and everyone overpays for homers.  If I was running the show I would go after Figgins.  I think Gardy would like him since he is scrappy and doesn’t hit for power, like Punto, but unlike Punto he is, you know, good.  Man, how good would that career 363 OBP look between Span and Mauer?  Gardy would get his way, having fast guys at the top of the lineup, but those fast guys would also have high OBPs.  I think the main reason I want Figgins is because it would make the lineup Gardy-proof. Span-Figgins-Mauer-Morneau-Cuddyer-Kubel-Hardy-Young-Punto. Not too shabby and there is really no other way to construct it, except maybe flip-flop Cuddyer and Kubel.

I really hope that Smith and his brain trust aren’t content with Punto as a starting infielder and do the due diligence on ones that are available either through free agency or a trade.  The two most glaring holes are obviously second and third base, and I think we need to fill one of them, with Punto playing the other.

Apparently the Yankees and Giants also like him, and he has 20/10 vision. Sounds good, right?

Well, look at this picture:

Look at his body. Note that a good hitter has his head directly above his ass throughout his swing.

Intelligent reader Thrylos recently pointed out that a balance problem exactly like this one could very well be the problem with Delmon Young.

Oh, and another thing! If his vision is so good … what’s he doing swinging at that pitch? Is his unwillingness to take a bad pitch the reason for the Twins’ interest, or is it his lack of a power stroke?

This is me hoping some other team makes a mistake on drafting Jackson. The Yankees or Giants may be able to fix his swing; I know for a fact that the Twins won’t be able to.