2018 Offseason And Targets

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jcc03004 said:
What does our rotation look like next year? I would assume Foltynewicz and Gausman are locks. I actually hope we keep Julio cuz replacing him with a veteran with his production would cost more then Julio does. So that leaves Newcomb, Fried, Touissant, Sanchez (if he’s brought back), Wright and Wilson to compete for 2 spots. Thoughts?
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I'm guessing one of our starting pitchers is traded for an outfielder
 
Carp said:
Twins have a lot of holes and Rosario has only 3 years remaining control. Maybe they try to extent him this off-season, but if not they'll most likely field offers for him, even if they don't actively try to trade him.
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It will be interesting to see what Falvey and Levine do. Clearly their approach wasn't much lauded up here this year, but a lot of things went wrong, most notably Sano's ever-increasing heft and attitude problems. Polanco's suspension, Buxton's injury (and stalling out), and Castro's injury hurt them more than they let on. Twins have long found themselves as a team in limbo with occasional performance spikes. With Mauer off the books, they will have some payroll room. They are going to have a new manager, so it will be interesting to see what the next steps are. They could do a tear-down and start fresh with a new guy, but that's not going to sell well up here. It's my guess they will try to add some mid-priced pitching and give the young core one more go-round.
 
jcc03004 said:
What does our rotation look like next year? I would assume Foltynewicz and Gausman are locks. I actually hope we keep Julio cuz replacing him with a veteran with his production would cost more then Julio does. So that leaves Newcomb, Fried, Touissant, Sanchez (if he’s brought back), Wright and Wilson to compete for 2 spots. Thoughts?
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I hope Sanchez is brought back and either Julio or Gausman are traded to make room for ascending arms. That's assuming that a couple of the young guys who got starts this year are traded for a bat.
 
It’s easy to make dumb decisions with bench players, but I hope we find a way to improve the bench. Pinch hitting Ryan Flaherty in the sixth inning of an elimination game down one just can’t happen again.
 
MadduxFanII said:
It’s easy to make dumb decisions with bench players, but I hope we find a way to improve the bench. Pinch hitting Ryan Flaherty in the sixth inning of an elimination game down one just can’t happen again.
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a guy like that shouldn't be making the postseason roster again.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
The more I think about it, the more I bet the Braves target Kimbrel and Keuchel.
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keuchel is going to get a ton of money. i doubt we even pursue him at all.
there are a lot of options for the back-end of the rotation if need be, tho. anibal is probably high on our list. from there, don't we just let our young guys pitch and figure out what we've got? i guess we can start them back in the minors, let them get more seasoning, and see who's performing when the inevitable injury happens. I wonder what Sabathia would want. He or Holland would be solid.
 
Enscheff said:
Not sure why folks keep starting threads for topics that have already been hashed out 10 times, but I'm going to keep hoping the Braves target a cOFer that's a little betetr than the 0-1 win guy Mazara has been.

The debt rules almost certainly mean they won't be handing out $300M contracts, but signing Pollock and Grandal would be a pretty good haul for this team and is at least reasonable to consider.
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That debt ceiling talk isn’t a real thing.

I don’t think.
 
UNCBlue012 said:
The more I think about it, the more I bet the Braves target Kimbrel and Keuchel.
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I’m afraid Kimbrel will be to expensive and Keuchel seems like the back end of a four or five year deal could be terrible.

I would spend to get Grandal and either Pollock or Cutch. Those two would still leave 10 to 15 million to spend on additions to the bullpen / bench.

One move I could see happening is bring Nick back as the 4th OF/PH. I think his market maybe is a 5 to 6 million per year guy on a rebuilding team. No contender is paying him 11 million per year to start at age 35. Would Nick give us a contenders discount to stay at home and finish his career on a winning team?
 
Free agent additions:

Wilson Ramos C
Craig Kimbrel RHP
AJ Pollock RF
Lucas Duda LHH
Jonny Venters LHP
Adam Ottavino RHP

Doubt we could sign all of them, but those would all be phenomenal pick ups. Hopefully we get a payroll bump for the year we had.

Inciarte CF
Pollock RF
Freeman 1B
Acuna LF
Ramos C
Camargo 3B
Albies 2B
Swanson SS

Folty
Newk
Gausman
Touki
Soroka/Wilson/Wright/Fried

Flowers
Duda
Adams
Culberson

Kimbrel - Closer
Ottavino
Viz
Minter
Sobotka
Venters
Biddle
Winkler

I left Teheran out, figuring that it is time to turn the page and trade him this offseason for a few prospects, albeit not great prospects. By adding to the bullpen, and getting a better catcher than Flowers in, we significantly improve our teams chances this offseason. Pollock would be a great pick up for right field. Venters could move into a situational lefty. The additions of Ottavino and Kimbrel allows you to put Winkler and Biddle in less pressure situations, but we know they can handle those situations if called upon.

EDIT: Can't forget to fire Chuck Hernandez, i'd bring the rest of the coaching staff back. Seitzer did a great job making the adjustment with Acuna. Snit deserves to stay, LOVE Washington and Weiss on the staff
 
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Would/should we be willing to eat the majority of Justin Upton’s contract to get him for next to no prospect capital? That’s if Pollock or the like doesn’t work out.
 
CyYoung31 said:
Would/should we be willing to eat the majority of Justin Upton’s contract to get him for next to no prospect capital? That’s if Pollock or the like doesn’t work out.
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Love JUP and he could put up monster numbers in this park....the thing that worries me is that he has the tendency to carry the team for small stretches and completely fall off the grid for a while with a lot of K's....i'd like to see us take the approach of working counts better....thats what good teams do which makes the opposing teams pitchers rack up pitch counts, getting the starter out earlier...

Also, focus on the pen...the Brewers have a great pen, that takes pressure off the offense
 
Kimbrel's current employer will be strongly motivated to keep him. There is probably a pretty good comfort level between them and him. They have significantly deeper pockets than we do.

Ditto all of the above with respect to Grandal.
 
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nsacpi said:
Kimbrel's current employer will be strongly motivated to keep him. There is probably a pretty good comfort level between them and him. They have significantly deeper pockets than we do.

Ditto all of the above with respect to Grandal.
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agreed, however, having played here in the past and proximity to home could help sway his decision, on top of us having a competitive window opening up
 
Here is what I think is likely to happen:

1) Re-sign Suzuki at about $5M/one year
2) Re-sign Sanchez at about $5M/one year
3) Sign Asdrubal Cabrera about $8M per year/2 years
4) Trade Newcomb to the Diamondbacks for David Peralta.

Rotation at the start of the season will be: Folty, Gausman, Sanchez, Teheran and Fried

Cabrera will play 2-3 games a week. Mostly spelling Camargo, Swanson and Albies against righties.

Duvall will play against lefties, with either Peralta or Inciarte being given the day off.

Pen will have 4 righties from among Viz, Winkler, O'Day, Carle and Sobotka, and 4 lefties--Venters, Minter, Biddle and Freeman.

AA will keep a fair amount of powder dry for mid-season moves.

We will have a nice group of players in AAA to bring up as needed: Riley, Touki, Gohara, Soroka, Wright, Wilson. We can ease Gohara and Soroka back into things and limit their workload so they can come in an make a big contribution later in the season. You always need 8 or so starting pitchers to get through a major league season.

This the outline of what I see happening. Obviously the details could be different. There are alternatives to Peralta such as Marte or Piscotty we could trade for. Similarly we could sign Marwin Gonzalez or Eduardo Escobar instead of Asdrubal Cabrera. I do think the focus will be on left-handed or switch hitting hitters who do well against righties. Our team currently leans a bit right-handed including 2 switch hitters (Albies and Camargo) who hit better from the right side. We need to balance that out a bit.

I would add both Suzuki and Sanchez have made clear they would like to come back. If you can keep veterans like that on sub-market one-year deals it is foolish not to do so.
 
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Marwin Gonzalez is a FA I believe and he can play all over the field and play it well. He would be worth a look too.
 
Hudson2 said:
Marwin Gonzalez is a FA I believe and he can play all over the field and play it well. He would be worth a look too.
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He along with Eduardo Escobar and Asdrubal Cabrera should be high on our free agent shopping list.
 
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