Lance Lynn Signs with the Twins (One-Year Deal)

[mdbdotcom]

2 minutes ago, Ripken said:

Borrowed from Buster... This winter, the Twins landed P Lance Lynn, 1B-DH Logan Morrison, reliever Addison Reed, closer Fernando Rodney, reliever Zach Duke, P Michael Pineda, P Anibal Sanchez, OF Chris Heisey for a total of $55 million -- roughly 38% of what the Padres paid Eric Hosmer.

Plus Odorizzi.

[Ripken]

2 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

Plus Odorizzi.

Yeah, but we got THREE rule 5 guys, so, pffft, whatever. 

[Luke-OH]

15 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Tyler chatwood and Mike Mikolas both look like huge overpays.  Two darlings of the OH.  Man that feels like last offseason. 

That may be true but it's important to consider that with upside potential guys like Chatwood and Mikolas, multi-year deals are a feature, not a bug. If either of those guys are good, you create an asset, if Lynn is good, you lost a draft pick and you have to try and sign him again on the free agent market, so you hope he helped you win the one season of the deal.

[mdbdotcom]

In recent years, players that waited out the teams often got what they wanted, or close to it. Waiting hurt a lot of players this year. The ones that took the early offers tended to make out better this year.

[Luke-OH]

8 minutes ago, Ripken said:

Yeah, but we got THREE rule 5 guys, so, pffft, whatever. 

Odorizzi isn't very good, I'd be willing to bet Cortes has a better ERA+ (adjusts for park factors) than Odorizzi in 2018.

[mdbdotcom]

I think Lynn's deal was pretty fair for both parties. By taking the one-year deal he gets out from under the compensation weight of the qualifying offer (which cannot be offered again) and stands to make $14 million if he earns his bonuses this season. MLBTR predicted he'd get a 4/56 deal, so the AAV would be the same. Plus, there's a good chance he'll be headed for the playoffs.

The Twins see 2018 as the last year for their window, with Dozier and Mauer probably gone after this season. So the 1-year deal is right for them. And if he doesn't perform well or is unable to hit his marks due to injury, the Twins save $2mm.

[Rene88]

8 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

I think Lynn's deal was pretty fair for both parties. By taking the one-year deal he gets out from under the compensation weight of the qualifying offer (which cannot be offered again) and stands to make $14 million if he earns his bonuses this season. MLBTR predicted he'd get a 4/56 deal, so the AAV would be the same. Plus, there's a good chance he'll be headed for the playoffs.

The Twins see 2018 as the last year for their window, with Dozier and Mauer probably gone after this season. So the 1-year deal is right for them. And if he doesn't perform well or is unable to hit his marks due to injury, the Twins save $2mm.

Only 1 year left in their window...sounds familiar...

 

edit: Jim Palmer just responded on Twitter. Clearly not happy. #lostopportunity. 

[Il BuonO]

16 minutes ago, Rene88 said:

Only 1 year left in their window...sounds familiar...

edit: Jim Palmer just responded on Twitter. Clearly not happy. #lostopportunity. 

JP may go the way of Jon Miller if he keeps speaking his mind concerning this team’s FO.

[Rene88]

10 minutes ago, Il BuonO said:

JP may go the way of Jon Miller if he keeps speaking his mind concerning this team’s FO.

Doubtful. They are the same side of politics (the moral and right side).

I respect Jim Palmer in many ways, more than I can express in words. God bless him.

[Frobby]

16 hours ago, Finisher said:

Gross thing to me is we're giving Cashner 3/41 if he's healthy and Lynn gets 1/12. So you valued Cashner over Lynn and possibly Cobb.

Also instead of gambling on Tillman, just fork over more for a safer front of rotation guy at a severe discount like Lynn or Cobb.

So we insist on trying to contend this year .. there are front of rotation arms sitting there at a severe discount and .. crickets.

Cashner has to do more than stay healthy the next two years.   There are $400 k incentives each year for reaching 170, 180, 190 and 200 innings.   He’s only had two seasons over 170 in his career and has never reached 190, so it’s extremely unlikely he’ll reach all those incentives.    And, his player option vests only at 360 innings, something he’s never done.   His top two seasons, which weren’t consecutive, totaled only 359.2 innings.

Still, it is kind of amazing that we’ve ended up in a spot where we couldn’t land Lynn in this market.   

[atomic]

31 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

I think Lynn's deal was pretty fair for both parties. By taking the one-year deal he gets out from under the compensation weight of the qualifying offer (which cannot be offered again) and stands to make $14 million if he earns his bonuses this season. MLBTR predicted he'd get a 4/56 deal, so the AAV would be the same. Plus, there's a good chance he'll be headed for the playoffs.

The Twins see 2018 as the last year for their window, with Dozier and Mauer probably gone after this season. So the 1-year deal is right for them. And if he doesn't perform well or is unable to hit his marks due to injury, the Twins save $2mm.

If he blows out his elbow his career is over.   I am guessing there were no 2 year 24 million deals out there.  The Orioles should have made that offer.   Are there teams with payrolls over 100 million with worse rotations? 

[FanSince88]

"Why are you so upset about this?  You don't know that we didn't give Lynn an offer!  You know, we have to pay a premium for pitchers and he might have accepted less money to go to the Twins."  

You're right.  We very well could have made Lynn a 1/13 or 1/14 offer that he rejected.  It's very possible.  

But you know what I'm 110% sure of?  I'm absolutely certain we didn't offer him something like 2/20.  That's a 66% increase over the Twins offer.  Unless Lance has a love child in Minneapolis, I can't imagine he'd turn down an extra year and a 2/3 increase in guaranteed money.

"The Twins would probably have just raised their offer and gotten Lynn anyway, though!"

Perhaps.  But if we're really trying to compete for that second wild card, don't you think we should make it as difficult as possible for our rivals to sign cheap deals?  I thought this was a competition.

"Don't you know Angelos is trying to sell the team?  We don't want to scare off potential buyers with another $10 mil on the books next year, do we?"  

Assuming that's true, and even if a buyer really actually cared about a one year deal for $10 mil next season, it should be duck soup for us to trade Lynn back to an NL team in a salary dump deal.  Even if he's unsuccessful this season in Camden, he has a proven track record in the NL and should be fine there next year at least as a long reliever or 5th starter.  You'd find a suitor.  Maybe you'd have to eat 1 or 2 mil of his salary next year...boo freaking hoo.  

[Frobby]

5 minutes ago, FanSince88 said:

But you know what I'm 110% sure of?  I'm absolutely certain we didn't offer him something like 2/20.  That's a 66% increase over the Twins offer.  Unless Lance has a love child in Minneapolis, I can't imagine he'd turn down an extra year and a 2/3 increase in guaranteed money.  

I’m not sure of that at all.    If I’m Lynn, I might very well take 1/$12 mm with $2 mm in incentives in Minnesota over 2/$20 mm in Baltimore.   As another poster pointed out, next year Lynn won’t have a QO attached and that will enhance his value.   Plus, the Twins have a better playoff shot than the Orioles and Minnesota is a better place to pitch.    

[Luke-OH]

"I’d love to break down the Orioles’ negotiations with Lynn and whether he preferred a short-term deal to avoid Camden Yards and a team projected to finish below .500, but I don’t have any details beyond how the club stayed in contact with his representative and appeared open to three guaranteed years but preferred two with a vesting option."

From http://www.masnsports.com/school-of-roch/2018/03/a-few-thoughts-on-the-rotation-alignment.html

[mdbdotcom]

28 minutes ago, atomic said:

If he blows out his elbow his career is over.   I am guessing there were no 2 year 24 million deals out there.  The Orioles should have made that offer.   Are there teams with payrolls over 100 million with worse rotations? 

Perhaps not, which is another reason why the most sensible thing to do was to trade Manny, Britton and Brach for young pitching and retool for 2019, when our new core outfield and catchers should be ready to contribute at a fairly high level.