Because the Twins' off-season roster excisions (Cron, Gibson, etc.) were pretty likely outcomes, I thought this would be a good idea immediately when the season ended, but it didn't seem like a very realistic match given the entire Twins' history so I gave up on it. Then the Twins remained in the periodic "Who's Gonna Sign Josh Donaldson" rumors all the way through November, so when December came around I actually started to believe it. Then somewhere around mid-December, I sort of gave up on it again because their co-rumored-destinations (Nats, Braves in particular) seemed more likely to spend the money and just as logical fits for Donaldson's skill.

So I'd given up on it for the last 3-4 weeks, and then it happened and now the Twins have a third baseman who is kind of old and has an injury history but has been extremely good with the bat and the glove for awhile and last year as well. First I was really pleased, because the Twins signing a notable free agent like this is really rare. He's probably the most notable. Then I was nervous because I was sort of aware that he's a player I tend to overvalue because he just destroys the Twins (having this officially confirmed was actually really nice - the STrib had a piece about how is the best hitter ever against the Twins for a player with more than 100 pa) and the back end of this deal (which is apparently a record for a player of his age? I feel like I heard that somewhere) could get pretty grim - and grim at a time that could heap a nasty 23mm contract on the back of a payroll that will just have started reckoning with Sano and Buxton and Kepler and Polanco and Berrios and Rosario's expensive years (their rate on Polanco and Kepler and Sano's extensions all seem like good bargains if they hold their present performance but I'm speaking broadly here) with a notoriously frugal ownership.

But then I backed out of that nervousness because of the last point. This roster always had a window, and there probably won't be much attempt to prop it open. Which means that if you're a fan and you have no decision-making power in whether a billionaire decides he's going to throw a few more stacks on the money fire this year. Just like I have no influence over whether a fastball gets any of the outside corner or whether a long fly dies on the fence, I also don't have any control over whether the front office will commit to competitiveness. And then maybe the arbitrariness is part of the fun and that I should embrace my absolute lack of agency.

I think this makes the team substantially better for the next two years, and those will be particularly important years. Sano wasn't a very good thirdbaseman, though he actually seemed committed to staying as viable there as possible. And honestly, he was sort of fun to watch at third. A legitimately great arm, one of the best in the league at the spot. And spry coming in on bunts. Surprisingly spry. But he was also inert as he got larger so the fun will have to just remain in my memory. Donaldson has been somewhere between good and excellent over there, and though I think it's a bit of a dodge to pretend that Sano will just be an acceptable defensive firstbaseman immediately I'm going to, uh, do it anyway.

Having one really strong defender in the infield will be nice, because I don't think Polanco and Arraez are that good there (and that the FO agrees as it seems to be prioritizing flyball guys so that the by-contrast-excellent defensive outfield can run around and snag flies) but obviously this is about Donaldson's bat, which has been just really fun and great. He has always drawn walks, but he broke out as an on-the-old-side minorleaguer by learning to hit the ball over the wall. I feel like he was one of the first guys to really talk enthusiastically about the uppercut swing thing. Maybe not the first guy to really care, but the first one I remember specifically evangelizing about it. I guess it worked well for him, unless I'm thinking of somebody else.

The team's righthanded power is going to be pretty immense, but it's not really an unbalanced lineup. Plus it's not a bunch of big fat sluggers either. It was just really fun to watch last year, and though everybody seems to be expecting a correction on the baseball so there won't be multiple teams pinging three hundred homers, I sort of think this team is going to continue to really hit. Somebody's going to get hurt. And somebody's going to go backwards. But Baldelli seemed really adept last year of working the deep bench. Having Marwin Gonzalez must be like a manager's dream, he's basically a tenth starter who can keep everybody fresh.

If the wheels stay on through the 2021 season, I think this will have been worth it. It's a big deal signing but it's not like they're fully moving uptown. So I won't say it's a World-Series-or-Bust signing. I just want to have a similar amount of fun watching baseball in 2020 and 2021 as I did in 2019.

There's other stuff to talk about. That Sano-at-first thing probably. How much Arraez remind me of Luis Castillo except that I really, really liked Luis Castillo and it's hard to me to imagine another player coming along who's that good which then makes me realize I've been posting about the Twins for like fifteen years and while Luis Castillo was good it's not like he was so good that in thirteen years after his tenture with the Twins they couldn't gin up another high-contact, high-walk, low-power second baseman who was vaguely square shaped. And Dobnak and Smeltzer who both seem to be treated as rotation likelihoods and I don't really think either of them is very good.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

>And then maybe the arbitrariness is part of the fun and that I
>should embrace my absolute lack of agency.

it helps in multiple spheres of life, but seems especially applicable to being a mn sports fan.

i don't really have much else to say. signing a 34yo third baseman with marginal beard game seems like a twins-y thing to do ... especially given him being strongly relevant 4-6 years ago. very twins-y.

>it helps in multiple spheres of life, but seems especially
>applicable to being a mn sports fan.

Yep. It's kind of a real "oh, I guess that's happening" moment in time for a lot of people lately, it seems.

>i don't really have much else to say. signing a 34yo third
>baseman with marginal beard game seems like a twins-y thing to
>do ... especially given him being strongly relevant 4-6 years
>ago. very twins-y.

I am incredibly uncomfortable with his beard and dumb hair. He is incredibly good at baseball but emanates aggressive doofus-ness. I think the recent history you're suggesting there is a probably more reasonable answer than my hope that two injury-warped years followed by a huge bounceback 2019 are just bad luck followed by a return to normal. But 2019 was pretty in character in the sense that it looked like usual good Josh Donaldson season. High walk rate, average limited by a big flyball rate but a lot of those flies go over the wall, so voila - really good hitter. Though his strikeout rate is ticking up noticeably. That's probably something.

Two years seems hopeful, but not unreasonably. That's the mood I'm trying to strike.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Signing a guy in his mid-30s is a race against time.

Was talking with a baseball writer friend today and he thought it was a decent signing but didn't move the needle. Most of his reader feedback kind of poo-poo'ed it. I don't get that. The Twins have had success and now have a lot of pop from the right side. The division is pretty wide open and a lot of the big-name teams have gotten a little weaker in the AL. Unless you consider the Yankees unbeatable, I think it's going to be a real intriguing year.

And you will know MY JACKET IS GOLD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

>Signing a guy in his mid-30s is a race against time.

Entirely. Take a guess at how likely you think a GOOD year four. Like a year where Donaldson is on the field for 600 plate appearances, can still field a position once and awhile, and hits to his career (.259/.379/.521) averages? How about year three? Etc.

Writing it out seems really unlikely at year four. Down the line, though, I'm good crossing my fingers at two years. I'm heartened by the possibility that the team's depth means they can rest him frequently.

And since I don't think there's any chance the team keeps the core of the roster together past 2021-2022, I kind of feel like the Donaldson gamble is a risk that I like.

>Was talking with a baseball writer friend today and he thought
>it was a decent signing but didn't move the needle. Most of
>his reader feedback kind of poo-poo'ed it. I don't get that.
>The Twins have had success and now have a lot of pop from the
>right side. The division is pretty wide open and a lot of the
>big-name teams have gotten a little weaker in the AL. Unless
>you consider the Yankees unbeatable, I think it's going to be
>a real intriguing year.

That's where I'm at. I think that 101 wins last year and the huge homerun total were a bit flukey, but they had a really good team in a division where Cleveland is on the way down and Chicago hasn't really quite put everything together (though they're really going after it this winter) and they have a nice pool of prospect depth to either fall back on or deal for an important deadline acquisition. It may not work, but why wouldn't a team like the one I just described take a risk to make a leap forward? I don't see any other hurdle remaining to regarding them as legitimate title contenders for a couple years.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg

¨Your mother is Colin Powell¨ - Lurkmode

www.Tupreme.com

It's encouraging that he's still a good defender. It's not just that having his glove would help, but it kind of makes it feel like he's just aging slightly better. I'm not sure if I've explained that quite well, but maybe that just means it doesn't really make sense and I'm saying it to convince myself.

I'm starting to realize that the money thing is the way I feel most differently about baseball now than 10-25 years ago. Granted, the Twins were on a much tighter leash with money back then. And it was kind of a fun way to think about the game according to a secret set of rules (be cheap) that confined your team and made their winning more interesting or virtuous or whatever. Particularly because they were going to be cheap regardless of how I felt about it, so why not make it work for me emotionally. But I don't really bother to think about team payroll at all. The process by which the ownership and front office would decide seems so alien to any on-field product - except in the very narrow sense that there's probably some end to fan's patience if ownership and front office keep refusing to invest in a team that shows potential. But I'm not really sure that matters *that* much.

So, now I just kind of shrug it off as somebody else's money. Though this is the most shrugging I've had to do in awhile. He's getting paid a lot and my sort of despair/optimism about the clear finitude of the Twins competitive window (2020-2021, maybe 2022) sort of casually ignores the fact that the Twins farm system is pretty well stocked. Maybe not the upside of the group that made up the current roster but way more depth - and not without upside too. Royce Lewis was up to top-5 in baseball recently. Though for some reason I'm not as interested in him as I was in Buxton, Kepler, Sano, etc. If there's any one option that I thought was better than signing Donaldson, it was using Lewis in trade to get Arenado or Bryant. Am I remembering right that you're a Cubs fan? What's Bryant's... deal?

Also, I am sorry for missing your post on the other thread. I put up this assuming it was the only post and kind of overcommitted.

______________________________

"Walleye, a lot of things are going to go wrong in your life that technically aren't your fault. Always remember that this doesn't make you any less of an idiot"

--Walleye's Dad

Anti-gentrification, cheap alcohol & trying to look pretty in our twilight posting years (c) Big Reg

¨Your mother is Colin Powell¨ - Lurkmode

www.Tupreme.com