Sansterre's GM Only Minnesota Twins Dynasty

[sansterre]

So. I started a base game, default major league rosters, GM only, no control over lineups and rotations. I took the Minnesota Twins because I grew up in Minnesota (at least from years 1-6 they were the first team I ever liked anyways. I'm not a fan of the team, or any team, but I can't deny a certain sentimentality to them. Add to that the fact that they're young and cheap and don't have a serious history of success, and they're ideal for building a dynasty around.

When I take over the team the owner gives me three goals: don't suck, re-sign Blaine Boyer and make the playoffs by 2021.

Well I'm pretty sure I can do the first, and I'll do the second even though Boyer is terrible. He only costs me a mill. As for the third, I appreciate the six years for the playoffs. My bet is I'll only need three. But I may be silly.

My glance at the team is mixed.

My batters are good: Oswaldo Arcia looks like he'll be awesome, but my other outfielders aren't great. Pinto looks like a good C, Dozier is solid at 2B, Mauer at 1st, Santana at SS and Plouffe at 3rd. Not a great lineup (and no star bats besides Arcia) but reasonably solid top to bottom.

My pitchers suck. They suck beyond sucking. Phil Hughes is the ace. Yeah yeah, I know he threw up a 5.7 WAR last year, but his ratings are 12/11/17 with extreme fly-ball. Not bad, but anything above 2 WAR will be nice. And everyone after him is terrible. And my bullpen blows. Memo to me: keep an eye on the waiver wire because anything I find will be an improvement.

I look at the team's salary chart and I promptly look up who the GM before me was so I can curse his name. (Terry Ryan is his name. Curse it!) Mauer for four years $23 a year is terrible. I mean, he's not bad, but he's not worth 23 mill. And four years is a long time. Also, Phil Hughes for five years at around 11/year average is ghastly. Kurt Suzuki for three years a 5/yr is bad (it's not a lot, but he's not good.) Ervin Santana for 65/5yrs is a crime against humanity. Glen Perkins at 24/4yrs is nuts. Ricky Nolasco for 48/4 is equally dumb.

One of the first things that stuck with me reading baseball prospectus a million years ago (ten or so) was the tendency of average clubs to pay good players star-level money. This seems to have happened here. There's no question that freeing up my money is an early priority.

Looking at the farm system is much cheerier. Byron Buxton looks great, Miguel Sano likewise, plus another horde of prospects beneath them. Fewer SPs than I'd like, and too many SSs, but there's a lot of upside here.

I'm feeling optimistic that, once I retool things, I'll be in a strong position. But I think my team right now is not good, and the 72 win preseason projection confirms that. Oh well; it's no fun if you can't start from the bottom! Viva la revolucion!

[sansterre]

By the end of May we're 24-18, and in second place behind the surging Cleveland Indians. My owner is ecstatic. I don't buy it for a second. Not only are we outperforming our pythag by a few games, but my team has put up about 5 WAR between all my players, which prorates to around 20 WAR for the season. 20 WAR is terrible, about a 70 win team, or worse. In other words, we're winning but we're playing like crap.

There's no shame in that game.

Transactions for these months:

Claimed Andy Oliver on waivers. He's a 17/14/10 RP; not particularly good but good enough to become my setup man. Remember when I said how bad out pitching was? Yeah.

I hunted down (using the new Find a Player tool) a bunch of pitchers with at least a 13+ Stuff and Control, on the assumption that Target Field (take that Hubert H Humphrey!) will depress home run totals either way. The best pitcher that seems cheapest is Eric Jokisch, a 13/12/13 25 year old with the Cubs. I land him for Amaurys Minier (3 star 1B prospect), Roni Tapia (1 star prospect), Nick Burdi (3 star closer prospect) and Travis Harrison (1 star prospect.) Two 3-star prospects hurts a bit to lose, but Jokisch is a huge upgrade on every other starter I have (possibly excepting Hughes,) and I have prospects for days.

I flipped Kurt Suzuki for Rajai Davis. Davis is not good, though he's a tiny upgrade in my outfield. The selling point is that they both make 5 mill this year, but Davis' contract is two years shorter, ending at the end of this season. Aces!

In my second salary dump I trade Ervin Santana (terrible contract), Chris Hermann (2 star C prospect, 27,) Ruar Verkerk (2 star 3B prospect, 18,) and Kyle Gibson (.5 star SP.) For what? 5 million dollars, but that doesn't matter so much. Mostly I gave Texas two modest prospects to pay them to take Santana's salary off my hands. Going to be real, I think the AI botched this a bit. I cut off a ton of expense at almost no cost to me.

I scored a lucky coup on waivers, signing Brandon Morrow (3 million, 30 yo, 15/13/11 SP) and Scott Elbert (1.3 mill, 29 yo, 19/14/11 RP.) Neither is great, but both are definitive upgrades for me.

I also blew my international amateur FA budget all over the place, grabbing several of the best players. I'll have to be silent for the next one, but I feel like there's no way to put a price on having good players in your system.

I feel like my team is improving slowly, but we're not a good team, whatever our record is.

[baseballfanmas]

Good luck! My dynasty is also GM only. I'm starting with the Cubs, but if things go south there, I'll end up wherever I end up. It's a GM journey of sorts.


Fortunately, you've got much more attainable goals in your first season with the Twins than I did in my first season with the Cubs. I'll be following along.

[gotigers]

Will be following. Good luck!

[buckeye22]

(Not so) secretly, I hope you crash and burn and never get out of the cellar in the Central. lol

But good luck, some interesting prospects there in Minnesota, if you can ever just find some pitching.

[sansterre]

At the end of July we're 51-45, but with a pythag of 45-51 and only 12 WAR between my players. We've got a decent lock on a wild-card spot, but we're already ten games behind the stupid Cleveland Indians. Even with a fairly solid record, I still have no faith in this team. We're wildly out-performing every reasonable indicator of how good our team actually is. So even with a record that makes us the #1 wild card team, I have no faith in it keeping up.

Add to that the fact that I had four injuries in these months and I'm not feeling great (Arcia for four weeks, Mauer for 2 months, and a reliever and OF that I don't remotely care about.) Byron Buxton is whispering sweet nothings in my ear from AAA and his ratings are getting much better, (11/11/10 with 18 CF and solid steals) but I harden my heart to his pleas. No sense in starting his ML service timer any earlier than I need to.

The draft is reasonably decent. Because of the nature of the first draft, there aren't stats to look at, so I just look at my scout + osa. Here are my top five picks:

1) Brady Aiken, SP, 4th overall pick, 3.5 stars scout, 5 stars OSA, 12/15/15 projected (scout), 19 yo, 8 million bonus.

2) John Aiello, SS, 34th overall pick, 5 stars both scout and OSA, 14/15/10 projected with 12-13 SS fielding, moderate speed, 1.8 million

3) Alonzo Jones, 2B, 64th, 4.5 stars scout, 4 stars OSA, 10/7/14 projected, 15 fielding, monster speed, 650k

4) Ryan Sloniger, C, 94th, 4.5 stars scout, 2.5 stars OSA, 11/14/11 projected, 12 fielding, 270k

5) Niko Navarro, 3B 124th, 4 stars scout, 5 stars OSA, 12/13/11, 13 fielding, average speed, 150k.

I'm fairly happy with this group, or as happy as I can be without stats to look at. Aiken is a monster. I don't care what my scout says; 8 mill bonus players are never not a five-star prospect. And frankly, Aiello could be very good. Jones cracks me up; the AI is pretty optimistic to look at a 10/7/14 with 15 fielding and give him 4.5 stars, but whatever Slinger and Navarro may be good some day.

All in all, I feel decent about my first draft; I had better, since I had the fourth overall pick.

Transactions:

I extended Brandon Morrow (SP, 30 yo, 15/12/12) to a one-year 5.8 million dollar deal. I think it's a fair price for a decent starter.

I claimed John Jaso off waivers (DH, 31 yo, L, 11/9/14) 3.6 mill. You may be thinking, "Sansterre, this guy can't hit, and you're paying him 3.6 to DH for you?" Good point anonymous reader. That said, I had the money to blow (at this point I had 10 mill in padding) and I had no DH worth mentioning (remember, Mauer is down.) I thought it a reasonable gamble.

I brought up Kennys Vargas (1B, 24, Sw, 11/14/11 with a bit of room to grow) once Mauer went down. He's doing tolerably.

I claim Juan Nicasio off of waivers (SP, 28, 12/13/14, 2.6 million.) Again, beggars can't be choosers.

At this point I start to suspect that Trevor Plouffe (3B, 29, 11/12/11) is expendable. I know, you're wondering where I'm going to replace his 0.2 WAR from. Sure he put up 4 WAR last year, but that was last year. And Miguel Sano is lurking in AAA, and Plouffe's rating is inflated because of his stats last year. I shop him a bit and find, much to my surprise, that the San Diego Padres need a 3B (and apparently have seven thousand SPs; I already got Morrow off of them.) I trade Plouffe for Josh Johnson (SP, 31, 13/13/13, 1 mill) straight up. Dumb trade for them to make. Shrug.

Glen Perkins is making me sad. He's 32, making 6+ mill a year for the next four and is putting up a 3.83 FIP as a closer. Now that's not bad; if I were the yankees I wouldn't have a problem with that. But I'm the twins, and I can't pay anyone that kind of money without a serious justification. Salary dump time!

Perkins (32, RP, 15/12/15 flyball, 6.3 mill), Max Murphy (OF, 23, 10/10/10 pot, 1.5 star), Emmanuel Morel (2B, 18, 6/7/10 pot, 1 star) and 5 million for Erick Meza (1B, 17, 11/16/15 pot, Lefty, 3.5 stars prospect.)

Not a great trade, but I cleared Perkins off and got a decent prospect for it. I'll take it.

I extended Eric Jokisch to a 3 year, 1.7 mill a year deal. I know he's not that good, but he's actually putting up around a 4 FIP, and I'm slightly attached to him since he's the first non-crappy pitcher I got. Also, 1.7 is nothing.


That's about all for these months. I'm going pretty quickly right now; I expect I'll slow down once I get a season or so into it.

Thanks so much for the support guys; I appreciate it

In the name of disclosure, any time I give three slashes of stats (i.e., 10/14/9) those are out of 20, and they are contact, power and eye, or stuff, movement and control for pitchers. If it's a prospect I'm talking about, it's probably their potential (though I tried to mark it where I could.)

Over half way through the season; we'll see if my silly team can hold on to this level of performance.

[sansterre]

I'm down to 68-64 going into the last 30 games. According to the amazing pennant race screen I have a 20% chance of making the playoffs. It's not that my record has gotten much worse, it's that the Angels and Royals have been improving a ton. The Royals are up on me by two games, and the Angels are tied with me. Only one of the three of us can get that second wild-card, and right now it's 60% the Royals. My pythag is still three wins lower than my actual wins, and my WAR is now pro-rating to 21. Alas.

Transactions:

I traded Eduardo Nunez (27, OF, 11/4/9) and Gabriel Gonzalez (CL, 18, 12/12/14p) to the Red Sox for Joe Kelly (SP, 27, 11/15/12, min) and Matt Barnes (24, Borderline SP, 17/13/11.) This doesn't strike me as a fair trade, unless the Red Sox scout had very different ideas of how good these players are.

I traded Ricky Nolasco (32, SP, 9/10/12, 36mill / 3 yrs) and Carlos Suniaga (18, RP, 9/11/9p) for Clay Buchholz (30, SP, 11/14/11, 12mill / 1 yr.) This is like the Davis trade, only trading a pitcher I'm not using making 12 per 3 for a pitcher I won't use who makes 12 for only 1.


My team looks as though it's going to finish out of the playoffs, but I'm excited to see them try to make it. We're past the trade deadline, so mostly I'm just trying to trim fat on my payroll and maneuver for next year. With a lot of free space and Buxton up in the majors, we should have a legitimate chance at the playoffs.

[sansterre]

I've been thinking. I don't really like scouting ratings 1-20, because they're a little too reliable (at least for the pros.) If you have a 14 contact guy, and he bats 210, there's absolutely no reason to assume he didn't just have a super unlucky season. And if he hits 210 again, but stays 14, it's another fluke. The 14 contact is a much better indicator of his real ability than his batting average, which means that his starts aren't really good indicators of his ability at all, which make them fairly irrelevant. I didn't want to go stats-only because that makes too many things too cumbersome; I did want some indicators of scouting value. I ended up deciding on a 1-5 system. It gives a quick shorthand without being too controlling:

1: Terrible, not ML level
2: Bad, well below ML level
3: Average for the ML level
4: Very good
5: Outstanding

The most important of these is obviously 3. A 3/3/3 2B may be 12/12/12, and so throw up solid seasons, or be 9/9/9 and be a train wreck. And I'll need to use stats to try and clarify just how good these players are. It should be an interesting change.


Well, the season ended and we finished 84-78. The teams above me were:

Tampa Bay 90-72
Cleveland 102-60
Oakland 91-72

Los Angeles 90-73
Toronto 89-73

Kansas City 88-74
Minnesota 84-78

Not particularly close to a playoff spot. The playoffs were very exciting, with St. Louis and Oakland going 7-4 and 7-2 respectively to make the world series. In the end, St. Louis prevailed 4-2 to win the 12th title for that team.

My team had a pythagorean of 77-85, so I over performed by 7 games. I finished with 25.1 WAR for my team, which is pretty bad, far worse than an 84-78 team would normally be, and perhaps a bit below what a 77-85 team would be.

The few highlights on my team:

Danny Santana, SS: 295/328/453, 4.5 WAR
Aaron Hicks, CF: 284/379/460, 3.7 WAR
Brian Dozier, 2B: 241/301/411, 2.2 WAR
Josmiel Pinto, C: 242/310/373, 2.1 WAR
Oswaldo Arcia, OF: 274/343/425, 1.3 WAR

That's all my batters above 1 WAR. Seriously. Rajai Davis and John Jaso were below replacement level, and everyone else failed to produce.

Pitchers weren't much better:

Erik Jokisch, SP: 0.8 / 2.1 / 6.5, 3.78 FIP, 2.7 WAR
Tommy Milone, SP: 0.6 / 2.1 / 5.7, 3.68 FIP, 2.1 WAR
Phil Hughes, SP: 1.3 / 1.7 / 5.7, 4.48 FIP, 1.4 WAR
Josh Johnson, SP: 0.9 / 4.0 / 6.9, 4.20 FIP, 1.1 WAR
Brandon Morrow, SP: 1.3 / 3.3 / 8.1, 4.52 FIP, 1.0 WAR
Scott Elbert, RP: 0.4 / 3.7 / 10.3, 2.99 FIP, 1.0 WAR

Pretty sad stuff. Jokisch had a nice season, Milone is obviously a fluke (0.6 HR/9 for an 11 movement, flyball pitcher is not reliable), Hughes ghastly 1.3 HR/9 were sadly too reliable, and Morrow's 1.3 HR/9 were artificially high, but it does happen. Not a great season for anyone.

I made no further transactions during the season. I was pretty pleased overall. My guys put up a winning record and I trimmed our finances down to much more manageable levels. Going forward, the team has a lot of maneuvering room.

I sit down with the owner. He says how happy he is that we've done so well. Our new budget is $130 mill, which is $20 mill down from last year.

I about hit the fan. Seriously? I do all that work to save him from bad contracts and he rewards me by cutting my budget? Screw him! The Cubs and Orioles are looking for a GM, maybe they'll be less ridiculous.

I calm down, eventually. Until he ganks me pretty bad, I'll keep on keeping on. It wasn't like I was using that extra 20 mill anyways, though I sure could have used it on a monster FA. Anyways.

His new goals are to play 500 ball (whatever), improve defensive efficiency from 12th in the AL (it really was a travesty), by two years to increase attendance to 30k a game (easy, drop prices), and to get team profits to 18m in four years. We'll see what happens.

Offseason Transactions:

I release Jordan Schafer, Torii Hunter, Rajai Davis and Mike Pelfrey. Each one of them cost money and were crappy, and that's a two-strikes and you're out kind of deal.

Having seen how dominant Sonny Gray and Michael Wacha were it basically reminds me that I need to upgrade my rotation if I want to compete in the playoffs. So I start a slew of trades:


With the KC Royals, I give up:

Jorge Polanco, 22, SS, 1.5/4 stars, 3/1/3 - 4/2/4
Juan Nicasio, 29, SP, 1.5 stars, 3/4/4, 1.1/2.7/5.4, 4.44 FIP, 0.3 WAR
Ariel Monesino, 20, 2B, 1 Star, 3/2/3 potential

for:

Yordano Ventura, 25 SP, 3.5 stars, 4/4/4, 0.7/3.2/7.4, 3.78 FIP, 3.2 WAR

Normally I'd never trade a quality prospect like Polanco, but I have a bit of a glut of SS prospects. Danny Santana is playing very well, and I have other great SS prospects coming up. This made Polanco expendable, even though he looks pretty good, a 4/2/4 SS is nothing to sneeze at. Nicasio was the biggest gamble of the three; if his 1.1 HR/9 were normal, then he's expendable. If they were a fluke, then I sold him off too cheap. And with a 4 movement, I may have. But Ventura looks like the real deal, plus is young. I'll take it.


Second Trade with Toronto:

I give up:

Phil Hughes 30 SP, 3/3/4, 1.3/1.7/5.7, 1.4 WAR and 13 mill a year for the next four
Joel Ramirez 22 SS, 3/2/3 pot, 1 star
Eddie Rosario 24 OF, 3/3/3 pot, 2 star pot

for:

Michael Saunders, 29 LF, 3/3/4, 2.5 stars, 241/336/414, 3.3 WAR, 28.5 over the next four years.

So. This trade is a bit hit or miss. The biggest part of it was clearing out my Hughes contract deadweight. The other players don't matter. Saunders is cheaper than Hughes, is a lefty, plays great LF and my OF is fairly terrible. I'm not thrilled with Saunders or his contract, but it does get rid of hughes.

Third trade, with the White Sox:

I give up:

Aaron Hicks 26 CF, 3/3/4, 3 star / 4 star, 3.7 WAR
Brandon Morrow, 31 SP, 4/3/3, 3.5 stars, 1 WAR, 6 million/1yr
John Jaso, 32 DH, 3/3/4, 2 stars, 1.3 WAR, 3.6 million/1yr
Tony Campana, 30 OF, 3/1/2 pot, 1 star
Miguel Sano, 23 3B, 3/4/3, 3/5/4 pot, 2 star / 4.5 star

What!? Miguel Sano! Did I type that right? What am I getting for this incredible haul?

Carlos Sanchez, 24 2B, 4/1/2, 4/1/3 pot, 1.5 stars / 2 stars
Oscar Mercado, 21 SS, 3/1/2, 3/1/3 pot, 1.5 stars / 3.5 stars
Chris Sale, 27 SP, 5/4/4, 5 stars, 1.5 / 1.9 / 9.3, 2.5 WAR, 34 million over the next 3 years.

Okay. Sale's year last year was a fluke, 1.5 HR/9 is way higher than is reasonable for a 4 movement guy. This is a 5-6 WAR pitcher. His salary is a bargain. Looking back on the deal, it's hard to know whether or not I won it. Morrow to Sale is obviously a huge upgrade. I liked Aaron Hicks, but I have Byron Buxton coming up. The only real thing I gave up was Sano, who may be really, really good. I guess it depends. If I make the playoffs, even once, in the next three years, then Sale will be worth his weight in gold. If I don't, then I probably should have kept Sano. This is one of those short-term deals; I'm banking on the idea that my team will be getting pretty good shortly, and that a great SP will help a lot. So we'll see. But I'm pretty happy to have Sale.

To short-circuit Yordano's arbitration timer I gave him an extension. It's a seven-year, but the terms are fairly reasonable: 45 million over the first five years (gradually scaling up) and two team options for 12.5 apiece at the end of the deal. A reasonable deal for a 3 WAR player, if indeed, he is one.

I also signed Luis Cruz in free agency to play third for me. He's a 2.5 star 3/3/2 with a 5 3B rating. He'll do alright.

I have maybe $15 million to maneuver with, but I'm in no rush to spend it. Nobody's that good for that price right now.

Preseason projections are out: I'm expected to go 83-79, two games out of first in the division, with the 6th best offense and the 4th best defense. We'll see, I'm not convinced

I go into 2016 cautiously optimistic. My lineup is much better than last year with Buxton and Saunders (and with my youngsters improving), and my pitching is leagues ahead of last year, with a rotation of Sale, Ventura, Johnson, Jokisch and Joe Kelly. I think it's possible.