The Twins’ initial four-year offer to Josh Donaldson was for $84MM, per Phil Miller and La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Shortly thereafter, the team grew pessimistic about signing him, as reports that Donaldson was seeking a $110MM guarantee surfaced. Minnesota’s addition of a fifth-year option with a huge buyout ($16MM option, $8MM buyout) not only boosted the contract’s guarantee to $92MM but also increased the possibility of Donaldson eventually reaching the $100MM mark, which was important to his camp. That increase, of course, also helped the Twins to outbid the rest of the field, which included the Braves, Nationals and, to a lesser extent, the Dodgers and Rangers.
Donaldson himself chatted with Alison Mastrangelo of Channel 2 WSB News in Atlanta about his decision to choose the Twins over the Braves (Twitter links, with video). “Ultimately it wasn’t in the same realm for me [financially],” Donaldson said. “This is going to be my 13th year in the big leagues. I’ve been on a lot of one-year contracts, and the Twins were in a position to where they could offer me a lengthy deal where I thought it was right for me and my family.”
The third baseman called the opportunity to suit up for the Braves, who he grew up watching a “dream come true,” but added that Atlanta wound up “offering me late — like a day or so before.” A return simply “didn’t work out,” Donaldson summed. On the Twins, he expressed excitement over joining a contender with a deep lineup and noted that he’s had success hitting at Minneapolis’ Target Field throughout his career.
More from the Twin Cities…
- Shortstop Jorge Polanco, who underwent surgery to repair a chronic ankle issue in November, is likely to resume baseball activities this week, tweets Darren Wolfson of SKOR North radio. There was no expectation at the time of the surgery that Polanco’s rehab would extend into Spring Training or the regular season, though it’s nevertheless a positive for the Twins that the 26-year-old’s rehab is seemingly on track. Polanco turned in a strong .295/.356/.485 slash and a career-high 22 home runs in 2019, but he also posted some of the game’s lowest marks in Ultimate Zone Rating and Outs Above Average. Ongoing ankle troubles surely didn’t help Polanco’s mobility, but it’s still tough to expect him to make significant contributions on the defensive side of things.
- Miguel Sano will shift across the diamond to first base now that the Twins have emerged victorious in the Donaldson bidding, and the slugger has no issue with that move, writes Betsy Helfand of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Sano has been working out at first base all winter and said he’s plenty willing to make the switch. (In the aforementioned Star Tribune column, Sano even revealed that he sent a video message to Donaldson in the final days of his free agency, urging him to come to Minnesota to “join the Bomba Squad.”) Moreover, Sano made clear that he hopes to stay in Minnesota well beyond the 2023 season — the final year of club control on the $30MM extension he just signed: “I think regardless of winning or losing, I’ve made up my mind,” Sano said. “I want to spend my entire career here, so this is the first step.”
Hope 1B helps keep Sano on the field. Love his bat. Hoping for huge numbers from him in 2020
Even if he’s terrible at 1B, his bat may be good enough to play. He’s no Frank Thomas, but Thomas was a pretty poor defender who was still out there every day. Worst-case scenario, barring injury, is that his glove is so bad he’s unplayable there and they have to use him to spell Donaldson and Cruz. Cruz has some amazing longevity, but even he won’t last forever.
Come on – I was huge and had a weak arm, give me a break.
He would have been DHing if they had not had Harold Baines
Have fun with Donaldson, Minnesota. He’s exciting to watch. I was split on whether or not the Braves should sign him to 4 year deal. Either way, we’re going to miss him down here. The Twins lineup is going to be NASTY this year.
I think everybody in Minnesota is going to be really surprised by his defense, too. His bat has been the topic of discussion but he made some outright unbelievable plays at third all year long in 2019. Great player and congrats on the signing, from a Braves fan.
It’s been quite awhile since we had an elite defender at the hot corner. Now if can just get Polanco to play better…
Koskie was an elite defender, and just generally underrated.
Twins offense was NASTY last year. In fact, their entire lineup, 1-9, had an OPS+ of over 100, including 2 guys who aren’t there (Schoop and Cron) and a few who may have outkicked their coverage last year like Cruz, who had his best season ever at age 38, Kepler and Garver who might be this good or might not, and Arraez, who has hit for a high average everywhere but is still just 22 and unproven. They will still be a really good lineup, but A LOT went right this year that may not go as well next year.
You’re not wrong that some guys are bound for regression (Cruz is a year older and played out of his mind) but I don’t see where you’d get that everything went right for the Twins last year. There’s a lot of room for improvement:
1) Garver played in 93 games (started about 81) last year as the Twins tried to make his development behind the plate easier. This year he will play 125 to 140 games if he’s healthy. Even if he’s 10-15% worse, he’ll be in the lineup more often.
2) Sano missed the first six weeks of the season and went through a horrific slump as he made swing changes midseason. If he’s healthy and settled this year, that’s a huge jump.
3) Donaldson is significantly better than Cron. Loads better.
4) Arraez only played the last half of the season. He’ll be there the entire season and should be a significant improvement over Schoop, who was average. Plus, Arraez’s OBP fits better on the team than Schoop’s HRs.
5) Buxton is harder to depend on since he’s missed serious time 3 of 4 seasons but if he gets 120 games that’s a huge boost. He gets 140 and he’s an MVP candidate.
6) Eddie Rosario had a down year and is still only 27. His BABIP was forty points below his career norm while his ISO was a career high. The former is unlikely to repeat itself for a relatively young guy whose game is not based on speed and whose LD%, GB/FB ratio, and IF/FB rates were all static with career norms. He’s a prime candidate to rebound.
7.) Kepler and Polanco are both young and took believable steps last year. They are as likely to improve as they are to fall back – neither had underlying data that screams regression to the mean.
The Twins may not hit the same overall numbers as last year because the ball is changed back but relative to the rest of the league, they seem more likely to improve on offense than regress. Outside of Cruz at DH, every position player has a strong chance to improve his performance from last year. It would take a lot of bad luck for this Twins lineup to regress, especially with guys like Rooker and Kiriloff in the top looking ready in the second half and Marwin Gonzalez available to spell six positions.
Logan you are a Class Act .
I have no doubt Donaldson will be exciting to watch ! How about a Braves/Twins World Series ???
If Donaldson is complaining about ATL’s timing – does that mean reports that ATL would get a last chance to match/outbid all offers because he wanted to come back? Or, did he feel slighted he wasn’t being courted by ATL, and maybe ATL had a firm offer that they were comfortable with?
I feel like he wanted to play in ATL, but not sacrificing $10M+ to do so, which I don’t blame him.
Sounds like he’s a bit jilted and salty towards ATL. I’m sure he does feel a bit slighted after working hard to regain his value (after a very slow start to the season) and felt AA & Co would easily make him the offer he wanted to come back. Oh well, good luck in MN. Twas fun while it lasted.
If it was anyone other than AA, I’d completely agree. However, I’m sure AA was very careful about not promising him anything besides 2019 as an opportunity to rebound, and then take it from there. At the same time, I don’t think anyone is hurt over him taking the highest offer, especially at his advanced age, and what he was able to accomplish – when he essentially bet on himself by taking a 1-year deal to prove…and he did. Good on him. Good luck in MN.
Sounds like they didn’t even make an offer until it was too late. And then that offer didn’t come close to the MN offer.
Where did the thumbs go??
Naw, I don’t blame Josh OR Atlanta. In the end it was business, nothing personal.
I think the Twins wound up bidding against themselves. Well played by the Donaldson camp, I would say.
Love the small market teams poking their heads up into the elite level, so all hopes for the Twins to repeat. But I got a bad feeling that JD’s 2019 was a last bit of glory, both health and performance-wise. Luckily, even if it was he’s still useful, and they have plenty of cheap position player talent, but I think they would have been better served spending that money on a couple pitchers.
Minneapolis St Paul is mid market. So sick of the twins being lumped in with Milwaukee, KC and Pittsburgh.
No team figures to suffer more if MLB brings back the real baseball than the Bomba Squad. They may be approaching 2020 with a 2019 mindset, which could be counter-productive.
But wouldn’t bringing back the old ball have the same effect for everyone? Would it also help the Twins pitching staff everyone seems to be so down upon?
Yes and no. Consider a guy like Mitch Garver. He hit 31HRs last year in just 311 ABs, but had a BABIP of just .277. 36% of his hits last year were HRs. If the happy ball goes away, some of those become doubles, but some just become long outs and he goes from being a stud to being average. Then there are slap hitters who don’t hit for much power who will barely be affected at all. The Twins lineup was built very well around power and they may well lead the majors in HRs again, but I also think they’ll be more affected than most teams if the happy ball goes away.
As for pitchers, again, it’s a mixed bag. Groundball pitchers like Keuchel aren’t going to notice much difference, neither are guys who give up a lot of hits already. Guys who are more flyball pitchers will be helped a lot.
BABIP doesn’t count ANY of his HRs as they aren’t in the field of play.
This depends on what they fix. There were two odd things about the ball in 2019. The less important one (which MLB swears isn’t even real) is its “hotness,” or bounciness. The more important one is the height of the seams, which some people claim is also the source of the distance fly balls achieved (lower seams means less air resistance in flight). If that is accurate and they fix the seams issue, yes the ball won’t fly as far, but more importantly the ball will move more out of the pitchers’ hands. If you look closely, the pitchers that were hurt last were were not necessarily all fly ball guys. They were guys who depend on movement, especially slider and most especially cutter guys. The high heater/hammer curve guys did just fine. So if they fix the ball look for those sinker/slider/cutter dudes (Kyle Freeland and others) to greatly benefit.
They also replaced Schoop and Cron with Josh Donaldson and Arraez. Two better m hitters and OBP guys. I don’t think they built a happy ball team. Just a solid lineup. I don’t see any issues forthcoming.
Pretty good write up, in theory. Yes, higher seams create more drag on pitches, but they will also greatly reduce spin rate.
Most people who have even tried to pitch will tell you it is much more fun to throw a ‘tight’ ball that one of those with the big sloppy seams. And I don’t mean pros, just your average person who picked up a baseball in the yard or in rec league and tried to throw a curve.
To put it another way .. why weren’t all the pitchers complaining about how the tighter seams were affecting their movement? Could it be that the seams weren’t affecting movement as much and may have actually helped it in some cases. Meanwhile, it also added to velocity I would assume..
I wonder if they have done studies to determine the best ratio of spin to seam height for movement. That would be interesting.
spin rate is a double edge sword.. it helps stabilize the ball in flight and fly straighter and my understanding is that the higher the spin rate the later the break.. now with a return to higher laces I think you would see earlier break as the ball will slow down more.. at least that is my observation from shooting round balls in a black powder gun..
Yep…solid point. And it would almost definitely help the pitching staff.
Donaldson never had that large payday (In MLB terms) even though he has played at a superstar level for many years. Good for him to finally cash in.
Warning: Tangent incoming.
It may be good for him, but it’s still stupid. Teams get the first 6-7 years of a guy for relatively cheap, then he hits FA often at 30 or after, so he’s on the decline and *that’s* when he gets his big payday? I hope they address this in the next CBA because it’s ridiculous for guys to make the league minimum for four years when they’re putting up All-Star level production, sometimes MVP-level.
You do realize that your logic only applies to a small fraction of players.
And that Donaldson is continuing to play at an MVP level well into his thirties.
Yeah, many don’t even see that big payday.
Because many never were MVP caliber players and did not take care of themselves.
I hope it is resolved too.
If the Braves weren’t told immediately of how much the Twins were bidding, then Donaldson shouldn’t complain about their late, low proposal. The reasonable thing for the Braves to do would be to offer a 1-2 year deal at first at around the AAV of $23m which Donaldson played for last season. With his age, injury history, and tired finish to 2019, plus the start Riley got off to last season, that would be a fair place to start the bidding. If JD’s agent rejected that out of hand, fine, but tell JD so he doesn’t think the Braves were uninterested. If the Braves didn’t make an opening bid, perhaps they were swayed by the crazy $110m talk. There were widespread reports of multiple four year offers, and the $100m threshold was assumed in the press. That kind of fake news manipulation might have actually hurt the Donaldson bidding, because the Twins came in way below the presumed figure and teams may have just decided “too rich for my blood” and walked away. As a Braves fan, I’m glad he wound up in the A.L. instead of our division, for the short term at least. Maybe he leads the Twins to a pennant and the Braves get a chance to avenge the their loss to the Twins of the Kent Hrbek era.
I didn’t read into JD’s comments that he was complaining about anything. Really, I think he was just trying to explain how the process unfolded.
A one- or two-year offer to a former MVP who just had the year he had and who isn’t quite ancient yet would be an absolutely disgraceful offer. Unless maybe if the Dodgers offered him 2/$70m or something.
Spot on post -Agree 100000000000000000%
Making a 1 or 2 yr offer was flat out stupid. MLB projected 3 x 25 = 75 mil. Almost All the impact players have been going for over the MLB projection . AA is Fool if thought different . AA has not made a good trade or a great FA signing since he came here . We will see on Smith yr 2 and yr 3 and he bid over MLB projection for him. AA seems to lack negotiating skills and a feel for the market. I call D’Arnaud & Martin overpays. Smith we will see. Markakis was a Bad sign as a starter , Ok as a 4th OF and PH. However Dickerson on 2 yr deal would have been a much better LHH OF then Markakis.
“AA has not made a good trade or a great FA signing since he came here.”
–
He took a large risk by signing Donaldson for one-year, $23m when the guy did absolutely nothing to warrant that sort of salary with his play with the Indians in late 2018.
He signed Markakis for 2 years – $10m to be a part-time corner OF (and is/has been a leader of the team along with Freddie Freeman for years). This will allow the Braves to bring up and give playing time to young OF’s in 2020-2021. Dickerson signed for 2 years – $17.5m. Dickerson is best as a platoon player as he doesn’t hit lefties particularly well (and is by far a worse defensive OF then Markakis even at his advanced age). At 2/$17.5 they can’t sit the guy as they will Markakis (also hits lefties poorly as he’s gotten older).
As for other moves AA made – he was right to let Suzuki and Sanchez go after 2018. McCann gave them a platoon LH bat for the year, and Sanchez leaving allowed them to give more innings to young pitchers that they need to break into MLB. It’s great that Sanchez and Suzuki did well for the Nationals. The Nationals had the money to pay them as they run a payroll 20% highers due to the size and affluence of the DC market. Saving on those salaries allowed AA to bring in Melancon and Greene in deadline trades (as well as Adeiny Hechavarria when Swanson got hurt). Those moves solidified a bullpen that was a weakness as well as patched an infield for 6-8 weeks. (MLB FO’s don’t know what will be a weakness before the season starts…..which is why we see so many contending teams holding onto cash at this time as they’ll make in-season trades when it becomes clear what the needs are.)
AA inherited a team at the last stages of a rebuild. He’s run the Braves Baseball Ops professionally – adding when needed, but not trading off the quality, cheap youngsters for expensive veterans that had plateaued and were on a downward arc…..ss say Epstein and the Cubs FO did.
What ‘family’ is he talking about? His mum? I doubt she’ll see much of it.
He got paid. Good for him. I’m just glad the Braves aren’t the team paying him. Theoretically, the AL should be better for him anyway due to the availability of being a DH.
JD now going to feast on AL central pitching-just escaping the pitching in the NL east will increase his stats. IMO Expect great numbers for him for at least a few years- he’s well protected in Minn lineup but 4 or 5 more at an advanced age may be a stretch.
He should be a favorite for MVP this year for sure, and that is a mark of a great signing when it is only a four-year commitment.
No wonder Minny overpaid for Donaldson and arent mad, they think the 35 yr old version of him is an MVP candidate somehow all of a sudden LoL….
When you have 1 decent pitcher and lose your third game in a row 10-6 I bet that imaginary mvp run will make up for all the losses. You had like 4 guys on your team with better stats…
Minnesota wants a softball team and they are overpaying to get it. Good for them I guess.
The second closest bid was what? $20-30 million less from the team who knew him best and needed a 3rd baseman more??? Sounds like 4D chess 4 sure dooood.
It’ll be great seeing Donaldson play against the rest of the AL Central. On the days he isn’t killing my team he’ll be making us stronger.
And Billy Bean traded him during the prime of his career for a guy already out of the game. Moneyball fails again.
Franklin Barreto?
A lot of scouts and data analysts left Oakland for Toronto when Ricciardi was hired to be GM. Many stayed with the club. Beane didn’t realize Toronto failed to develop players for a long stretch.
Twins will be a force to reckon with in AL, with Astros in a flux we need a team to keep Yankees out of WS
Good luck with that.
As a Twins fan, it pains me to write this: don’t hold your breath hoping for the Twins to beat the Yankees in the postseason. Ugh. Maybe someday….
PITCHING wins more than hitting.. in the post season..
I can foresee the next cheating scandal- home team supplies ump w happy ball when they bat and old balls when they pitch to visiting team
13th year in the big leagues?
Ha, I didn’t even catch that when listening to his quote. He did say it, but I’m sure he just meant 13 years since being drafted.
Braves effed up, end of story..
No, they didn’t. 4 years with an $8 million buyout on a 5th? That’s nuts, bruh!
Agree — JD was the only way to get a IMPACT bat with a plus glove and keep all the top prospects to evaluate until at least mid season. All big trades Bryant and Arenado would take at least 3 of Anderson , Wright , Pache , Waters ,plus 35 mil a yr Arenado for 2 yrs then opt out and Bryant 18 mil this yr and 26-28 mil nect yr ( Arb) then FA,
Cant believe how AA just hung out and did nothing to close a deal with Donaldson at 84 mil + a option.. All this time he just sat on his hands .If JD was out of his budget he should have known at the beginning when the Nats +Twins +other all had interest. He should have went right to Moose and signed him OH but he got 4 yrs also 🙁 AA is not allowed to go past 3 yrs) Whoever is left unsigned by ST and will take a AA lowball 1 yr deal will get signed by AA . Most likely Puig or a DFA’d used to be a power bat Team has taken a big hit with no #4 impact bat and Markakis at #5. Over under now here in Reno Nv at a casino dropped to 87 over/ under another at 85 over under.
I agree with you, but I don’t think the Braves wanted to pay for Moose either. Quite frankly, his contract might be further out of whack than Donaldson’s.
I am beginning to think the Braves were planning on handing the job to Riley/Camargo and filling other spots with money rather than overpaying. We all got excited when they locked down the BP guys and Hamels, but they might have done that knowing their 3B plans were to save money. I believe Camargo will bounce back a little bit (though nowhere near 2017 numbers), and Riley will make some adjustments. Their production will end up being a better per dollar value than JD over the next 4-5 years most likely, but the Braves are risking a complete whiff on a window of opportunity by assuming they will be in good shape for years.
Some of you don’t understand this at all…………
Baseball Reference says Donaldson has logged statistics in 9 separate seasons and 7.158 years service time, but sure Josh, we’ll let you call it 12.
His K rate was up a full 25% over his career average last year. He’s 34. He faded down the stretch and in the playoffs. You do the math.
I really hate seeing JD go right now today but I wonder if I will feel the same way in two years? Now, I am just waiting for AA to work his magic. It’s going to happen. Sit back and watch
Remember, he played all last year at 33 and has just turned 34 last month. He will play all next season at 34. Those who are declaring him to be an old broken down player ready for the rocking chair seem to be the same ones cursing AA and lamenting Donaldson’s loss from the Braves lineup. A former MVP recipient who hits and plays defense gets a healthy paycheck. It is only an overpay if a team mismanages current and future payroll commitments. The Twins are fine in that regard. Another pitcher or two would be nice. Let’s recheck the roster in July.
I’m excited for Donaldson, and to see what he brings to the Twins!
I loved having JD last year, and the Braves will surely miss him. Great player, awesome clubhouse guy, and he brings an exciting amount of energy every single day. I hope he kills it with the Twins for the entirety of the contract, and I wish the best for him and the Twins!