It's been a busy week of housekeeping across baseball, as awards are being handed out against the backdrop of roster moves being made in advance of the Winter Meetings. Earlier this week teams had to decide which Rule 5 Draft eligible players to protect and Friday is the deadline to tender players up for arbitration.
It's both a pretty easy process for the Minnesota Twins that gets complicated when trying to figure out the math on making everything work. Almost every player who is arbitration-eligible on the Twins' roster is no-brainer to tender, but doing so would push the team past its extremely low payroll comfort level.
Heading into the winter Minnesota is projected to have a $130 million payroll, which is what it was at last year and means there are no external additions being budgeted for. That doesn't mean they can't happen, but it's looking like another frugal offseason in Twins Territory.
That's why whatever the team decides to do with tendering players will likely be the most action we see happen this winter.
Predicting who the Twins will tender, and what will happen next
Here's who the Twins will need to make a decision on before the Friday deadline, and what it might cost to keep someone around:
Player | Position | Projected Arbitration |
|---|---|---|
Willi Castro | UT | $6.2M |
Ryan Jeffers | C | $4.7M |
Bailey Ober | P | $4.3M |
Joe Ryan | P | $3.8M |
Jhoan Duran | P | $3.7M |
Griffin Jax | P | $2.6M |
Royce Lewis | 3B | $2.3M |
Trevor Larnach | OF | $2.1M |
Michael Tonkin | P | $1.5M |
Justin Topa | P | $1.3M |
Brock Stewart | P | $800k |
There are a few no-brainers here, as everyone outside of Michael Tonkin seems like a lock to get tendered. Even if everyone up for arbitration won't be on the team next year, it'd be a surprise to see anyone on that list get non-tendered and effectively released for nothing.
What happens after getting tendered is the big question.
Both Diego Castillo and Alex Kirilloff were arbitration-eligible this winter but the former elected free agency and the latter retired. That saved about $3 million in decisions for the Twins to make, and the $1.5 million due to Tonkin is unlikely to go on the books either.
Everyone else is pretty much fair value or a bargain at their projected salary, with the only exception being Willi Castro. He's set to make just over double what he made this past season and the Twins don't have a great case to try and settle with him below $6 million.
What makes that tricky is it's about the same that Kyle Farmer made last year after getting tendered and that deal blew up in everyone's face. Castro was an All-Star last season but he's also ripe for regression and it would be another costly gamble on a utility player for the Twins.
The hard part is that it makes no sense to non-tender Castro because he serves as potential trade currency, but he's not someone who will command a great return unless it's part of a bigger package. What the Twins can argue is that Castro wouldn't get as much as his projected salary on the open market and could settle for less.
That's an easier argument to make with someone like Justin Topa, who could end up a surprise non-tender but is more likely a guy the team can reach a settlement with. If that happens, it might make meeting Castro's higher projection a little easier to stomach.
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