For A’s, Twins and Rays, time is now
Trio need to flex and forget about flexibility
SAN DIEGO – For teams perpetually in the bottom third of MLB’s payroll pecking order, one word defines almost all of their movements.
“We try,” says Rays general manager Erik Neander, “to stay as flexible as we can.”
“And sometimes,” notes Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, “that flexibility is a strength.”
It certainly was in 2019, when more than half the American League playoff field featured small- to mid-market gate crashers in the 101-win Twins and wildcard combatants from Oakland (97 wins) and Tampa Bay (96).
All made it despite opening-day payrolls ranging from the Rays’ $52 million (28th of 30 teams) to the Athletics’ $86 million and the Twins’ $85 million. Their October invites were noble accomplishments, the product of methodical buildups and fiscal discipline.
Yet for all of their pluck, the Twins were swept in three games of the AL Division Series by the Yankees and haven’t won a playoff series since 1991. The Rays vanquished Oakland in the wild-card game before a dramatic five-game defeat to the Astros in the ALDS; Tampa Bay hasn’t won a playoff series since 2008, Oakland since 2006.
Now, 2020 nears and all three clubs’ title windows remain wide open. Instead of touting flexibility, is it time, instead, to merely flex their muscles?
“It depends on what aggressive means,” says Neander, voted MLB’s executive of the year for posting a second consecutive 90-win season. “We always talk about balancing the immediate term and the long term. Our situation right now, there’s as much of a balance in favor of the immediate term as we tend to have. It’s a tricky balance – you want to be disciplined, but you don’t want to be stubborn. You want to cherish opportunities when you are really good, to leverage them, but that’s a balance we have to strike.”
If the AL’s little engines that can are so inclined, there are opportunities to exploit. Some are on the trade market. Stars like Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts, Cleveland shortstop Francisco Lindor and Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant are available and present unique chances for small-market clubs to upgrade without hamstringing themselves financially. Betts will cost some dough in 2020 – the 2017 AL MVP is projected by MLB Trade Rumors to earn $27.7 million in 2020 – but he’d be off the books after that. Bryant and Lindor are free agents in two years.
Certainly, they’d cost precious prospect capital, a significant price for the Rays, Athletics and Twins to pay in the long game. Yet even that cost would be contained due to those stars’ fast-approaching free agency.
Each club has talent to burn: Tampa Bay ranks atop Baseball America’s organizational talent list, with the Twins seventh and Oakland 12th.
More important, their big-league talent level strongly suggests it’s go time.
In Matt Chapman and Matt Olson, the A’s have perhaps the best corner infield tandem in baseball. Shortstop Marcus Semien finished third in MVP voting. Lefty Sean Manaea’s dazzling return from shoulder surgery in September gives Oakland a daunting and dominant look in the rotation: Manaea, rookies Jesus Luzardo and A.J. Puk and veterans Mike Fiers and Chris Bassitt will miss a lot of bats next year.
“Now you’re going to see Puk and Luzardo and Manaea and our pitching prospects coming together at the same time,” says Bob Melvin, entering his 10th year as Oakland’s manager. “We’ve been
looking forward to this window right now for quite some time. To see it all come together at the same time – albeit there is still a lot of youth – is really exciting. I don’t know that in my tenure here that we have had both position player group and a pitching group this talented to this point. We’re all excited about that.”
The Twins put away a soft AL Central by mid-September and now their chief competition, the Indians, might be jettisoning the likes of Lindor and rotation stalwart Corey Kluber. Little wonder, then, that the Twins have confirmed interest in top-shelf free agents like AllStar left-hander Hyun-jin Ryu.
Scott Boras, Ryu’s agent, believes the Twins would be well-served to enlist his
client. There’s also a bit of truth to his annual bluster. “They’ve let us know they have a strong interest in improving their pitching staff. The Twins have been very successful with what they’ve done but they have a very, very important hurdle – getting past that first round, getting past that first game. In the AL Central, with the number of teams that have been non-competitive, I’m not sure it’s an appropriate measure to say that making it to the playoffs is something that allows us to say we’re going to move up the ladder to championship-level play. They really gotta gear up and get the club to a level where they believe they can win division series and advance in the playoffs at that level.”
Tough, but fair.
Boras anticipates keeping in touch with the Rays, too, noting that a club that leverages progressive pitching approaches to great success could nonetheless use another veteran arm. A year ago, they set a franchise record by guaranteeing Charlie Morton $30 million over two years, and he finished third in AL Cy Young voting.
“Signing Charlie last year was financial but put ourselves out there in a way we thought made sense,” Neander says. “All very much a sliding scale of variables to consider – how long you get to have a player, economically. We try to stay as flexible as we can. Very little of what we do, we look at in a binary way. Usually, things are pretty fluid and typically, not all that clear.”
Witness the recent trade of powerhitting, respected veteran outfielder Tommy Pham to the Padres for Hunter Renfroe, who will replace some of Pham’s production but will see more of it absorbed in the aggregate. Even with Gerrit Cole adding to the 107-win Yankees’ firepower in the division, the Rays’ recent history suggests they will find that path to come close to match them, even if, as Neander notes, it’s not immediately evident nor achieved through an obvious or sexy acquisition.
That’s a tie that binds this troika; even as opportunity knocks, there’s always another path, one that usually involves a semblance of sustainability.
“Yeah, we want to do that,” says Baldelli of attacking for the moment. “But we also want to make sure we’re set up to compete going forward.
“There are ways to do that. They’re not always easily talked about. They’re kind of all-encompassing. You have to be patient and nimble and take opportunities when you can. That’s the goal.”
What’s not the goal: “Winning” the winter meetings, offseason or trade deadline. That said, the likes of Blake Snell and Morton and Kevin Kiermaier in Tampa Bay, or Olson and Chapman in Oakland, or Jorge Polanco and Jose Berrios in Minnesota won’t play forever.
Nor will they stay with their teams in perpetuity. There might never be a “now” in these three markets, but if there is, it looks an awful lot like 2020.
“You don’t want to take any given season for granted,” says Neander, “and you want to provide the opportunity for the guys you have, who can only play this game so long, to at least have the opportunity to give it a go.”