Sorry, that’s just wrong. If you’re not the Yankees, Red Sox, or some other team that’s decided that market dynamics be damned and they’re just going to spend as much money as they have to in order to remain competitive, you don’t have unlimited chunks of $50 million to spend. So if you spend the $50 million on a guy who helps you make the playoffs once, then the season after that discover that there’s another player out there who probably could have helped you make the playoffs six times for the same cost, then you screwed up.

We can argue whether the Twins should consider themselves ’small market’ or not, but that’s a different issue — given that the Twins won’t throw money at their lineup and rotation problems on a yearly basis, the question becomes can you make a deal now that’s at least as good as any deal you can reasonably consider making in the near future?

I really don’t have a problem with the Twins taking a flyer on Blake and Beltre, because the opportunity cost is just too high.

For example, the author’s assertion that “(f)ew franchises, regardless of sport, however, have had to deal with the Minnesota Twins’ infuriating impulse to stand pat.” Which of course explains the long tenure of Twins general manager ‘Stand Pat’ Gillick. Oh, wait, Gillick’s worked for the Blue Jays, Mariners, Orioles, and most recently, the now-MLB Champion Phillies.

So maybe ’standing pat’ isn’t always such a bad thing. There’s certainly an argument to be made that, when you’re already above average, any given transaction has a reasonable chance of merely hastening your return to mediocrity a la the Plexiglass Principle, so you’d better be danged sure you’re going to improve if you pull the trigger on a deal.

Besides, I’d prefer a history of not making deals to a history of making poor deals; I’m thinking specifically of Royals GM Dayton Moore, who after announcing that the organization’s #1 priority for the 2008 off-season was improving the club’s ability to get on base, acquired a first-baseman with a .299 OBP last year.

Again, solid essay, and I look forward to reading the next two parts.

Also, I think you should consider value a little more broadly. Nathan gets less per year than K-Rod but he also received his contract a year early (since it was an extension). So, if Nathan declined in ‘08, the Twins were stuck. The average cost of the contract is therefore misleading; together with the length of the deal, I think Nathan’s contract was actually more valuable than K-Rod’s.

And how many teams really sign someone with the idea they are overpaying? The mistake is in player evaluation, not the contract. The Twins overpaid Cuddyer, for instance, because they overvalued his skills (solid hitting, mediocre fielding in a corner outfielder). Like all clubs, sometimes the Twins get it right and sometimes they don’t.

The key concept, and perhaps you will address this, is that of marginal cost to benefit when a team is a contender. In other words, lets say the Twins home-build an 88-win team. Great. But that probably isn’t quite good enough– they need to add a little more, via a trade of surplus or through free agency– to reach the next level.

In other words, if you save the equivalent of $50 million in marginal player cost, and miss the playoffs, you have not accomplished anything at all. That is the problem with Punto over Furcal, etc. Sometimes you need to actually pay market rates (e.g., on an infielder) on top of your high-producing assets (e.g., the young starters).

To the Atkins rumor, Dan O’dowd is a Jim Bowden disciple: big on toolsy outfielders and completely stable blind. Both GMs grossly overvalue their own players and disdain other teams’ talent. As such, that rumor didn’t surprise me even a bit, especially since there is no clear consensus about Span’s staying power around the league. He faded toward the end of the year and has yet to establish any sort of track record.

I’m sure O’dowd looks at Slowey as a front line starter and Span as a acceptable throw-in. Twins fans see it differently, obviously, as does Bill Smith and that’s why no deal was ever even close to being done. The Twins, too, tend to overvalue their own talent, though not as badly.

As to objective/subjective notions of value, I’ve got a hunch we’re going to have to agree to disagree here, but I’ll try to better illustrate what I mean. There is no true average or replacement level pitcher, but there are guys who are close. Assuming then, that all “Average” pitchers are equal (yes, I know they aren’t perfectly, but like assuming Rational Actors, if you can’t make some baseline assumptions about the people involved it all goes to hell), we can assign each of those pitchers a rating of 0. They don’t hurt their team (they aren’t Juan Rincon) but they don’t do as much good as they should be doing.

Assuming, then, that every average pitcher hit the free agent market at the same time, they should receive equivalent contracts, they are, afterall, more or less equal. For the sake of clarity, we’ll call that value X. As the skill level of the pitcher rises, so too will his likely contract, and each raise is a marginal raise.

A pitcher of skill level 3, for example, may command a contact of X+5, affected by issues such as rarity (is he a knuckleballer) or market strength. What I’m saying the Twins do is attempt to find players of high marginal skill with low marginal cost. THAT is what I’m calling value. Some teams don’t care about adding extra costs and just sign high skill players, and that’s the difference I’m trying to point out.

Its hard to make good comparisons with the Twins current staff and the free agent market, but the Bullpen provides a PERFECT example.

Joe Nathan signed his extension last year for 4/47 plus a club option in 2012

K-Rod’s deal this year was for 3/37 plus the same option. Over the same time period (2009-2012) K-rod will make around 7 million dollars more than Nathan (assuming both options vest). The Twins will be paying less money for a pitcher who may well be better than K-rod (Saves aside, look at the peripherals). That is the kind of value I’m talking about. Joe Nathan is more valuable than Francisco Rodriguez because he can provide a equal or superior product at a lower cost.

I agree with you that the Twins are cheap and that when the Pohlads sell the team, we will likely be better off. What I’m trying to get and, and what part two will be about, is that while the Twins are being too cheap, there is wisdom in the strategy they are employing. Paying people over their skill level means you end up with Carlos Silva signed for 4/48, and that’s something the Twins will never do.

Second, your notion of “value” is invalid as a matter of common sense. If a player has 3 offers for $30 million, then that means his value is $30 million. The Twins can declare his value to be $20 million, like I could claim that Pohlad should sell me the Twins for $1,000.

Players are “worth” what clubs will pay them. When the Twins refuse to pay, while making tens of millions of dollars in profit (they will turn a profit this year even with an attendance of zero, thanks to revenue sharing and broadcast money), that’s one thing: cheap. That’s what the Twins are: CHEAP.

Being a diehard fan means rooting for the team no matter what. It doesn’t mean making excuses for billionares and the front office.