Sports Frog

It appears that sometime this weekend Minnesota Twins General Manager Bill Smith will give a definitive answer of "Yes!" to the question "are you in over your head as a major league general manager?" by signing Joe Nathan to a 4 year contract extension worth $11-$12MM per season. Nathan is a great reliever but it's an ugly, ugly move for a team that can't afford to make bad financial decisions. The following are my three initial reasons; as time passes I'm sure I'll come up with atleast a dozen more so perhaps addendums will follow.

Current Roster Composition:
I like to mock Chicago GM Kenny Williams for the seeming lack of cohesion between his various moves and his inability to view the White Sox in a realistic manner, but even he is probably shaking his head. Rarely will you see a team contradict itself as Minnesota will by extending their 33 year old closer a couple of months after trading one of the best players in baseball for a package of prospects. I think it's fair to say that on the day the 2007 season ended, the Twins had a 6 player core of Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano and Nathan. With Hunter a free agent and Santana and Nathan headed into walk years, a decision had to be made if they should cut the core in half and rebuild or try to keep everyone together and make a run. Given the strength of Cleveland and Detroit in the Central, Smith appeared to be heading in the right direction by trading Santana and letting Hunter (and valuable starter Carlos Silva) leave via free agency. The logical final step should have been trading Nathan either now or at the deadline to finish the veterans for young talent portion of the rebuilding (or "rebounding" in Smith's words) portion of this project. Instead, Smith is forking over $40-$50MM to keep Nathan on.

(Note 1: There is some speculation on my part here as it's conceivable that Nathan isn't getting either a no-trade clause or some major escalators in his deal, but that seems highly unlikely. I'm not sure why he'd willingly give up his chance at the open market by signing what would be a slightly below market value deal without somehow balancing the scales. If that is the case, perhaps I'll have to rethink this portion and write what would amount to half apology to Smith, half blasting of agent Dave Pepe.)

(Note 2: A bit off topic, but I do think a lot of the criticism Smith has received for the Santana deal is unfair, atleast given the publicly available information. I agree that it's a bad sign that a GM traded the best pitcher in baseball and probably didn't receive one of the top 3 young players to change teams that offseason (Cameron Maybin, Adam Jones, Carlos Gonzalez), but we don't know the actual offers. If Jacoby and/or Philip Hughes were really available and Smith overplayed his hand, he deserves the criticism. If Santana blocked the rumored Texas deal and hurt the Twins leverage by narrowing the options, Smith probably deserves a bit of a pass. Like almost everyone else, I don't which is accurate. Even beyond that, Keith Law and several other writers have suggested that the Mets package isn't nearly as lacking as most of us believe. In the end, it could just come down to a quantity versus quality argument when it comes to futures trades so I'm hesitant to judge Smith much on the Santana deal.)

Nathan's Role:
The sabermetric side of baseball is pretty adamant that the closer's role is wildly overrated. Sure it's nice to have a lights out guy when trying to hold a one run lead, but on some level all that closer love diminishes the efforts of the pitchers who got it to that point. If the starter, 7th inning guy, LOOGY or setup man had failed, there isn't a one run lead to be saved. If they all do their job, usually the starter and the closer get the credit at game's end. Still, I accept that reliever usage won't be determined by leverage anytime soon and that the closer is around to stay, but there has to be some sort of logic applied when determining his actual value. Here's my quick attempt:

Nathan in 2004: 72.3 IPs, 4.9% of Twins IPs
Nathan in 2005: 70.0 IPs, 4.8% of Twins IPs
Nathan in 2006: 68.3 IPs, 4.7% of Twins IPs
Nathan in 2007: 71.7 IPs, 5.0% of Twins IPs

Impressive durability and in higher leverage spots, sure, but that's still a very small contribution to the team's overall pitching staff. If Smith and the Twins were committed to tying up money in a single pitcher, doesn't it make a lot more sense to go the extra $10MM per season to keep Santana long term? He's younger, pitches three times more innings annually and has much higher gate appeal. Take back the $5MM they paid Livan Hernandez to replace Johan's innings and the nearly $4MM thrown at the sub-replacement level Craig Monroe and we're mostly there. (Given Carl Pohlad's wealth, finding the extra $1MM or so per season shouldn't be all that tough.)
To recap, the Twins are tying up somewhere between 13-18% of the total team payroll and probably 1/3rd of their pitching payroll in just 5% of their total innings. (Not to mention those are innings that the team already has a lead for on a team not guaranteed a lot of save opportunities. Gross.)

Nathan Himself:
Joe Nathan is, without a doubt, one of the top 10 relievers in baseball right now. The problem is that Nathan is 33 years old meaning this deal covers him through his age 36 season. That's not ancient for a reliever, but it is outside of the usual peak at a position not known for extended peaks. While $11MM may be below market given recent signings, the Twins don't throw money around like the Yankees could afford to with Rivera and have even less of a chance of competing than Cincinnati (who probably made a mistake with Cordero).

Basically, Nathan is a great pitcher and one who is probably worth eight figures to some team, just not this team. The day Santana was sent to New York, Nathan's value to the Twins became almost entirely what he could command in a trade. I'm not sure if it was fear of angering the fanbase or a true believe that Nathan could help them into the playoffs this season, but either way, Smith is screwing up massively.