The 2024 Season In A Fan's View
Entry posted by Giles Ferrell in Minnesota Twins ·
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I've followed the Twins for as long as I can remember. I am not going to pretend I've seen it all, but that makes the following statement come with deep thought and reflections before saying it aloud:
I have never been more angry at the end of a season and feel as disconnected from the baseball team I love and support as I do at this particular moment.
Just 52 short weeks ago, the Twins did something they had not done in nearly two decades. They won a playoff game.
In fact, they won back-to-back playoff games, which constituted a playoff series victory. Another thing they had not done in two decades.
After giving a good punch to the Astros in the divisional series, the Twins bowed out of the postseason with three playoff victories and renewed fan excitement. I had not felt this much excitement about the Twins moving forward since the end of 2009 when they were about to move into a new stadium and were going to field a pretty damn good team.
The Twins took out a full-page ad in the local papers and spammed this letter across their social media channels, doubling down on our excitement for what was supposedly going to come next.
"Imagine what next season could be."
That full sense of excitement never made it to the 2024 regular season. That imagination of what 2024 could be never got even off the ground.
Right at the beginning of Spring Training, Twins Executive Chair Joe Pohlad had an interview with WCCO Radio, and said the team was not adding any big-time free agents. Pohlad also added that the team's payroll - which had been slashed by $30 million in the offseason - was going to remain where it was presently at.
Sonny Gray, who was a key cog in the Twins 2023 pitching staff, had already left in free agency. The Twins could have used another front-line starter to compliment Pablo Lopez. They didn't, opting to go with Chris Paddack and a rotating cast of rookies.
Carlos Santana was the marquee free agent signing, but, with all respect, he was not going to fix what ailed the Twins in the ALDS against Houston: clutch hitting.
After all that excitement and the fact the Twins just needed a few upgrades, they slashed the payroll and went back to shopping in the bargain bin like the 2000s Twins in the Metrodome. Frustration sank in about the lack of moves during the spring, but hope - as it always does every spring training - sprung eternal and you never know what a regular season will bring.
Just inside the start of May, as the Twins were surging after a slow start, myself and a large portion of the fanbase lost the simple ability to view the team on television. Diamond Sports Group and Comcast could not agree on a new contract and all Bally Regional Sports Networks - which included the Twins' television home, Bally Sports North - was pulled off the cable giant.
The Twins had the opportunity to go a different route for their TV options following 2023, but they re-upped their contract with Ballys for one year, knowing full well that this could happen. The Twins opted for the largest deal available to them, the same deal that was their excuse for slashing payroll, and lost a large chunk of fans on TV for the summer.
Sure, you could go find them on something called FUBO TV, but I had already cut cable before and had to go back to it after Diamond Sports group muscled my streaming service out of showing their games. I was not going down that road again. I'm sure I was not the only one in that boat either.
For three months, I sat in the dark. If the game was big enough, I would find a less-than-ideal way to stream the game, but mostly I resorted to listening via radio or just following along with the beat writers via X if I was not attending the game. That was an incredibly frustrating and unideal way to follow your baseball team in 2024.
On August 1, the blackout on television lifted after the companies came to an agreement a few days prior. This also coincided with the trade deadline just passing. The Twins did nothing but add a reliever off the scrap heap who was released a month later. Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey would not commit to saying if payroll had anything to do with the lack of moves. Frustration sank in again as it appeared that ownership had prevented from the Twins baseball people doing anything meaningful to make this club better.
Frustration also appeared to be prevalent in the Twins clubhouse after the deadline. Not ideal to see players speaking out about frustrations with lack of upgrades. Surely that will not show its head over the final months, right? RIGHT?
The back end of the rotation was lacking, the bullpen needed another quality arm or two, and hitting was problematic at times. But the Twins sat 59-48, six games back of Cleveland in the Central but well in a Wild Card spot in the AL. Mere hope for the best outcome was all we fans had for the final two months.
Hope did not carry long.
Pitching fell apart, both in the rotation and bullpen, hitting went colder than a trip to the Arctic, and the Twins sank. Along with a late-season surge by Detroit, the Twins had a collapse for the ages. Nothing went right almost nightly, but at least we had them back on TV to watch uninspired baseball.
The Twins were officially eliminated in the season's final week, but you might as well have called the coroner on the club on that final day of July when the trade deadline passed.
Frustration for the season gave way to sheer anger. Anger that nothing more meaningful was done to improve the team leading up to the deadline. Nothing more meaningful was done to improve the team going back to the offseason. Anger that all the excitement we had for this baseball team one year ago has been so quickly washed away.
On the season's final day, as the entire state had its eyes gazed east to Wisconsin for an important football game, the Twins brass came out and spoke on the season's failures.
Joe Pohlad spoke, putting his foot in his mouth again, reminding us fans that this is a business and he won't get into business decisions.
(credit to Gleeman for putting Pohlad's feet to the fire here)
If I wanted to be spoonfed manure, my wife's uncle has a farm I can go visit anytime. I don't need to be given it from the local baseball team.
Pohlad mentions he has to "run this business for our team and our fans". Well, Joe, this season has been anything but "for the fans". So where can you tell me things were done for the fans? And if we fans voiced our displeasure in the ballpark, they were told to leave the ballpark and not return for a year.
Good look, Joe.
In a season in which one of our most prominent players in franchise history went into Cooperstown, and personally, I got to take my baby girl to baseball games, I am left feeling nothing but anger and distrust for what I, and the Twins fanbase, had to endure in 2024. I don't say these things lightly, but this is the reality of what has built up over the last year.
The negatives horribly outweighed anything that was fun and good. That's what I'll remember about the 2024 season.
And it will now take more than a couple of playoff wins to wash these feelings away. That's for damn sure.
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