The Twins Payroll Meltdown: Six Crummy Ways It Affects Their Future

[Jocko87]

55 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

I agree - availability & flexibility makes Farmer the right pick between him and Polanco on our roster. As a guy with some Pop - switch hitter - Polanco makes better trade material. Win-win!

With Polanco gone we’re around $114M……room for an arm…… or least costly option of 2 arms.

I actually think this news makes it more likely to keep Farmer, not less.  For the $6m you have a rock solid option that can back up almost all the kids growing pains.  That kind of versatility and certainty are more valuable now, not less. 

Gordon, on the other hand, really has no fit now.  Not the money but the roster spot.

[chpettit19]

24 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Some of the young guys will fail, but they all seem to fail much less frequently than the free agents they sign. 

I don't want them to spend money just to spend money, that's the exact reason Joey Gallo was on this club last year. If they move on from two of Polanco/Kepler/Farmer, which was probably the plan all along, they can still get a free agent of a caliber we're more hopeful for. One impact player, don't need to spend a bunch of money on bench filler this year.

Their free agents fail because they go after low end free agents.

I don't want them to spend money just to spend it either, but there are free agents out there that are more likely to fill the gaps on this team successfully than the young guys. Moving on from two of Polanco/Kepler/Farmer opens more holes so filling it in with a free agent of the caliber we're more hopeful for doesn't improve the team overall. I agree with not spending on bench filler, but one impact player while removing 2 guys who hit in the top 3-4 of your playoff lineup isn't a net plus. If it's Farmer+ then, sure that could be a net plus, but Polanco and Kepler both going and being replaced by 1 guy is at best a push, I'd say.

They should be in building mode. In adding mode. In "we weren't quite good enough with this group so we need to replace guys on the bottom with guys on the top" mode. Not "replace guys on the top with other guys on the top" mode.

[chpettit19]

45 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

Agree with the doom and gloom being pathetic.  However, I think you are going to lose people with it being a "transition" year because people are going to take that as stepping back when it sounds to me like you are talking about the young (cheap) guys taking roster spots which of course happened over the course of 23 and Lee/Severino are also on the door step.  It's also simply time to move on from Polanco.   I see the all of this as taking a step forward with the exception of the loss of Gray.  They are going to have to find a way to replace him and that probably was never going to be by signing Blake Snell or similar FAs.

You hope it's a step forward. Lee or Severino being able to do what Jorge Polanco can do is a massive bet. Julien, Wallner, and Lewis being able to maintain their production over a full season is a massive bet. Young guys are the lifeblood of every MLB team, but taking an ALDS team and stripping it of it's #2 starter, 2 hole hitter, and/or 3/4 hole hitter from your playoff roster and just assuming they can be replaced by young guys is not taking a step forward. I don't believe for 1 second that if Falvey was given $150 mil payroll for 2024 he'd say "eh, let's trade Polanco and Kepler while losing Gray anyways." 

There's a difference between needing young guys to provide cheap, quality talent, and forcing your team to rely on an almost entirely cheap lineup for success. You need young guys to succeed to sustain success. But a team truly putting their best foot forward to try to win a World Series does not swap out Gray for a lesser pitcher, and Polanco and/or Kepler for young players when they don't have to.

[nicksaviking]

I just used the payroll tool. I traded Polanco ******Mike S, cover your eyes******* Matt Wallner and David Festa to the Marlins for Braxton Garrett. I traded Max Kepler and Jose Miranda to the Yankees for Clarke Schmidt to be another Varland-esque reliever/emergency-future starter. Add more or less to these deals, it doesn't bother me. I non-tendered Kyle Farmer.

With those savings I signed both Rhys Hoskins and Teoscar Hernandez to MLBTR's 18M per and 20M per prediction. My new roster is:

SP - Lopez

SP - Garrett

SP - Ryan

SP - Ober

SP - Paddock

Pen - Duran, Stewart, Thielbar, Jax, Funderburk, Alcala, Varland, Schmidt

C - Jeffers

1B - Hoskins

2B - Julien

SS - Correa

3B - Lewis

RF - Hernandez

CF - Castro

LF - Kirilloff

DH - Buxton (fingers crossed for CF)

Bench - Vazquez, Martin, Larnach, Anthony Prato (go ahead, switch him out, he's just a personal favorite of mine)

Budget: 130M and that would pretty much have been my ideal offseason regardless of payroll (except for Hernandez, he strikes out too much, just added him to show the contract is doable).

$5M left over for a reliever or gross and old veteran utility player.

[Riverbrian]

I'm going to do something irresponsible here and something I hate doing because it is irresponsible.

I'm going to float a plausible theory that exists in my head (Maybe my head alone) with no inside information at all. 

Take it all with a grain of salt but I can't help but wonder if the club didn't sail over budget last year and a correction was coming regardless of the TV revenue situation.  

Here are the clues that lead to my theory: 

1. The team from the beginning was always in on signing Correa as a free agent. 

2. For a team like the Twins... the money for a free agent in this price range would have to be part of budget plans... Perhaps 35M AAV. He ended up signing for 33.3M AAV but at the time... 35M AAV would have to be part of budget plans if you are trying to sign him and they were trying to sign him by all reports. 

3. December 13, 2022 - Correa signs with the Giants for 13 years.  

4. December 16, 2022 - 3 Days later... The Twins sign Christian Vazquez for 10 Million AAV and Joey Gallo for 11 Million. This takes 21M out of the 35M that they were using to get Correa signed. I find it interesting that Vazquez and Gallo were signed very quickly once Correa was off the table. 

5. December 22, 2022 - Giants have concerns with his medical and back out of the deal. 

6. January 11, 2023 - After the Mets signed him to a deal and attempted to lower his contract because of the same medical concerns. Carlos Signs with the Twins... AAV 33.3.  

7. Assuming that the twins spent Carlos Correa ear marked money to sign Vazquez and Gallo. His sudden availability may have required an over budget conversation with ownership which of course was approved because he is here.  

8. August 1, 2023 - The Twins do not acquire ANYONE at the trade deadline. Is it OK to assume... over budget was a consideration. 

Irresponsible food for thought from me. Take it for what it's worth. 

 

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, Jocko87 said:

The proper way to look at this is that after two years of ownership opening their pockets very wide, late in the offseason they are resetting a bit.  

Haha this is an absolutely insane way to look at this.  They didn't open their pockets wide, they continued to spend roughly the same proportional to the rest of the league as they did going back to TR.  They made cash hand over fist with a few playoff games at TF, and now they are saying they're keeping that money for themselves and rewarding fans for the increased wealth they'll hoard by cutting payroll and making the team worse.  

I truly cannot believe fans are falling for this same old shtick.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, etc etc.  

[MGM4706]

This article has no basis in reality. Wish people would stop referring to the Twins losing their broadcast revenue. They ARE NOT! Every team that has renewed or FOUND A NEW PARTNER have seen at least a 20% increase in the contract!! If Bally drops out the Twins will find a new source. The money is just NOT going to disappear. Please stop saying that! It's embarrassing!

[nicksaviking]

18 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Their free agents fail because they go after low end free agents.

I don't want them to spend money just to spend it either, but there are free agents out there that are more likely to fill the gaps on this team successfully than the young guys. Moving on from two of Polanco/Kepler/Farmer opens more holes so filling it in with a free agent of the caliber we're more hopeful for doesn't improve the team overall. I agree with not spending on bench filler, but one impact player while removing 2 guys who hit in the top 3-4 of your playoff lineup isn't a net plus. If it's Farmer+ then, sure that could be a net plus, but Polanco and Kepler both going and being replaced by 1 guy is at best a push, I'd say.

They should be in building mode. In adding mode. In "we weren't quite good enough with this group so we need to replace guys on the bottom with guys on the top" mode. Not "replace guys on the top with other guys on the top" mode.

I don't know how anyone sees Polanco/Kepler/Farmer as guys at the top any longer. Polanco can't be counted on to stay healthy and even when he is, he's no longer the .800 OPS top of the order bat he used to be. Kepler was about a week away from being DFA'd mid season and Farmer is just a guy. He was never more than a bench bat. Keeping these guys is basically the same as signing Joey Gallo or Christian Vazquez. They're unreliable and inconsistent and cost about the same.

But it hardly matters, if you want to keep them, then you don't have the roster space to sign multiple top end free agents, even if there were multiple top end free agents to sign. This team was never signing Cody Bellinger and they're not giving five year deals to starting pitchers.

[KBJ1]

Kepler & Polanco : good veteran players with reasonable contracts. 

Always playing it safe isn't how you win the WS.

We have young equivalents in Wallner, Julien & Lee among others. Keep Farmer at $5M as insurance.

the $20M payroll savings can be used on pitching acquired through trade or signing a slugging  LF - Gurriel Jr.??

In a payroll crunch they are going to have to roll the dice with the young players and consolidate two replaceable mid level players with one high end guy who can put them over the top.

This assumes Wallner, Julien, Lee, Martin & Miranda are up to the task. It's a worthwhile risk, because they aren't going to get any better standing pat.

 

[Shaitan]

What? A large corporation stating "uncertain financial circumstances" and trying to save money in 2023 while providing no very little evidence. I see a trend here.

[Johnny Ringo]

The Twins Payroll Meltdown? Really? Normally, I would say that a writer doesn't control his headline (the editor does) but I don't think that is the case with John. Just a guess.

I don't typically quote someone I loathe but I will break that rule here. Everybody, R-E-L-A-X.

Let's see how it plays out before we trash the FO and ownership. 

 

[Jocko87]

18 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

Haha this is an absolutely insane way to look at this.  They didn't open their pockets wide, they continued to spend roughly the same proportional to the rest of the league as they did going back to TR.  They made cash hand over fist with a few playoff games at TF, and now they are saying they're keeping that money for themselves and rewarding fans for the increased wealth they'll hoard by cutting payroll and making the team worse.  

I truly cannot believe fans are falling for this same old shtick.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, etc etc.  

They upped payroll by $30 million dollars! Gotta use facts that don't support your point also.

[Mike Sixel]

25 minutes ago, MGM4706 said:

This article has no basis in reality. Wish people would stop referring to the Twins losing their broadcast revenue. They ARE NOT! Every team that has renewed or FOUND A NEW PARTNER have seen at least a 20% increase in the contract!! If Bally drops out the Twins will find a new source. The money is just NOT going to disappear. Please stop saying that! It's embarrassing!

Did you read the quotes from the team? Because it seems clear they are lowering payroll....

[Jocko87]

36 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I'm going to do something irresponsible here and something I hate doing because it is irresponsible.

I'm going to float a plausible theory that exists in my head (Maybe my head alone) with no inside information at all. 

Take it all with a grain of salt but I can't help but wonder if the club didn't sail over budget last year and a correction was coming regardless of the TV revenue situation.  

Here are the clues that lead to my theory: 

1. The team from the beginning was always in on signing Correa as a free agent. 

2. For a team like the Twins... the money for a free agent in this price range would have to be part of budget plans... Perhaps 35M AAV. He ended up signing for 33.3M AAV but at the time... 35M AAV would have to be part of budget plans if you are trying to sign him and they were trying to sign him by all reports. 

3. December 13, 2022 - Correa signs with the Giants for 13 years.  

4. December 16, 2022 - 3 Days later... The Twins sign Christian Vazquez for 10 Million AAV and Joey Gallo for 11 Million. This takes 21M out of the 35M that they were using to get Correa signed. I find it interesting that Vazquez and Gallo were signed very quickly once Correa was off the table. 

5. December 22, 2022 - Giants have concerns with his medical and back out of the deal. 

6. January 11, 2023 - After the Mets signed him to a deal and attempted to lower his contract because of the same medical concerns. Carlos Signs with the Twins... AAV 33.3.  

7. Assuming that the twins spent Carlos Correa ear marked money to sign Vazquez and Gallo. His sudden availability may have required an over budget conversation with ownership which of course was approved because he is here.  

8. August 1, 2023 - The Twins do not acquire ANYONE at the trade deadline. Is it OK to assume... over budget was a consideration. 

Irresponsible food for thought from me. Take it for what it's worth. 

 

This is not at all irresponsible, it's exactly what happened. We don't need inside information to know they had to swallow hard to spend on Correa. They had moved on and spent elsewhere.

The reckless framing of this whole thing as a meltdown stinks. The media blowing this out of proportion is just as much at fault as the so-called disappointed fanbase.

[LastOnePicked]

1 hour ago, Bigfork Twins Guy said:

I think "the sky is falling" mentality here is way out of proportion.  We can drop some salary and still field a team as good as last season's team.  All we need to do is package some assets to pull in a #3/#4 pitcher to retain our depth there.  We have several "ready to go" call ups that can help the lineup so trading a few assets like Farmer or one of Polanco/Kepler will not be painful.

Also, we really don't need to hear the old "ownership is cheap" mantra again.  They stepped up big during COVID by paying all the non MLB-baseball and MiLB baseball staff for not working and the last few years with an increased payroll.  Giving them a one-year pass when TV revenues is an unknown seems acceptable to me.

I have confidence in Falvey and team to keep us competitive in our weak division.

I usually see huge chunks of Twins sky falling , but I really liked this post and I think I agree. It seems like ownership and management have a really good relationship with talent here. That's a big part of the puzzle. Now, it's a matter of making the best moves possible with slightly tighter resources. I can see 2024 being fun regardless of this news.

[Mike Sixel]

51 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I just used the payroll tool. I traded Polanco ******Mike S, cover your eyes******* Matt Wallner and David Festa to the Marlins for Braxton Garrett. I traded Max Kepler and Jose Miranda to the Yankees for Clarke Schmidt to be another Varland-esque reliever/emergency-future starter. Add more or less to these deals, it doesn't bother me. I non-tendered Kyle Farmer.

With those savings I signed both Rhys Hoskins and Teoscar Hernandez to MLBTR's 18M per and 20M per prediction. My new roster is:

SP - Lopez

SP - Garrett

SP - Ryan

SP - Ober

SP - Paddock

Pen - Duran, Stewart, Thielbar, Jax, Funderburk, Alcala, Varland, Schmidt

C - Jeffers

1B - Hoskins

2B - Julien

SS - Correa

3B - Lewis

RF - Hernandez

CF - Castro

LF - Kirilloff

DH - Buxton (fingers crossed for CF)

Bench - Vazquez, Martin, Larnach, Anthony Prato (go ahead, switch him out, he's just a personal favorite of mine)

Budget: 130M and that would pretty much have been my ideal offseason regardless of payroll (except for Hernandez, he strikes out too much, just added him to show the contract is doable).

$5M left over for a reliever or gross and old veteran utility player.

Made me smile......I'm not sure I'd allocate funds that way, but I understand.

[Riverbrian]

36 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

This is not at all irresponsible, it's exactly what happened. We don't need inside information to know they had to swallow hard to spend on Correa. They had moved on and spent elsewhere.

The reckless framing of this whole thing as a meltdown stinks. The media blowing this out of proportion is just as much at fault as the so-called disappointed fanbase.

It's a plausible theory in my head but there is no hard evidence to support it so I'm ok with "irresponsbile.

On the article and the reaction to it.

I've always understood the advantage that money provides for the big money teams so I'm not going to diminish the value of having it to spend...

However...  I have never considered money impossible to overcome and will never consider money as an excuse to get angry with ownership or the front office or as an excuse for not making the playoffs. 

Articles like these are just fuel for the fire of those inclined to burn over things like this. 

It all sounds like normal business operation to me. 

[Mike Sixel]

12 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

This is not at all irresponsible, it's exactly what happened. We don't need inside information to know they had to swallow hard to spend on Correa. They had moved on and spent elsewhere.

The reckless framing of this whole thing as a meltdown stinks. The media blowing this out of proportion is just as much at fault as the so-called disappointed fanbase.

so called? I mean, this isn't going to sit well the most casual fans, and even some/many serious ones. Those casual fans make or break the profitability......

[Riverbrian]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

so called? I mean, this isn't going to sit well the most casual fans, and even some/many serious ones. Those casual fans make or break the profitability......

I suppose it can't be helped. The casual fan that screamed at the Twins for not spending like the Padres did last year has already forgotten how the Padres did and are back to screaming again. 

The money argument is insatiable. Yankees fan are screaming at the Yankees for being cheap. You will never satisfy those who equate money to winning. Never.  

[Mike Sixel]

9 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I suppose it can't be helped. The casual fan that screamed at the Twins for not spending like the Padres did last year has already forgotten how the Padres did and are back to screaming again. 

The money argument is insatiable. Yankees fan are screaming at the Yankees for being cheap. You will never satisfy those who equate money to winning. Never.  

correct. Also, it takes a long time to change an opinion once formed, and until this FO, well, cheap was likely earned at least many years....

[nicksaviking]

33 minutes ago, Jocko87 said:

This is not at all irresponsible, it's exactly what happened. We don't need inside information to know they had to swallow hard to spend on Correa. They had moved on and spent elsewhere.

The reckless framing of this whole thing as a meltdown stinks. The media blowing this out of proportion is just as much at fault as the so-called disappointed fanbase.

I don't know that the media is, at least yet. But I agree, they'll use it to get hits and views or likes or whatever it is that turns a profit.

For the most part, this is an offseason I like the birds in the hand better than the bushes. And my trade targets would be cheaper than what they'd be replacing. 

Lots of us are used to demanding of the club, "Give me what I want, I don't care the price!" Well this year, it just so happens that what I want is actually on sale, comparatively. 

[Dave Lemke]

1 hour ago, MGM4706 said:

This article has no basis in reality. Wish people would stop referring to the Twins losing their broadcast revenue. They ARE NOT! Every team that has renewed or FOUND A NEW PARTNER have seen at least a 20% increase in the contract!! If Bally drops out the Twins will find a new source. The money is just NOT going to disappear. Please stop saying that! It's embarrassing!

At this time it has disappeared. They don't know now what a new deal will look like. Perhaps it goes down and perhaps it goes up but at this point it is an unknown. You don't buy a new car after losing your job because you feel a new job will appear.

[lake_guy]

4 hours ago, Beast said:

I’m hearing an awful lot about lower revenues, operating losses, etc.

The numbers on the income statement mean nothing for an MLB baseball team in terms of available resources.  There is so much non-cash crap running through there (depreciation, amortization, deferred, and unrealized items).

The items I want to see on their financials that will tell me what they can really afford:  Balance sheet, Cash Flow Statement and Statement of Retained Earnings.

People make it sound like they have to decrease payroll or risk some sort of insolvency.  That’s absolutely absurd.  They could run a payroll much larger they are and still be making money hand over fist.  They use numbers accounted for on a different basis to fit the “affordability” narrative.  I see the defenders switch from cash basis, to accrual basis, to whatever meaningless pile of numbers they can to paint a picture.  It’s disingenuous financial analysis.

In reality, the average MLB team value went up 12% in 2022.  They bought the team for $44 million.  They’ve earned nearly $1.5 billion in unrealized gains sitting in retained earnings.  That number doesn’t get factored into what they can afford, and the argument is “noncash.”  In the same breath, people will say, “they’re not cheap they had an operating loss last year.”  That includes all sorts of noncash stuff.  You need to the full picture, which nobody has.  What’s the EBIDTA?  Bet it’s nowhere near a loss.  What’s the owners draw from the company every year?  Bet it’s pretty healthy.

People like to talk like they’re so sure of the financial situation of this team, but have no idea what these numbers mean and how businesses actually accumulate value.  Freaking Amazon operates at a loss every year while Jeff Bezos has created a net worth of $150 Billion.  Would you buy it if they told you they had to cut salaries next year because they might lost a little bit of revenue that’s relatively insignificant to the companies actual value?

It’s insulting for them to come out and say “we can’t afford this or that, but everyone come spend absurd percentages if you disposable income on $12 cans of beer and tickets to watch us lose every GD year.”  All while they increased the cost of buying anything in Hennepin County by .15% to pay for their stadium, which increased their personal net worth by hundreds of millions.

Just a little perspective from my career experience.  I don’t blame them for making money and being frugal, good for them.  That’s how you make money in business.  But, all of the “they’re not cheap - look at the operating loss” I’ve been hearing lately is based on a false premise.

Can't help but think of the famous political philosophy to never let a crisis go to waste.  I suspect they're gonna use this Bally crisis for all it's worth to justify all kinds of payroll nonsense.  And they won't be the only team.

 

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

I'm going to do something irresponsible here and something I hate doing because it is irresponsible.

I'm going to float a plausible theory that exists in my head (Maybe my head alone) with no inside information at all. 

Take it all with a grain of salt but I can't help but wonder if the club didn't sail over budget last year and a correction was coming regardless of the TV revenue situation.  

Here are the clues that lead to my theory: 

1. The team from the beginning was always in on signing Correa as a free agent. 

2. For a team like the Twins... the money for a free agent in this price range would have to be part of budget plans... Perhaps 35M AAV. He ended up signing for 33.3M AAV but at the time... 35M AAV would have to be part of budget plans if you are trying to sign him and they were trying to sign him by all reports. 

3. December 13, 2022 - Correa signs with the Giants for 13 years.  

4. December 16, 2022 - 3 Days later... The Twins sign Christian Vazquez for 10 Million AAV and Joey Gallo for 11 Million. This takes 21M out of the 35M that they were using to get Correa signed. I find it interesting that Vazquez and Gallo were signed very quickly once Correa was off the table. 

5. December 22, 2022 - Giants have concerns with his medical and back out of the deal. 

6. January 11, 2023 - After the Mets signed him to a deal and attempted to lower his contract because of the same medical concerns. Carlos Signs with the Twins... AAV 33.3.  

7. Assuming that the twins spent Carlos Correa ear marked money to sign Vazquez and Gallo. His sudden availability may have required an over budget conversation with ownership which of course was approved because he is here.  

8. August 1, 2023 - The Twins do not acquire ANYONE at the trade deadline. Is it OK to assume... over budget was a consideration. 

Irresponsible food for thought from me. Take it for what it's worth. 

 

That's a nice timeline. Yes, I'm sure the budget was a consideration during the season. However... 

9. August 28, 2023 - The Twins submit waiver claims for Matt Moore, Lucas Giolito, and Reynaldo Lopez. Waiver claim was denied due to a team with a worse record submitting a claim. 

10. August 31, 2023 - The Guardians claim 3 pitchers. 

They were still willing to take on $4-5 million more last year to push for the playoffs. 

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

I don't know how anyone sees Polanco/Kepler/Farmer as guys at the top any longer. Polanco can't be counted on to stay healthy and even when he is, he's no longer the .800 OPS top of the order bat he used to be. Kepler was about a week away from being DFA'd mid season and Farmer is just a guy. He was never more than a bench bat. Keeping these guys is basically the same as signing Joey Gallo or Christian Vazquez. They're unreliable and inconsistent and cost about the same.

But it hardly matters, if you want to keep them, then you don't have the roster space to sign multiple top end free agents, even if there were multiple top end free agents to sign. This team was never signing Cody Bellinger and they're not giving five year deals to starting pitchers.

I don't see Polanco/Kepler/Farmer as guys at the top of a playoff lineup. Never saw Farmer there, you had just included him in the other post. But Polanco and Kepler hit 2/4 in their playoff lineup this year. They're not good enough to do that, but they're still guys at the top of this team. It wasn't egregious at all to have them hitting there based on their performance this year (where Polanco OPS'd .789 which is pretty darn close to .800). My problem is that it's far more likely Polanco has an .800 OPS in 2024 than Brooks Lee or Martin or Severino or whatever other AAA guy people want in there. 

You replaced Kepler and Polanco with Hoskins and Teoscar in another post. Teoscar is a year older than Polanco and OPS'd 50 points lower in 2023. Rhys Hoskins OPS'd .794 in his last MLB season. I think .825-.850 is a more likely spot for him, though. I think Kepler and Teoscar are probably pretty similar in terms of OPS moving forward. Teoscar will K way more, and be way worse defensively. Hoskins is probably 25-50 points of OPS better than Polanco, but plays a lower defensive position. So you've gained probably 25-50 points of OPS over those 2 roster spots while worsening your defense and K numbers. That's no better than a push in my book. So you're still relying on young guys taking jumps, or maintaining partial season production, to take this team to the next level. I don't want that. I want building, not rearranging. 

It hardly mattering because people assume they wouldn't sign those guys anyways isn't an explanation that I find acceptable. First off I don't buy that they wouldn't spend on Bellinger (or Lee) or pitching. They've tried spending on pitching before. They have signed Bellinger sized contracts before. That excuse just feels like trying to justify this so fans feel better about it. And secondly, them completely refusing to use an avenue of team building isn't any better than slashing payroll. "Well we wouldn't spend it on proven pitching anyways so may as well cut payroll" doesn't make me feel any better about things.

[Riverbrian]

2 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

That's a nice timeline. Yes, I'm sure the budget was a consideration during the season. However... 

9. August 28, 2023 - The Twins submit waiver claims for Matt Moore, Lucas Giolito, and Reynaldo Lopez. Waiver claim was denied due to a team with a worse record submitting a claim. 

10. August 31, 2023 - The Guardians claim 3 pitchers. 

They were still willing to take on $4-5 million more last year to push for the playoffs. 

Those are common sense bullet point additions to my irresponsibility.

If assumed over budget as I have assumed. Those three would require another conversation with ownership for further budget increase. 

This conversation... I assume... is a conversation the front office is more willing to have with ownership and ownership more willing to consider because the three players would have not cost additional prospect capital to acquire. 

In other words. Yeah... I don't know. But... Your logic is logic worthy of consideration. 

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

I just used the payroll tool. I traded Polanco ******Mike S, cover your eyes******* Matt Wallner and David Festa to the Marlins for Braxton Garrett. I traded Max Kepler and Jose Miranda to the Yankees for Clarke Schmidt to be another Varland-esque reliever/emergency-future starter. Add more or less to these deals, it doesn't bother me. I non-tendered Kyle Farmer.

With those savings I signed both Rhys Hoskins and Teoscar Hernandez to MLBTR's 18M per and 20M per prediction. My new roster is:

SP - Lopez

SP - Garrett

SP - Ryan

SP - Ober

SP - Paddock

Pen - Duran, Stewart, Thielbar, Jax, Funderburk, Alcala, Varland, Schmidt

C - Jeffers

1B - Hoskins

2B - Julien

SS - Correa

3B - Lewis

RF - Hernandez

CF - Castro

LF - Kirilloff

DH - Buxton (fingers crossed for CF)

Bench - Vazquez, Martin, Larnach, Anthony Prato (go ahead, switch him out, he's just a personal favorite of mine)

Budget: 130M and that would pretty much have been my ideal offseason regardless of payroll (except for Hernandez, he strikes out too much, just added him to show the contract is doable).

$5M left over for a reliever or gross and old veteran utility player.

 

What is the over/under wins on that team in your opinion? I'd put it at 82.5

[chpettit19]

2 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

 

What is the over/under wins on that team in your opinion? I'd put it at 82.5

I'd go 86.5. Basically the same talent level as 2023 just with a few different names, so the question is if they can get to 87 wins again or not.

[jorgenswest]

I appreciate the discussion.

I am finding it hard to be passionate about whether the pay roll is 130 million or 160 million. My joy for the game of baseball is not correlated to the level of payroll. I think there is a lot more joy that comes when a kid you have been following over the years comes up and hits a walk off home run or makes his debut as a starter in Yankee stadium. It is that connection of following the careers of these players that keeps me a Twins fan 48 years after leaving Minnesota. 

I will be listening to or watching nearly every game no matter the payroll. I will look forward to opening day and the debuts during the season of the prospects.

I also enjoy that back and forth in this site. One thing I won’t enjoy is when every thread evolves into the same discussion about payroll that so many are rigidly passionate about. I just don’t share the same passion.

[Cory Engelhardt]

3 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I appreciate the discussion.

I am finding it hard to be passionate about whether the pay roll is 130 million or 160 million. My joy for the game of baseball is not correlated to the level of payroll. I think there is a lot more joy that comes when a kid you have been following over the years comes up and hits a walk off home run or makes his debut as a starter in Yankee stadium. It is that connection of following the careers of these players that keeps me a Twins fan 48 years after leaving Minnesota. 

I will be listening to or watching nearly every game no matter the payroll. I will look forward to opening day and the debuts during the season of the prospects.

I also enjoy that back and forth in this site. One thing I won’t enjoy is when every thread evolves into the same discussion about payroll that so many are rigidly passionate about. I just don’t share the same passion.

I'm with you. And really, in the end, a full year of Lewis AND (hopefully) healthy years from both Buxton and Correa, and the payroll number will mean less than zilch.