OK, But Really: Why Did the Twins Openly Leak Their Payroll Drop?

[Major League Ready]

4 hours ago, howeda7 said:

I'm not sure I follow you on this. Bally's gets a monthly amount per subscriber from every cable/satellite subscriber in the Twins territory that carries them (DirecTV/Comcast etc.) The last # I saw was there still 1.2 million homes with Bally Sports North, though I'm sure it's lower by now. They get anywhere from $5-10/month I've heard (DirecTV adds like $7 to my bill so I assume they get at least that much). That is the biggest chunk of their revenue (and the Twins make up about 40% of that value with the rest the Wolves/Wild/Other). The ad revenue from Twins games is a much smaller slice.

Also, while Dick Bremer and Morneau etc. were/are paid by the Twins, I believe BSN was bearing the cost of equipment, camera crews, producers etc. I'm not 100% sure on that though.

 

 

This is why I qualified the statement with if this is true.  Richie and I were discussing the difficulty of trying to discuss this when we know so little about the costs associated and who was responsible for those costs (Twins or Bally's)  However, within your response you have pointed out an important difference between the Twins or MLB in covering costs.  That's that the cost of personnel and equipment is allocated to other sports in the off-season.   

[dxpavelka]

On 12/1/2023 at 7:08 AM, Riverbrian said:

Sometimes in life. You are asked a question. Sometimes you answer that question honestly. 

Every single time... honest answers are punished by us. Once again, we don't disappoint with amazing consistency. 

Y'all want the truth. Y'all demand the truth so you can trash it and beat it to a bloody pulp... which of course leads to non-answer answers... actually it leads to lies and manipulation because that is what we are OK with. 

We have an article here that could have easily been titled. 

Why didn't they lie to us? 

Or

Twins front office was honest with us and just look at the damage. 

 

 

 

I always laugh at the questions that are asked of athletes, coaches and front office guys.  I usually think "what the hell did you expect the guy to say?"  What do you need to do different in the second half?  Score more points than the other team.  Well we're gonna run some different plays.  Here are the plays we're gonna run.  Go tell the other team.  How do you plan to get hitter A out?  He can't hit the curve ball so we're gonna throw him curve balls.

 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

I think the Twins went "all in" in 2022, and then ran it again in 2023. So I wonder if it's because ownership asked for a statement to be made in response to the past two seasons (that is, "we didn't get it done"). Obviously I have no inside information but that's my guess. 

I had a ton of fun watching the postseason and there's no way you can call 2023 a complete failure. But if they are going to bankroll record high payrolls they need to show something more for it, and remember they were pretty hard to watch for a couple months before the all star break on that peak payroll. The broadcasting issue is another wild card. But I think it comes down to they are just spending too much money on players and trading away too much of value, when the expectation was that they would be developing internally and inexpensively.

 

[Finlander]

Three random thoughts in the wee hours:

1) Maybe the Twins made the payroll reduction comment to prevent Scott Boras from hounding them at their end of the table in Nashville this week.

2) Replace the phrase "revenue shortfall" with "decrease in profit" in some of the previous posts and see how that affects the conversation.

3) What is a playoff run worth to a franchise, both short term and carryover effect? Is it enough to justify spending near top of stated payroll window ($140-145M) rather than at low end ($120-125M)?

[Finlander]

Thought #4 before I fall asleep: If the Twins knew the TV deal was expiring, and if it was actually the worst TV deal in MLB, then why in the world did they spend all that money last off season?

[NotAboutWinning]

It's seems like the Pohlads can't decide whether they own the Twins because they are lovers of the game, or it is just another of their diversified investments. Sometimes they act like a corporation reporting to it's shareholders... Anticipated dip in revenue, expect lower a lower payroll, divest high value assets. Sometimes they seems to spend just for love of the game.... State-of-the-art scoreboards, new uniforms and a top-shelf shortstop. Just odd.

[Major League Ready]

4 hours ago, Finlander said:

Thought #4 before I fall asleep: If the Twins knew the TV deal was expiring, and if it was actually the worst TV deal in MLB, then why in the world did they spend all that money last off season?

They had $30M in BAM money that has been largely neglected in this conversation.  They also know they had the flexibility to trade Polanco, Kepler, and Farmer or decline their options.  In Farmer's case non-tender.  Of course, they also signed Gallo to a 1 year deal plus Gray and few others were in the final year of their contracts.  In short, they spent based on their capacity last year knowing they could adjust to this year's capacity as that was determined.

[ashbury]

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde only slightly, the cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, while the sentimentalist is one who sees an absurd value in everything and doesn't know the market price of any single thing.  We need the Twins' leadership, from owners on down, to be somewhere in the happy medium between these two extremes, neither cynical nor sentimental.