Will the Twins Be Helped By MLB and MLBPA’s Revised Television Deal?

[Major League Ready]

21 minutes ago, Richmond Dude said:

I'm still convinced that the Twins payroll cut this year wasn't about TV, but about 2025 and 2026.  We have an extremely good core of young players.  They are going to need to be paid, either by negotiated contracts or arbitration.  I'd rather be low this year (when we could afford it due to the talent), then have to let Royce Lewis go in 2026 because we couldn't afford his first arbitration contract due to previously overspending.

They have about $70M/yr invested in Correa/Lopez, and Buxton through the 2027 season.  Had they added another high-profile free agent they would have had in the neighborhood of $100M in four players.   That's just not a good position to be in.  

[Mike Sixel]

3 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

They have about $70M/yr invested in Correa/Lopez, and Buxton through the 2027 season.  Had they added another high-profile free agent they would have had in the neighborhood of $100M in four players.   That's just not a good position to be in.  

It's going to be almost impossible to sign someone to any kind of big dollar or even mid dollar deal, either as a FA or their own guys given that, and their budget. It's why I think they won't deal for a controllable SP this year, they have Festa, Morris, and Matthews on the brink. Plus Paddock. And Varland. 

[purplesoldier4u]

"Eventually, the Twins took a one-year deal to return to Diamond Sports because it brought in an estimated $40-45 million." Try $46.8m, plus the limited media MLB rights pool the CBA negotiated. The Twins spend a few year trying to convince the fans that the RSN revenue was about $43m when it was actually just under $56m, so I wouldn't trust them if they told us what the compensatory amount was.

[Fatbat]

12 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Players already get playoff bonuses. It's part of the CBA. Players get a cut of playoff revenue.

Yes, but if its “used to boost performance “…. Potentially, ownership could be creative on how they use it. 

[ashbury]

8 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

They have about $70M/yr invested in Correa/Lopez, and Buxton through the 2027 season.  Had they added another high-profile free agent they would have had in the neighborhood of $100M in four players.   That's just not a good position to be in.  

There are no guarantees in life but $30M generally brings you a good player. And 4 good players on your roster before you start factoring in your low-cost players is a good position to be in.  The $100M is a privilege to pay.

Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.*  The value of having good players is high.

* In fairness, this is only half of a dialog attributed to Wilde that was also aiming to make an equal and opposite point about knowing the price of nothing and assigning absurdly high value to too many things.  Real wisdom is finding the middle path between cynicism and sentimentalism.

[Major League Ready]

9 hours ago, ashbury said:

There are no guarantees in life but $30M generally brings you a good player. And 4 good players on your roster before you start factoring in your low-cost players is a good position to be in.  The $100M is a privilege to pay.

Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.*  The value of having good players is high.

* In fairness, this is only half of a dialog attributed to Wilde that was also aiming to make an equal and opposite point about knowing the price of nothing and assigning absurdly high value to too many things.  Real wisdom is finding the middle path between cynicism and sentimentalism.

Can you come up with a single example (even 1) of a 90-win team in the bottom half of revenue that spent $100M on 4 players?  

The last team in the bottom half of revenue to win the WS was the 2015 Royals.  They spent $41M on their top 4 players.  There have been 3 other teams in the bottom half of revenue that have made it to the WS in the past 10 years.  The 23 Dbacks spent $34M on their top 4 players.   The 20 Rays spent $37M and the 2016 Guardians spent $28M. 

The best team so far this year would be the Orioles who are spending $45M on their 4 most expensive players.  The top 2 position players rank 5th and 12th in terms of WAR among position players.  The top 2 pitchers rank 1st and 8th in WAR among pitchers.

Show us some evidence that spending $100M on four players is a good position to be in.  If you are correct, there should be plenty of examples you can use to illustrate your position.

[old nurse]

10 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

Can you come up with a single example (even 1) of a 90-win team in the bottom half of revenue that spent $100M on 4 players?  

The last team in the bottom half of revenue to win the WS was the 2015 Royals.  They spent $41M on their top 4 players.  There have been 3 other teams in the bottom half of revenue that have made it to the WS in the past 10 years.  The 23 Dbacks spent $34M on their top 4 players.   The 20 Rays spent $37M and the 2016 Guardians spent $28M. 

The best team so far this year would be the Orioles who are spending $45M on their 4 most expensive players.  The top 2 position players rank 5th and 12th in terms of WAR among position players.  The top 2 pitchers rank 1st and 8th in WAR among pitchers.

Show us some evidence that spending $100M on four players is a good position to be in.  If you are correct, there should be plenty of examples you can use to illustrate your position.

Well every once in a while it works. See Texas Rangers last year. Of course it helps to have that second hundred million to spend.  

Didn’t see the low revenue portion but the 4 player, for 100m and half he budget is difficult to prove 

[ashbury]

13 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

 bottom half of revenue

Sorry.  I don't accept the terms of discussion you stipulate.   Revenue is not the independent variable.  On the contrary, it's an embarrassment that the Twins' revenue is lower than the Cardinals', despite having a larger economic base; it speaks to decades of failure going back to Calvin Griffith and would take many years at minimum to turn around.  The Twins should also be on a par in revenue with the Mariners but they are not.

More importantly though, owning a sports franchise is nothing like running a chain of dry cleaning stores or even a health care behemoth.  There is no rule except a corrupt handshake deal among 30 billionaires that profitability is inviolable.  The competition is on the field, not among 30 CFOs.

You've bought into bean-counting as a competitive sport.  Most of us do not.

For these reasons I'm not playing along with your rhetorical games.

PS. The Forbes franchise value page seems to have Minnesota ranked #16, so while that's technically "bottom half" it's pretty disingenuous to limit the discussion to teams below them. So even if I did want to play along, the discussion's rigged before it starts.

[old nurse]

11 hours ago, ashbury said:

Sorry.  I don't accept the terms of discussion you stipulate.   Revenue is not the independent variable.  On the contrary, it's an embarrassment that the Twins' revenue is lower than the Cardinals', despite having a larger economic base; it speaks to decades of failure going back to Calvin Griffith and would take many years at minimum to turn around.  The Twins should also be on a par in revenue with the Mariners but they are not.

More importantly though, owning a sports franchise is nothing like running a chain of dry cleaning stores or even a health care behemoth.  There is no rule except a corrupt handshake deal among 30 billionaires that profitability is inviolable.  The competition is on the field, not among 30 CFOs.

You've bought into bean-counting as a competitive sport.  Most of us do not.

For these reasons I'm not playing along with your rhetorical games.

PS. The Forbes franchise value page seems to have Minnesota ranked #16, so while that's technically "bottom half" it's pretty disingenuous to limit the discussion to teams below them. So even if I did want to play along, the discussion's rigged before it starts.

Saying that you have not bought into bean counting as a sport and critiquing the Twins revenue are incongruous statements. 

The base level of baseball is no different than any other business in that some years you don’t make as much money but in general the business can’t bleed money. 

[Major League Ready]

11 hours ago, ashbury said:

Sorry.  I don't accept the terms of discussion you stipulate.   Revenue is not the independent variable.  On the contrary, it's an embarrassment that the Twins' revenue is lower than the Cardinals', despite having a larger economic base; it speaks to decades of failure going back to Calvin Griffith and would take many years at minimum to turn around.  The Twins should also be on a par in revenue with the Mariners but they are not.

More importantly though, owning a sports franchise is nothing like running a chain of dry cleaning stores or even a health care behemoth.  There is no rule except a corrupt handshake deal among 30 billionaires that profitability is inviolable.  The competition is on the field, not among 30 CFOs.

You've bought into bean-counting as a competitive sport.  Most of us do not.

For these reasons I'm not playing along with your rhetorical games.

PS. The Forbes franchise value page seems to have Minnesota ranked #16, so while that's technically "bottom half" it's pretty disingenuous to limit the discussion to teams below them. So even if I did want to play along, the discussion's rigged before it starts.

I agree they should be able to generate more revenue.  That however is a different discussion, and it does not change my desire to have them follow strategies that are the most likely to succeed.  We can complain about revenue all we like.  They still have $100M or $200M or $300M less than the top 1/3 of the league.  That's our reality.  Do you want to pursue strategies that are effective for teams with that economic reality, or do you want to follow strategies that have literally never been effective for teams with this economic reality?  Be mad they are not generating revenue but don't be mad they are not following a strategy that has an exceptionally low probability of success?

 

[ashbury]

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

Saying that you have not bought into bean counting as a sport and critiquing the Twins revenue are incongruous statements. 

The base level of baseball is no different than any other business in that some years you don’t make as much money but in general the business can’t bleed money. 

I don't buy into sports teams never losing money, no.

It's a vanity project. As I said, it's fundamentally unlike running a chain of dry cleaners. Take the America's Cup, for example. Some of the richest men in history have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to own it..They don't demand that a fast sailing boat turn a profit. Horseracing, similarly; some racing stables are self-sustaining, many are not. There's no reason except a scoundrel's handshake among 30 billionaires that each individual baseball team must make a profit every single year, either. Once you get over that artificial hurdle, my point of view is clear and consistent. Owning a sports team is a privilege, not necessarily a profit-center.

My point of view is not very important, because of exactly that agreement among billionaires; the Pohlad family is hardly alone in this (though there are occasional exceptions like the Tigers for a while and the Padres recently). So I'm not holding my breath. But there is absolutely no reason a team like the Twins, who have a good if not stellar farm system, can't choose to pay 4 key players a total of $100M, as was suggested further up, to supplement their roster of rising players. Throwing out challenges to compare to low-revenue teams is what's incongruous, for the several reasons I stated.

 

[jorgenswest]

Will the Twins Be Helped By MLB and MLBPA’s Revised Television Deal?

[old nurse]

6 hours ago, ashbury said:

I don't buy into sports teams never losing money, no.

It's a vanity project. As I said, it's fundamentally unlike running a chain of dry cleaners. Take the America's Cup, for example. Some of the richest men in history have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to own it..They don't demand that a fast sailing boat turn a profit. Horseracing, similarly; some racing stables are self-sustaining, many are not. There's no reason except a scoundrel's handshake among 30 billionaires that each individual baseball team must make a profit every single year, either. Once you get over that artificial hurdle, my point of view is clear and consistent. Owning a sports team is a privilege, not necessarily a profit-center.

My point of view is not very important, because of exactly that agreement among billionaires; the Pohlad family is hardly alone in this (though there are occasional exceptions like the Tigers for a while and the Padres recently). So I'm not holding my breath. But there is absolutely no reason a team like the Twins, who have a good if not stellar farm system, can't choose to pay 4 key players a total of $100M, as was suggested further up, to supplement their roster of rising players. Throwing out challenges to compare to low-revenue teams is what's incongruous, for the several reasons I stated.

 

You bring in horse racing and America’s Cu which have absolutely nothing in common with baseball to make a point. You use dry cleaning business to compare to baseball.. what else do you have in your basket of fruit?

[Craig Arko]

6 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

Will the Twins Be Helped By MLB and MLBPA’s Revised Television Deal?

Remains to be seen. Also on what one chooses to define as ‘help.’

[ashbury]

9 minutes ago, old nurse said:

You bring in horse racing and America’s Cu which have absolutely nothing in common with baseball to make a point. You use dry cleaning business to compare to baseball.. what else do you have in your basket of fruit?

I don't know. How much more do you wish your perspective broadened?

You tell me. Why is winning the World Series less desirable than the America's Cup or the Kentucky Derby?  Few can even tell you who won those latter two most recently anymore.  I'll give you my answer: billionaires are fickle, just like any human beings.  And we're being asked to take their eccentric choices as inviolable law handed down from on his. 

Examine your assumptions.

[jorgenswest]

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

Remains to be seen. Also on what one chooses to define as ‘help.’

Just copying the title and trying to redirect the conversation back to how that money might make a difference.