Minnesota Twins Takeaways from an Inactive Trade Deadline

[nicksaviking]

15 minutes ago, CharlieDee said:

Because the Pohlads are strapped for money and are unable to add to the team when the window is open, I'd like to suggest they sell the team.  Please,please sell the team. Your financial worries will be over and you can be happy!

I don't like what the Pohlad's are doing, but what if we got owners like the Marlins got? Or worse, the A's?

At least the Pohlad's are local and have to answer to local pressure to keep the team functional. What if we ended up getting a sketchy hedge fund owner from the East Coast? Or a group from Nashville or Montreal who will never say it, but are interested in moving the team?

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, P Meyer said:

I am certainly not privy to every tv deal the Twins were offered. I don't know your connections. What I can say is that in a time where sports TV rights are inarguably a clear print-fest, any time a team fails to procure one, it is on them. Whether they overplayed their hand, underplayed their hand, struck too soon or too late...those are just excuses that competent business don't generally have to use.

You perspective is a few years out of date.   The RSNs are falling apart and the cable companies are no longer willing to include regional sports without a surcharge.  MLB.TV just announced out of market coverage for $5.99/month.  The "clear print-fest" is long gone.

[Mike Sixel]

3 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I don't like what the Pohlad's are doing, but what if we got owners like the Marlins got? Or worse, the A's?

At least the Pohlad's are local and have to answer to local pressure to keep the team functional. What if we ended up getting a sketchy hedge fund owner from the East Coast? Or a group from Nashville or Montreal who will never say it, but are interested in moving the team?

Local pressure? When were they last asked difficult questions or put under pressure? It could, of course, be worse. 100% true. 

[Major League Ready]

2 hours ago, mickster said:

According to The Athletic's Dan Hayes, the Twins discussed potential trades with the Chicago White Sox for Erick Fedde as well as the Detroit Tigers for Jack Flaherty. Those talks went nowhere after both teams asked for packages that included one of Brooks Lee, Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez, according to Hayes' reporting.

Not looking to give up one of their high-end prospects for a three-month rental starter, the Twins' front office deemed that asking price a non-starter, Hayes said.

This is consistent with what Falvey said but the fans who are upset are going to ignore any reports that provide a reasonable narrative.

[nicksaviking]

1 minute ago, Mike Sixel said:

Local pressure? When were they last asked difficult questions or put under pressure? It could, of course, be worse. 100% true. 

Not from the media that's for sure. But they have local interests with their other businesses and investments too, and certainly, being the face of everybody's favorite baseball team has to be a better benefit to those other interests than being the local villain. 

[old nurse]

3 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Ever green post. It's never the right year for the Twins apparently. 

Ever green, but also correct 

[Mike Sixel]

5 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

This is consistent with what Falvey said but the fans who are upset are going to ignore any reports that provide a reasonable narrative.

It's the same narrative every year but one.....and I'm skeptical that it is true that it never makes sense. Standing pat certainly hasn't won them many playoff series. 

[nicksaviking]

9 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

This is consistent with what Falvey said but the fans who are upset are going to ignore any reports that provide a reasonable narrative.

So just because Falvey was smart enough not to say the quiet part out loud, we just ignore this one:

https://www.yardbarker.com/mlb/articles/twins_reportedly_working_with_payroll_limitations_at_trade_deadline/s1_13237_40646844

and this one:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5671013/2024/07/31/twins-failed-trade-deadline/

or what Dan Hayes said just two days ago:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5664820/2024/07/28/twins-trade-deadline-dominant-bailey-ober/

Based on the reporting, not on Falvey, who has a vested interest not to publicly** throw ownership under the bus, ownership was not willing to take on more payroll.

**But someone is telling the media how it is off the record

 

[KirbyDome89]

2 hours ago, mickster said:

According to The Athletic's Dan Hayes, the Twins discussed potential trades with the Chicago White Sox for Erick Fedde as well as the Detroit Tigers for Jack Flaherty. Those talks went nowhere after both teams asked for packages that included one of Brooks Lee, Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez, according to Hayes' reporting.

Not looking to give up one of their high-end prospects for a three-month rental starter, the Twins' front office deemed that asking price a non-starter, Hayes said.

This is how negotiations go; ask high and settle in the middle. I promise you the Twins are doing the same thing. Also, there's zero chance those swaps were 1 for 1. Detroit was asking from Brooks Lee for 2 months of Jack Flaherty. We saw what each of those guys returned. The Twins could've beat those packages without coming close to giving up any of the prospects named. 

[Major League Ready]

The have been a total of (30) 94 win+ seasons since 2000 among the bottom 16 teams in revenue.  Listed below is the percentage of WAR produced by source of acquisition.

34.2% Draft  /  8.6%  Intl Draft  /   29.9% Players acquired as Prospects  /  11.3% Trades for established players  /  16.1%  Fres Agents.

The bar I used for established player was having produced 1.5+ WAR in any season.  Obviously, a low bar and not the type of player being discussed here.  Had I used players that had produced a 2.5 WAR type season, I would estimate that percentage would have been cut in half.

What does this tell us about the most effective way to construct a contender?
                
 

[nicksaviking]

4 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

The have been a total of (30) 94 win+ seasons since 2000 among the bottom 16 teams in revenue.  Listed below is the percentage of WAR produced by source of acquisition.

34.2% Draft  /  8.6%  Intl Draft  /   29.9% Players acquired as Prospects  /  11.3% Trades for established players  /  16.1%  Fres Agents.

The bar I used for established player was having produced 1.5+ WAR in any season.  Obviously, a low bar and not the type of player being discussed here.  Had I used players that had produced a 2.5 WAR type season, I would estimate that percentage would have been cut in half.

What does this tell us about the most effective way to construct a contender?
                
 

If you apply that 11% WAR from trades to the win total, you go from a 94 win team to an 84 win team.

Look, I didn't like most of the options (even the ones priced out of the Twins budget and prospect bank) but making trades and adding payroll is an important part of improving your club.

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, mickster said:

According to The Athletic's Dan Hayes, the Twins discussed potential trades with the Chicago White Sox for Erick Fedde as well as the Detroit Tigers for Jack Flaherty. Those talks went nowhere after both teams asked for packages that included one of Brooks Lee, Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez, according to Hayes' reporting.

Not looking to give up one of their high-end prospects for a three-month rental starter, the Twins' front office deemed that asking price a non-starter, Hayes said.

Which is really weird since both teams ended up settling for prospects MUCH worse than those players from other teams. If true it is like they were more interested in hurting the Twins in 2024 than they were in improving their own ballclubs in the future.

[KirbyDome89]

13 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

This is consistent with what Falvey said but the fans who are upset are going to ignore any reports that provide a reasonable narrative.

If you're a selling (rebuilding) team, why would not ask about the price of those prospects? Of course those names are brought up. Inquiry doesn't equal insistence...

I think the Twins refusal to add salary is a much more "reasonable narrative," than Detroit purposely eliminating a potential suitor because they're afraid of Jack Flaherty in a Twins uniform for 2 months...

[Rod Carews Birthday]

44 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Sure, streaming *potentially* wouldn't have been as lucrative, but we're talking about literal loose change for these ***holes making fiscal decisions. They talked up a streaming option during the offseason and the second a few more dollars were dangled in front of their faces they jumped back in bed with a company going bankrupt. It's asinine to think that Bally being pulled from Comcast's packages was some sort of shocking or unforeseen outcome. I mean c'mon. If you actually want to argue that Twins business gurus who negotiated that deal shouldn't be held accountable you're simply endorsing incompetence. 

Keep spending other people’s money and keep the conspiracy theory going.  It’s actually far less complicated and far less sinister than that I’m sure.  When ESPN went off of Dish Network a few years ago for a while whose fault was that?  How about when my local NBC affiliate went off of Comcast?  It’s just two stubborn parties sticking to their guns and not compromising.  The Twins are a third party here.   Everybody is trying to maximize their revenue.   I don’t like it when it affects me, but I can’t change it and screaming about it doesn’t make me feel better or change anything.  

Rich people like to keep their money just like you and I do.  What is absolutely “pocket change” to them is big money to me.  You are correct, but I don’t throw away my pocket change and I’m sure they don’t either.  

[Major League Ready]

22 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

If you apply that 11% WAR from trades to the win total, you go from a 94 win team to an 84 win team.

Look, I didn't like most of the options (even the ones priced out of the Twins budget and prospect bank) but making trades and adding payroll is an important part of improving your club.

That's now how it works.  This is what actually happened not what would have happened if they traded for established players.  If they won 90 games on average 11.9% WAR came from trading for established players.  You also skipped over the part where 29% of their WAR came from trading for established players.  Therefore, when considering how every player was acquired for literally every team in the bottom half of revenue for the last 2+ decades, we can say that trading for prospects produced almost 3X the WAR as trading for established players.  It is also noteworthy that the bar for established player is a player that had produced a 1.5 WAR season.  That's obviously not the kind of player posters here were looking for.  Up the bar to a player that has produced 2.1 WAR and the ratio would go to 4-5X. 

[Mike Sixel]

9 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

That's now how it works.  This is what actually happened not what would have happened if they traded for established players.  If they won 90 games on average 11.9% WAR came from trading for established players.  You also skipped over the part where 29% of their WAR came from trading for established players.  Therefore, when considering how every player was acquired for literally every team in the bottom half of revenue for the last 2+ decades, we can say that trading for prospects produced almost 3X the WAR as trading for established players.  It is also noteworthy that the bar for established player is a player that had produced a 1.5 WAR season.  That's obviously not the kind of player posters here were looking for.  Up the bar to a player that has produced 2.1 WAR and the ratio would go to 4-5X. 

How many WS have those bottom half teams won?

Also, zero people are talking about constructing a team at the beginning of the year, but not adding players at the deadline nearly every year. How many playoff series have the TWins won by not adding players?

[Linus]

2 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

So is this an argument that the Twins should model their finances after the Cleveland club?

Huh?  No it’s an observation of how the Twins have operated during the Pohlad family ownership. Nothing to do with Cleveland. 

[KirbyDome89]

6 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

Keep spending other people’s money and keep the conspiracy theory going.  It’s actually far less complicated and far less sinister than that I’m sure.  When ESPN went off of Dish Network a few years ago for a while whose fault was that?  How about when my local NBC affiliate went off of Comcast?  It’s just two stubborn parties sticking to their guns and not compromising.  The Twins are a third party here.   Everybody is trying to maximize their revenue.   I don’t like it when it affects me, but I can’t change it and screaming about it doesn’t make me feel better or change anything.  

Rich people like to keep their money just like you and I do.  What is absolutely “pocket change” to them is big money to me.  You are correct, but I don’t throw away my pocket change and I’m sure they don’t either.  

So the Twins didn't march Provus out there to promote a streaming service, or at the very least give him the green light to speak about one? 

They didn't immediately ditch those plans and jump back in with Balley the second a new deal, with more up front money, materialized? 

Oh, and they're not culpable in any way for racing back into business with a company that was failing to make payments across baseball? 

Yeesh, point out the conspiracy.....

The "spending other people's money," argument might have some merit if one of the richest ownership groups in MLB wasn't running this team like a poverty franchise. They pulled a bait-and-switch with the viewing options in order to make some extra $$, which they pocketed, while slashing payroll, and now we're supposed to shrug and let them off the hook because the bankrupt group they chose in the cash grab has ****ed up the broadcast situation? Some of you are so deep in the Pohlad pockets you can't tell up from down at this point....

[Rod Carews Birthday]

6 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

So the Twins didn't march Provus out there to promote a streaming service, or at the very least give him the green light to speak about one? 

They didn't immediately ditch those plans and jump back in with Balley the second a new deal, with more up front money, materialized? 

Oh, and they're not culpable in any way for racing back into business with a company that was failing to make payments across baseball? 

Yeesh, point out the conspiracy.....

The "spending other people's money," argument might have some merit if one of the richest ownership groups in MLB wasn't running this team like a poverty franchise. They pulled a bait-and-switch with the viewing options in order to make some extra $$, which they pocketed, while slashing payroll, and now we're supposed to shrug and let them off the hook because the bankrupt group they chose in the cash grab has ****ed up the broadcast situation? Some of you are so deep in the Pohlad pockets you can't tell up from down at this point....

I believe we will agree to disagree.  It seems more productive for both of us at this point.

 

[nicksaviking]

56 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Which is really weird since both teams ended up settling for prospects MUCH worse than those players from other teams. If true it is like they were more interested in hurting the Twins in 2024 than they were in improving their own ballclubs in the future.

They may have wanted more from the Twins than from the other teams, but with rentals, but I agree, I doubt it would have been significant. Fans care about the rivalries more than the GMs do, rental players should go to the highest bidder if you're a seller.

Of course, many years there are more than just rental pitchers available and then I do agree these teams would be inclined to keep them away from the Twins. And with the Twins in a habitually bad division, they are going to run into this scenario more often than teams with only one 'seller' in the division per year. Can't do much about that except shop elsewhere.

[Western SD Fan]

Let's try and do some math.  You're estimating that they need approximately 500,000 subscribers at $100 per year to replace the estimated Bally income.  For reference, I live in an area where the Rockies are a blackout area as well and MLB's Rockies TV was offered for $100 per year AND is still on local basic cable.  Whereas, Bally has cut off access to the local cable affiliates so the only options here are Direct TV or Fubo.  If we combine the estimated households per US Census in the basic Twins Territory (MN, ND, and SD) gives me 3,021,871 households (cut off at 3,000,000 for calculations). Let's estimate that 15% of those households would either pay the $100 or allow it to be part of their basic cable package.  That gets me 450,000 possible subscribers with the remaining 50,000 potentially coming from Iowa, Western WI, out of market subscriptions and business clients.  My estimation may be too high, and I'll gladly be wrong if someone explains why.

As for attendance, let's assume that the majority of the fans in attendance drive no more than two hours from the Twin Cities to attend more than 5 games in a season.  Personally, I live on the very edge of Twins Territory and it is a small trek to get to a game.  I end up spending at least $1,000 in tickets, merchandise, lodging, food, and various shopping plus the time away from work in order to make the trip.  I can only afford one of those trips per year and I am one of the lucky ones.  Should we just say eff the rest of the fan base because they live too far away to contribute enough to the ownership's pockets? I know that it's not ownership's job to negotiate tv contracts between Bally Sports and Comcast, Dish, Midco, Bluepeak, etc.  But for them to not ask any questions and live in blissful ignorance to me is still negligence at best.  

All of this to say that I believe most of us understand that we will never spend like the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, or Mets and are alright with that.  But this has been a PR disaster nine months in the making.  An excited fan base gets doused in ice water bath reminiscent of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge by announcing they are cutting payroll prior to even getting a chance to sell a new season ticket.  Next, we find out that they are getting a one-year deal with Bally so there is hope that they will loosen the pocketbook a little somewhere during the season.  Then Bally and cable providers get into a carriage standoff.  While not the Twins fault, they signed the contract with Bally and now you have a fan base losing interest in the team that they can't watch. Apathy means no ticket or merchandise sales, which does affect the Twins bottom line.  Finally, MLB announces that teams like the Twins will be receiving up to $15 million in TV allocation funds in order to jump start the trade market.  So when other teams in similar situations make moves, you further anger the fan base.  While you may be technically correct that the prospect capital and/or payroll may have been too high to make a significant trade, the fact that this has fervor has been nine months in the making and just blowing it's top now.  A screaming fan base means they still care.  We don't want to get to Disney Star Wars territory and just have apathy.  That's when the swirl around the toilet bowl starts.

[singlesoverwalks]

5 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

It's never the right year for the Twins apparently. 

Did you follow the Twins-Yankees and Twins-Orioles series? We're a dangerous enough team, but we usually can't hang with them. I think if you're the Twins, given the (perhaps self-imposed by the Pohlads) resource constraints, you hold your prospects close until you can see the whites of their eyes. OK, horrible mixed metaphor. I mean, you don't trade prospects away until the year where you have the best record in the league. Then you go for it. The rest of the time, you're trying to be good enough to make the playoffs and hope lightning strikes.

[Mike Sixel]

Just now, singlesoverwalks said:

Did you follow the Twins-Yankees and Twins-Orioles series? We're a dangerous enough team, but we usually can't hang with them. I think if you're the Twins, given the (perhaps self-imposed by the Pohlads) resource constraints, you hold your prospects close until you can see the whites of their eyes. OK, horrible mixed metaphor. I mean, you don't trade prospects away until the year where you have the best record in the league. Then you go for it. The rest of the time, you're trying to be good enough to make the playoffs and hope lightning strikes.

So you're saying in the history of the team, since the Pohlad's bought it, it has only been the right year 1 time? Because that was the point of my post. It is never the right year. You'd think that would get the GMs fired faster.

If you never deal prospects until you have the best record in baseball, I doubt you'd get a GM job. Because lots of GMs do it, and still have their jobs. 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

6 minutes ago, singlesoverwalks said:

Did you follow the Twins-Yankees and Twins-Orioles series? We're a dangerous enough team, but we usually can't hang with them. I think if you're the Twins, given the (perhaps self-imposed by the Pohlads) resource constraints, you hold your prospects close until you can see the whites of their eyes. OK, horrible mixed metaphor. I mean, you don't trade prospects away until the year where you have the best record in the league. Then you go for it. The rest of the time, you're trying to be good enough to make the playoffs and hope lightning strikes.

By that logic, since we can’t hang with the Orioles or the Yankees, those two teams should have the best record in the league by MILES, because obviously none of the teams with worse records than the Twins can beat them either.  Hmmm.  Maybe not.

Best record in the league is a good thing.  It is not the determiner of whether you will win the World Series.  I would think that if you DON’T have the best record in the league it would make you MORE likely to need to add at the deadline.  

All of that said, there wasn’t much to be had this year that I found particularly interesting.  Lots of great players didn’t get dealt anywhere, especially the two really good pitchers in Crochet and Skubel.  I don’t like how this deadline turned out, but I also don’t feel that we really missed out on a golden ticket to the World Series.  

[USAFChief]

3 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

The Pohlads pinching pennies was not going to make a huge difference yesterday.  The best available talent was in our own division, so when you take that out of the equation you're left with some real dregs.  The truth is that there just wasn't much worth acquiring 

The Tigers wouldn't trade Flaherty to the Twins?

Flaherty is a two month rental. 

And the Tigers dont even play the Twins again until 2025.

Try again.

BTW the best or second best reliever went from Miami to Arizona. Cheaply. 

[singlesoverwalks]

32 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

If you never deal prospects until you have the best record in baseball, I doubt you'd get a GM job. Because lots of GMs do it, and still have their jobs. 

I'm not applying for those jobs, just typing in the comments box here. But, yeah, I think that's the playbook for teams like the Twins, pretty clearly. Most of the time they should be trading away established players for prospects. Why? Because they usually can't or won't pay the freight for good players in free agency. To have a shot at contending, they have to have a steady flow of good pre-free-agency players. If you deviate too much from this playbook and you aren't a high-budget team, you end up looking like the Rockies or the Royals. The well runs dry for years at a time.

I'm not an absolutist. Sometimes the market is different and there are opportunities. This year, some of the best available pitchers were on the Tigers and White Sox. Those trades are more difficult to pull off in both directions.

Kikuchi cost the Astros a really high price in prospects. I am glad the Twins didn't match that offer.

KC traded a low-grade relief prospect for Michael Lorenzen. That sounds good until you look at his recent performance. But that's probably the trade that has the best chance to look like one the Twins should have made.

In conclusion: no I'm not saying you never trade away any prospects, but I think you've got to be way more cautious about it than the Yankees or Dodgers are.

[singlesoverwalks]

20 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

The Tigers wouldn't trade Flaherty to the Twins?

It goes both ways. The Twins don't want to give the Tigers a prospect who's going to beat them up for five years.

[Major League Ready]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

How many WS have those bottom half teams won?

Also, zero people are talking about constructing a team at the beginning of the year, but not adding players at the deadline nearly every year. How many playoff series have the TWins won by not adding players?

Here are the teams in the bottom half of revenue that have won a WS since 2000.   Dbacks in 2001, Marlins in 2003, White Sox in Chicago in 2005, and KC in 2015.    If a WS title is how we define success, these are the the most successful teams.  KC has (1) 90 win season in the past 25 years and has the worst win percentage of any team in MLB.  The White Sox have had (1) 90-win season in the past 17 years.  The Marlins are a mess.  The Dbacks have had (1) 90-win season in the past 13 years and rank 22nd in win percentage.  The Twins rank 13th.

One team in the bottom half of revenue has won a WS in the last 19 years so the response "have they won a WS" is a not so clever way of refusing to look at meaningful measures like how many times they put a playoff caliber team on the field.  That's a reasonable measure of how well a team has built rosters.   

How often does adding players lead to winning a WS.  If a dozen teams add players, the probability of one of those teams winning the WS is 8.3%.  What is the probability that those players are the difference in winning the WS.  Let's say 50% which is generous.  The probability of winning the WS as a result of adding players is about 4%.

Shouldn't we be asking which organizations have produced the most playoff teams and then ask how they constructed those teams?  

 

[singlesoverwalks]

38 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

Best record in the league is a good thing.  It is not the determiner of whether you will win the World Series.  I would think that if you DON’T have the best record in the league it would make you MORE likely to need to add at the deadline.  

I agree with the first two sentences but not with the third sentence. This is about risking your future success to go for success this year. You lay it on the line when you think you have a great shot - as evidenced by that great record. When you do that, you're mortgaging your future to maximize your chances of winning a championship this year. The rest of the time, you figure baseball is a high variance game. You get into the playoffs and hope to get lucky.

[karcherd]

4 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Joe handles the day to day operations and would advise/report to Dave St. Peter and the ownership group (Jim Pohlad). Derek Falvey reports directly to Joe, who dual reports to Dave St. Peter and Jim Pohlad.

Joe Pohlad reports to the board only, DSP and Falvey report to him.  Jim is executive chair for baseball purposes,  Here is how Joe's role is described per the Pohlad Companies website.  "Joe Pohlad is Executive Chair of the Minnesota Twins, providing leadership to all facets of the Twins organization on behalf of the Pohlad Family."