Letting Sonny Gray Walk Sparked the Twins’ Downward Spiral

[NYCTK]

On 9/8/2025 at 5:59 PM, DocBauer said:

It's still AMAZING to me how many comments come from people who just refuse to actually read or listen to REAL data and further comments made post Gray leaving the Twins.

Gray is a competitor by nature. I recall a comment last season with the Cardinals where he said again he wants a chance to go as long as he can. He's NEVER been an innings eater. He's been used almost EXACTLY as he was as a Twin. He hasn't been quite as good with St Loius since he left.

But somehow, this mantra keeps going on, and on, about he wasn't used to his full capacity. The numbers are easy to look up if doubters would take even a moment to look at them instead of just spitting out vitriol. 

This is an American problem in 2025. We live in post-truth society with the very obvious political ramifications. 

When these types of people are called out for just saying ****, they never ever apologize, never reflect on why they're constantly proven wrong, never take any accountability. They just repeat their post-truth "reality" and expect you to fall in line. 

 

[NYCTK]

19 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

I am not implying anything.  I am supplying factual data that took me about 30 hours to put together as to how teams acquired the players that are producing on winning teams.  They can draft them, trade for established players, trade for prospects or get them in free agency.  I took the time to get the data because of instances just like this one.  If you don't like the facts, ignore them if it makes you feel better.

Fun little followup just for your tracking purposes that could spark some debate. A player like Pete Alonso, brought up through the system, hit free agency, but then stayed around. Would your tracking designate that as FA player or an internal player? 

This then leads to a player like Buxton who signed an extension before ever reaching FA. I think that's completely rational to count as internally produced. 

Anyways, just looking at the Mets, they're about 50-50 on Internal/External WAR, helping explain why their big spending ways haven't been able to produce anything more than a decent, but not great, team this season. 

[jmlease1]

On 9/9/2025 at 10:16 AM, David HK said:

There's a lot of justification with convincing stat lines and dollar signs.  But I agree with Joe Ryan.

It's not about stats.  It's about culture.  Most likely, nearly all of us have spent time on teams of one form or another, and leadership is a key component.  Sonny Gray may have been an a-hole at times, but he was a true battler and a leader.  (And #2 in CY voting the year he walked).  The part of the headline of this article hits the nail right on the head-- It did begin the downward spiral, because no sooner did we finally win a playoff series (2 games- but who cares?), and have a dependable staff ace, than that silver-spoon, tone-deaf, cake-eater joe pohlad tells the fans that ownership basically doesn't give a 💩 about winning, or the fans.  They care only for their  pocket book.  

The pohlads have destroyed any fan connection or interest for years to come, and it most definitely started with that p*ssant joe pohlad's Sonny Gray decision.  

chicken and the egg, I guess? you never hear any complaint about "culture" when the team is winning, and you hear a lot of them when a team stinks. And one of the reasons you hear so many comments about "culture" when the team is bad is it's easy to throw that term around without calling anyone out specifically.

I'm sure Joe Ryan misses Sonny Gray: he pitched well for the Twins and helped us win a bunch of games, including one the best seasons this team has had (sadly) in a long time. But Sonny Gray's bulldog attitude and feistiness and so on means nothing if he's 2018 Sonny Gray. No one is talking about that guy setting the bar and instilling "culture", they're talking about finding him an exit. But from a personality and preparation standpoint, I bet Gray hasn't changed all that much since he left Oakland. Is Sonny Gray making a difference from a culture standpoint in StL? He hasn't made their rotten starting pitching better through his awesome cultureness. They're going to miss the playoffs for the 3rd straight season and have gotten worse since Gray got there.

Twins could have been just fine moving on from Sonny Gray in 2024, but the Pohlads picked that as the time to cut payroll. That's how we ended up with Manny Margot, hoping that Farmer still had something left in the tank, relying on Thielbar/Okert/Funderburk as LHP in the bullpen, taking a flier on the corpse of Jay Jackson, and having no options if any of the rookies had a sophomore slump/collapse. They didn't do anything with the Sonny Gray money except put it towards ownership's bottom line. That's much more about ownership than Sonny Gray.

[Major League Ready]

On 9/10/2025 at 10:42 AM, NYCTK said:

Fun little followup just for your tracking purposes that could spark some debate. A player like Pete Alonso, brought up through the system, hit free agency, but then stayed around. Would your tracking designate that as FA player or an internal player? 

This then leads to a player like Buxton who signed an extension before ever reaching FA. I think that's completely rational to count as internally produced. 

Anyways, just looking at the Mets, they're about 50-50 on Internal/External WAR, helping explain why their big spending ways haven't been able to produce anything more than a decent, but not great, team this season. 

Good question.  You could make a case either way.  I would tend to go internally produced because it was clear Alonzo really wanted to stay.  My interpretation was the Mets were not willing to pay "market" early in the process and Alonzo gave them a discount to stay in NY.

BTW ... I only did teams in the bottom half of revenue.  My interest was specific to teams that could not buy a team through free agency, like the Twins.

[NYCTK]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

Good question.  You could make a case either way.  I would tend to go internally produced because it was clear Alonzo really wanted to stay.  My interpretation was the Mets were not willing to pay "market" early in the process and Alonzo gave them a discount to stay in NY.

BTW ... I only did teams in the bottom half of revenue.  My interest was specific to teams that could not buy a team through free agency, like the Twins.

I don't know that the Mets got discount but they were gonna match any offer he received and I could see them doing that again this year. But maybe not. This Mets collapse might have them ready to move on.