Twins Fall to Bottom of The Athletic’s Hope-O-Meter

[Possumlad]

9 hours ago, flpmagikat said:

It’s a lot better than it was two years ago.

Agreed - having more people around helps a lot. A lot of mid-size cities got weird during & coming out of COVID. I lived in Chicago (the city, not the surrounding area) for 20+ years & took public transport nearly everywhere. I felt a lot more unsafe in downtown Minneapolis than nearly anywhere in Chicago from 2022-2024. You need people, activity, and action to keep things safe & livable. Things got real weird in the cities when it was a near ghost-town.

Definitely getting better, and I'm not suggesting folks shouldn't go to the North Loop or MSP in general - we do it all the time! But I also think it's silly & disingenous to pretend you don't need to be meaningfully more careful & aware than you do most other places... 

[nicksaviking]

20 hours ago, Possumlad said:

This is untrue and willfully misleading. The North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis has a crime rate of 107.4 per 1000 residents per year, putting it the bottom 2nd percentile in the US (less safe than 98% of areas in the US). The area right around Target Field & Target Center specifically is pretty much identical: 

https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-north-loop-minneapolis-mn/

I have no issue going to the area or bringing my family there, but it's not true to say that any concerns must ben from someone who hasn't been to a game in 10 years.

We go to 15-30 games a year between the Twins & Wolves, and on probably 1/2 those trips we see some crazy, wacked out nonsense that makes our kids scared or uncomfortable. I'll just say it's very common that you have to cross the street for your own safety around both stadiums. Anyone saying otherwise is either grandstanding or willfully misleading.

I took the bait and looked at your map.

Every pro baseball team in the nation is in red. Strange that even stadiums like in Milwaukee and Kansas City are in red considering they are all alone in a sea of pavement and nothing else around it. Almost like pro stadiums draw enough people that the fans themselves are causing the crime that is skewing the data? Can't be, but from your same link, here's a 'Violent Crime' breakdown of the North Loop:

80% of the violent crime is assault and the rest is nearly negligible? Surely it's a coincidence that professional sports stadiums ALSO report a high number of assaults due to intoxication and heated fan arguments. Could it be that it's the STADIUMS and the million plus entitled fans they draw each year that are actually bringing the crime to the neighborhood, and it's not the NEIGHBORHOOD that brings the crime to the stadium?

Anyway, can't move the team to Charlotte or Nashville. Or even Omaha or Des Moines. And if you wanted to stay in market, you also wouldn't be able to move the team to downtown Duluth, Rochester, Sioux Falls or Fargo. 

Sorry for the tone, but this propaganda has all gone too far. I know the propaganda isn't being created by average folks like us, but it is absolutely being digested and disseminated by average folks like us; we're doing the bad guys bidding by doing so. 

 

[Parfigliano]

On 3/30/2026 at 8:13 PM, Vanimal46 said:

100% correct. I sadly expect the Twins to finish as a bottom 3 team in overall standings. Chicago White Sox will pass us this year and that will be painful. 

ChiSox will finish ahead of TC this year.

[tony&rodney]

52 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

I took the bait and looked at your map.

Every pro baseball team in the nation is in red. Strange that even stadiums like in Milwaukee and Kansas City are in red considering they are all alone in a sea of pavement and nothing else around it. Almost like pro stadiums draw enough people that the fans themselves are causing the crime that is skewing the data? Can't be, but from your same link, here's a 'Violent Crime' breakdown of the North Loop:

80% of the violent crime is assault and the rest is nearly negligible? Surely it's a coincidence that professional sports stadiums ALSO report a high number of assaults due to intoxication and heated fan arguments. Could it be that it's the STADIUMS and the million plus entitled fans they draw each year that are actually bringing the crime to the neighborhood, and it's not the NEIGHBORHOOD that brings the crime to the stadium?

Anyway, can't move the team to Charlotte or Nashville. Or even Omaha or Des Moines. And if you wanted to stay in market, you also wouldn't be able to move the team to downtown Duluth, Rochester, Sioux Falls or Fargo. 

Sorry for the tone, but this propaganda has all gone too far. I know the propaganda isn't being created by average folks like us, but it is absolutely being digested and disseminated by average folks like us; we're doing the bad guys bidding by doing so. 

 

Definitive comment on attending baseball (any sports). Thank you.

Those who fall for propaganda are bound to be shut ins.  Crime statistics take time to look over and understand. I have studied statistics since 2000, when I became aware of how crazy the U. S. was from 1975-2000.

The chart below is one to think about. I copied that while looking over government files/statistics in January of this year. Nothing gets your attention like nearly 2500 homocides in the "crack era" of the late 1970s into the mid 1980s as compared to less than 300 murders in NYC in 2017. Crime is down. However this is always a weather versus climate argument. The trends over time are no comfort to one who is a victim today. 

On a more local level, DHS recently released that just over 2/3 of all people arrested during their recent occupation were free of any records. They released that to negate the propaganda put out that 90% had no records. My thought was .... I'm not sure I actually know anyone who has never received a traffic ticket, parking ticket, etc. It was good of DHS to release that information to correct the other position.

[bean5302]

3 hours ago, nicksaviking said:

I took the bait and looked at your map.

Every pro baseball team in the nation is in red. Strange that even stadiums like in Milwaukee and Kansas City are in red considering they are all alone in a sea of pavement and nothing else around it. Almost like pro stadiums draw enough people that the fans themselves are causing the crime that is skewing the data? Can't be, but from your same link, here's a 'Violent Crime' breakdown of the North Loop:

80% of the violent crime is assault and the rest is nearly negligible? Surely it's a coincidence that professional sports stadiums ALSO report a high number of assaults due to intoxication and heated fan arguments. Could it be that it's the STADIUMS and the million plus entitled fans they draw each year that are actually bringing the crime to the neighborhood, and it's not the NEIGHBORHOOD that brings the crime to the stadium?

Anyway, can't move the team to Charlotte or Nashville. Or even Omaha or Des Moines. And if you wanted to stay in market, you also wouldn't be able to move the team to downtown Duluth, Rochester, Sioux Falls or Fargo. 

Sorry for the tone, but this propaganda has all gone too far. I know the propaganda isn't being created by average folks like us, but it is absolutely being digested and disseminated by average folks like us; we're doing the bad guys bidding by doing so. 

 

It's also broken because of a "per capita" rate, in this case "households." When you have 5 million visiting people in a neighborhood, it skews the rates badly because they're not part of the household count. Property values are very high, there's tons of night life and many people around. Sure, I wouldn't want to be wandering alone through dark alleys at 3am, but for times around major events like Twins games? No concern.

[nicksaviking]

Anyway, back to the Hope-o-Meter. 

The Twins beat Tarik Skubal yesterday. We get a couple percentage points back for that?

[Richie the Rally Goat]

35 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Anyway, back to the Hope-o-Meter. 

The Twins beat Tarik Skubal yesterday. We get a couple percentage points back for that?

nope

[bean5302]

Agreed. My Hope-O-Meter won't start realistically moving until I see the results I think are necessary for the Twins to have sustained success this year. 4 legitimate quality starting pitchers in the rotation, and strong performances from several question mark position players.

Probably no changes until the end of May.

[LakesPibble]

My hope-o-meter takes into account more than just this year.  Might we make the playoffs in our trash division?  Maybe.

Doesn't make me feel like there's a positive long-term future for the club.