Josh Donaldson Says Minnesota Fans “Don’t Even Care” About Baseball

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Dman said:

Objectively I think he has a point.  This hasn't been a "great" market for Baseball IMO.  There is a reason the TV deals weren't that great as they don't have the viewership that other clubs have.  Maybe it's the baseball product, but I tend to agree that Minnesota fans are a bit ambivalent about baseball. I know several Die Hard Vikings fans and Wild fans, but I feel like I am one of the few that follows the Twins with that same level of passion. 

I'm not saying there aren't big time fans of the Twins out there, but I would say the experience is different than St Louis, LA Dodgers, and other places.  Again maybe it is just the way baseball is setup with small markets generally struggling to compete, but I don't think he is completely wrong given other baseball environments.

I'm pretty immersed in multiple team fanbases, and I'd put the Twins somewhere in the middle. They're not a bad fanbase overall, but they're not the Cardinals, Brewers, Padres, etc. They're also not the Diamondbacks, or any of the Florida teams.

The Twins could easily be the Brewers or Padres, but they'd need new ownership to do that. Honestly, that's the difference right there: competent, consistent ownership that either spends (Padres), hires the correct people every time (Brewers), or does both (Cardinals).

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

I did a quick random sampling of 100 fans in Staples, Roseau, Ely, Eden Prairie and Worthington.  

The results were eye opening.

Some of them care and some of them don't. 

Same qualitative result would be true in the places people consider "good baseball towns" as well.

Either-or isn't particularly enlightening*.  I live in earthquake country; tomorrow we'll either have a quake or we won't.  It's also wildfire country; tomorrow we'll either be engulfed in one or we won't.  That kind of analysis doesn't do me much good in assessing the relative risks or the steps we should take.

 

* I think you could call that the source of the humor in Chief's "Yes" response to this-or-that questions.  True, but not useful.

[Althebum82]

Kind Mr Donaldson seems like such a nice young man so nicely sharing his nice thoughtful observations and opinions about our nice fans.  But I think I am mediocrely ambivalent at best about ever having his name invade my consciousness ever again.  And, I mean that, of course, in the nicest way possible.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

2 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

I did a quick random sampling of 100 fans in Staples, Roseau, Ely, Eden Prairie and Worthington.  

The results were eye opening.

Some of them care and some of them don't. 

 

Should i be concerned that people's eyes were closed?

[jmlease1]

bigoted jackwagon sh!tstirrer says what?

[Andy MacPhail]

Twins' fans are usually low key. Sometimes it gets frustrating, they seem like they really don't into the game, I'd like it more if they did but that's the way they are. That doesn't necessarily mean that they don't care. 

[Riverbrian]

20 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Same qualitative result would be true in the places people consider "good baseball towns" as well.

Either-or isn't particularly enlightening*.  I live in earthquake country; tomorrow we'll either have a quake or we won't.  It's also wildfire country; tomorrow we'll either be engulfed in one or we won't.  That kind of analysis doesn't do me much good in assessing the relative risks or the steps we should take.

 

* I think you could call that the source of the humor in Chief's "Yes" response to this-or-that questions.  True, but not useful.

I made a similar joke to my wife once and she didn't know I was joking. 

So she went on a journey to find the seriousness in the comment.   

I didn't know that she would do that and by the time I found out that she took it seriously... she was already mad at me.  

Humor is a slippery slope. 

 

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, Parker Hageman said:

 The reaction to the start of Donaldson's rant is basically this:

To be honest, posting this video was sort of a Trojan horse to see if anyone had any thoughts on the second part of his rant. 

I saw there was a 50-minute podcast and didn't look past it, life being short, and didn't realize you had a much shorter excerpt to discuss.  

Marshall McLuhan described the difference between movies and TV as one being a "hot" medium and the other a "cool" medium.  I think of this when considering what Donaldson had to say about Baldelli.  Among the possibly dozens of axes along which you can compare people, the visible emotion Donaldson and his manager display could hardly be more opposite.  I don't believe for one minute that Rocco didn't want, deep down in his soul, to win - but he seemed to have a conviction that it's a long season and the risk is a player burning himself out in too short a time and not being ready when the real crunch time comes.  (I barely see a dime's worth of difference between Rocco's post-game press conference and Derek's - neither man will rant or throw a player under the bus for a mistake.)  Donaldson seems to believe in all-out, all the time - except of course when he himself is injured or playing through a nagging injury and then his skin could be thin.  I tend to side more with Rocco, but mostly I just see it as a massive gap in their respective perspectives that neither man found a way to bridge - and honestly in a hierarchy like a baseball team, to me it's more up to the player to adjust to one manager than for the manager to adjust (too much) to 26 members of the roster.

As for Donaldson's comments about analytics, I haven't been in love with what I've seen of the group Falvey assembled, even if it's a leap in terms of resources compared to the Terry Ryan era.  But Rocco and (I think it may have been) Mike Bell during Donaldson's time were supposedly meeting with some of the analytics squad after each game to discuss what went right and what had to be adjusted in-game, so it's on them, or the coaches they delegate, to express to the players in terms they can use.  To find the ideal analytics job candidate who knows the best MBA-level quant methods, PLUS have relevant ballplaying experience they can use to help express their insights, may be just too rare a combination to find readily.

So, I hear what Josh is trying to say, and some small amount of use could come of it - but IMO not a whole lot.

[sampleSizeOfOne]

Yup. I'm a fan of Minnesota.

It is a fine state which has a representative professional baseball team.

Does it gather a disproportionate of my attention than other activities? Yeah, most of the time. Am i outspoken on the subject? Pretty much only on this forum. Do i spend money to indulge or express my fandom? Again, very rarely and most of it is on this site.

So i am not sure what would make me a good fan in Mr. Donaldson's estimation. But i do a finely cultivated apathy. And will invoke it regarding Mr. Donaldson's opinion. I hope he's happy being right in this one instance. 

I'd even go one step further (and could be speaking for others besides myself, i don't know) to say i am not sure i care if i care.

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

Good to see Mr. Donaldson is still an Ahole.

It was Ozzie Guillén who turned a cliche on its head by saying of A. J. Pierzynski, "if you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less."  I nevertheless can't help thinking of Donaldson in that light too.

[ashbury]

31 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I made a similar joke to my wife once and she didn't know I was joking. 

So she went on a journey to find the seriousness in the comment.   

I didn't know that she would do that and by the time I found out that she took it seriously... she was already mad at me.  

Humor is a slippery slope. 

 

You were kind enough, then, to not lay this one on me:

[JBK]

I had forgotten all about him.  Thanks a lot Matthew Taylor