The Twins Are a Tired Team, and Tired Teams Chase

This year's budget is, I believe, over $130mm, the second-highest ever.  Kepler will roll off in 2025 freeing up some money.  But from an operating profit standpoint 2024 attendance ranks 10/15 and slightly behind 2023 per-game attendance.  Simple economics:  want to pay higher salaries, then team revenue and operating profit need to increase.  

I, for one, long have been in the camp that the season is too long and that MLB suffers from over-saturation.  That has affected injury rates and play quality, and ultimately fan interest.  MLB could cut 15 games off each end of the regular season and put out a September post-season that generates more interest than college football, increase per-game attendance, generate more media interest and increase o/p.  Simple: don't start games when the gametime temp is 45 or less.

Not going to argue that MLB owners aren't greedy, but they have an investment to protect; they aren't a public utility.  And if Twins' fans ultimately want a better product long-term, then it might make sense to get civic leaders and local government to help increase fan interest.  Often it seems like team is trying to push a string alone.  Mid-market teams can do very well over the long-term, just check the Cardinals.

16 hours ago, bean5302 said:

This year's budget was probably sufficient if the front office had been creative, but they weren't. The growth in MLB payrolls has been about 4.5% for the past 20 years, but even at 4.0%, 2024's payroll will have been the lowest in over a decade. In a raw numbers measurement, it'd be the 3rd highest payroll behind the previous two seasons, but there are a lot of issues with measuring payroll that way because of how the ownership has expanded long term contracts. Correa (10yrs $280MM) and Lopez have potentially the largest and longest contracts the Twins have ever offered to a position player or pitcher at this point.

I'm on board the Pohlad's shouldn't be expected to lose money or operate the business as a charity; however, they made money last year ($19MM operating income estimate from Forbes) despite their biggest problem being a lack of attendance. That attendance is the responsibility of Dave St. Peter, and he's missed goals time and again over the past several years. The ownership has not fired St. Peter despite him failing to meet expectations over and over. That's on ownership. The cable TV debacle is on ownership. The trade deadline penny pinching is on ownership. How many 10s of thousands of new residents in the immediate area of North Loop are there with all the new condos and apartments? How is it possible the Twins have been unable to attract any season ticket holders from there? It's mind boggling. Ownership incompetence is at play here.

Fans are not going to bail out owners who do not care about the fans, who do not run their business effectively, and who do not offer a good game day experience.

I wonder at last winter's transactions but am at a loss to specify exactly which players the FO should've signed and for what amount of money instead of what they did.  After slow starts, Santana has been a plus and Margot a C+.  Admittedly, the bullpen signings were nearly all whiffs, but who could've foreseen that?

And as much as I wonder about what Dave St. Peter actually does, I have never left a Twins game and said anything like, "wasn't St. Peter terrific tonight?"