As MLB Trade Deadline Looms, Who’s to Blame for Minnesota Twins’ 2025 Letdown?

I have read the article, but skipped the comments...

Regardless of what you think of the FO, they are very low on the "blame" totem pole. If the Twins were successful, the would be very low on the "credit" totem pole. The FO has had their hands tied for the better part of two years now, being unable to acquire salary or make fundamental changes to the team due to a pending sale.

IMO opinion, they have done a decent job with prospects (both draft and acquisitions), though the jury is still out on the long term MLB success of the current wave.

I can understand the heat on Rocco and his group. We-as-fans see many perceived questionable decisions, though we generally do not have the context to understand why these decisions are made.

Injuries and performance basically rule the day. Players not performing consistently have made this team painful to watch at time. 

31 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

The FO has had their hands tied for the better part of two years now, being unable to acquire salary or make fundamental changes to the team due to a pending sale.

Does this mean that the FO was not allowed to trade players? Maybe. I have no idea. Seems like 2023 (end of year/season) was an ideal time to trade high on several players who had strong outcomes but possessed a few obvious flaws. Perhaps nobody would bite. We can't know what conversations could have taken place. The same can be said of 2024 (eoy/s). One of the options for a FO is to be proactive in moving players before their weaknesses are exposed. Again, this may have been tried. However, if the FO was forbidden to complete transactions that is another thing. I don't know how that could be ... but it could. Unlike many, I never thought the budget was a barrier. I still do not. I do believe that the ownership -front office relationship is important. We would likely agree that the public doesn't know all these things. 

3 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

It will be shocking if the Pohlads meddle with any roster moves. As you’ve said over and over, this is the roster Falvey wants. He’s consistently said in media interviews he has confidence in this current roster. 

I'm ok with him saying that in public. It's never a great idea to rip your employees in public....I hope he's not saying that in private. 

I would 40% on the front office and development staff.  They have certainly not been a complete failure because the roster is filled with guys that should be at the major league level.  However, they have failed to produce difference makers outside of Buxton and Ryan.  Yes, I give them credit for Ryan because that kind of acquisition has been nearly as instrumental to success as drafting for the most successful low revenue teams.

I put 40% of the revenue disparity.  If the Twins are equally proficient to the Dodgers / Yankees in terms of drafting, and developing, the revenue advantage means the Dodgers advantage in terms of building a roster equates to adding Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, Bett's & Freemen.  Should we pretend this is not a factor?

20% is on the players.

9 minutes ago, Major League Ready said:

I would 40% on the front office and development staff.  They have certainly not been a complete failure because the roster is filled with guys that should be at the major league level.  However, they have failed to produce difference makers outside of Buxton and Ryan.  Yes, I give them credit for Ryan because that kind of acquisition has been nearly as instrumental to success as drafting for the most successful low revenue teams.

I put 40% of the revenue disparity.  If the Twins are equally proficient to the Dodgers / Yankees in terms of drafting, and developing, the revenue advantage means the Dodgers advantage in terms of building a roster equates to adding Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, Bett's & Freemen.  Should we pretend this is not a factor?

20% is on the players.

Never change.....

3 hours ago, Major League Ready said:

They spent $150M Correa's first year (2022).  In 2023 they had a record payroll of $156M.  Of course, they had a $50M windfall from BAM that year so I think it's safe to assume they did not expect to have the same budget going forward.  They are at roughly $149M this year or roughly $1M less than their highest payroll in a year when they did not get BAM money.  The assertion that a spending reduction of $1M of previous levels is responsible for this year's failures is yet another attempt to support a narrative that unwillingness to spend is the problem.  Apparently, every team in this division has the same problem.

Salary allocations trend up.  To go backwards is a problem.  I'll defer to Hambino's excellent response beyond that.

Season on the line in a close game and your top player doesn’t play at all? What’s up C4?

The assessment of players is a difficult task - Look at the TD prospect rankings over the last ten years and how well we all picked the stars.  Do we draft well?  I have no idea but the TD articles seem to suggest we do.  When we got Correa much of our comments were excitement - we finally got the big one.  Yup = that has not worked out.  So Management and coaches, front office - cosmic rays and aurora borealis - I have no idea, but I would like to see some efforts made that suggest we are addressing the problems.

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

I would 40% on the front office and development staff.  They have certainly not been a complete failure because the roster is filled with guys that should be at the major league level.  However, they have failed to produce difference makers outside of Buxton and Ryan.  Yes, I give them credit for Ryan because that kind of acquisition has been nearly as instrumental to success as drafting for the most successful low revenue teams.

I put 40% of the revenue disparity.  If the Twins are equally proficient to the Dodgers / Yankees in terms of drafting, and developing, the revenue advantage means the Dodgers advantage in terms of building a roster equates to adding Ohtani, Yamamoto, Snell, Bett's & Freemen.  Should we pretend this is not a factor?

20% is on the players.

Yeah but much do you blame BAM?

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

II put 40% of the revenue disparity. 

"Revenue disparity" hahaha.  I just love the idea that revenue is forever fixed per market and nothing will ever change that, not sound financial management, not solid PR and fan engagement, not winning, nothing.  "It has been decreed from on high and shall always be thus."  The genius of this delusion is that there's no accountability for anyone.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they put a guy in charge who has destroyed both businesses he's been in charge of; it's the market's fault.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they mismanaged their other businesses so poorly they had to use the Twins as a debt shelter; it's the market's fault.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they actively alienated most of their fanbase through terrible PR; it's the market's fault.  

In the real world "revenue disparity" means "my competitors are beating me."  

45 minutes ago, Woof Bronzer said:

"Revenue disparity" hahaha.  I just love the idea that revenue is forever fixed per market and nothing will ever change that, not sound financial management, not solid PR and fan engagement, not winning, nothing.  "It has been decreed from on high and shall always be thus."  The genius of this delusion is that there's no accountability for anyone.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they put a guy in charge who has destroyed both businesses he's been in charge of; it's the market's fault.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they mismanaged their other businesses so poorly they had to use the Twins as a debt shelter; it's the market's fault.  It's not the Pohlads' fault they actively alienated most of their fanbase through terrible PR; it's the market's fault.  

In the real world "revenue disparity" means "my competitors are beating me."  

They can't be blamed for the fact that they've finished top 5 in the AL in attendance exactly once in the last 14 seasons. It's everyone else's fault. 

25th of 28 teams this year? Nothing the Pohlads can do. 

Yes, market differences are somewhat of an issue, and I fully expect a large jump in revenue sharing in the CBA, but that wouldn't fix 40% of the Twins's woes. 5%...maybe.

The Great Old Ones.

Thank you for asking... I'll take 'D'... All Of The Above (always the answer on multiple choice tests)

7 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

I saw in a podcast the other day that Correa has a WAR of near zero.  Not very good for a man eating up about 35 mil per year on payroll.  Except for a few flashes here and there he's been a big disappointment for the Twins.

I fear that his last 2 years of the contract will make this year look like All Star level play....

After reading the article and all of the comments, there isn't much to add to this so I will try to find a few things or highlight things that I think are important.

Ownership's apathy and lack of communication is the overarching issue with this total system failure.  As one of the earlier posters noted, I find it hard to believe that Falvey signed Correa knowing that ownership would slash payroll and basically make the contract toxic as soon as the ink was dried.  In 2024 when the Twins signed back up with Bally, we had pleaded that they would spend some of that money on the team knowing that there were holes that needed to be filled and even $10M would have done wonders in 2024.  As for 2025, I remember early on in the offseason that there was a rumor that ownership wanted payroll pared down to $130M and we were discussing articles about having to trade Castro, Vazquez, anybody that had a little too high a payroll.  I remember discussions about trading Jax or Larnach because they made over $2M for this season and signing France was going to kill the payroll.  From this standpoint, ownership should be given a little grace for allowing the payroll to naturally rise in order to allow Falvey to fill out the team.

The FO seems to be lost on what they are trying to accomplish as an organization.  I seem to remember a FO interview early on that the purpose on drafting players like Sabato and Larnach was to trade them for pitching or better prospects, similar to what they did for Steer and CES.  I'm not sure if the philosophy changed after the Mahle trade or if the FO, like us fans, fell too much in love with our prospects to be willing to trade them for the pieces we actually needed.  Now it seems we have a glut of prospects, failed prospects, and future prospects all in or about the same level (AA through the ML club).  In drafting, the Twins do the same thing as a lot of other teams do, which is to try to draft players that are willing to sign "under slot value" and save money for the later rounds.  One issue of doing this is that we are constantly drafting players with apparent injuries or an injury history.  The only phrase that is consistent with all of our top prospects are "if he stays healthy".

Plouffe made a good point that one cheap, easy improvement is to hire more coaches and staff for their minor leagues.  One complaint has been that these prospects shoot through the minors only to then plateau early on at the ML level but doesn't correct anything when sent back to AAA.  Spending and extra $2-3M in the minors would do wonders for the preparation of the players when they make it to the majors.  I'm not sure where the Twins lie in terms of coach/players, but they need to out develop their players compared to their counterparts.

I've been on the fire Rocco train all year (and it keeps gaining steam).  With that being said, Rocco & Co can still only work with the parts that the FO gives them, and they don't always do the best with the ingredients they are given.  Bullpen usage seems to be at the highest of my complaints from Rocco & Co.  Rocco never really holding anyone accountable is also frustrating.  I look at Detroit in awe and wonder on how AJ Hinch has taken a younger team and made them play better.  Baez, the Tigers most expensive player, was riding the bench at times last year.  Torkelson was sent back down to AAA with the understanding that someone was already taking his spot and he had to earn it back.  You don't see that same fire put under Royce Lewis, Wallner, Larnach, or Lee and then wonder why it doesn't look like they put forth their best effort.

Finally, the players, to me they are the lowest of the blame on the totem pole.  While there is definitely blame to be assigned for lack of preparation or in-game execution, much of this starts with the expectations of the players themselves and that starts with the coaches/manager/FO establishing expectations with accountability attached to it.

22 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

The implication is that we think they were going to be allowed to spend more. We could be wrong! But I doubt this FO signs those two thinking the payroll wouldn't go up more. We were doing see well avoiding snark in this thread.....

Did someone from the Twins say they were going to continue to increase payroll well beyond a record high?  I did not see anything that suggested a significantly higher budget.  $10 or $20M would mean very little.  Do you think it's realistic the Twins were going to spend $180M+?  I think fans really obsess over increase spending and they search for some form of logic that means they can spend more.  For example, they spent $33M/year for Correa so payroll will continue to increase as opposed to they have $150M to spend at this level of revenue and they decided to allocate 22% to Correa.