From The Handbook: Twins Payroll

I hope the Pohlads and the FO don't look at each year's financials as isolated from either the past or the future. Money saved the past few years has been invested somewhere. If the Pohlads believe they can make a better return with the Twins, they will invest it in player contracts. (They have already invested a bit in the FO).

IMO, the payroll will depend on who is available through free agency or trade. The Twins might get to $120M+, if the FO believes it is the best investment. It will be less if they can't make the deals. It might also be less if they trade for a player under control, moving assets instead of spending cash. In any case, I suspect they're looking at costs and revenues for the next 3-4 years, not this year alone. 

For example, what if the Twins sign Cobb? One could argue that they should still sign 2 FA relievers. That would bust the $120M mark but might make sense based on the age of the signed players and any expected revenue increase. Probably won't happen but it is a possibility.

Some proof would be nice. On the other hand, I can show you many years of teams fluctuating by +/- $10-20M

they have tje space for a 1 year blip on payroll. they can spend 35 million on Darvish and 2 relievers next year knowing Mauers contract is off the books along with others.

It's time for some heavy lifting by the FO and the Payroll department before the Armageddon that will hit Salary Structures when Machado, Harper and Kershaw (resigns with Dodgers) are Free Agents and to set the Twins up for some cost certainty for the impending 6 consecutive year playoff run (and I don't mean 6 wild card games)

Below is a 6 year plan (names will obviously change in some positions and dollars will move around a little) that would add Starters and Relievers, extend a few grizzled vets and keep the core together all while maintaining a fairly flat payroll for the next 3 years

Payroll totals including any Dead Pool Money

[table]

$136.09M

$138.15M

$121.80M

$151.70M

$167.40M

$175.40M

[/table]

I call this Pay As You Know rather than Pay As You Go...you can still look at things from year to year but at least you have some certainty moving forward

Do trades become more difficult? Only if players don't perform...that's what the farm is for (also why I wouldn't move young players at this time in block buster trades) controlled expenditures in the future should this Titanium plan not work out

edit - Here's link to the plan as the image was too big to be little

6 year plan

Extensions are always an approximation that I extrapolated from Seth's Series and the reactions by TwinsDaily peeps

The thing with the Twins payroll, is it's actually gone down since 2010-2011, even though various revenue streams and players salaries have increased drastically.

Frankly, it's a joke. The Pohlads groveled, swore up and down to the taxpayers of Minneapolis, and the baseball fans of Minnesota, that they needed a stadium to compete for free agents. They eventually sunk to what basically amounts to extortion IMO (contraction, move the team, etc). They got the stadium, and the payroll decreased for over half a decade.

The excuses were always made that it's not the right time to spend (which is total BS, IMO). Well, now that excuse has dried up. I keep hoping that the Pohlad family will hold their word, and spend some GD money. But, deep down I know they won't.

The apologists will continue to make excuses. The asinine narrative that signing free agents is bad, and moneyball is the way to go will persist (spoiler, the A's don't win the World Series). The team will burn up this short, once in 25 year, window to compete once some of these guys hit FA, we'll all pat them on the back for making the playoffs and getting bounced immediately 3-4 times, and we'll start this process all over again, for all eternity. This is the life (or purgatory) of a Twins fan.

I still always have a tough time with this 55%. When the Twins spend, say, $98 million, they still manage to run the front office, manage the minor leagues, do signing bonuses and such with the 55% allocated for those expenses. If they suddenly are able to spend, say, $120 million on payroll, where does that extra $20 million go that they can now spend on...operations. Or is it to further pay down the Target Field debt (which I understand is nearly clear). At some point, a cap happens on operational expenses, so if the Twins would, say, make $300 million in revenue in a season, what would prevent them from spending $200 million on payroll instead of a max of, say, $160 million or so.

They have to be happy with 2017. Attendance didn't dive. Season ticket sales might've been down, but the flip side of that was that fewer seats were available from STubHub, and the Twins were able to maximize many walk-up sales...plus it also meant overall concessions had to be betetr than the previous season when many of those September seats were paid for, but sat empty and the lines were short at concessions.