3 True Lies From the Twins Offseason

I'll bite. MLB is poorly run IMHO, which leaves teams like the Twins scrambling for media deals. Sinclair/Diamond Sports/Bally are all shaky corporations that have avenues to guarantee their money and flee to bankruptcy when profits drop. Finding a better long term deal through all mediums was and is the better long term play. Maybe someone from the NBA can help, although they also jumped in the sack with Bally. Whatever. The Twins not being available via television in too large of numbers cannot be a good thing for building rapport with a younger audience or their fans in general. Tough deal all around.

A cut in payroll was to be expected (BAM $). How much was/is up for debate. Other than possibly Lourdes Gurriel Jr., I cannot think of too many players who would have improved the team coming aboard via free agency. This position comes from a belief that the Twins are not going to sign pitchers to high dollar, multiple year contracts from the FA bin. If they were, Yamamoto would have been the guy but clearly, no question,  he was going to the Dodgers all along. 

Falvey was likely sending and reading texts all winter. The Twins wanted to add a strong pitcher with years of control. So did/does everyone else. There seemed to be two problems from my guesses. The ask from other teams made Falvey (Twins) uncomfortable would have been the major issue. Secondly, the Twins seemed intent on making a trade before Spring Training. Of course this is pure speculation. By waiting the price for Polanco would have risen quite a bit, but that is a gamble that seemed worthwhile. The Twins decided exactly where they could act and added a back end starter, a mid inning bullpen piece, and two lower level prospects of some promise. Plus, as Falvey stated, Santana was added from the Polanco money. Thus, I would say the Twins tried to improve the team. Did they improve. We will know that answer at a later date.

All speculation on any budget for the team next year will be put on hold pending a large leap in attendance,  the excessive bounty from winning the 2024 World Series and a new, favorable media deal.

For quite a few years I have been extremely optimistic heading into Spring Training and the season.  Understanding the constraints the FO has worked under, it always felt like the Twins were either working to improve or actually improving.  Signings and trades made in an effort to improve the team.

This is the first time in a long time I am absolutely disgusted by the way the offseason was handled.  Coming off a team that had World Series hopes in 2023 and potential WS expectations heading into 2024, the Admin used the TV contract situation to cut payroll knowing full well they would be getting most, if not all of that back before the season started.  Then pocketing that money when it came in, despite promising to use a percentage of income for player payroll.  This team is easily 5-7 games worse this year in a division that is the worst in baseball.

We all know the Pohlads are directing the FO on the finances, so the FO gets somewhat of a pass on this, but this whole situation smells of 2000-era contraction garbage.  This is one fan the team will have to work harder to appease this year.  

Sorry Cody - I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree with much of it.

First, you make is sound like the Twins’ ownership and FO are nefarious, duplicitous actors.  That’s a pretty harsh take, even in this day and age where everything one reads is essentially a lie.  
 

The TV deal has been in flux for quite a while and the organization never held the right cards to be able to drive their preferred deal. 

The team has been very transparent about their payroll targets and a) as you point out, the roster costs are going up next year and b) this year is not done yet (perhaps there is some cash awaiting to be spent at the deadline).

You cannot categorically say this projected lineup is worse than last year’s at this time. A healthy Buxton on its own might make this team better.  There is no question our bullpen is significantly better and deeper. The jury is still out on how Paddock and DeSclafani will perform vs. Gray and Maeda, and Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Varland should all be better than where they were expected to be at this time last year.  Sure, we lost the oft injured fan favorite in Polanco, but Julien and Wallner are way better than Larnach and Miranda.  And let’s not forget how much better Jeffers is now. Last year’s season was saved by those three players.

Let’s just see how it goes before condemning the team’s leadership this off-season.  

4 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

For quite a few years I have been extremely optimistic heading into Spring Training and the season.  Understanding the constraints the FO has worked under, it always felt like the Twins were either working to improve or actually improving.  Signings and trades made in an effort to improve the team.

This is the first time in a long time I am absolutely disgusted by the way the offseason was handled.  Coming off a team that had World Series hopes in 2023 and potential WS expectations heading into 2024, the Admin used the TV contract situation to cut payroll knowing full well they would be getting most, if not all of that back before the season started.  Then pocketing that money when it came in, despite promising to use a percentage of income for player payroll.  This team is easily 5-7 games worse this year in a division that is the worst in baseball.

We all know the Pohlads are directing the FO on the finances, so the FO gets somewhat of a pass on this, but this whole situation smells of 2000-era contraction garbage.  This is one fan the team will have to work harder to appease this year.  

FDG, I personally am on the complete other side of the fence on your take.  I respect it, but I disagree.  I’m quite excited about where this team is headed this season, way more than last season when the team was filled with a bunch of “one and dones”.  We will be better than competitive, we have one of the top five projected pitching staffs in the majors (when were we last able to say that), and we get to see a bunch of young, exciting talent.  The team will be good and the entertainment value high. 

People want the flashy moves, I get it. Would have been nice for the Twins to win the off-season. Instead, they flew under the radar and built one of the better bullpens in baseball. IYAM, this team on paper, might be better suited for a run in October especially if Ryan and Ober take the next step in their development.

Also, this team has a handful of players - Julien, Lewis, Wallner, Lee, Ryan, Ober - where if they each hit their ceiling whether its 2024 or 2025, you're looking at one of the most talented rosters in baseball. 

I said this is another thread and I'll repeat it here. I know health is the gargantuan IF, but IF Buxton, Correa and Lewis are healthy and playing up to expectations, how many teams have that kind of talent in their everyday lineup. 

I needed to look up true lie. It seems like it would have better to simply lie.

Would they have sold more tickets without telling us that the budget would be cut? Lie about the budget and sell more tickets.

Would they have not signed Farmer or Santana if they didn’t think they were trying to improve the team? Adding short side platoon players or old 5th starters don’t move the needle towards improvement. Really lie and say you couldn’t get any players to sign and go with the inexpensive players.

16 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

I said this is another thread and I'll repeat it here. I know health is the gargantuan IF, but IF Buxton, Correa and Lewis are healthy and playing up to expectations, how many teams have that kind of talent in their everyday lineup. 

I think most playoff type teams have the equivalent of those 3.

31 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

I think most playoff type teams have the equivalent of those 3.

Going with that premise then, the Twins are a playoff team and as we saw last year with Texas and Arizona, anything can happen.

Some of the handwringing, you'd think the Twins have Terry Jorgensen and Scott Stahoviak at the corner infield spots and JT Bruett in center.

When comparing the 2023 and 2024 Twins, one can only look at the beginning of the year. Compare the squads of Opening Day then and OD now. It is nonsense to compare the best of the 2023 Twins, which was the team late in the year to the pure speculation of what the 2024 team may do. Be patient and wait to make that comparison - say November.

I picked the Twins, in a recent poll on TD, to win 85 games in this coming season and win the AL Central. Think plus or minus five games. I did pick the Twins for 87 wins in mid February. Last season I think I picked the Twins to win the AL Central with 83 victories (again, plus or minus five).

Straight beginning of the year is a little early because changes could happen ..... but I will pick the 2024 team.

Catching - + for '24; 1B - + for '24, 2B - + for '24 (Polanco was hurt), 3B - + for '24, SS - same, OF - + for '24.

SP - Lopez, Ober, and Ryan - + for '24, Maeda vs Paddack is a wash, Gray is a big + for '23. Pen - + for '24. 

Minor league potential call ups is a big + for '23. 

This is merely start of the year comparisons and even that is too soon to do. 2024 is better if we just go position by position from last year at this time versus right now. It is old school hands on the bat, kick the bat, and pick your team. 

I believe Falvey sees the 2024 Twins as improved as well. I certainly question a few things but I do think he worked to improve the team in his viewpoint.

The lie that is most disheartening imo is #2, the Twins must cut payroll. I only think it's a partial lie though as they knew the TV deal would be worse than 2023. The issue is they were going to end up with some type of TV deal, so to say they had to cut enough to make up for no TV never made sense. I do understand the argument that the Twins have a lot of good young talent so the extra money might not be needed. 

I believe the Twins were hopeful that numbers 1 and 3 are/would be true. Of course they don't want blackouts and the GM isn't going to intentionally make trades to make the team worse. Even if you believe the Polanco trade might make the team worse this year it will hopefully make the team improved in future years.

2 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

You cannot categorically say this projected lineup is worse than last year’s at this time. A healthy Buxton on its own might make this team better.  There is no question our bullpen is significantly better and deeper. The jury is still out on how Paddock and DeSclafani will perform vs. Gray and Maeda, and Lopez, Ryan, Ober and Varland should all be better than where they were expected to be at this time last year.  Sure, we lost the oft injured fan favorite in Polanco, but Julien and Wallner are way better than Larnach and Miranda.  And let’s not forget how much better Jeffers is now. Last year’s season was saved by those three players.

I love the optimism here, but to think every Twins player is going to be better than last year is ridiculous. You are basically saying Lopez, Ryan, and Ober are all going to have career years? And the guy with glass legs is going to get back to his 2017 form. There will likely be just as many players that pull a Miranda or Gordon as there will that have career years like Ober, Lopez, and Jeffers did last year. 

1 minute ago, chpettit19 said:

Why can we only look at the beginning of the year? Why can't I compare the roster on the last day of the season to the roster today? I sure hope that's what the FO is doing. I hope they're looking at how the season ended and the roster they had at that time and are/have been trying to improve upon that.

I don't get why they'd look at their expectations for Jeffers, for example, going into 2023 and use that to decide if they've improved their chances of winning a world series in 2024 while ignoring what actually took place in 2023. I think it's nonsense to compare opening days when talking about if this team is likely to be better or worse than last year. The goal shouldn't be to improve on the OD 2023 roster for 2024, it should be to improve upon the last day 2023 roster for 2024.

Well, you can and I have. Certainly the Twins have also been looking at where to get better. The problem with looking at the end of '23 and now is that how or what any specific player will do now is speculation. We know what the team did in September and October last year. Nobody knows how anyone will do this year yet.

So, maybe i need to do this more carefully. How would you, the Twins, or anyone choose to see it?

I would take Vazquez/Jeffers now vs end of year (eoy) V/J because Vazquez will be better and Jeffers should hold his own. 1B - i take AK/CS vs. the injured AK/DS eoy duo. 2B is tough. I take '23 Jorge but am a believer in Julien. RL eoy is a wash with RL now, we hope. Carlos is better now without the PF. Tough to know anything about LF, but Wallner has room for improvement and should have worked to address some weaknesses in the offseason. Tough to take Max now over eoy, but possible, so a wash. I'll take Buck now in CF. Bullpen might favor '23 with Varland there, but it is close. The current bullpen has depth. I believe Pablo eoy was peak, so that is a high bar. I still believe he will be good this year. I see all of Ryan, Ober, and Varland as being better which gives the edge to the '24 staff. 

Your points about wanting to improve are valid but many were wanting to compare the teams. If you did a comparison, would you say the team rostered now is better than the version that ended the year? Despite some very specific disappointments regarding potential trades that never could be pulled off, I'm saying this team is better.

I applaud you, Cody. I think the one when they said they weren't taking any prospects' deals on any of the salary dump players was that the deals needed to directly respond to our needs. I applauded the FO for making the correct stand but whenever they make the correct stand you can count on them to change it, Which they did about a week later. They traded Polanco for 2 unnecessary prospects & 2 older vets, 1- RP & 1- 5th SP, positions we had covered in-house & positions that we could easily add to. We definitely got worse & when the Kool-Aid wears off everybody will regret this trade.

The financial speculation is so often misconstrued that I took a moment to calculate the amount of reduction based on normal business practices.  Here is how the math works.  Some assumptions are necessary.  They are as follows.

Payroll was 50% of revenue in 2023.   Therefore revenue was $310M.  We know this would be quite high without the BAM money but looks about right with it.  The next assumption is that TV revenue only goes down by $15M and the BAM revenue of $30M.   I assumed a 12% profit and backed into operating costs which include every other employee, piece of equipment, travel, offices, etc.   I have only seen a couple of articles every that attempted to define operating cost as a percentage of revenue but those articles pegged the percentage at 30-35%.  I have backed into this calculation based on Forbes and other articles a number of times and the number has always come out close to the same for the Twins.   Of course it would be likely to be less for the highest revenue teams.

The numbers reflect a scenario where the team makes less profit but the same percentage.  The idea is to show what level of payroll would be required to maintain not the same amount of profit but the same net percentage which is generally how profit levels are targeted in any business. These numbers/calculations will illustrate why you can't simply reduce payroll by 50% of the revenue reduction.
 

Payroll had to go down this year because it is going to increase by at least 20-25 million next year. Good business plans always are somewhat proactive when it comes to costs.

37 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

I think projecting how they'll do is the FO's job, and what we all try to do here playing armchair GM. No, I'd say the team rostered now is about the same as the team rostered end of year. I think the losses of 2023 Polanco, Gray, Maeda, Solano, MAT, and Pagan are not compensated for by the addition of 2024 DeSclafani, Santana, and a bunch of relievers almost nobody had heard of until they came here. That isn't to say that bringing those guys back would've replaced their 2023 performances, but I don't believe the contributions they made have been replaced. And I don't think every young player will improve so any improvements are simply making up for the loss of those other guys. 

I don't see a ton of improvement opportunities for Julien and Wallner offensively. So, at best, they're a wash for me, with a decent chance of being worse. Improvements from them over a full season would make them both borderline MVP candidates. I don't think that's likely. Same thing with Lewis, but I could see him actually being a borderline MVP candidate in a full year. I do expect Correa to be better than end of year Correa. I expect Martin, Lee, et al to debut this year, but I don't see any 2024 difference makers in there (I know that's not a popular take around here). I don't think the chances our 26/27/28 year old starters take sizeable steps forward is as likely as many others seem to. Could it happen? Of course. But is it likely? No. 

Buxton is the ultimate wildcard. He could make this roster better all on his own simply by playing 130+ games in CF. But I'm not willing to bet on that. I love to hear he's feeling great now, but, other than 2023, he's always "feeling great" at the start of spring. So I'm just not willing to bet on his health anymore. Although I fully acknowledge a healthy Buxton would be an absolute season changer.

I can definitely see why people are excited. There is more talent here than what we're used to for sure. And I'm excited, too. But there's also very real concerns all over the roster. I can see a path to 95 wins and a deep playoff push. But I can just as easily see a path to 75 wins and the Twins basically switching spots with Cleveland from last year when their young core couldn't reproduce their performances. I think the offense has a gaping Polanco sized hole in it. 

I think the likelihood of improvements amongst the "young" players (pitchers or hitters) is pretty equally balanced with regression from others in that same group. So I think they're a wash. I think any Correa improvement is balanced out with the loss of Polanco. And I think the Ober, Ryan, Varland improvements are balanced by the loss of Gray and likely some regression in that same trio as well. I think they moved some pieces around and ended up with basically the same talent level. And that's disappointing coming off an ALDS appearance and being paired with a payroll slashing.

I cannot really disagree with any of the thoughts you are putting down above. However, how the team will do, up or down, is pure speculation. This is why I don't like the comparisons. One we know, the other, just guessing. Naturally, every team will look at ways to improve from the end of the year to the beginning of the next, but the team in Ft. Myers is always going to be different from the team on the field when the weather turns cold in September. 

I have not been too charmed with the front office at all this offseason, yet it is a little pessimistic to say that the pitchers and others will regress when they are only entering the years when they should be at their best. Still, like anyone, you could be correct. Basically, the comparison is made, as you said, by the front office yet all of it is a guess until the season plays out. I'm sticking with my model and 85 wins, which is two more than I predicted last year. Variations give the model a plus or minus five. Take the over.