VIDEO: Dave St. Peter Answers Your Questions

We did cover a lot of revenue/payroll discussion during our podcast prior to the video interview so many of those questions were dropped to avoid redundancy. I transcribed some of the audio/answers from the podcast portion of this event. Check it out here: http://twinsdaily.com/_/minnesota-twins-news/podcasts/no-juice-podcast-27-dave-st-peter-r3169

Thanks, I didn't realize the podcast and video were different.

Just listened, but I still don't think I heard anything specific about revenue and why it might be different than the Forbes estimate.  He went into some tangent about the CBA and debt service.

You're not going to get specifics. You just won't. Private company, they won't give it out.

I know.  I don't really want "specifics" anyway -- my post upthread was just a post, not intended to be a question.

ashburyjohn's phrasing above works perfectly for me.  I'd change "Forbes" to "Forbes and Bloomberg" because they used some different methodologies, so it is interesting to me that they came up with a similar number (and makes it a little harder to simply respond that "Forbes is wrong" ).

Journalistic-ly, I'd even reach out to Forbes and Bloomberg in advance to see if they'd be willing to share any more general detail behind their estimates (local vs national revenue, stadium vs media revenue, etc.).  Would be interesting by itself, and it could also lead to interesting follow-ups.  St. Peter may not be the guy to answer this question, though, at least not in any meaningful way.

Thanks for taking question suggestions, though -- it's really awesome to participate like that!  Next time I'll try better to contribute/re-phrase in the most journalistic way I can.

I'm sorry if some of you don't feel like you've received your monies worth on this one.

It was worth my price of admission!

Seriously, it was a quality piece.  In an informal chat, St. Peter seems like a fine guy, and you set a good tone (even if we didn't feed you the best questions ).  I don't normally seek out podcasts/webcasts, but this was an entertaining listen, and I will definitely check out the next one.

I'm not really obsessive about payroll, but there are some good baseball minds running this club and I don't like to see them hold themselves back in any area of talent acquisition, as compared to their peers.  Even though the results weren't perfect, last winter was great in that we could finally debate how TR performed in free agency rather than why he didn't participate.  I just hope that trend continues and it wasn't seen as special circumstances (due to our league-worst starting staff).

Plus, I think it's interesting to examine the tendencies and practices of my favorite team.  Whether it be their approach to finance -- why do observers consider the Twins perhaps the most consistently profitable MLB team? -- to TR's approach to trades (he generally waits to be called rather than initiate contact).  Nothing beats the actual games but hey, we're coming up on a dry spell here...

More related thoughts:

The Twins franchise history in inextricably entwined with payroll philosophy.  From the self-sustaining Griffiths in Washington then Minnesota, to the Pohlad years in the Metrodome, to the near sales/moves/contractions, even now with TR's general approach to team-building.  It's actually quite interesting how elements of that philosophy have persisted all through relocations, ownership changes, stadium constructions, and the dramatic modernization of the business of professional baseball.

Also, I don't follow any team nearly as much as the Twins, but it seems like many Twins fans have an interesting frugality about them too.  Sure there are posters here and elsewhere that want the team to "spend spend spend", but taking a step back, several of the founding members of Twins Daily, some of the most prominent and vocal Twins fans ever, are full endorsers of the conservative FA approach.  And I think of someone like Aaron Gleeman, no stranger to criticizing the front office, and how often his positions are centered on value and optimizing resources.  I mean, we have a thread going right now about basically acquiring Buehrle for a throwaway prospect, and a number of posters are against the idea because Buehrle's 1 year, $19 million deal, while short-term and easily affordable for this club, still seems sub-optimal to them.