lake_guy

You are arguing against a point I never made. I never said I thought Kepler was a superstar. I said the Twins organization sold us that narrative to justify the rebuild at the time. My point isn't about comparing scouting reports from 2015 vs. 2026. My point is about the front office strategy. They use the promise of prospects (whether it's Kepler then or Jenkins now) as an excuse to slash payroll and avoid signing proven talent. It’s the same playbook: 'Don't worry about the lack of spending, the kids are coming.'

Baseball America: Ranked him the #30 overall prospect in baseball entering 2016. MLB Pipeline: Ranked him #44 overall in 2016. Southern League MVP (2015): He didn't just "exist" in the minors; he destroyed Double-A with a .322/.416/.531 slash line and won the MVP. They literally marketed him as 'Europe's best ever talent.' He was absolutely part of the 'Future Superstar' sales pitch.

Sorry but more of this "if they all click" hope is crazy talk. it's not gonna happen. Remember how Buxton, Sanó, and Kepler were all going to be superstars at the same time. How did that work out? We shed payroll, sign nobody of consequence, and get sold the 'wait for the kids' narrative. Same old, same old....

I'm not completely oblivious to 50%, it's increasing it that will be the problem for the big markets. What that red line is, not really sure, but it exists. And then there's the clubs that own their networks which provides them a much bigger slice that doesn't get added to the local revenue pot. Roughly 11 teams do (Yankees, Sox, Dodgers, etc). It's a massive advantage because they can legally hide some profits from the revenue sharing tax. It is after all a league, I want every dime of TV money to go into one pot and split equally.

If it was just a cap and floor I don't think the big market teams would have an issue, it will literally put more money in their pockets and they can blame someone else for the new agreement. But when you add in shared revenue...now that's gonna get a reaction from them and they'll do any and everything they can to kill an agreement with that in it.

Exactly this. If this happens you can count on Falvey and the stooges to get little real value out of it.

Talent wise he looks the part but I think the Twins gotta wait to see what happens in '27 with the new agreement. If a floor and cap happen (please baseball gods) it will impact how they approach an extension.

Where the Pohlads need to like 10x their spending is on the scouts and development team. Supposedly they beefed up the analytics capability which is good but I'm talking about the people that are really great at evaluating talent. Then find those people who are great at development. Build those capabilities up and it's a fly wheel that will keep spinning out successful players. This approach is the leverage point to spend what will be a small % compared to MLB salaries to get outsized gains.

WTH is it that the Yankees seem to be able to trot out about any mediocre pitcher they have and he looks like Cy Freakin Young against us?

Been thinking this could be one of the deals in the background with a buyer is to shed contracts so they aren't the bad guys.

If only there was a way to get all of this info to Falvey...and he actually used it. I have little confidence he'll get this right.

So how is pitch calling supposed to work? Jeffers looked into the dugout before calling those pitches, were our coaches asleep at the wheel and didn't notice him calling fastballs and signal something else?

wow, Alonso is gonna regret that decision. mind boggling how any of he free agents isn't considering the new reality.

Agree, all kinds of players are going to get surprised this off season. I wouldn't lock anyone up for a multi year contract I didn't have to.

Exactly this. given the state of MLB payroll a new owner is gonna want this contract off the books, it's expensive given his injuries and they simply can't build anything else around him at the $130m level.

Really odd thing about any of these contract forecasts is they all seemingly have their heads buried in the sand about the payroll impacts of the RSN implosion.

The entire Twins FO are as they say in politics "lame ducks". Highly unlikely the new owner(s) will keep Falvey or his coaching staff. Anything the FO does has to be viewed through the lens of no negative impact to the sale, which I think the Pohlads are highly motivated to complete ASAP, to plug that gaping hole in their finances from the commercial real estate hole they're in. So what improves the sale of the team? Low payroll for starters given the RSN revenue implosion. Can see it go either way with Buxton, C4 and Lopez, arguments to keep/trade any of them make sense depending on return. But quality pitching is still at the top of the priority list so I suspect Lopez is the last thing a new owner would want removed. MLB rosters are gonna shift radically to young, cheap and already available players on the team, how else to deal with the payroll implosion?

Exactly this. I hope it's a raging bonfire of a revenue crisis because that's sadly what it's gonna take for MLB to solve the core problem of the sport. 13 of 30 clubs, 43% of the league is facing unprecedented revenue declines, this can't continue.

I think it's ineptitude + deteriorating economics in the Pohlad's financial portfolio. Ineptitude: Not recognizing and/or not reacting to the MLB revenue crisis. And it's an epic crisis MLB is facing, those RSN level of revenues are gone for 13 of 30 clubs, 43%. It could be the White Sox are up for sale because it's being used as a lever to get a new stadium but it might not be the entire reason. I believe it's more in the not reacting category. MLB insiders, and for that matter media consultants and the industry execs, knew this was coming. Deteriorating Economics: The historic increase in interest rates left many businesses on shaky ground and was a direct reason for several bank failures. COVID hollowed out the commercial real estate sector which the Pohlads appear to be heavily invested in. Google this to get more info, any yes I know AI can hallucinate but look at the supporting data from other sources. https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+of+the+pohlads+investment+portfolio+is+in+commercial+real+estate&oq=how+much+of+the+pohlads+investment+portfolio+is+in+commercial+real+estate The problem in the commercial real estate space is that prior to the massive interest rate hike by the Fed the practice was to simply keep rolling over cheap debt so you have liquidity, but now it's expensive so investors are selling for pennies on the dollar OR they are raising funds in their other investments to fill the massive hole until conditions improve. The Pohlad's have a liquidity problem, the Twins are reportedly ~30% of their portfolio, and the Twins and MLB revenues are flat lining. They gotta sell and it needs to be sooner rather than later.

However, looking at this from the bigger picture I think they will trade about any assets they can because the new owner(s) understand: MLB revenues are not coming back to what they were anytime soon, as in years away. Twins are in a bind with how much they committed to injured players. The only way out is to shed those payroll dollars. Yes, they could trade some talent from the farm but that particular move is the one thing I think new owners are not gonna want to happen before they take over. The Twins will be competitive to some extent with those star players but it's also not gonna be enough to get them more than a wild card at best and three other teams in our division are setup significantly better for success. As a new owner I can work the marketing angle to get people in the seats and blame the MLB revenue crisis for all manner of issues with the team talent. A whole bunch of other teams are going to use the revenue crisis to justify all kinds of cuts and no spending on free agents.

I heard it on KFAN from Bonnes and someone in the comments mentioned that the Pohlad's are in commercial real estate which is a real sh*t show, like bankrupt banks level of a problem. If they're in deep enough I don't think this sale is gonna take long b/c they have a liquidity problem. Bonnes mentioned they have already sold four other businesses. Think about what they have already done when they announced payroll cuts coming off a playoff win and would add nothing at the trade deadline. Won't be surprising at all if they trade Pablo and make other moves to shed those fixed expenses. To a new owner the worse it gets the lower the price. If you're the new owner making the Pohlads deal Buxton and Correa gets them out of the fiscal mess of huge contracts for injury prone, part time players. oh yeah, then there's that little problem with the RSNs blowing up and the huge impact to revenue. And the Twins aren't going to be the only teams looking to shed payroll.

Just for fun I highlighted the teams with impacted revenue. Apparently Bally likes the Braves contract so maybe that one doesn't belong, we'll see how that one plays out.

Good idea, anything that evens out the revenue has to happen. Not so sure it will even take a majority of teams. We'll get our first real read on this when the winter meetings and free agency starts up, let's see how many rich contracts are given out when the few big market teams know they are really only bidding against themselves. Small and mid market teams finally have some leverage to apply to the big market teams, hope they use it for all it's worth to get true revenue sharing.

More specifically I think it's a huge win for fans of clubs outside of the big markets. I know this won't sit well with many on this site but I'm hoping this all leads to an epic crisis in MLB that makes them get to full revenue sharing along with floor and capped payroll or at the very least heavily taxed upper tiers. MLB owners need to treat this like a league. The impacts are only starting for the clubs and players. I suspect salaries are gonna get heavily impacted, how could it not when something like 20% of the teams aren't going to engage b/c they have maybe 30-50% of the revenue they once had? Gonna be interesting to watch what happens with expansion plans.