dcswede

They pinch hit Trevor Larnach for him in the 9th inning of a one-run game tonight. Shelton knows already.

Trading proven major league success for a handful of prospects is a fool's errand. A little over half of first-rounders ever make it to the majors. Only 30% attain 1.5 WAR. Drop below the top 100 draft picks and the incidences of success decline rapidly. Out of nearly 65,000 players drafted, only 11.2% ever made it to the majors at all. And that's just getting to the majors - perhaps keeping a spot for a couple of years. The number of prospects who become high-end MLB performers is much smaller. The chances you'll ever get back the value you traded away is vanishingly small. Much worse than a casino - but better than Powerball. If the trade is a disguised salary dump, that's a different question. But the idea that such a move will improve the team in the long term?

Make no mistake. This is not a white knight billionaire investor making a vanity buy - some Steve Ballmer, Rob Walton or Steve Cohen with dreams of hoisting a World Series Trophy. If it were, it would be Brad Bauer making the investment, not Varde Partners. This is a real estate-heavy PE firm interested in seeking short to medium term returns for its roughly 500 institutional clients - many of whom are likely international. Buy and hold is not part of the strategy. They're going to insist on a path back to liquidity, and that's only going to come from a sale. When that day cones, does Varde care one whit if the team stays in Minnesota? Of course not. It may initially sound a little warm and fuzzy that Varde is a Minnesota-based firm, but if you're one of their London, Seoul or NYC investors, you expect the firm will demand the biggest return for your money. The fact that the Pohlads went this direction - and that MLB has approved it - is telling. I suspect this is going to get uglier than any of us had imagined.

If the Twins were to fire Baldelli, the line of other teams salivating to snatch him up would probably not be very long

Yeah, that would have been a 3-run Larnach homer and a little more breathing room if he'd "Kirby Puckett-ed" it out of the box.

With that kind of a chase rate and futility outside the zone, why would anybody pitch him over the plate?

Great read! thanks for posting.

While I don't disagree with anything you say, I'm sad to say that I think the problem of the Twins and baseball losing/having lost the next generation(s) of fans is even more fundamental: kids don't play baseball for fun anymore. Neighborhood pickup games are non-existent. You can have youth leagues all you want, but unless kids are making time and choosing to play ball of their own volition, they're unlikely to develop a strong connection to the game that will translate to wanting to watch major leaguers do it.

Thought experiment: It's the 6th inning, and the Twins are down two runs. What is your gut expectation as to whether the Twins will come back to win? Exactly. It's not quantifiable analytically, but it sure feels like the players don't think they have a chance either. There's no fire - no fight. But a whole lot of playing like and accepting disappointment. It's been that way for a few years now. So maybe it is time for change in leadership.

If kids aren't playing baseball in their backyards for fun - not organized Little League, just a self-chosen activity - they're naturally going to care less and about watching other people do it.

Anything that gets Kris Atteberry gone would be fine with me. His utter lack of competence in PxP and inane observations actually make me look forward to Gladden and the middle innings.

Atteberry is the worst play by play guy I've ever heard in major league sports, and I've heard Beth Mowins puking (announcing term not a medical diagnosis) through far too many C-level games. Atteberry is utterly incapable of describing the action in front of him in real time - and baseball is made for radio. He speaks in odd tenses. And he's weirdly distractable by minutiae around him unrelated to the game. I'm no big Gladden fan, but compared to Atteberry he sounds like Vin Scully. Time to DFA Atteberry and consider giving Aronson (or any of a number of competent pxp announcers) the job.

Why not PBS? Seriously. TPT has virtually zero ratings. And as long as they don't interrupt games for pledge drives (as most PBS stations do with the only programming they have that people actually want to watch), it might be a good, statewide solution.

I hear Miguel Sano is available

It's about the cards and the Fathead (and the Homer Hankies) being displayed, not about the strips. So I'd go with #2. The color works nicely, but it also disappears so the focus is on the display not the shelving.