Whammy

I think the article would've benefitted from mentioning the uniqueness of this offseason (lockout / new CBA) as potential factors in the extension equation. 1) Will the unknowns of the lockout motivate young players to sign an extension that includes a signing bonus? For Example: Taj Bradley. Taj got a 750k signing bonus in 2018 and has been paid roughly 800k per season the last three years. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's not "change your life" money yet, he probably doesn't have a TON of savings based on what he's earned so far, and he plays a very injury prone position. The flip side of that is Walker Jenkins. He got $7.1M just 3 years ago. Sure he's further from free agency, but he got that big signing bonus and he plays a less injury plagued position. I'm not saying he doesn't have ANY motivation to sign a big extension, but probably less motivation than Taj. Taj getting a $5M signing bonus as part of an extension, probably sounds pretty good heading into the unknown of the offseason and 2027. 2) Will a potential change in CBA related to service time and arbitration demotivate players from wanting to sign an extension? You can also flip that around and say, if the clubs think the new CBA will reduce the service time clock from 6 to 5 years, do the teams have MORE motivation than normal to get young players locked up for a year or two past their current free agency year? As a team, I'd rather be negotiating an extension under the current setup compared to what a new setup might be. It's might not change at all, but the service time clock certainly isn't getting LONGER than it is now.

What if the new CBA shortens team control and disincentivizes players from signing guaranteed extensions?

Bolted? Sure... but who's attached to this roster by silly string?

There are players who get moved on from maybe a little too early and I worry will come back to make the FO look silly and be deserving of blame. The difference in my mind with Royce is that he's gotten, if anything, more chances than he's earned. Could he go somewhere and play awesome? Sure. But that would never result in me being like "what the hell was the FO thinking?"

I wonder if there's a data-driven sweet spot for this type of "playing both sides of the fence" (for lack of a better word). Here's what I mean... Josh Bell - Perfectly fine player. Extremely movable at the deadline, but always on a 1 year deal and isn't going to excite another GM enough to give you anything all that interesting in return. -- Other end of the Spectrum -- Carlos Correa (a couple years ago) - Could be a very impactful FA signing, but the moment he signs that contract he gets very tough to move. Not only does the AAV scare away some teams, but the contract length does as well. And in the end, if you feel like you need to move him, you may end up eating some money, which is obviously not ideal The sweet spot is probably different for the different player groups Position player - 2 years/14M AAV. Usually going to be a good (not GREAT) player that can help any team looking to add at the deadline. The remaining amount in year 1 isn't too bad and if you're worried about that 14M in year 2, you can probably convince yourself that you can move him in the offseason Starting Pitcher - 3 years/18M AAV. Probably slotted in as a #3 starter for an average team. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe he outperforms that a little bit and you can trade him for a really strong package if needed, or maybe he just performs OK and you are able to move off of him for a marginal prospect, but importantly, not have eat any money. The new team can probably convince themselves they can get him back to that 3/54M form. If you need to hang onto him for another year, now you're got a SP at 2/36 that can either be moved in the offseason or flipped next deadline when he will probably still be viewed as a valuable asset. That third year for a SP is probably viewed as a positive as opposed to a position player or a RP Relief Pitcher - 2 years/8M AAV. Can be traded to any team at that price. And every team can use more relief pitching if they feel like they are contending. Relief pitchers are so volatile that maybe he has a awesome first half and isn't view as some teams closer, but can be plugged in at 2nd or 3rd in their hierarchy. Teams will give up an OK prospect for that. Jeff Hoffman is a little more expensive than this, but we gave up pretty decent stuff for him. Not just some marginal lottery ticket

I disagree with your sentiment here, but rather than just give it a thumbs down, I'll ask.... So, if you had a $150M payroll for the Twins, what would you do this offseason? I could try to read between the lines of your post, but I won't assume.

Curious if you meant JOE Ryan

Trade values are hard to judge but.... Joe Ryan and Marek Houston for Geraldo Perdomo

I've been fully supportive of all of the chances he's gotten. I've fought back the haters when Royce has one of his "oh that's so Royce" quotes. But for me, he's run out of chances. He just hasn't been good enough. I think he could be a really good defensive 1B, but nothing I've seen from him recently makes me think he can be offensively average at 1B over the course of a season. I DO believe that he could be a productive part of a successful 26-man roster, but I don't trust the Twins to act clear-headedly when it comes to Royce, so I'm ready to move on.

Quoting myself here, but one other aspect of this that is also sort of related to a possible lockout, we don't know what the arbitration clock will look like with the new CBA. That's definitely one of the items that will be part of the negotiations. Will that affect guys who have already started their service clock? Maybe only guys that have less than a full year? Who knows. Here's what I do know, the 6+ years of service time for sure isn't getting LONGER. Buying out a year or two of free agency might look very different 12 months from now. Now's the time to set ourselves up for the next 6-7 years.

That's probably healthy but I'd get too jealous of the "true" fans of a potential NL surrogate team. I'll never be able to enjoy it to the level that they can.

I've read enough Tweets from Nick over the years to know he's only at the beginning of that spectrum. 😜 But I do agree that his overall attitude on the Twins over the last couple weeks has perked up quite a bit, so maybe he's got more trust in TP than I'm giving him credit for.

I think it's prudent but I also don't believe he will accept it. I also think it's prudent to make a strong 3 or 4 year offer to him. I view him as a premium option at his position and those are exactly the types of players that a team that wants to be a contender should target. We have lots of cheap guys on our 2027 roster. We can afford to splurge for Jeffers. But at the end of the day, the Twins don't really have the final say. Jeffers does. I hope he's back, but I feel like the realistic chances of that are about 20%

Really, it's probably more that I feel a little sorry for fans that have the same amount of passion for this team than I do, but can't enjoy the good parts because they let the bad parts overwhelm their overall attitude. If I ever got that way about something, I'd probably just peace the hell out.

Fair. I wrote that then looked at the first post from page 4 of comments as was like "oof... that's not going to go over well" Oh well. What can I say. Permanently negative fans drive me crazy.

I think he's working on rebuilding trust and he's had some decent small steps towards that. I think there's a decent sized faction of people that feel that way. It's probably the tense our your original statement that I disagree with. I read that as people feeling like trust is completely rebuilt, but that might not have been your intended implication.

People seem to always be confusing people SAYING they haven't decided, with them actually not knowing. I'm guessing he's 99% sure he knows what he's going to do, but a) something drastic might change (I don't know what that might be, but who knows) and b) there's no value in him giving a firm answer.

Here's the thing about attendance. None of us can ever really know. It's all anecdotal. Did they juice the reported number this year? Yep. But it's not like this is a new thing. What really matters is people coming to the stadium. Selling tickets is great, but getting people in the door is just as important. Like I said though, we don't have a good way to measure this. As someone who attends about 10 games per year and watches most of them, it felt to me like people actually in the stadium was down in early 2026 compared to early 2025, but the opposite in the second half of the season. Anecdotally, it felt to me like more people were showing up in August and September 2026 than in 2025. What does that mean for 2027? No idea. It's just my impression. Side note: Please point me to the people you claim are saying that Tom has rebuilt trust.

No. Don't bow out. I wholeheartedly agree with your posts. I actually also started to look into season tickets about a month ago, but I found it to be kind of clunky in-season and decided to wait for the offseason to dig into it more. The thing that drives me crazy is people being "pre mad." Setting up a negative scenario in their heads (like... a 125M payroll), then proactively being mad at leadership for this scenario that your glass half empty brain expects to happen. I'm a die hard Gleeman and the Geek listener but this is a classic Gleeman technique. Skepticsim is fine, but if all someone has to contribute to a thread is "Pohlads suck. I'm out" or "Different first name. Same Family" then why are you here? Come back when your brain will allow you to enjoy nice things again. Your Pohlad whining is tired. And yes... I'd like them to sell the team too.

In my mind there are two very good ways to spend money this offseason. 1) Jeffers QO and hope he takes it. If he doesn't, make him a very competitive 3 year deal 2) Extend the youth. The doom and gloom lockout talk gives the team a unique opportunity here. Several of them got draft signing bonuses in the last couple years and several of them were pretty large, but for players making $800k per season, the fears of a lockout would make the idea of a $5M signing bonus, as part of an extension, even more appealing that it normally would be. There's other stuff that could be interesting (extending Pablo for example), but that wouldn't really affect the 2027 books and the Twins don't have as much leverage with something like that than "Point #2" above.

It's weird to lump in Abel with Festa and Canterino. This year is the only large amount of time Abel has missed in his career. That happens. 12 months ago it might have been fair to lump Prielipp in that group, but look where we are with that now.

Who’s service time do you feel like was manipulated in the last 4-5 years?

Obviously Houston isn’t in anyone’s top 50 at the moment, but I agree with you that he will be. Really I’m just grinning thinking about the offseason lists that will have some (if not all) of Jenkins, Emma, KC, Lackey, and Houston in their top 50s. Then some Riley Quick mixed into some top 100s 🤩

I’m guessing it’s been touched on in the first 100 or so replies but in my opinion there are two clear and good ways to spend this offseason 1) QO for Jeffers. He probably won’t take it, but still try to sign him. Let’s say 3/57M 2) Extensions for young players. This doesn’t necessarily help us in 2027, but will likely make years 4-6 of the new core have better financial flexibility. Young guys making the minimum for a couple more years not only would love the idea of some guaranteed money (like extensions typically provide), but if you couple that with, say, a $5M signing bonus, right before a potential lockout, I think you’d get a ton of interest. The best way any team can take advantage of a good young core is by paying them a bit more now, so that you aren’t paying them nearly as much later. Does this new core guarantee anything? No. Will they all be worth the extensions we give them? Probably not. But a) even if an extension or two doesn’t work out, as a whole they probably will and b) if this core flames out we’re screwed anyway. This is how multi-year contenders are built as a mid-market club.

To be honest, I feel like this satirical article diminishes what Sabato has accomplished to get where he is.