Fire Dan Gladden

Again, there is another piece to a trade like this everyone is ignoring: perception. You have a team the should have been in the playoffs last year, even basically every young player failing miserably (SWR being the exception). You go and trade any of the Lopez, Ober, Ryan, (and I am sure we will see coming articles about trading Lewis, Jeffers, Wallner, Miranda, and anybody else productive with a pulse) and the already tenuous relationship with the fanbase takes another nosedive. Not a great look when your new broadcast deal requires fans to actually want to watch the team to make an y money. Sure, all these guys can be moved. Just ask the White Sox.

<Ctrl> C <Ctrl> V The only reason to do this trade is if the Twins go complete rebuild. That is not going to happen this winter. The vitriol after a trade like this would be insane.

No reason to do this in any capacity except for a complete rebuild which the Twins do not need. The vitriol following this move would be insane.

Unfortunately I have a feeling we are going to see a run of articles on players the Twins "should" sign, even though EVERYONE knows there is zero chance these players will be signed due to financial constraints... If the Twins re-sign Santana on a 1y/$5-6m deal, that will probably constitute the bulk of offseason spending this winter.

Gaetti was a very underrated player. I am buying...

Potential payroll flexibility is only a small part of the excitement over new ownership. The stubbornness and inflexibility of ownership has been one of the larger issues over the last few decades. Change is part of that excitement. What will the new owners do differently in hopes to win a championship and provide a positive experience for fans? Some changes seem like low hanging fruit (better marketing, better in-person experience), but others will take time. Approaches to the FO and on-field product, team infrastructure, scouting, analytics all could see changes. Good or bad, change is almost always painful.

So.... Anything newsworthy happening today?

You forget the articles saying the first thing ARod and Lore are going to do is cut payroll...

Macro - Change is a comin. New ownership will probably want their guys in key positions. St. Peter, Falvey down to Rocco are all currently in a state of limbo. Good or bad, it is the way of things. New owners may be "bad", but they will be different. Remains to be seen how that effects the organization. Micro - Any discussion of spending $$ this offseason effectively comes to a halt. No large contracts, no long contracts. Also, no major changes either. Until a purchase becomes public (meaning it is close), the team is currently in a holding pattern. My POV: There is zero chance the Twins will be moved. Between existing contracts, Pohlad legacy, and alternate city options, this is not going to happen. I personally would love to see a Cuban-type jump in, but the baseball old-boys network would never approve a sale to this type of owner.

Proof that the Pohlads read Twins Daily.

Not taking it personally 👍 As you said, it came as a surprise. The Tigers were an anomaly. Got extremely hot at the right time and carried it into the playoffs. If the Twins traded Correa specifically, or started moving their core, it could get ugly

Correa is more than just the player on the field, more than just the clubhouse leader, he represents the Twins efforts to win. Fan Perception. We talk a lot about the Twins tanking to some degree by lowering payroll and not re-investing in salary of the team. But as long as there is the core of Correa, Buxton, Lewis, Lopez, and Ryan, there is the belief this team can be competitive. If the Twins move Correa, they might as well trade everyone. They would set this franchise back 3-5 years and lose whatever fan goodwill is left. Correa demanding a trade might change that narrative a bit, but I can't see that happening in the near future.

Call me cautious, but I would be totally fine with another year of Santana at $5m. I am not 100% sold that Miranda is "fixed" and Santana provides indirect insurance for another Lewis injury at 3B. Many comments about Martin, Lee, Kiersey, Julien, et. al getting long leashes and defined roles. A reminder that they did not perform very well when given the opportunity last season. Expecting them to serviceable next year could be setting this team up for another major failure. Lewis, Correa, and Buxton each playing 135 games would go a long way towards covering up other offense problems this team has.

Thank you for putting me in my place. Your positive communication towards me is a beacon for all.

I asked this elsewhere, and I will ask it again here: As a group, where do the Twins catchers rank amongst teams in the major categories? I would bet they are top 10 compared to other teams in most of the big stats. Doesn't seem like a great reason to break up a pairing that seems to work well within the system and has been healthy (not easy at this position).

This is a salary dump trade done by a team looking to rebuild. It would be very sad to see the Twins do this. With all this talk of how "unwieldly" the Twins catching situation is, I think the balance has been decent, with production and health. Does anyone know where the Twins (as a group) rank regarding overall catching stats by team? I would think they were top ten in the major categories. Doesn't sound like a great reason to break them up yet...

I wonder if the Pohlads realize that now their "TV" revenue will be largely dependent on how they take care of the on-field product? Continuing to take the fans for granted will not work under this new structure.

This and the Joe Pohlad interview saying they weren't going to sign any big names. I am kind of surprised these were not on this list considering the huge impact they had in multiple ways for the team.

The discussion here is really about replacement value: If player X is non-tendered, would you be able to replace his value for less money. Guys like Kiriloff are cheap, have had some MLB success, and still in the "prove it" mode. Duran will most assuredly outplay his contract, even if he isn't "elite". Same can be said for Topa. Remember we are talking about 1-year contracts here. Castro will be a very interesting case. He has probably earned the $6m contract for next year, but with the Twins penny-pinching, it is hard to say what they will do. If Castro is non-tendered, or signed and traded for prospects, methinks it would be an ominous sign for the coming season.

Rebuilding is nonsense. They have 3-4 solid to very solid SP, quality+ starters at arguably 5-6 of the field positions, depth at the end off the BP. What more of a core do you need to build from? Though I have zero expectation this will happen, this team needs to find a way to add at 2B, OF, and another SP this offseason. The younger guys (Festa, Lee, Martin, Matthews) showed this year they are not yet ready to carry the load, they need to be backups so they can be put in better positions to succeed.

This may not be a popular opinion, but I am of the belief owners of big 4 sports team have a certain degree of civic duty to the cities and areas they play in. Virtually every team is subsidized in some fashion by the local tax payers (think stadiums and arenas), I also believe perception is a HUGE part of this. We, as fans, want to know that ownership cares about the outcome of the outcome of their teams as much as they do. Reinvesting a portion of the TV revenue, making a reasonably cost move at trade deadline, other fan-friendly moves would have probably gone a long way towards rebuilding fan interest and faith. It isn't always about winning the WS. Don't publicly complain about a million here or there when you are swimming in billions. It may be a solid reasoning, but we as fans do not want to hear it. My biggest issue, the one I have been screaming about since last year, is just hold true to form. When you say you are going to spend a % of income on salary, then you don't follow through, you deserve to get bashed. $30m in tv revenue pocketed instead of $14m (or whatever the % is) reinvested would have killed a lot of this conversation. Perceived effort matters.

And in other news of the obvious: Water is wet!

Wow... this is definitely a first. A Griffith apologist. The list of negative things the Griffith family did to the Twins organization is so long I wouldn't even know where to start. I have been around long enough to watch games at the Met... The 87' Twins won the WS with arguably the worst team to win a WS in the two-divsion era. The 1991 Twins won because Scott Erickson had CY worthy season, Jack Morris had a resurgent season, Knoblauch won ROY, and a few others came together. They went from 74 wins to 95 wins, 2 years later they were back to 71 wins. It was a perfect storm. I am not saying the FO is without scrutiny, but you discount the growth this organization has seen since Falvy et. al. came on board. Look at this year. Look what they got out of what they had on the field due to injury and lack of options until everything died at the end. To not be able to do anything to improve on last year is not a FO problem, but an ownership one. As for Miami and Tampa having semi-regular success, it is true. Lightning does strike for these teams before they trade everyone away. Imagine how good those teams would be they could compete financially with ownership groups that cared about the team.. Feel free to blame the FO for everything wrong with the team right now. The last two years ownership gave the FO some financial flexibility to work with, and look how they did. With nothing to work with this year, the wheels fell off. To say ownership has no responsibility here is just flat out wrong.

There is an unspoken ceiling with this team. Unless this team greatly overachieves, has surprises, luck, or all, this team will habitually max out as "good to very good", never great. The only true needle-moving thing that could happen would be a new owner.

You can't make comments like this. There are too many people out there that won't acknowledge the positive steps this FO has made