Fire Dan Gladden

I follow the belief you want your best hitters at the top. Considering each spot in the batting order is worth 9-10 more PA over a full season (leadoff gets 10 more PA than 2nd spot, 2nd gets 10 more than 3rd, etc...) The lineup should look something like: Lewis Buxton Correa Wallner Miranda Then (somewhat interchangeable) Castro Jeffers Larnach Santana Those top 5 are head and shoulders above the rest so far. They should always be in the top spots when playing.

As bad as he was offensively, I am not 100% against having him back with the big club, especially with the injury situation on that side of the infield. Established vet, the ability to play multiple positions (currently of need), who is liked in the clubhouse is necessary. Farmer is sunk cost. Give him a few weeks to see if he can regain his previous form while Correa, Lee, et al get healthy.

Castro will be a really interesting case study this offseason to see where the Twins stand financially... I think they should look to extend him, but nothing too crazy. Something like 2/18 with a third year team option of $12m. Best of both worlds contract. That being said, back to reality. They Twins will let him go to arbitration next year. 90% chance he will not be a Twin in 2026.

Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, Terry Mulholland... Some guys are just built differently, their bodies can take more abuse. (Mulholland famously said he only needed 7 warm up pitches) The pitching motion itself is destructive. It puts undue stress on everything. With the focus on increased velocity and spin rates, pitchers bodies are under more and more stress. Tommy John surgery is now the norm, not the exception. I think we are approaching the apex of the cost/benefit of increased speed over endurance, especially factoring in dollar investment into each pitcher. Complete games are basically unheard now. 7 innings from a SP is a luxury, with 5 innings closer to the norm. Teams that do not have multiple "2 inning" RP can't survive. Baseball knows changes are coming. Forcing teams to identify pitchers vs position players. Looking at the Twins, where most everyone on the roster can play 2+ positions, it only makes sense to see guys that could potentially do both (think Drew Butera) could force revisions to that rule.

Look... I am happy the Twins are in the playoff hunt, but gotta be realistic here: Overall Twins are 62-48. Against CHW, COL, and OAK (3 of the 4 worst teams) they are combined 20-3. (Means 42-45 against everyone else) Against BAL, NYY, CLE they are a combined 0-14. Hard to get real excited about sweeping the White Sox. The Twins need to take 6 of 7 from CLE and KCR starting Friday or the division is done for the Twins.

85 games played so far out of 110. Puts him on pace for 125 for the season. That number could potentially rise if the team is still fighting for a playoff spot in September. Whatever the secret sauce is in treating Buxton, lets hope it continues. He has been fun to watch this year, especially on the offensive side (not so much the automatic strikeout as in years past).

Stu, What happened to your satire? I clicked on your article and got truth. I am extremely disappointed this week...

I agree with this assessment. The sad part is that he was directly/indirectly responsible for a lot of the positive growth and change in the NBA. Change, while always difficult, is not always bad.

The Cuban quote was mine. Cuban was not "denied" by the MLB glass ceiling, he was outmaneuvered by FOX television: https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/business/how-mark-cuban-lost-the-texas-rangers-to-ray-davis/ Edit: My memory stands corrected. The old-boys network in full force: https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/news/mavs-mark-cuban-baseball-is-a-mess-im-thankful-they-didnt-let-me-buy-a-team One of the reasons Cuban was so loved by the Mavericks is that he turned Dallas into a place players wanted to come. He invested millions into player accommodations (locker-room, dietary, travel, player health and wellness), changing the way all NBA teams had to treat their players He also constantly fought the NBA status quo by publicly addressing NBA shortfalls when no one else would. Cuban would be great for baseball as he would attack the old-boys, status-quo network like no one else would.

This may be the first Pohlad apologist I have seen on this website. Congratulations, you are a trailblazer! 1) The Twins are making money. Period. Either in year-over-year cash profit or in overall team value. To say otherwise is 100% false. If owning a professional team was not a money maker, leagues would not exist (unless you are the WNBA subsidized by the NBA). 2) The complaint about the Pohlads is not just about the trade deadline. The deadline inactivity just keeps compounding the major public missteps this team has made since the end of last year. 3) Owning a professional sports team is a long-view proposition. It is not about squeezing every last penny you can today. The Bally decision to take the immediate money now probably earned the team an extra few million today, but how much are they losing all of the other secondary revenue that comes with higher visibility? Not to mention lower gate sales at home games... How many years is it going to take to repair that damage? You need to spend money to make money, they just don't seem to get that. I have said this before and will say it again. I am a huge Twins fan. I have been around long enough to see games at the old Met stadium. I just want the Twins ownership to actually care about the product and their customers, instead of just looking at everyone like dollar signs. Where is Mark Cuban when you need him?

For the moment...

The Charlie Brown quote is 100% on point. Optics is always part of the issue. I don't think Twins fans were expecting a complete go-for-broke approach this deadline (or entire season). But even spending $5-7 million here could have gone a long way towards making the team better and re-building some goodwill with the fan base.

This is not a Falvey/Lavine issue. This is not a Correa issue. Ownership was ready to sink the ship? Ownership is actively SINKING the ship. Plausible scenario over the next 12 months: Falvey and Lavine jump ship, cheaper, lesser qualified "yes" man gets hired Correa gets traded Lopez gets traded Duran gets traded (rumblings about this now) Twins re-sign with Bally for television Twins raise ticket prices How things looking so far?

Yup. Not sure why, with the Twins screaming poor, they would roll out $700k plus a low level prospect for a guy they could pick up a comp for anytime off the waiver wire. This feels to me like making a move so they can say they made a move.

Why is everyone ripping this trade? The Twins had $700k burning a hole in their pocket, they had to spend it somewhere...

We Twins Daily readers will no longer be subject to the slew of fantasy articles written about potential trade targets and moves the Twins should make, I do need to admit that I was wrong. After preaching for weeks that the Twins were not going to add salary via trade, they did add about $700k. Quite a boon for a -0.4 RP this year

This. 100% this.

You and I basically agree. My point to the comment was basically that we can be fans of the Twins and complain about the product we are fans of. Just because we are vocal about our opinions does not mean we should go root for someone else. The bottom line is truly this: Any owner that claims they are losing money year over year is 100% dishonest. If they were truly losing money on their investment, they would be selling the team. Cash flow may be an issue at times, but they are making money, either by cash flow or team valuation. That is why Big 4 sports teams do not sell that often, and when they become available there is always someone there to buy them.

Not Falvine's problem, his hands are tied. We all know any move made at the deadline will be a neutral move at absolute best, but more than likely a net-loss. (Think Kepler for a RP saving salary). Everything happening now is 90% a Pohlad issue.

The thing about attempting to make your team better: it is as much the process than the results. Over the last few off-seasons, the Twins made move after move in an effort to improve the on-field product. I can respect that and want to follow that effort. When they publicly and systematically make every effort to WORSEN the team, a team that was arguably a top 5 team in baseball, don't expect the fans to be all sunshine and lollipops. The effort matters!

Get out and support the players? That is like saying you are going to shop at Macys over Walmart because you like the cashier.

I 100% disagree with this take. We are not just the fans, we are the customers. We are the ones that "buy" the product. Silence and apathy are ways to let ownership now how we feel, but screaming at them from the rooftops is also another way. Sometimes businesses need to be told directly that they are alienating their customer base, otherwise they may not see the level of distress they are causing

When the Twins were TV free-agents, ownership cried they needed to lower payroll due to no television deal. Everyone knew the chances of the Twins entering into the 2024 season without some sort of TV deal were zero. The Twins got their deal. The Twins will probably scream this again this offseason as there are already rumblings of further payroll reductions (and because they believe Twins fans are dumb and will always return) even though we all know there will be some sort of television deal again next year. If the Twins followed their past pronouncements and spent roughly %50 of this year's TV money, that is another $20m that could be spent on Starting Pitching.

To call this non-recurring revenue would be saying that the Twins will not have a television deal next year. We know that is false. Just like last year, we know the Twins will have some sort of television revenue. This year it was $40+ million (and that was low). Next year it would be that at it's worst. The Twins wonder why attendance is down in when they are on pace to win 90 games? Keep pocketing 100% of that revenue, instead of re-investing a portion of that back into salary...

People are missing a few things: Going 0-anything at this level requires a certain amount of bad luck. Line drives hit right at people, etc. Not everyone is cut out to be a good PH. The mental makeup to sit for 2 hours then come in and be a productive hitter can be difficult. Margot has historically not been a great PH, I am sure the luck factor is part of this year's equation too. Margot is a useful piece to this team. Changing roles and expectations can mess with a players confidence. I guarantee you that nobody feels worse about his PH this year than Margot.