Richmond Dude

I met Cody and his father at spring training. They were nice, grounded people. I'm about the same age as his dad and it was really cool to see how proud and supportive he was of his son. I'll be rooting for this young man.

There is even an example over in St. Paul. When the Wild arrived, they worked very hard to build ties to youth and high school hockey because whoever was in charge then knew that was the way to Minnesota's hockey heart. You can say what you want about the Wild, but they sell out the stadium every game.

I admit I didn't like the trade because I liked that Varland was a Minnesota kid and I wanted to root for him on the Twins. Having said that, Jays fans aren't happy with the trade, which does tell me something. Regarding us ending up with so many LH outfielders, I'm wondering if any of them are able to translate into a 1B? If so, you might find your answer to why Rodan there. Some of this may ultimately have to do with the unexpected retirement of Kiriloff.

I understand the whole thing about stretching and warming up, but if that were really the factor here, you would see people blowing out hamstrings and similar injuries routinely in other industries. Police officers and firefighters, for instance, frequently go from 0 to 60 without warming up and don't have large numbers of blown quads and hamstrings (although they certainly have injuries). Just a reminder, too, that Lewis' most serious career injury was a trauma injury from hitting a fence. No amount of warming up solves that.

It is strange to see people saying to trade Lewis because he's had injuries. I mean, is there a team out there giving away high-end prospects for injured players? Some owner screaming that there aren't enough guys on the 60-day IL? It's just goofy talk. I met Lewis at spring training last week. A really decent guy, like an actual good person. I hope the injury is minor and he heals well.

Three brief things: 1. I was at Spring Training this weekend. The most telling thing about Dobnak was that when he was sent back to the minor league camp on Sunday, all of the Guest Services security staff were bummed out about it. He is very well-liked. 2. Nobody here hates or blames Dobnak for anything. They simply don't think he is in the top seven starting pitchers in the organization. That's all. I imagine most people here would say he is probably in the top seven decent guys in the organization, though. That actually matters more in life, but it won't get you a job on an MLB team. 3. The reason some people are confused about the ability to trade Dobnak is because they see it happen in other sports. Taking on bad salary can have value in a salary cap/floor system, but baseball does not have a cap. There is absolutely no incentive for a team to take on $3 million when they can get the same body of work for league minimum. Taking on his salary is just less profit in the MLB system and GMs don't get paid to intentionally waste money for the owners.

Here's my take on the Pohlads. Calvin Griffith was going to sell the team and it looked very likely that it was going to be moved to St. Petersburg. Pohlad bought it and said that this was the community where he grew up and he looked at the team as a community asset. He promised not to move and he didn't. He also promised not to take money out of the team, but that he wouldn't lose money on the team, either. He did those two things, too. When it became obvious after the 90s that model wasn't going to be sustainable, he tried to get his friend Bud Selig to contract the team. Once that didn't work out, he did spend more, or at least more effectively, and pushed for a better stadium and revenue stream and got it. He died before Target Field opened, so we don't know how he would have spent the new revenue from the stadium, although we do know what his sons did with it. Bottom line: through it all, somehow the Twins are still here and in a good position to do well in the next several years, which is exactly how their young MLB players and farm system looked the last time they were sold.

I'm still convinced that the Twins payroll cut this year wasn't about TV, but about 2025 and 2026. We have an extremely good core of young players. They are going to need to be paid, either by negotiated contracts or arbitration. I'd rather be low this year (when we could afford it due to the talent), then have to let Royce Lewis go in 2026 because we couldn't afford his first arbitration contract due to previously overspending.

What if, and just stay with me here, *both* teams came out ahead on the deal?

Hey Ted, please stop ignoring the 2002 Twins, who by every measure outperformed the 2023 team. It hasn't been "three decades" since we reached this high, it's been two. Team history is important and a Twins journalist should know it.

Hey Ted, please stop saying that the 2023 season was the best in three decades (presumably since the WS victory in 1991). By every measure, 2002 was a better season, so it's actually no more than two decades. Probably seems like a quibble, but for baseball fans it is really not.

Comcast and Xfinity are the same company.

No way the Carew trade belongs on this list. It wasn't a good trade in terms of outcome, of course. But it ignores the fact that Carew had been very open that he wouldn't play another inning for Calvin Griffith and the trade was made from that position of weakness. They got two starting position players in exchange, it was fortunate that they got even that.

Personally, this won't affect me as I live out-of-state now and am one of the original MLB.tv subscribers going way back. Just love our Twins. Having said that, the Amazon package would just replace the Bally app, nothing more. I think it just prolongs and maybe even exacerbates the current problem. The real goal here has to be to grow the sport again, which means exposure. I'd like to see at least two over the air broadcasts each week, one on the weekend and one night game during the week. The rest should be on MLB.tv for a relatively low price. This is basically the model that the High School Hockey tournament took a few years back when they realized that making people pay to stream was causing them to lose interest from the fanbase (yes, the Twins play a lot more games than the tourney, but the point remains). For baseball, people who don't watch games don't come to the park and don't buy fangear and, most importantly, don't expose their kids and grandkids to the game. If the Twins come up with a better model, I'm all for it. Whatever grows the fanbase and creates interest, which will translate to revenue to make the team run well.

How does this work with injured minor leaguers? Do they still have to be added to the 40-man at the same time if they're currently injured or is there some sort of exemption for long-term injuries at that level?