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Richmond Dude

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Everything posted by Richmond Dude

  1. 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.
  2. Richmond Dude
    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.
  3. Richmond Dude
    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.
  4. Richmond Dude
    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.
  5. Richmond Dude
    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.
  6. Richmond Dude
    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.
  7. Richmond Dude
    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.
  8. Richmond Dude
    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.
  9. Richmond Dude
    What if, and just stay with me here, *both* teams came out ahead on the deal?
  10. Richmond Dude
    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.
  11. Richmond Dude
    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.
  12. Richmond Dude
    Comcast and Xfinity are the same company.
  13. Richmond Dude
    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.
  14. Richmond Dude
    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.
  15. Richmond Dude
    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?
  16. Richmond Dude
    I live out-of-market now, but I wish everyone the best on this and hope that however you choose to get TV/streaming, the Twins are fully available to you wherever you are soon. For those discussing buying just the streaming option, I think it's even cheaper than $20 per month if you buy the annual plan. It definitely is for me, but I get the veteran's discount. Worth looking into it.
  17. Richmond Dude
    The bankruptcy is irrelevant to this particular issue. MLB isn't claiming that the Twins are owed something, they are claiming that Bally is stealing from them. The analogy is that someone agrees to buy your house and on the appointed day, doesn't pay you. They arrive and say they filed for bankruptcy last week, so you can't ask them for the money but you still have to let them have the house. Don't give them the house, nothing requires you to continue to do business with them at that point.
  18. Richmond Dude
    Man, you don't get into the spring training spirit at all. :) Regardless, name a team since 1991 that was deeper. And remember that depth includes call-up depth in the minors that is actually major league ready. I see two big flaws in your reasoning. Do you really feel there isn't a single decent hitter to follow behind Correa? And what does contract status have to with depth? Bringing up free agency in another season seems to indicate you're looking for reasons not to believe.
  19. Richmond Dude
    Regarding the last point, this may be the deepest Twins squad since the 91 World Series winner. Somebody will say something about the squads over the 2000s until 2011, but those teams always had deep bullpens, but a couple of starts with no business in the major leagues and several AAAA fielders. Everyone on this squad is a clear major league player. The only players anyone could argue may not be ready are Larnach (due to experience) and Pagan (who actually had a better second half after being pulled out of the closer role). Even better is that there are major league caliber players at AAA at every section of the roster. I know there is some heartburn over Ober, but we haven't had a ready starter at AAA to start a season in decades, let alone three. But with Ober, which of the five starts would you dump for him on opening day? People mention putting Maeda in the bullpen, but he was so dissatisfied with relief that he asked the Dodgers for a trade and was an outstanding starting for us. He deserves the right to try to start again after the injury. Not letting him try is disloyal and would have ramifications for morale and our desirability as a landing place for pitchers in later years. Players remember and word gets around.
  20. Richmond Dude
    Does anybody know the status of the BSN contracts with the Wild and Timberwolves? That would have to play into this in terms of making their own network work.
  21. Richmond Dude
    Regarding the crime issue and the impact on attendance. I don't live in Minnesota anymore and I miss having the ability to go to the games, but as a result, I have no idea whether crime is actually up in the city and even what kind of crime may be occurring. But I have a lot of experience with understanding crime and how people respond to it and can tell you that there are actually two different things here. There is crime and then there is the media coverage of crime. The second plays a much greater role in how people view an area and it lasts years. For instance, when the LRT discussion came up, I imagine that people remember how there were a bunch of Strib stories about robberies and assaults on the trains, usually during the overnight. But those stories were pre-Covid, if I remember. But they stick. It is irrelevant to attendance whether people are safe, what counts is whether they feel safe. Regardless, Go Twins! Wish I could be there with you in person.
  22. Richmond Dude
    The Twins once fielded a squad with five Hall of Famers on it. The fielders were Killebrew, Oliva, and Carew, who were three very different types of hitters. Carew scored 50% more runs than he batted in, It's because he was constantly on base when people like Killebrew and Oliva drove him in. Takes all types to put together a good team.
  23. Richmond Dude
    In the words of the Daily Norseman website, this Twins team is a Buy. Great write-up, solid reasoning. I do think KC deserved a mention, they're improved from last season and did take a series from us as the winning streak began.
  24. Richmond Dude
    Neshek always struck me as one of those situations where Gardy just didn't like certain players who didn't fit his view of the game and he got run out, never really getting the chance to work all the way back from the injury. The Twins during this period had a solid history of screwing with their pitchers and either losing them or having them find success elsewhere after the Twins gave up. Regarding Neshek's popularity, the sidearm delivery was cool, but Neshek was from Wisconsin and really bonded with our fanbase. Beyond that, he was simply fun. It was a shame how that played out, he was pretty clear that his hope was to stay with the Twins for the long term.
  25. Richmond Dude
    MLB has been reducing the time between innings as part of the pace of play issue, so maybe there? Great point about the nature of soccer stoppages.
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