jokin

Which means Parmelee will be in the lineup as long as Span is out and then move right back to his familiar spot on the bench?

This is not working for the Rays. ... Every market is different. There isn't a hard and fast rule you can apply to new stadiums and attendance. As far as stadiums being 'empty' there are only a handful of ballparks that don't sell at least 50% of their seats each season. Typically it is Oakland, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Cleveland, Baltimore. I don't know what to think about Tampa -- sometimes I wonder if they wouldn't have mediocre attendance even if they had a new field (after the 1st year or two). I just wonder if there isn't something else going on in that market -- too many other entertainment options; too much outdoor fun, etc. Which is really too bad because the Rays seem to have a great organization. Demographics, average age in the community is about 79. They need more ground level seats. No, it is surprising. This should be one of the hottest teams in the market, and the Miami market should also be big. Can't quite figure this out. Lots of people in the general area with disposable income who live there and would like a ncie day in the park rather than spend time at a theme park. Both areas have lots of old people on fixed incomes and lots of displaced people with displaced loyalties (the majority in each area is not originally from Florida)

This is not working for the Rays. ... Every market is different. There isn't a hard and fast rule you can apply to new stadiums and attendance. As far as stadiums being 'empty' there are only a handful of ballparks that don't sell at least 50% of their seats each season. Typically it is Oakland, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Cleveland, Baltimore. I don't know what to think about Tampa -- sometimes I wonder if they wouldn't have mediocre attendance even if they had a new field (after the 1st year or two). I just wonder if there isn't something else going on in that market -- too many other entertainment options; too much outdoor fun, etc. Which is really too bad because the Rays seem to have a great organization. Demographics, average age in the community is about 79.

This is not working for the Rays. Colorado Rockies, bad team for a couple years, averaging 33,000 a game. Twins, bad team for a couple years, averaging 35,000 a game. Mets, bad team for a couple years, averaging 29,000 a game. Every market is different. There isn't a hard and fast rule you can apply to new stadiums and attendance. As far as stadiums being 'empty' there are only a handful of ballparks that don't sell at least 50% of their seats each season. Typically it is Oakland, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Cleveland, Baltimore. History of Baltimore attendance : 2001: 38.8 (000) Rank overall: 5th 2002: 33.1 10th 2003: 30.3 12th 2004: 34.3 12th 2005: 32.4 14th 2006: 26.6 20th 2007: 27.0 23rd 2008: 25.0 24th 2009: 23.5 21st 2010: 21.7 24th 2011: 21.9 26th 2012: average attendance in August in the thick of the race with the hottest team in baseball- 21.5! Does anyone else detect a trend? And a cautionary tale for the Twins?

D**M Straight!

I read the interview in the Star-Tribune too, and to be fair to him that's not what he said. He is all too aware the pitching staff needs improvement, and he specifically said that trades, FA, and internal development will all have to be part of the picture. He is not ruling out resigning Pavano and Baker, but he is not ruling out much else either, with the exception of going after an "elite FA" because of contract concerns, and personally I agree with him on that. Except that is exactly what he said: Souhan: "Do you feel a responsibility to get this organization back on its feet?" Ryan: "Absolutely. Totally. This is a team I believe in, and I'm at the helm. Our injuries have been less than those of most teams. The payroll is more than adequate. We've just got to get it right. I take responsibility for all of it. Even when it comes to injuries to the pitching staff during the season, you've got to be able to fix some of those things on the fly........"You have to be open to a lot of things when you're looking for starting pitching," he said. "You've going to have to take some risks and you're going to have to look at all markets, not just free agency, but trades and waivers and Rule 5s. But if you want to do it the correct way, that's going to provide stability over the long haul, you're going to have to draft and develop guys, too." "trades" Nope "waiver" Nope " draft and develop guys" Nope "Rule 5s" Yup, one.....Is this how you reach the Pitching Promised Land? Really??? "Free Agency" Nope... given Marquis, et al, do we really want to go there? "You've got to be able to fix things on the fly" Definitely Nope, Ryan's demonstrated a concerted Fear of Flying this season, coupled with the fact that there has been no Plan B since the team began the transition to the new ballpark, and they totally screwed up Plan A from square one by not building a team geared for success in Target Field (taking a ground ball- line drive- lefty bat warning track power-hitting team coupled with a team full of retread/hasbeen/never were SPs was a recipe for long-term failure)

That's why batting in #2 spot, playing some 3B and C and becoming a doubles-producing machine off the Green Monster makes such perfect sense for the Sox.

This.... and it has been "this" ever since Billy and Ron Shapiro inked the deal.

And yet, the Orioles still have an $80 million payroll, which is actually 3rd in the AL East, higher than Toronto by 5 million and TB by 15 million. And they haven't been "competitive" since the mid-90's. But their highest-paid player is Nick Markakis, who at around $12.3 million, is making roughly within the ballpark of what guys like Cuddy, Nathan and Torii have been let go for by the Twins in recent years. I think this is a better baseball market than Baltimore. I fully expect attendance to continue to decline, but if they can routinely pull around 25,000 a night in the DOME, I really don't think attendance in this town will get that bad with the facility as good as it is, even if the team is bad for a few more years. Baltimore is a great baseball town (home of Babe Ruth and a run of extended success for 30 years with a string of HOF players). It took a few years for attendance to collapse, but collapse it has. You forget that in the 90s in the Dome, the Twins had season tickets available for $81 for 81 games to goose up attendance. This is a front-running professional sports team market, not a better baseball market than Baltimore. So, since the Orioles are spending what they're spending, my proposal that Pohlad might be happy with an $80M Twins payroll is on the table, then, right?

Yes, they should do it, if they get value in return. However, the types of teams that would do this sort of a deal would likely be teams not in contention and can take on Mauer's contract and need a C/1B/DH and could give the Twins ML starting pitching. I can't think of any. Boston seems to fit, but they would have to give the Twins one of their top two pitchers, so it seems unlikely they would do it. Seattle might deal King Felix but then they'd have Mauer's contract and they're well set at catcher. Okay, I'll bite, but only to make this point. Why would a team like Boston, New York, etc. want to take on a guy like this? A guy who will be 30 years old next year, and can catch a maximum of 85 games for you, IF he stays healthy. A guy who is a great contact hitter and table setter, but has shown little else to suggest that he's a $20+ million/year player that you'd want to pick up for the downside of his prime. I think that contract is untradeable. Even with Morneau, who only has ONE year left on that deal, it would've taken a team in a crazy situation like the Dodgers, who were basically looking to spend money for big name players in any way possible. And that still didn't happen. Mauer will never be traded from the Twins. You think they have attendance problems NOW? From Boston's point of view, this makes total sense. Joe Mauer could be the return of Wade Boggs.

Advance sales might preclude this prediction of the "actual attendance", but I would venture that Wednesday, September 12 vs. the Kansas City Royals might have less than 20000 actually watching the game in person.

Do you have some sort of objective evidence for this? I have yet to see any, one way or another. Yes, the Twins owners and FO statements over the past 12 months have stated that further cuts beyond the 2012 payroll reduction were possible and they have always maintained that payroll would always be based on a certain percentage of revenues. Revenues are clearly down this year and are apparently about to cascade even lower heading into September,

Future Shock or Rinse and Repeat (the real Twins mantra) Case in point regarding "the means to spend" argument which the Twins are in the process of completely blowing up: The Baltimore Orioles- on a hot streak, hottest team in August-playing 16-8 baseball, a .667 clip, revived from the dead for years on end to competitive, third best record in the AL, the best record in one-run games in baseball, only 3.5 games behind the best team in the league, the Yankees, playing in one of the best parks in all of baseball- Camden Yards, playing a first place team in the White Sox- with a Cy Young favorite on the mound, Chris Sale perfect night for baseball in Baltimore drew all of 12,841 fans last night.

This is more wish than analysis on your part Case in point regarding "the means to spend" argument which the Twins are in the process of completely blowing up: The Baltimore Orioles- on a hot streak, hottest team in August-playing 16-8 baseball, a .667 clip, revived from the dead for years on end to competitive, third best record in the AL, the best record in one-run games in baseball, only 3.5 games behind the best team in the league, the Yankees, playing in one of the best parks in all of baseball- Camden Yards, playing a first place team in the White Sox- with a Cy Young favorite on the mound, Chris Sale perfect night for baseball in Baltimore drew all of 12,841 fans last night.

Steering with a "more than adequate" payroll (his very words) and apparently no need to upgrade the pitching staff with trades or FAs..... just bring back Pavano and Baker and yup, all's well with TR steering the boat.

"A person could hardly be blamed for not being sold on Parmelee's "breakout" last year, which involved a fairly solid second half in Rochester and a great final month with the Twins." Parmelee played all season with New Britain last year.

You've got to be kidding me!?! I like a stand-up guy, but this is going to become much worse than even I predicted (Hello payroll < $80M?): "Ryan was blunt about a variety of subjects. He .. . • Will not fire manager Ron Gardenhire. • Won't force Gardenhire to make changes to his coaching staff. • Considers Justin Morneau a "core" player whom he expects to thrive next season. • Wants people to stop blaming Joe Mauer for the team's problems. • Would consider re-signing pending free-agent pitchers Scott Baker and Carl Pavano. • Doubts he will pursue any elite free-agent pitchers this winter, saying it will be a "thin" market and that he's averse to signing such pitchers to the long-term deals required to land them. • Insists that he, not the previous general manager, the manager or ownership, should take the blame for this season."

Buxton steals home tonight, adds another SB, goes 2-4 plus a BB, raising his average at E-Town to .286. He's starting to come on strong, just like he did in the GCL. His last 10 games (coincident with his promotion to the lead-off spot) slash is awesome: 385/489/605/1094

Buxton steals home tonight, adds another SB, goes 2-4 plus a BB, raising his average at E-Town to .286. He's starting to come on strong, just like he did in the GCL. His last 10 games (coincident with his promotion to the lead-off spot) slash is awesome: 385/489/605/1094

I just posted on that in the game thread, Chief. I brought this issue up in the previous thread about what the payroll will be next year, it's looking more and more like another cut is coming for 2013. I projected a drastic fall-off in September attendance, guess it's coming a few days early. In the other thread I proposed starting a pool to guess when the first sub-20000 game occurs. Do they play KC at home in September?

I guess I was one of the few of the "nothing but negative" posters who felt differently and had to deal with the slings and arrows of the "deniers" to the harsh reality of the Twins situation. Posters were giddily talking about Mauer's next batting title, ignoring both the inevitable late-season Mauer slump as well as the cautionary history of how a typical Willingham season plays out in the 2nd half (badly), and Denard Span going down, yet again, on another seemingly innocuous injury. Revere and Plouffe were/are playing through injuries and weren't even STARTERS, let alone "core guys", on this team in Mid-May, so can't hold much blame on their shoulders. Doumit is who he is. Sadly, this has to be the only baseball club that likely will stand pat on the status quo once again in the off-season, putting off as usual, the tough decisions that must be made about revamping the program and philosophy from top to bottom. The Twins attendance dipped below 30000 tonight, anyone want to start a pool on the first sub-20000 game at Target Field?

He's a Rule 5 draftee. Why isn't the story "great scouting, trading to keep him, and coaching"? You missed the earlier part of my summation of Diamond. The Twins buried him early in ST to the minor league camp, probably in the organization on a one-year tour of duty. No one, I mean no one, was talking about Diamond knocking at the door last March to being on the verge to becoming the "Ace" of the staff. If anything, the trade was a crap shoot at two equal unknown quantities. If you wish to ascribe some credit, it mostly belongs in the hands of Diamond and possibly a little bit to Cuellar and the scout who pushed to draft him.

Yeah, but when the Mariners, of all teams, are squaring up on him and drilling the ball, I think that's another definition of the league catching up with you. At least Diamond just hit the mark for the Twins definition of a QS.

I'll bet you are right You mean something simple that an MRI would have picked up a week ago?

The problem with Vargas is that he plays half his games in Seattle and all his games with the Seattle outfield at his back. Almost all his numbers are due to regress in 2013, given that he only keeps 40% of his balls on the ground. Fine for Seattle with the Mariners OF, not quite so fine in Target Field with the Twins outfield. I'm not against the idea of going after a player like Vargas. I actually think it's a good idea. I just don't think Vargas is the right guy because if you remove him from the Pacific Northwest, he could turn into a pretty bad pitcher quickly. He doesn't strike guys out, he lets waaay too many balls be hit in the air, he is riding an artificially low BABIP this season, and he's not cheap in 2013. I think there are far better deals to be had on the market or in trades. There is a reason why his road ERA from 2010-2012 is ~1.75 higher than his home ERA. He's not the type of guy that plays well in a small or mid-sized stadium. In fact, those stadiums will kill a guy like that. The exact same arguments used against Maholm.