roger

Have a question that is unrelated to Buxton, however, related to a comment in your piece. Why do most people often comment that the Twins have only two pitchers in their tentative starting rotation for 2022, Ober and Ryan? Why aren't they saying thee, including Randy Dobnak? Doesn't Dobnak have more starts, ie, more experience, than either of them? Granted, he wasn't healthy in 2021 and the results weren't satisfactory, but when healthy previously he was an effective starter. We don't know what the Twins plans for 2022 are, however, I suspect they may include Dobnak along side the other two as potential starters next spring.

Interesting, thanks Steve. And thanks to you and TD for keeping us up to date on this year’s AFL. Wallner seems to be the one to benefit from this experience the most. With so many of the corner power guys disappointing of late, I have a tough time getting excited. Maybe this is his beginning to separate himself from those other disappointments. The other player to be noticed by me was Laweryson. The extra work gave him another opportunity to shine, and he ran with it.

Don't the Twins have a very good relationship with Maeda? And doesn't he like it here? If so, both could be positives in attracting this guy. May even go so far as to have Maeda do a little recruiting? As for needing him, the Twins need all the good players they can get.

Thanks for the update, Nick. Not much to get excited about, eh? Still see Dobnak as a starter.

With no Twins on my tv, watched a lot of Wichita games. Mostly when one of the young studs was starting the game. Don’t recall anything of note from Palacios D, bad or good. But maybe being consistent and solid is good. On the other hand, don’t recall any players who wowed me, other than several plays by Whitfield...and he is gone.

So often we comment without knowing all the facts. The pitcher had just hit Telis. Was it intentional and what pitch, a hard fastball? Where did he hit him, was it near the head? Apparently he had also hit one of their hitters last time out. Same two questions? Were there other HB from him or that team recently? Not saying La Tortuga should have sucker punched him. But depending on the answers to the above questions, may understand it.

Like the idea, Seth. Will admit I didn’t know he was that good defensively at short.

Your example above confirms you likely don’t have any experience investing in real estate. When comparing the apartment building cost to Motel 6, you assume the cost of operating the apartments is the mortgage payment plus 10% of that amount for management. Haven’t taken a look at any apartment p&l’s in a long time, but do know that you are no where near actual operating costs. First, management fees will either be a fixed cost, percentage of revenue, or some combination thereof. Assuming rent includes utilities, operating costs will include utilities, real estate taxes, insurance, pest control, security contracts, repairs and maintenance, reserves for replacement, on site management (often someone getting free rent), advertising and marketing, legal, accounting, reserves for bad debts and other costs I likely forgot. The point is that your financial example doesn’t carry water. As for buying a project, don’t know what the market is in the three non Twin Cities markets. I did get a recent email from a Denver broker who sold one of my hotels 20 plus tears ago. Their listing included a couple office buildings and I believe two apartments. One was a larger complex for around $500k per unit. on the other hand the Polahd’s own United Properties, so setting something up in the St Paul market may be easy.

Wasn't that long ago that the Wild was days from training camp with their best player unsigned. Heck, sounded to the public that he wasn't even in the U.S. Then one morning the G.M. got a phone call from the agent saying, get on a plane and come to Florida so the three of us can sit down and talk. The result was that he was under contract two days later and in training camp when it started. The top dogs in the Twins FO need to pick up the phone and say we're coming to Georgia tomorrow, can we talk. Then sit down, discuss how each side is viewing the situation and make a deal before leaving.

Do you really think that teams are going to go thru everything involved with buying, owning, operating and leasing during fall/winter apartment complexes in four small/smaller towns to solve this problem? Ain't gonna happen. What I expect will happen is that the Twins will talk to their partners in each market and tell them the Twins will pay for it, but they should set up some type of housing arrangements that meet the rules set forth by the league. In Cedar Rapids, for example, they have most players staying with families. At least they did pre-COVID. In other towns they may need to do something else. Although I am aware how much government is getting into private business, I had never heard of anything regarding 30 day or longer stays. Again this is something that would be set by local/state government, but I can assure you it didn't apply when I was operating our hotels, granted that was from 1970 thru about 2010. Can assure you we had many people staying with us for a lot longer than 30 days and no one at our company ever even thought of this concern, if it was one.

A bit surprised they added six. I know others are higher than I on Vallimont, he was a surprise to me Not really any surprises on the released quartet, yet each player cut did provide some value to the Twins. Will they open a spot so they can make a pick at the Rule 5? If so, who goes? It will then be interesting to see who the next three, four or five cuts are to open spots for those free agent pitchers and shortstop. Looking at the 40-man, making another five cuts isn’t clear, at least to me.

One hurdle for buying anything is that team affiliations often change. For that and other reasons, don’t see MLB teams investing in real estate in the small towns so many of these teams are located. Thus, I see an entire smorgasboard of methods of addressing this concern. Curious what you are referring to about longer than 30 day stays. Spent over 45 years owning and operating hotels in many midwest and plains States. Give me a customer who would stay 30 days or more and I was happy, real happy. May even offer him/her a weekly or monthly rate.

One problem with the assumption from the start...not all teams that lose 100 games or more are tanking. Some are just flat out bad teams. There may be reasons for this, such as a team that is in a rebuild and willing to lose a lot by playing lots of young guys with the hope/intent that they will be better/good a year or two down the road. As for fixing it, or even deciding if it needs fixing, is way beyond my pay grade.

Thanks for bringing us this great news, Lucas. Long overdue. Expect there will be no set format for how this is achieved as minor league cities vary greatly. Hopefully, most of the arrangements will include some ability to cook meals, which I didn't see mentioned.

Very interesting, Seth. Thanks for bringing this to us. Wasn't aware that his wife remains an active officer in the AF. Assume they met while at the academy. Was also not aware that he has two brothers who are in the process of becoming AF pilots. We all owe this family much more than a thank you. This award also reminds me of the morning so long ago when I was a kid and Feller came out to our Wisconsin farm to shoot some geese. Got a chance to go out with him, although after probably 65 years the memory is mostly gone. As for baseball, most of us are forgetting that as of now Griffin is one of the five likely starters come opening day. Until such time as the FO does something, the most experienced starters we have are Dobnak, Ober, Jax, Barnes and Ryan, at least until Maeda returns sometime next summer. Should be interesting to see what the FO does to strengthen this staff, but personally believe that several of these kids will be on the mound come the first week of the season, whenever that may be. Will Jax be one of them? We don't know, but I expect he has a lot more to offer after getting his feet wet last summer.

No, hell no. The biggest point I took from this piece is the danger of trading away young, proven stars seeing what the A's got when they traded Donaldson. Sounds like a great reason to 'not trade Buxton.' As for third base...start Miranda at St. Paul on opening day, then bring him up when Donaldson goes on the IR in late April or May. When Donaldson returns, alternate him between third and DH until July when he gets traded. Meanwhile, Miranda starts at third about three-quarters of the time until Donaldson is gone.

The bigger question may be the terms of said insurance. It may not take effect until player X has been injured for X games, say 30. In most cases, Buxton gets hurt for a month or two, comes back, then is out fo another couple weeks or month. If insurance is designed for the big, long- term injury it may not help much with most of his missed time.

What a fantastic interview, Seth. Really enjoy getting the opportunity to know these guys a bit, thanks. Interesting story about his time at Purdue and after. Certainly hasn't been nothing but success for this young man, but he seems to have handled it so very well. Was shocked to learn that there is a real chance he will be back on the mound as early as June. Wonderful the improvements they are making with today's TJ surgery. Best of luck to Tyler.

Just finished watching another great interview, Seth, thanks. Sounds like he has been improving a lot each year, and growing, since leaving high school. Went back to look at this past summer's draft while listening. See that they took tall lefties with the second, third and fifth picks. Wouldn't it be fantastic if one of them turned out to be that guy everyone is looking for? Who knows, maybe it will be Cade. The one thing I did notice and it could have been the camera angle, but his hands looked really big. Having never thrown a pitch in my life I don't have a clue, but would that help with his grip? Thanks again, Seth, love these.

Sounds like this kid could be a good one, Seth. But then he was a third round pick and it would be nice to have him make it, big! One correction to your post, Lincoln is an hour southwest of Omaha on I-80, not I-90. Curious how he enjoyed his summer in Savannah, one of the nicest cities I have ever visited?

One thing we need to keep in mind is that the Twins are likely planning on adding several free agents over the winter. Will need spots for those. The problem this poses, and someone can correct me if this has changed, is that players added to the roster now must be kept on the roster until...is it spring training? That means if they release some of the guys you talk about and take it back up to 40, where are they going to find spots for those free agents? That's the reason I doubt you will see them adding as many as you mention. But loved your overall discussion. The next 24 hours or so should be very interesting. Will be shocked if we don't see at least a couple guys DFA that will be surprises. Guys like Thorpe, Stashak, Smeltzer, Cave, Astudillo will all be surprised to many of us, but will be equally surprised if at least one or two of this group isn't sent packing.

If the Twins trade Buxton they better get a haul back including at least one player ready to step in and play in 2022, not just several Hi-A guys with tons of potential. It will also signal that they are in full rebuild. In that case there is no need to sign any top starting pitchers, rather ink one or two older guys to one year contracts. Finally, if Buxton goes he needs to be accompanied by at least three others...Garver, Donaldson and Sano. Again, they should get a few more guys back who are ready to move up to Target Field.

Thanks, Seth. I have been expecting them to add five, with them being your top five. Perhaps a bigger question is will they select someone this year? With their record, they will be picking during the early stages of the draft and just might have someone sitting there they really like. So that would mean they need to get down to no more than 34, which will require 4 more cuts. Don't know if they would lose Vallimont or some of the others. Unlikely, but one never knows.

Sorry about the six years, Sconnie. Guess I saw it a lot over the past couple days and went with it. Also sorry that you took my post as containing 'vitriol' in regards to the FO. Wasn't my intent. My intent was merely to wonder whether it is time that we start asking the question if these guys are the saviors we thought? To me, that isn't bad mouthing them. Rather thinking it is time to start wondering, what if?

First, we don't know the status of negotiations with Buxton. For all we know, they may be 99% done and waiting on X, Y and Z to sign on the dotted line. But, I am getting concerned with the direction of the Twins. Unfortunately, that is easier to do after not seeing them play last summer because of the bloody tv situation. When Falvey and Lavine were hired we all, well most of us, jumped on the bandwagon and cheered. After all, it was new blood who would use all the new techniques available to take the Twins to the promised land. Here we are what, six years later and there hasn't been a single playoff win prior to this past season which was a disaster. Our top pitcher is gone and we are on the verge of seeing the most exciting player to play for the Twins since Puckett leave as well. The minor league system has been restocked. I am as big a fan of the kids coming up as anyone. Without our knowing, has this front office really been in the middle of a rebuild? But for every Bailey Ober there are several Joe Benson's which has been confirmed by many of those top draft picks several years ago. So we don't know if they got the right players, players who will return the Twins to the playoffs in 2022 or more likely 2023. If they do, that's a fantastic job. But what if they don't? What if these young pups that came in six years ago aren't as sharp as we all thought? Could this front office be presiding over a failure that takes the Twins down? I sure hope not, but it may be time to start asking that question. More important, Jim Pohlad better have this discussion with the family when they all sit down for Thanksgiving next week.