jmlease1

I'm fine with this. Look, you never know until they come in whether a new owner will be good or not, but we do know how the Pohlad family has run things over the past 40 years and we've been given a very clear sign of how they intend things to run in the future. They expect this team to not lose money on a year over year basis, regardless of the situation. They're perfectly comfortable pocketing profits (and they made plenty of profits during the lowest payroll years) and aren't interested in taking losses, no matter what the appreciation in value of the franchise is. Other owners balance the appreciation of the franchise against the annual balance sheet; the Pohlads don't seem interested in that which will be a constant limiter on their investment in the team, which has created staggering wealth for them. Let them cash out. and go away. Almost all billionaires suck in some way, but let's at least find one who might GAF about winning. I suspect MLB isn't going to approve the sale to anyone who doesn't have the cash flow to handle the year over year, and there are enough gazillionaires out there that want the status of owning a professional team. Win a title and you get treated like a hero. they can own the team for 20 years, win some titles and cash out. The unknown might be scary, but the current ownership is doing a bad job of running the team's business and is more interested in their own profits than winning. Time to move along.

Seems fair on the rankings. I really hope this development for Sands is a real evolution and not just a small sample size/reliever variability thing. There are definitely reasons to believe that this is different: the change in pitch mix plus increased velocity hopefully makes him more projectable, but he also had a massive drop in the free passes, which is great...but sometimes not as repeatable. That said, even with regression there he can still be a quality reliever and bullpen mainstay. SWR probably deserves more than an honorable mention, but that's the way it goes sometimes. He did a good job battling his way through, and definitely lands higher on the list if he has a better September. I suspect the twins would have liked to have found a way to get him a break, but really didn't have a lot of options with Paddack not able to get back, Ryan out for the season, and the team needing to go to Festa and Matthews down the stretch. but SWR threw more innings in 2024 than he ever has in a season in his professional career by a lot and 90% of them in MLB, which is impressive. It's not surprising that he wore down in Sept. but now he knows what it's like, and hopefully understands what he needs to do to sustain things next season. He's still younger than Festa or Matthews, so this year was unquestionably a success for him. Hard not to pick Jax for the top: he was simply dominant. He's really turned into a weapon.

so that he becomes less valuable? His excellent offense at SS is part of why he's actually worth the contract he's signed to. And the issue with plantar fasciitis isn't going to be fixed by playing 1B. There's a ton of factors that make trading Correa away a viable option. The no-trade clause, the contract, the injury history, are all real barriers. They significantly limit the number of teams that could deal for him (he's not waiving a no-trade without being able to control where he goes. he's just not.) which also restricts the value the twins could get in return. Dealing Correa to take on another team's big contract that they don't want isn't exactly a great way forward for the Twins, either. And while Brooks Lee might be able to step in at SS, that position has been a problem for the Twins to lock down on a permanent basis for a long time until Correa got here. (go back and look: how many times did we have the same starting SS for more than 3 seasons in a row since Greg Gagne?) The final kicker is this: I simply don't trust this ownership to invest the savings from moving off Correa's contract back into the roster. isn't the most likely scenario that if the Twins somehow did move Correa they'd take back $10M+ in contracts, spend $10M on 2 bargain bin FAs, and then ownership pockets the the remainder because of the decline in TV revenue? Whatever goodwill they generated from the initial Correa signing and increased payroll they threw away with this year's cuts and utter screwing of Twins viewership. I am back to being exceptionally skeptical of ownership in all things again. A position they have EARNED through action and inaction. no to trading Correa. He's still an elite player and brings something to the table no other player in this franchise has.

The biggest need the Twins 2025 roster has is good health. But since that's caught up in a bunch of players already on the roster, I'm not sure how we impact that directly.

Must be a reasonable trade, people are coming out saying it's a bad deal for both sides.

You still have to do some projections, and there have been no indicators that Ryan won't be ready for spring training that we've seen. And Paddack was close to returning in a relief role; he just wasn't going to be able to get stretched out in time to start. Since they don't have any games to pitch in right now, you don't need to base the projected rotation on who is 100% right now. I don't think the Twins are opposed at all to a LH starter. They've got one developing in AAA in Nowlin and another in AA in Macleod. They're not as high on the rotation prospect lists because other guys are pitching better, not because the Twins are against LH starters.

Paddack is a tough one. The contract is more than reasonable, but we're no longer living with a reasonable payroll. I'd love to see Paddack shift to a bullpen role as a bridge reliever, expected to go 2 innings every 3-4 days; I think he could be successful in that role and it would support the team well any time a starter came out before the 6th (and occasionally other times as well). There's a real need on this team for a long reliever, not as a mop-up guy who eats innings a couple times a month when the game implodes, but someone they expect to be able to pitch to any part of a lineup and be effective 1 time through or so. That 5 inning start from any of the rotation guys works a lot better if you have a Paddack coming in for 2+ right after to get you to the Duran/Jax/Alcala/Stewart group, and makes it easier to run with SWR & Festa in the rotation. I expect that Paddack is in the rotation, though. I think they'll want to run with him over Festa and will try to claw their value back through starts. Unless he gets traded in a salary dump (more than possible with our parsimonious ownership), although I have to wonder if that's going to be harder to do with other teams facing a haircut on their local tv rights?

Kirilloff is the toughest one, because he's getting more expensive, hasn't produced, and is constantly injured. The cost seems marginal, but factored against production it's not that small of a number. Castro is very interesting, but I feel confident that he gets tendered. I do think there's a real chance that he gets dealt; he's a player with actual trade value and I'm sure Twins management would like to drop his salary slot considering the self-imposed payroll limitations the dumb ownership has placed on the club. Unless you're convinced that Topa won't be healthy again next season, then he's easily worth bringing back. I'm baffled that anyone thinks that Duran is even a question. He's still a great reliever with elite capability to shorten games and the price isn't outrageous at all. He will get offered arbitration. Period.

Tough one with Kirilloff. He's shown occasional flashes in MLB, followed by longer periods of ineffectiveness that's always been marked by injury. He's got one of the sweetest swings I've seen in a Twins uniform when he's right, a player who can hit with power to all fields, slashing laser beam line-drives all over the place. He's got good contact skills to go along with it...when he's right. But he's so rarely been healthy. It does seem like they finally figured out the wrist issues that nearly ended his career, but the back injury just adds one more demerit to his ledger. If the Twins move on from him, we have to accept that there's no trade value here. He's been far too injured too many times, and has never produced consistently enough in MLB to have any trade value, especially now that he's due arbitration raises. Team control isn't enough of an inducement and the elite promise shown by the way he dominated in the minors is a looooong way away now. I lean towards moving on, and I'm super bummed about it. I've been a huge Kirilloff stan and I love his bat. But I just don't think we have room on the 40-man for unproven players who can't stay healthy, especially when they're starting to cost more. The option is nice and all, but what difference does it make if he can't play? Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like too many injuries with no end in sight. :(

Always complicated when you have a mediocre to bad ownership of a team. The "Cheap Pohlads" moniker probably got overused for a while, because we had a stretch recently where they were spending a realistic amount on the team, had landed a marquee free agent, etc. It's come roaring back this season...and it's hard to say that it's not deserved. Because while clearly there's a reckoning coming in baseball for teams reliant on local broadcast revenues...the Twins appear to have gotten ahead of the curve on this and rather than accept losses to contend, they started the "right-sizing" that a lot of teams of their ilk are going to be (probably) going through immediately. And very possibly before they actually had to. They're almost certainly going to cry poverty in this off-season and claim losses from this season (without actually showing anyone their books, notably), but a) they don't have any credibility on this topic with the fanbase at all, and b) any losses from this season are at least in part self-inflicted. The Pohlad family is immensely wealthy, and they have a variety of business interests far beyond the Twins that generate wealth for them. This isn't a family ownership group whose only real source of wealth is the team. They certainly could operate the Twins at an operating loss for several seasons while the team has a roster capable of contending. Especially considering they had many, many years with payroll levels that almost had to have been generating profits on the club (no matter how they might have cooked the books) and the family. They seem to be choosing not to, and that's out of step with the expectation for pro sports teams, especially ones that have received public subsidies with the Twins have been granted. And that's where this makes fans (rightly) crazy. $20M is an epic amount of money to me, life-changing in ways I can't even comprehend. To the Pohlad family, it's more like a rounding error. For the Twins payroll, $20M could have made a significant difference in the roster, ensuring they had a higher floor or ceiling. Maybe they get off to a better start or a less awful close and make the playoffs. There's no guarantee, but the odds increase a lot. And if Falvey had that $20M to work with and they had a botch like this, I think it would be a lot easier to say "ya done effed up" to Falvey and told him to move on with Levine, because then clearly the issue would be beyond injuries and also about poor investments in free agents and/or trades. But with so few resources to work with...what did we expect? I didn't expect much from relievers like Staumont, Jackson, or Okert. My hope for this team was based more on improvement from younger players. I don't disagree that the biggest share of blame goes on ownership for murdering this season. They cut everyone off at the knees for money. My hierarchy of failure: Ownership Players Front office manager & coaches Bad year for ownership. Do they care enough about the fans and opinion to change it?

It'll be interesting to see if he's got something new lined up already; if he doesn't it would suggest that he was ushered out rather than jumping ship. Have to wonder if the process with the BoSox changed his thinking about being in MN and his tenure. I hope they have a robust search process and at least are considering external candidates. i do believe in promotion from within and it can be very healthy...but at the same time you have to keep open to new ideas and sometimes you need an external figure to disrupt groupthink.

My initial thought is that Festa's raw stuff is better but his control is shakier. Matthews is better at throwing strikes, but less able to get people to chase. I'm not sure which one I like better at this point; they both have things to work on, but they also are showing real potential. If you forced me to pick, I might go Festa; just feels like his arsenal might hold up better over all. Hopefully the Twins are able to put together a good off-season plan for both of them, because we need them to be successful.

I think the impact of the manager on W-L is frequently overrated, sometimes massively overrated by fans, so I'm not that spun up about whether Rocco comes back or not. Overall, I think he's been average to good as a manager and seems to have done well at managing the clubhouse and personalities. Tactically, I think he's been generally fine; there are some things to quibble with: bullpen management (i.e, I thought they handled Alcala poorly this season), pinch hitting (not just Margot, but the practice of pulling the LH hitter early enough in the game that the pinch hitter was going to get another AB against the platoon side later in the game. Over-relied on the "try to jump on the big inning early" move), and failure to engage more in the running game despite having more players this season with the skills to utilize it. but Rocco hasn't been bad, even with the collapse. he ran out of levers to pull with injuries and ineffectiveness; at the end of the day players have to play. It's not like he was a clown like Grifol in Chicago who never had a plan and very quickly lost the team. If they'd moved on from him, I wouldn't have been too upset; Rocco's got plenty of money and will do just fine. He's very likely to get another MLB job if he wants it. And if the team underperforms next season, he'll be gone. If they bounce back and win the division, then he's going to contend for manager of the year. The manager is a good target for fans and occasionally players, but we frequently overrate their impact when they're not obviously in over their heads (i.e., Grifol) or some of the few truly superior managers (i.e., Francona). 3/4 are in a mushy middle class where any of them can win Manager of the Year if their players kick butt and any of them can get fired if injuries and underperformance strike.

Sports franchises are different though: there's far more profit to be had from the appreciation of the asset than from the operating of the business, which makes it different than almost any other business. It's why the Boston Celtics are going up for sale this year: it doesn't matter if they've lost $200M operating the franchise (they probably haven't), they're about to make $3B on the sale.

It's the revenue sharing that has kept the NFL so healthy more than anything else. Even the non-guaranteed contracts weren't really a difference-maker (there's more guaranteed money than ever and it's totally fine). but local revenue in the NFL was also limited to game-day revenue and merchandizing, and the MLB and the NBA have much bigger local pools working. The NBA has been able to manage their way through it a bit with stronger salary cap rules and huge revenue growth nationally on TV contracts...MLB has almost none of that.

I'm probably a little more generous to Rocco, Falvey, and Maki? Rocco couldn't pull the right levers this season, but once again ran out of options late in the year between injuries and ineffectiveness. Dude can't swing the bat, catch the ball, or throw it for any of the players. (I also think that most fans overrate the impact the manager has in wins and losses via strategy decisions, though) But there did seem to be some factures in the clubhouse at the end, and he very stubbornly stuck with some strategies that simply weren't panning out this season, especially around pinch-hitting. C- to me, but how much difference does half a grade really make? Falvey and front office made some bad bets this year, but were hamstrung from Day 1 by ownership. The Santana signing worked out well in the end. The farm system development is going well, with real options emerging form the minors for starting pitchers. fewer apparent busts down there too. But Margot was a flop, and they really put too many eggs in the basket of injured pitchers. Getting next to nothing out of both Stewart and Topa was a worst-case scenario, but was also more problematic when you go dumpster diving with guys like Staumont, Jackson, and Okert. Who's responsible for no reinforcements before the deadline, the FO or ownership? I think that's ownership and payroll, personally. C, mostly because I blame ownership for hanging the front office out to dry. Maki did ok to me; SWR pitched valiantly and made adjustments through the year, the bullpen started the season wonderfully, and I'm not going to overreact to the collapse at the end. The FIP argument matters to me; Maki didn't control the defense (which was poor), and you have to give him some credit for Sands turning into a reliable guy and Jax becoming elite. demerit for being part of the poor handling of Alcala (who still finished with a better ERA+ than Sands or Duran). And he probably did have some say in picking the garbage fire retreads. C+ If there was a grade lower than F for the Pohlads and St. Peter, I'd give it. they are the truest of all poop tiers for this season. An absolutely shameful performance, especially in totally mucking up the tv and streaming deals. the payroll cut was rotten, but when put in the context of also making a cash grab on the broadcast rights that a) should have at least eased some of the payroll limitations and clearly did not, and b) being party to making it harder for fans to watch the games after promising better access they deserve all the shaming in the public square one can muster. St. Peter is a nice guy, but he utterly failed and needs to retire or be retired. Sadly, the Pohlads are too rich for shame.

There's going to be a real danger of actually having a problematic tier system within MLB related to revenues where teams like the Yankees, Dodgers and a small handful of others (maybe Mets and Cubs?) are operating with revenues that are far and away beyond what any other club is generating locally that gives them the ability to not have to change their models significantly when everyone else is cutting back substantially. You'll have a large chunk (15-20) teams that function somewhat in the same ecosphere for payroll, and then a handful of teams that are flipping out non-competitive payrolls. but what's problematic is those structures, especially at the top can ossify. Look at what's happening in the Premier League, where clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Arsenal live in an entirely different world of revenue generation, in part because they've been so consistently in the top 6 of the Premier league for so long, elevating their status locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally and drastically increasing their ability to generate sponsorship and merchandising revenue, not to mention match-day revenue. The attempts at financial fair play rules imposed to stop another Citeh coming in and buying their way up the top and staying there until their revenues catch up have also made it safer than ever for those "big clubs" to stay at the top, no longer fear relegation, etc. How do you manage baseball if the Yankees and Dodgers are always so much more successful than everyone else? or is MLB fine with that? Do they think that expanded playoffs with short series at the start provides enough upset potential that it doesn't matter if a big market big money team wins 110 games?

Well, this is why they're dumping the entire hitting staff: the utter collapse of the offense for the last 4-6 weeks of the season. But as with most things the answer regarding Popkins success/failure as a coach is probably a little more mixed. Julien regressed badly this season, but was excellent last season. You seem to be suggesting it was bad coaching this year, so what about 2023? We don't really know about Lee, really: this is his first time up in MLB, he only played in 50 games, and didn't break 175 ABs. Lewis joined the slump parade in the second half...until then everything was hunky + dory. So it's only bad coaching when the player stinks? Miranda had a dreadful end to the season...but it sure seems like he was hurt and trying to gut through it. Bad coaching or injury? Jeffers wore down at the of the season...bad coaching or injury? vazquez had a rotten year at the plate (again), but showed real signs of life in July/Aug...was that good coaching to get him out of the slump or him ignoring bad coaching from the start of the year? And blaming Popkins for AK's inability to stay healthy seems silly: Kirilloff didn't regress, he got hurt again and again and again. If they think they need a new direction, then you have to totally clean house in the department, I think. Hard to set a new course if someone like Rudy Hernandez is still there and has been for a decade or longer. (not to single Rudy out for blame; there's plenty to go around) I'd say Tommy Watkins needs to be reassigned since he was frequently a mess as 3B coach, but that's just me. we'll see if this matters. Lots of player have their own hitting coaches nowadays and I'm betting that's who they listen to first.

The starting pitching depth in the high minors is in a good place right now. But we'll need at least one or two of these guys to really step forward and show out. the good thing is, there are enough guys there with upside that the odds are actually in our favor on that one for once. I suspect Paddack will still get a shot at the rotation next season, for better or worse. So that will give us Festa, Matthews, Morris, Adams, Lewis, Raya, Nowlin, and Culpepper as the most likely next group between AAA and AA. Good grief, I just ran off 8 names and Pierson Ohl wasn't even one of them. Macleod and Prielipp are barely on the radar yet. Let the best pitchers rise.

Too harsh on Alcala, I think; his actual results weren't pretty close to where Sands landed. Sands was more consistent, and that seems to be a theme in these evaluations where players get extra credit for consistency and the boom or bust guys are getting punished. Healthy for the first time in 3 seasons, Alcala put up an ERA+ of 129, and had a positive WPA, despite some notable implosions (which tells you that when he was good he was very very good). I would say that counts as a success, especially when you look at how the Twins managed him. (of all the relievers, they seemed to have the worst/no plan for him the most) Matthews is hard to evaluate in this company. Overall in terms of his development it was a very successful season, rising from A-ball to pitch in MLB, and he showed he could compete. But he also has things to work on and wasn't good in MLB yet. A lot of his numbers ended up disturbingly close to Varland...who got an F (and deserved it). In terms of his MLB experience, he was a D. But looking at the totality of his development and rise from the minors, he does much better and expectations were certainly lower for him than someone like Varland, who has already had bites at the MLB apple. he's getting graded on a different curve, which is both correct and unfair. :P Twins have got to come up with a better solution for a LHP in the bullpen next season: Thielbar looks cooked, Okert can't survive in today environment being so helpless against righties, Funderburk hasn't been healthy enough or effective enough to be the top lefty...Headrick making a full-time transition? (I don't even want to talk about Cole Irvin) I feel somewhat positive about the pitching staff going into next season: Ryan will be back, Ober is proven now, Lopez has shown he can lead a staff before so I expect him to have a better and more consistent season. SWR threw more innings than he's ever done as a pro and did it at the MLB level...and competed. Between Paddack/Festa/Matthews/Lewis/Morris/Nowlin/Raya we have options for the 5th starter with reinforcements to handle injuries/ineffectiveness drawing from serious prospects rather than washed up retreads or rookies with little hope. the bullpen has a solid base to build on with Duran, Jax, Sands, and Alcala but will need some reinforcement. I have hope for Varland, but he's not there yet and you simply can't count on Topa & Stewart with their injury histories. This season was worst-case for both, but you can't presume best case either. I'd love for the Twins to get a high-end starter and raise the ceiling, but I don't expect investment from the latest edition of Cheap-Ass Pohlads.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to look at OPS+, adding the league context helps keep things in perspective.

It's just recentcy bias, really. Miranda was absolutely awful down the stretch and was helpless at the plate when we needed him the most. It's easy for the recent crap-fest to get stuck in the memory. I think the grade is too harsh considering his earlier work and would probably match him with Larnach.

I agree. I think they expected Margot to be a more able option in CF going into the year and failed to course correct when it became clear he was much more of a "break glass in case of emergency" there. Of course, I'm sure they didn't expect him to have a career-worst hitting season at 29 and essentially become helpless against RHP, instead of just not very good. But with Buxton's injury history they simply don't have room on the roster to carry specialists like this, and Margot certainly wasn't good enough at his "one job" to make him worth keeping. They've got some real work to do on the hitting side considering how poorly the season ended for Jeffers, Julien, Miranda, Castro, Lewis, and Lee at the plate. I'm curious to see what the analysis is on why all them struggled so much in September. Hopefully it's fixable.

the biggest issue the Twins had in 2022 & 2024 were injuries. 2023 was a successful year unless you're a "world series or you're fired" kind of person: won the division, won a playoff series. I think the FO is showing they can develop starting pitching (which for me goes beyond just drafting a guy and having him make it to the majors). They ID'd Joe Ryan & Pablo Lopez as trade targets and long-term solutions to the rotation. The acquired and developed SWR (who had a solid season and was desperately needed), drafted and developed Ober (clearly he'd been on the team's radar before falvey & levine arrived, but they still pulled the trigger and the development work was excellent), and now we have Festa, Matthews, Raya, Morris, Nowlin, Lewis, etc in the upper minors to sort through. Some of those guys are going to flame out and/or get dealt...but someone like Festa has a lot of better chance to succeed than a Meija or Romero. they're not perfect by any means and they need to recalculate how much injury risk they can take on again, IMHO. And there should be a reevaluation of their pinch hitting strategies, I think: they're jumping on the platoon advantage aspect to get away from a LH v LH matchup too early in the game leaving the bench thinner at the end and a lesser hitter getting more late game ABs. While I can support the strategy of deploying a pinch hitter earlier to increase the impact by striking earlier in the game, they seem to be overusing it. they probably need to look at what they're doing defensively as well to ensure we're stronger there, and they appear to be a little behind on utilizing the running game to their best advantage. but at the end of the day, players have to play and I'm not going to bash Rocco or even the FO too much for Miranda, Castro, Lewis, Jeffers, Julien, and Lee not being able to hit water if they fell out of a boat for the entire month of September...

Complicated question on injuries. yes, they're out of the player's control and certainly none of them wanted to get hurt...but in terms of actually evaluating what they did there's a fair argument that you have to consider them because of what they did to their performance or how much of an absence they created. That said, I would say too harsh on Miranda, who finished with basically the same OPS+ as Larnach. Larnach's consistency (good for him for finding that) shouldn't so completely outweigh Miranda's earlier production. feels like recentcy bias with how bad Miranda was down the stretch (when he was trying to play through injury?), and for all the issues with Miranda's defense, he finished with a better bWAR than Larnach who contributed little defensively as well. I probably would have graded Jeffers out higher as well; he may not have hit like 2023 for the full season (too many slumps) but last season was an A+, this was more like a B or B-. Another guy who really struggled in Sept. If Castro rates a B with his power outage and equally horrific September, I'd tick Jeffers up as well. (Probably meet in the middle: B- for the both of them, lol) The utter collapse of the offense in September was tough; by the time Buxton & Correa came back (and they hit through the end), Lewis, Miranda, Jeffers, Julien, and Castro had all fallen off the map.