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drjim

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Everything posted by drjim

  1. drjim
    Now that's funny. Criticizing Mauer is 95% of his baseball coverage.
  2. drjim
    Seems Mike Berardino is falling under the same spell. Calls him the best outside the org candidate. No No No.
  3. drjim
    I'm not surprised. I thought it was a sure thing until the recent rumblings that he will stay, but it is the right move. It will be Molitor or an outside candidate, so intriguing names starting to float around.
  4. drjim
    If they don't turn it around next season Ryan will be gone. Beyond that, I don't know if he does a whole lot different. Signs a starter and an OF and rolls with what he has.
  5. drjim
    I would second this. Strikes me as the most likely scenario at the moment. I think Anderson and Ullger are out of the organization and Vavra returns to the minors as a roving instructor.
  6. drjim
    You have a lot of confidence that Pinto, Vargas and Mauer will all be productive next year. And at the same time none of the three will really have that much trade value since Pinto and Vargas have questionable defensive value. What is wrong with depth?
  7. drjim
    St. Peter has been president since 2002. Some would say as soon as he took over the position the team started a decent run.
  8. drjim
    Are you sure he's not competitive? Or that he doesn't have an ego? The role of an owner is to hire good people, set a solid budget and get out of the way. He does the last, the second isn't an issue at the moment, and his actions this offseason will shed some light on the first.
  9. drjim
    I know this is a hypothetical but an interesting fact is that these types of incentives are not allowed, presumedly for the exact reason you bring up. Only incentives allowed are playing time - IP, PA, games finished, games started, etc.
  10. drjim
    They are probably the best combination of solid floor and still something to dream on from that list. The rest are either really raw with upside tools or are low ceiling guys that are there for depth. Of course that is still valuable in this range, other teams (and past Twins farms) would have those guys in the teens. Overall this depth has to be really encouraging. I was thinking there were a handful of guys from the 31-40 list I thought were low (Melotakis and Cederoth) but a perfectly good argument can be made for all the people on this list ahead of them.
  11. drjim
    I would add another perspective. My uncle and cousin are renewing their season tickets (1/2 season) for about the 20th consecutive year. That is a lot of ugly baseball they have sat through and they are still going strong. I don't think they will ever give up their tickets and I suspect that there is some baseline number that the Twins will draw no matter how bad they get. This is probably around 10,000 full season equivalents, perhaps a little more and I think they will get pretty close to that. I do think they have a shot to regain a little bit of their ticket mojo next year. It will matter not what they do in the offseason (though a manager change could help initiate a narrative), but would begin with a decent start out of the gates, young players (especially Sano and Buxton) emerging in the middle, and being relatively competitive through the middle of September. Gorgeous summer days with a representative team that is flirting with competing and exciting young players will bring out fans. And if they are doing this, it won't matter how they market it.
  12. drjim
    And considering the abomination of a Vikings stadium currently being built, we didn't learn the lesson.
  13. drjim
    I agree on everything. The question I originally responded to was where did the additional expenses come relative to the the additional income. I appreciate Part C for providing part of that answer.
  14. drjim
    I didn't say it was a bad deal for them, just money out of their pockets, part of the difference in money spent as revenue goes up. And it has been more than $15-20 mil. And while the value went up that is not tangible money in their pockets right now, while the overage expense is tangible money out of their money that cuts into current year operating income (or it is amortized over some time). I don't really like defending the Pohlads, but spinning things worse than they are is not any better than the spin the Pohlads do themselves.
  15. drjim
    On the bigger points of does owenership realize this and what can they do about it, I think the answers are of course they are and not much. The Pohlads aren't stupid, they have been around business long enough and have enough smart people working for them to realize how bad the situation is. They can read a balance sheet and forecast. The bigger problem is there really is nothing they can do. As stated above the biggest driver of season ticket sales is the previous year. I would guess almost every fan has made up their mind one way or the other. The could sign big time free agents or they could ritually sacrifice Gardy next to the Kirby Puckett statue and it won't move the needle more than a handful of tickets. Two things matter - winning and exciting young players. Without the first they have tried to push the second, but fans are rightly skeptical. They can sign free agents but the fact is that if this new wave doesn't break through with some stars it will be some ugly (or at least mediocre) baseball for a while. It will make fans long for the days when they were getting bounced in the first round.
  16. drjim
    Operations costs did go up significantly. The short answer is that the Twins are solely responsible for running operations at Target Field while Metropolitan Sports Commission (I think that's the name) ran operations at the Metrodome. A couple other things to consider with spending. The Twins actually pumped quite a bit into Target Field in terms of covering overage costs and doing pretty substantial upgrades each of the past two seasons. These have been in the $10-20 million range from what I saw, with overages being much higher. They also have pumped money into the minor league complex in Fort Myers. There was public money but the Twins also spent a lot of their own. They have also spent additional money on complexes in other countries and other upgrades on scouting, etc. It takes some digging but you can find articles on this. This is not to say they aren't making plenty of money, they are, but I also think they are making some good investments that will pay off down the line and will be valuable to be in place when (hopefully) the team is good again and they have their payroll closer to the limit. This extra money is also going to dry up next year with the lost season tickets and the lost sponsors (which is the true catastrophe) and the lost leverage they will have in the next TV deal.
  17. drjim
    I would push back in two ways. First, production for a senior sign in Low A doesn't mean a whole lot to me. College players, even lower round picks, should beat this league up. It's not his fault he was assigned here and it is his first year, but I wouldn't move him up anywhere considering the pedigree of his tools based on his draft position. This brings me to the second point, when I think of rookie leagues and low a, I am much more interested in scouting reports of tools/stuff than I am about raw numbers, which serves to both put the brakes on an older guy ripping up those leagues and getting down on a younger guy who struggles. High A is where I start focusing more on numbers but it isn't until AA until that is the primary indicator in my mind.
  18. drjim
    One issue that you didn't mention that is much bigger is that the key sponsorships for the team (think Delta sky club, Budweiser roof deck) were 5 year deals that expire this year. The Twins are going to get crushed with their revenue streams starting next year. That is a much bigger deal than lack of renewal of season tickets. They won't have quite the payroll space many have been speculating so far. They need to hope that the young (cheap) guys get good in a hurry and turn this thing around.
  19. drjim
    I should add to this that this is not a critique but instead a personal preference. Seth does incredible work with the minor leagues and that is not repeated often enough. I look forward to the rest of the list.
  20. drjim
    I tend to think it makes sense to analyze prospects through tiers and through types. One reason I really relate to John Sickels and how he does prospects. He ranks them, but gives grades, which gives some sense of tier, and also explains well what a letter at each level truly means and lets the individual rank it as they see fit. A grade C in AA is much different than a grade C in low A or rookie ball.
  21. drjim
    Yes, May will still be a rookie. Guys to exhaust rookie eligibility are Santana, Vargas, Pinto, Tonkin. Actually an OK class, should be 4 guys on the roster for the next several years. And a lot more to come.
  22. drjim
    I would think horrendous starting pitching had as much to do with the need for big bullpens. You really need to watch other teams for long stretches for some context.
  23. drjim
    Concur 100%. I can't agree more. It is time.
  24. drjim
    This strikes me more as your opinion than reality.
  25. drjim
    Maybe Vargas could start in AAA to give Parmelee some more run too.
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