Tlaker

Everybody who has watched Money Ball, should remember the brainstorming of targeting potential players they could afford. Each had their own idea who they should get. But GM Beane shocked them & vetoed them all with his candidates. What all his candidates had in common was that they were cheap & had high OBP, Analytical OBP revolutionized MLB forever. A cheap high OBP player could replace a more expensive high BA player & be more productive. Because it doesn't matter how you get on base as long as you get on base. But analytics have morphed since into HR focused stats. Most team focuses in how to hit more HRs & chase after expensive non-athletic sluggers. HRs are everything & OBP, hitting clutch, bunting, defense, pitching, intangibles, stealing & taking extra the base are irrelevant. Their idea of winning was to sign, draft & develop such players. 
Contrary to many baseball fans philosophies, HRs do not equal wins, Looking at some MLB teams' HR/ game rankings- MIL is #29, CLE is # 27, TB #22, SD #15. MIL, who had the best MLB winning record was 2nd to the last in HR totals & many who didn't have good HR totals still made the postseason. MLB isn't a HR derby or HR favoring stats-based fantasy baseball, thank God. It's how you play the game. OBP, hitting clutch, bunting, defense, pitching, intangibles, stealing & taking extra the base are important! You still need scouts to evaluate the intangibles. But I say it doesn't matter how many HRs you hit, because it's easier to hit a bunch of HRs when it doesn't matter & strike out when it does; it matters more to be able to hit when it does matter, whether it's a HR or not. Which would you want an expensive poor defensive slugger that strikes out a lot when it matters or a cheap defensive contact player who hits when it does matter? Sadly, many prefer the prior. 
NYY do very well in today's HR analytical mindset. If you hit a lot of HRs, you don't need to have good defense, baserunning, fundamentals, instincts, character & intangibles, and it doesn't matter if you strike out a lot.  If they don't matter then you don't need scouts, good drafting, coach development & player evaluators who enforce these qualities, right? You can get by with just analytics. The focus was to sign the best FA slugger that money can buy. In '19, baseball was enamored with the "Bomba Squad" & it went to MN's head. The "big apple" HR mindset was then able to influence the "minnie apple" to adapt the same. IMO, MN has gone downhill since, making wrong decisions. NYY has dominated MN because they have become a cheap copy of them, NYY are a big market, we are not & NYY are not a great team. IMO, MN is starting to wake up & see the need to break away from this model. They need not only break away but also set a different model. I have advocated for years that MN needs to break away & adapt MIL as their new model.
Brewers are a small market that win; therefore, they never get high draft picks, yet they still come up with great players. How is that possible? That is a question that MN relevantly needed & still need to ask & come up with the answers. Here are some of my observations & what I think some the answers are. 1st, Brewers are the anti-thesis of the present analytical mindset. Analytics are important but I think that they're bias & don't tell the whole story, Brewers know that. They don't focus on big slow defense-deficient sluggers that become Scott Boras clients, They have a cheap athletic pure hitter model who they can easily extend. They also value heart, instinct & character & have scouts who scour nationally & internationally to find such players. They have coaches who see the qualities of each player & maximize those qualities while teaching them true fundamentals. Thus, producing many MLBer who can make an impact. those impact players, who they can't extend, they can trade for future impact players who can replace them. Why does MN bring up so many players that can't make a lasting impact? Why are there so many prospects who could be MLBers, aren't given proper opportunities? 
With a superior player evaluation model, they can draft better & they can trade better too. To go along with that, when they can see a need, they proactively trade for that need instead of hoping & waiting for that trade to fall in their laps & so many times, settle for an inferior player. GM can delegate to others, drafting, players evaluation, development, coach selection, etc but IMO the most important role & obligation of a GM is proactively make trades. Managers are also very important; MIL has a very good manager. What are important characteristics for a great manager? Create good culture? good communications? good feel for the game? give & demand respect? have good philosophies? knows how to manage his pitchers, especially the BP? good instincts? good motivator? have an understanding of analytics? maybe, if he has assistants who do that, maybe not. Here are some that come to mind, maybe you have more.
Now shifting away from hitting to pitching. In the slugging mind set, high strikeouts aren't concerning. OK, so does that mean low strikeouts aren't concerning in pitching? No, in pitching, high strikeouts are everything but in hitting, it's not concerning? In this correlating slugging philosophy that defense isn't important, pitchers are forced to depend entirely on velo & their stuff to get outs via strikeouts. Because groundballs go through the INF like a sieve because the INFers can't field. Another reason to abolish this mindset is to have better defense, especially the INF, DPs & fielding grounders that usually become hits & runs help pitchers. Presently groundball (GB) pitchers are extinct, If a GB pitcher has slick fielding INFers backing them, they can flourish. Big SO pitchers are expensive to sign. soft GB pitchers are cheap. especially under this current popular mindset & normally are healthier. Throwing more GB producing pitches, give pitchers more options where they aren't so dependent on their velo & spin & also saves their arms.
Moneyball 2.0 is how to economize to compete outside the big market. To be productive with low-cost players who get on base (high OBP), hitters who drive them in especially in clutch situation; good scout to find them & good coaches to develop them with better defense & fundamentals. With better defensive INF, make cheap GB pitchers work & expand other pitchers' repertoires that save their arms. & GM & managers who buy into this. I want the Twins to be more like the Brewers & more, not the Yankees. What do you think?

I've followed the Twins for as long as I can remember. I am not going to pretend I've seen it all, but that makes the following statement come with deep thought and reflections before saying it aloud:

I have never been more angry at the end of a season and feel as disconnected from the baseball team I love and support as I do at this particular moment.

Just 52 short weeks ago, the Twins did something they had not done in nearly two decades. They won a playoff game.

In fact, they won back-to-back playoff games, which constituted a playoff series victory. Another thing they had not done in two decades. 

After giving a good punch to the Astros in the divisional series, the Twins bowed out of the postseason with three playoff victories and renewed fan excitement. I had not felt this much excitement about the Twins moving forward since the end of 2009 when they were about to move into a new stadium and were going to field a pretty damn good team. 

The Twins took out a full-page ad in the local papers and spammed this letter across their social media channels, doubling down on our excitement for what was supposedly going to come next. 
 


"Imagine what next season could be."

That full sense of excitement never made it to the 2024 regular season. That imagination of what 2024 could be never got even off the ground. 

Right at the beginning of Spring Training, Twins Executive Chair Joe Pohlad had an interview with WCCO Radio, and said the team was not adding any big-time free agents. Pohlad also added that the team's payroll - which had been slashed by $30 million in the offseason - was going to remain where it was presently at. 

Sonny Gray, who was a key cog in the Twins 2023 pitching staff, had already left in free agency. The Twins could have used another front-line starter to compliment Pablo Lopez. They didn't, opting to go with Chris Paddack and a rotating cast of rookies. 

Carlos Santana was the marquee free agent signing, but, with all respect, he was not going to fix what ailed the Twins in the ALDS against Houston: clutch hitting. 

After all that excitement and the fact the Twins just needed a few upgrades, they slashed the payroll and went back to shopping in the bargain bin like the 2000s Twins in the Metrodome. Frustration sank in about the lack of moves during the spring, but hope - as it always does every spring training - sprung eternal and you never know what a regular season will bring. 

Just inside the start of May, as the Twins were surging after a slow start, myself and a large portion of the fanbase lost the simple ability to view the team on television. Diamond Sports Group and Comcast could not agree on a new contract and all Bally Regional Sports Networks - which included the Twins' television home, Bally Sports North - was pulled off the cable giant. 

The Twins had the opportunity to go a different route for their TV options following 2023, but they re-upped their contract with Ballys for one year, knowing full well that this could happen. The Twins opted for the largest deal available to them, the same deal that was their excuse for slashing payroll, and lost a large chunk of fans on TV for the summer.

Sure, you could go find them on something called FUBO TV, but I had already cut cable before and had to go back to it after Diamond Sports group muscled my streaming service out of showing their games. I was not going down that road again. I'm sure I was not the only one in that boat either. 

For three months, I sat in the dark. If the game was big enough, I would find a less-than-ideal way to stream the game, but mostly I resorted to listening via radio or just following along with the beat writers via X if I was not attending the game. That was an incredibly frustrating and unideal way to follow your baseball team in 2024.
 
On August 1, the blackout on television lifted after the companies came to an agreement a few days prior. This also coincided with the trade deadline just passing. The Twins did nothing but add a reliever off the scrap heap who was released a month later. Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey would not commit to saying if payroll had anything to do with the lack of moves. Frustration sank in again as it appeared that ownership had prevented from the Twins baseball people doing anything meaningful to make this club better. 

Frustration also appeared to be prevalent in the Twins clubhouse after the deadline. Not ideal to see players speaking out about frustrations with lack of upgrades. Surely that will not show its head over the final months, right? RIGHT?

The back end of the rotation was lacking, the bullpen needed another quality arm or two, and hitting was problematic at times. But the Twins sat 59-48, six games back of Cleveland in the Central but well in a Wild Card spot in the AL. Mere hope for the best outcome was all we fans had for the final two months.

Hope did not carry long. 

Pitching fell apart, both in the rotation and bullpen, hitting went colder than a trip to the Arctic, and the Twins sank. Along with a late-season surge by Detroit, the Twins had a collapse for the ages. Nothing went right almost nightly, but at least we had them back on TV to watch uninspired baseball. 

The Twins were officially eliminated in the season's final week, but you might as well have called the coroner on the club on that final day of July when the trade deadline passed. 

Frustration for the season gave way to sheer anger. Anger that nothing more meaningful was done to improve the team leading up to the deadline. Nothing more meaningful was done to improve the team going back to the offseason. Anger that all the excitement we had for this baseball team one year ago has been so quickly washed away.

On the season's final day, as the entire state had its eyes gazed east to Wisconsin for an important football game, the Twins brass came out and spoke on the season's failures. 
 

Joe Pohlad spoke, putting his foot in his mouth again, reminding us fans that this is a business and he won't get into business decisions. 

(credit to Gleeman for putting Pohlad's feet to the fire here)


If I wanted to be spoonfed manure, my wife's uncle has a farm I can go visit anytime. I don't need to be given it from the local baseball team.

Pohlad mentions he has to "run this business for our team and our fans". Well, Joe, this season has been anything but "for the fans". So where can you tell me things were done for the fans? And if we fans voiced our displeasure in the ballpark, they were told to leave the ballpark and not return for a year. 

Good look, Joe. 

In a season in which one of our most prominent players in franchise history went into Cooperstown, and personally, I got to take my baby girl to baseball games, I am left feeling nothing but anger and distrust for what I, and the Twins fanbase, had to endure in 2024. I don't say these things lightly, but this is the reality of what has built up over the last year. 

The negatives horribly outweighed anything that was fun and good. That's what I'll remember about the 2024 season. 

And it will now take more than a couple of playoff wins to wash these feelings away. That's for damn sure.