Woof Bronzer

Harry Crump ruled the way he did because of the law. The Pohlads were illegally trying to break the Metrodome lease. Comments from Brad Radke had absolutely nothing to do with the ruling, come on man. Billionaires don't care what their employees, their customers, or any other non-billionaire thinks. That's why you become a billionaire, so you can do whatever you want without accountability, so you don't have to listen to anyone.

It's becoming increasingly clear that, as I feared, the Twins are not committing to a full rebuild, but continuing this halfhearted "cut costs but also run it back again with mediocre talent" plan that Derek Falvey has failed at time and again.

This all sounds great. I'd like to introduce you to the Pohlads, They don't care about baseball or competitiveness, The minority partners won't care about baseball and competitiveness. All these folks care about is short term profits. And the good news for them is, MLB's financial structure ensures profits for revenue sharing teams regardless of team success. On top of that franchise valuations go up and up and up. They never ever go down, ever. There is not one example of a professional sports team being sold for less than what it cost. The value of the Twins has increased by more than a billion dollars in the last 30 years, despite the Twins winning one playoff series in that timeline (and often running shoestring payrolls with 40,000 empty seats in the worst stadium in baseball). It's about hoarding wealth, not winning baseball games.

Very interesting. Hard to read this as anything but a shot at Rocco.

You haven't been following MLB very closely then. Due to MLB's economic structure it is extremely profitable for revenue sharing teams slash payroll and lose. See the Rockies, As, Pirates, et al. Between revenue sharing and new ESPN deal the team stumbled into and that's probably already above your $70m, and they will receive even if they lose every single game. The gate from those 1 mil is then pure profit. A team doesn't hire Shelton, a guy who spent the last 5 years strategically losing in order to line a billionaire's pockets, because they are going to juice payrolls and give the Central a run in 2026.

We might see a lot of the young guys by 2028 but to assume they are going to hit the ground running and turn this team into a legit contender right away is wishful thinking to me. Could happen, but I think it's much more likely that there will be growing pains and maybe 2030 is when the club comes into its own. 2028 will be too early to judge the success or lack thereof. But whether its 2028 or 2030 this plan requires the Twins to let the young guys play and probably trade off some of Buxton, Ryan, and Lopez. It requires committing to an actual rebuild, not...whatever it is Falvey is doing now.

I don't think the answer needs to be any more complicated than "it's a poorly run organization with a toxic culture". In failing organizations the good employees who can get better or lateral jobs elsewhere leave, while the mediocre or bad employees stay and gain authority/promotions via attrition. The organizational culture is clearly terrible. People who care about their job don't like working in environments like that.

The Nordstrom Rack Strategy.

If a corporation hired as their new COO the former COO of a less successful competitor who just got fired after five years of failure and doesn't have a previous track record of success, under the sole qualification that the person worked there for 2 years back in the day in a lesser role, I think employees would grade that significantly lower than a B-.

Did Zoll actually say anything? Really curious as to his role in all this. The fundamentals thing is interesting, I've always been fascinated by how the best athletes in the world can dedicate their lives to baseball, work their butt off to make it to the best baseball league in the world and somehow not understand how to run the bases or lay down a bunt. My theory is all these guys were always the best player on their teams growing up so they were never taught these things in the first place. The high school showcase thing makes sense and would seem to support that. Maybe 30 years ago the conventional wisdom was that development happens in the minors,,,but something has clearly changed.

Taylor Swift?

"We need a new stadium in order to attract free agents"

The average April high in Minneapolis is 57. It's 62 in NYC., and rains more often. It's really not that different. On average the Yankees actually have more rainouts per year than the Twins. Yet I've never heard anyone suggest a roof on Yankee Stadium. Thank God TF doesn't have a roof indeed. Every single time I've been to Miller Park the roof has been closed because of morning rain, even though it was sunny and summery by first pitch. Gross. 99% of free agents sign with the club who gives them the most money. It's not complicated. Pay them and they shall come.

How'd the bottom eight payrolls do?

Trying to find some info from Pirates fans/media on Shelton. This article gave me the chills. You could swap out Shelton/Pirates for Rocco/Twins and the entire article would still work. Like, every word. https://t.co/3wIGUvceFU I'm trying to keep an open mind about Shelton...anybody finding anything that would suggest a different approach than what we've seen from Rocco?

I'd love a media member to ask Zoll something like "what was your role in the hiring process" to try to get a sense for what he actually does.

Tom Kelly won 2 World Series. How many has Shelton won? Do you think, when evaluating a manager, that World Series victories are an important consideration? I agree though, even cherry picking Tom Kelly's worst 6 year stretch, where the Twins were less talented than Shelton's Pirates, is not as bad as Shelton's career numbers. Wow - Shelton's record is worse than I even realized! Thanks for sharing. Sure doesn't make him a good one!

Grievance and outrage is fuel for some people. If I made multiple grievance posts over multiple days about a minor feature I personally don't like about a website I pay nothing to view and am not required to visit I'd probably check myself into a hospital.

Fair point. I'll revise that to "no other team with a managerial opening gave him a second of consideration". Hopefully that's better for you. Do you think this changes the fact that Shelton has a .410 winning percentage as a manger, which is one of the worst in MLB history?

29 other MLB teams definitely held his tenure against him. If there is one thing I wish the Twins would do is adopt the motto "Results Matter". Plaster it on every clubhouse wall, tattoo it on every player. Repeat it every day, in every meeting, Shelton, just like Baldelli, was not the biggest issue on the Pirates by far. But the fact remains: Shelton's win percentage is one of the worst in MLB history. He's never had success anywhere, in fact. Does this mean he's a bad manager? I don't know. I am very skeptical he's a great one though. (Quick: name a great MLB manager with a career winning percentage of .400,) It's more likely that the Twins hired Shelton BECAUSE of his tenure with the Pirates. He's demonstrated to be totally ok working for a greedy, incompetent owner, won't complain about poor rosters, won't rock the boat, will just quietly sit back and "manage" a "team" openly tanking in order to line a billionaire's pockets. He's a dream candidate for the Pohlads. And his lack of success in Pittsburgh leaves him with little equity with which to push back on Falvey's misguided strategies, and from his time here, Shelton knows the deal - he knows that Falvey micromanages and must be ok with, for example, Falvey predetermining how long a starter will go that night, or hiring Shelton's coaching staff for him. So a pretty dreamy candidate for Falvey too. Shelton isn't going to have a major impact on the 2026 Twins either way. I've been less interested in the actual manager, and more interested in what the hire says about where Falvey is at. Well, the hire signals that Falvey doesn't think there's anything wrong with his operation, and that a proven track record of success did not seem to factor into the search. Shelton may well be more successful here - many leaders are unsuccessful initially but learn lessons and knock it out of the park on their next job. But let's stop pretending that Shelton's track record is anything but bad. Facts matter.

There are 30 MLB manager jobs on earth. The same organizational/ownership issues here applied to Shelton during his Pittsburgh tenure, and he was more than fine losing 60% of his games year after year. This was the only manager job he was a remotely serious candidate for, and I'm guessing it pays better and has more authority than bench coach. The guy is 55 - he doesn't have the luxury of patience, and is probably not excited to go back into the grind of managing in the minors or a demotion back to coach. I find it so strange to wonder why someone would want one of the most exclusive jobs in sports in which you make extremely good money coaching a childhood game with zero pressure to win. Oh and it's a part time position so you can spend 3 months each winter drinking mai tais on a beach. Millions of people would take that job! Sign me up!

You should read my posts before telling me what I insist. I've stated on many occasions, including this very comment section, that there are 30 MLB manager jobs on earth and many, many people would take it in a heartbeat.

Yeah, Duran would qualify as a best player. And totally agree - it's all signals at this point.

I continue to be of the opinion that until the Twins actually start trading their best players (Lopez, Ryan, Buxton, Jeffers, Ober, etc) and playing young guys it really isn't a rebuild. If you really want to be cynical, by choosing Shelton the Twins are signaling that a lot of losing is likely. The Pirates aren't rebuilding, they are strategically deciding to lose and it has been very profitable for their billionaire owner. Remains to be seen what the Twins do, but my belief is that they plan to run lean payrolls and lose a lot of games over the next few years while pocketing revenue shares until their mismanagement debt comes off the books and they can buy out their investors. This strategy may well be called the Bob Nutting Plan or the Pirates Way and it's not promising that as their field chief the Twins picked a guy who spent the last 5 years implementing it.

Certainly you know that this is an argument zero people are making. What a lot of fans would like to see is a manager who can bring his own experience and ideas to the table, and who won't be afraid to push back if Falvey gives a direction he really doesn't think is wise ("sorry, I don't think we should pinch hit in the 2nd inning to maintain platoon advantage"), or who won't be afraid to tell Falvey "sorry, I know you wanted me to pull Mr Starter after 5 but he's going really good today and it's a game we need to win so I'm leaving him in." The Twins Way is broken; the organization is in desperate need of new and different ideas. Hiring a guy that just brings more of the same is disappointing to many fans. Read Team of Rivals about Lincoln's cabinet to understand the value of differing opinions and ideas in leadership teams.