Woof Bronzer

Exactly right. Why in the world would Falvey choose to do this?

It's concerning for sure...could one explanation be that the buyer WON'T absorb the debt, or not all of it, so the Pohlads have been forced to cut costs to offset some of it? Most buyers buy teams to make money hand over fist, not to win games. This is standard in business: you don't have to care about (or know anything about) widgets to buy a widget company. So I doubt a potential buyer cares a lick about baseball at this point, it's all about the proforma. A buyer, if they care at all about baseball, will start caring about baseball after they've closed on the deal and set up shop.

Given what happened yesterday, if Rocco sticks around another 8 years to equal TK's 14 years, I'm certain this will no longer be the case.

Phase 2: new owners Phase 3: FO house cleaning. Top to bottom. Phase 4: coaching staff house cleaning. Majors, minors, everyone. The entire organization needs to be scrubbed clean to remove the stink of the Pohlads and the Falvey/Rocco era. The next phase is the hardest, and I'm still not convinced the Pohlads are selling....but once Phase 2 happens, 3&4 should follow...

Still wrapping my head around yesterday, but the more I think about it there's no way any of this was Falvey's idea. Why would he do any of this? I guess he could be showing a future owner how cheap he can be...otherwise he just punted on 2025 and 2026 too. Burning it down on his way out the door? I assume he wants another FO job if he's done here, no owner would hire him after a stunt like that. (Also the Pohlads could have just stepped in and stopped him if he was really going rogue.) I suspect the Pohlads gave him some really grim targets, and he did the best he could within those. If you squint hard enough you notice he didn't give up his top 3 starters, nor his best player (Buxton) - hard to call it a strategic teardown if you hold on to probably your 4 most valuable assets. He gave up most of the bullpen - well, nobody on the planet believes he can build a bullpen out of a scrap heap than Derek Falvey. But there's no plan on the baseball side. The plan is: cut costs. That's it, that's the plan. Falvey just did the best he could (in his mind) with the hand he was dealt. What worries me is the Outman thing and especially the Varland trade - there's no cost savings to be gleaned here. I'm a bit worried that the Pohlads realize they can't sell the team for what they want, so some of yesterday was an intentional F You to the fans, similar to how the Pohlads threw a hissy fit when they didn't get their government handout for a stadium and tried to contract the Twins out of existence. "Oh you like this hometown kid? Maybe you shouldn't have complained about payroll. Screw you, fans." Hell hath no fury like a billionaire who doesn't get everything he wants. I am nervous that yesterday signals that they maybe aren't selling, or aren't selling any time soon. The simplest explanation, of course, is that the Pohlads are cutting costs ahead of a sale. This is common in business, and the Pohlads have zero interest in the baseball side of things. I sure hope this is the case...but again, this doesn't explain why they traded Varland or Stewart.

Oh believe me, I don't want to be the Rays either, I'm just saying I think it's really hard for a serious mid market team to be competitive getting replacement-level production from 1/4 of your payroll. And yes, the Twins are not a serious mid market team, and why they wouldn't pry a better prospect or 2 out of the Astros is one of the many baffling things of this deadline. And of course the Pohlads won't spend it. Maybe I should have said "in theory" it was a good move.

Unpopular opinion but the Correa trade, even if made solely for money purposes, was a smart baseball move. Getting someone to take 2/3 of that anchor is good business for a 0 WAR player with a long injury history on the wrong side of 30. And if the Twins had a young SS in the wings who could provide similar production for 1/25th the salary, it would be a brilliant move - the kind that can help a mid-market team seriously competitive. People want the Twins to be like the Rays - well the Rays would do something like this. Actually didn't Houston do this exact thing with Correa/Pena?

Gleeman tweeted that during Correa's tenure the Twins had a winning record when he was out and a losing record when he played. Not saying it's all him, and I think his performance was overall a net positive when he was here, but he wasn't really a game changer.

This is the best entertainment I've had as a Twins fan since October 2023! At this point Falvey may as well get really crazy and throw out like a Lopez or Lewis trade.

Money

You joke but I'm pretty sure Rocco dressed and played four catchers in a playoff game vs Houston.

I said this elsewhere but I feel like if you think the Twins can contend next year then you hate the sell off. And I'd agree - super young prospects are years away from helping this team. The 16 year old could be a decade away! The moves undoubtedly make the 26 team worse. I just don't see any hope of contending with this ownership, FO, manager, and core so I'm all for the fire sale approach. It's a fools errand trying to suss out value for these prospects, we just won't know for years if the trades are good or not so no point evaluating now. I remember how over the moon people were when we got Martin since he was so highly touted (and pretty far along in his development - he wasn't a 16 year old that's for sure) and he's been a total bust.

I doubt the Pohlads would chip in 50 cents, much less 50 mil. As much as I'd like the Twins to get out from the $30mil we are paying Correa to be a replacement level player, taking this deal makes zero sense.

Twins have the highest payroll in the division. Higher too than the Brewers, who have the best record in ball. Ownership sucks but the problems go deeper.

It also seems like a strategy to lose more games! Just fyi, we probably don't agree on a lot of Twins things but I really like your calm, rational style. I could learn a thing or two from you!

I mean if this really is a team directive then this is a massive scandal. You cannot be taken seriously as a baseball organization if you determine that you can't keep guys healthy enough so instead they have to start giving less effort. Where does it end? You can jog to first if you THINK it's going to be an out? What if the fielder drops the ball - should you start sprinting? Won't that risk injury? Can you jog on defense - I mean, if sprinting to first is going to get you hurt won't sprinting after a foul ball get you hurt too? What about running the bases? Should players dive for balls and slide into bases? All I know is what I can see, and what I can see is a checked out team who gets out-hustled and out-fundamentaled on a daily basis, and the results speak for themselves.

Exactly. Why hasn't he written about it?

It was fun to dream...

Eh, a couple of guys bs-ing on a podcast isn't really a source...but man, if this is what a locked-in captain who is committed to the franchise, leads by example, and will do anything to win looks like...give me someone, anyone else. And if this front office is truly telling its players not to try so hard...tear it all down.

I feel like how you view the 2026 Twins is coloring how fans feel about the Paddack/Duran moves. If you think the Twins can compete in 26 then you probably hate the deals. Personally I don't see them contending in 26 at all, and believe the only way out is a total teardown - first owners, then the entire FO, then the entire coaching staff. A lot of players too. So I've been actually ok with the moves so far. Getting anything more than a deck of cards for Paddack was a miracle, and a couple sites REALLY like the kid catcher we got from the Phillies,,,

Source?

Clubhouse was the wrong word...I just meant when your leader/captain has clearly checked out that's going to trickle down to the rest of the team. Half the team follows his example of trotting out grounders...

It's called slop because that's what it is -- a bunch of unvetted data slopped together from a variety of random, unvetted sources that may or, more likely not, be accurate, because AI is incapable of understanding the concept of "truth". You cannot, and will never be able to, teach a computer the concept of truth. AI just gives you the most common data it finds. (This is why Elon's bot often lapses into white supremacy or antisemitism; it's trained on X. This doesn't make the conspiracy theories it slops out true though.) Good journalism requires lived experience, close study, practice, human empathy, intellectual curiosity...AI offers none of that. Just slop.

lol I stand by my disdain of AI slop replacing actual journalism. Sorry you keep losing at chess.

If preferring actual human journalism to AI slop makes me a grumpy old man then get off my lawn.