Woof Bronzer

Eh, not sure about that. In my experience the Loons, Lynx, and Frost are all more affordable family nights out.

But isn't being afraid of playing prospects, and instead filling out the roster with 34 year old DHs 6 years past their prime on 1 year deals, also a good way ensure mediocrity? I'm thinking about teams like, I dunno, the 2024-2026 Minnesota Twins. Not all prospects are going to work out and even for those who do, it's not always going to be pretty. That's why 26 and 27 should have been bottom-out development years, with a goal of seriously competing in 28 and 29.

This is the same reason I do not understand resigning Jeffers (if they could, which seems doubtful). Great, you've signed a long term deal for a guy who plays almost exactly as much as Buxton, who's maybe a top 10 catcher at best, defensively mediocre, about to hit 30 in the most physically demanding position in the game...congrats, you've effectively blocked our best catching prospect since Mauer (and a couple other promising catching prospects as well). And for the privilege of blocking Lackey you'll pay a premium of tens of millions of dollars per year. For a middle revenue team this is an absolutely terrible idea. The Twins have to stop prioritizing expensive vets over cheaper, higher-ceiling talent.

Lots of folks here seem to think increasing payroll only means signing big dollar FAs. It doesn't. The Twins are never going to outbid the Dodgers, Yankees, etc for big dollar FAs, and the reality is, for big dollar FAs you are paying a high premium for past performance, and so a lot of those deals turn out to be terrible value. But the Dodgers, Yankees can afford a few sunk cost contracts. The Dodgers are paying Tucker $60m/yr for 4 years and in year 1 he's produced a whopping 1.1 WAR. That sort of value would essentially wreck the Twins for the length of that contract. (Don't even start on long term deals for starting pitchers in their 30s - yes the Pohlads are cheap as hell but one thing to give them credit for is just not doing these deals, because they rarely pay off.) Leaving the big ticket FAs to the top revenue teams actually improves competitive balance. Take the Mets, they are paying 4 players more than $25m/year - Soto, Bichette, Lindor, Simien, for a total of $164m/yr. This year they got a grand total of 6.2 WAR from those players. So the Mets paid about $26m per 1 WAR. That's crazy expensive! (They also have $63m in dead money). The Twins, on the other hand, spent $20m on their top 4 position players and got 4.1 WAR, so around $5m/WAR. Sure, the Mets have a payroll 3x the Twins on paper...but if you factor out the WAR premium and the dead money, that $344m payroll effectively becomes a $150m payroll. With investment, effective leadership, and a competent FO, the Twins should absolutely be able to compete with that. Where the Twins do need to spend money is locking up young talent to team friendly extensions before they hit FA. There's still the risk that not all of them will pan out, so they really need to improve their drafting and development to get to a point where there's a clear plan in place, the right people to execute it, the commitment to believe in your people and processes and follow it through, and the willingness to play younger, less polished, cheaper/better value players.

Ah yes, the old Dave St Peter principle: if your product sucks, blame the customer. "If you want a better product you must buy a bunch of bad products first so we can afford to make better ones."

Payroll should absolutely be a topic in 2027, but there are different ways of spending payroll than on big ticket FAs. The Twins need to start acting more like successful middle revenue teams like the Brewers, Rays, Guards, etc and sign their future stars to extensions early. Sure the FA class may be terrible, but if so it's a great opportunity to sign Jenkins and/or Culpepper, ERod, Priellip, Houston, Lackey to long term deals. It's going to take some payroll to do that though.

There's a lot of logic to your post, even if I'd probably take a different approach. But I do disagree with this last bit to a degree. There is a correlation between payroll and winning, that's just factual. Since the Twins' last WS only 1 team in the bottom 1/3 of payroll won a world series. While spending does not guarantee you a WS, not spending enough pretty much guarantees you won't win one. The Brewers do the exact thing you describe. They started 2 position player rookies and got 70 starts out of 2 other rookies and rounded out their roster with complimentary pieces. So, they were more willing to play young (and cheap) guys than the Twins. Yet their payroll was about $40m higher than the Twins. Smart roster management and development matter, of course. For teams like the Twins, Rays, Guards, Brewers, that should entail not trying to outbid the Dodgers for FA talent, but rather locking up their own internally developed players early before they hit FA. And that is going to take money. For example, if Jenkins continues his trajectory they should sign him to a long term deal as early as next year (normal lockout caveat applies). The fact is in order to win in MLB there's a bare minimum you're going to need to spend. And to me league average is an extremely fair bar to set for the Twins.

The Twins should consistently be around league average payroll. So for 27, if they really want to be serious, they should get back to average. Somewhere in the range of $180m. They won't, and due to the lockout uncertainty, maybe shouldn't. But it would be hard to argue that a middle-of-MLB market shouldn't be spending at least league average payroll.

I'm all for a fresh set of eyes, but their strategy seems to be eliminate the eyes altogether.

The Pohlads already decimated the scouting staff and kept the savings, so this is in keeping with everything they do - never underestimate a Pohlad's willingness to scrounge couch cushions for sweet, sweet cash. Nothing says "we're investing in the team and building consistent competitive teams" like "we fired all the scouts and pocketed the savings". It's funny, part of the criticism of the Falvey/Zoll/Rocco/Shelton era is that it's "baseball by spreadsheet." Many people here dismiss that as crazy. Well, sure looks like the Twins plan to scout by spreadsheet - or, my worst fear, scout by "AI". The Twins absolutely need to get better at drafting and developing. Doesn't seem to me like cutting resources in this area, all to save the equivalent of like half of a minimum MLB salary, is an intelligent baseball decision. Next time Tommy Pohlad says something like "we are dedicated to investing in this team" just remember that they fired basically their entire scouting department just to save like 0.01% of the overall budget.

Just, no. The Twins were league average in terms of injuries, and their #8 starter flaming out in May was not the reason this team missed the playoffs. My goodness. They missed the playoffs because the team is not good enough. They won 72 games last year and 80 the year before. They'll win something like 76 this year. They are simply not good enough, and blaming injuries are the biggest loser excuse of them all. "Run it back, but this time nobody will get hurt!" is not a strategy, it's delusion, and it has failed 3 years in a row.

"Someone of interest" sounds like he's being questioned for GM crimes...can't wait for the Dateline episode.

Not with that attitude!

For sure. But with Lopez's health and age, my money would be on Taj. But I'd also accept co-aces!

I honestly believe he's been their ace this year!

Thinking about it another way...the Twins dumped 10 major leaguers last deadline, did little in the offseason, and are going to end up with a few more wins this year. In other words, losing a quarter of the 40 man did not "hurt" the MLB team in terms of wins and losses, and the team did add some potentially nice long term pieces, Bradley in particular who in my mind is already their best starter. So in hindsight they pulled off phase 1 of the rebuild pretty nicely (except they should have gone 1 step further and traded Ryan. Absolutely franchise altering trade if Tolle and Arias were indeed on the table.) The problem is, they didn't finish the rebuild. The biggest half-measure since trading for Matt Capps in 2010. Ryan, Jeffers, Larnach should have all been moved. The kids should have gotten more run with the big club in a rebuilding year. But neither happened, and now the opportunity has passed. It would be dumb to trade Ryan now at his absolute low, and they'll lose Jeffers and Larnach for nothing. They're stuck, because they half-measured it, and while I'm pretty optimistic about the young guns, there are still going to be growing pains next year. Some/all of them will struggle at some point. And there are still massive 40 man roster problems that aren't going to be easy to fix. I think the repercussions for not finishing the rebuild are going to cost this organization for years to come. Middle revenue teams like the Twins simply cannot afford to botch these opportunities. I hope I'm wrong!

No one is saying this. What people are saying is that it's really dumb to use one of 13 roster spots on a player you don't plan on playing.

Little slow on the uptake over here. I was wondering if your account had been hacked! Carry on.

Yep, and someone whose entire baseball childhood was likely filled by tearing up every level, winning every trophy imaginable, awards, championships, all-star selections, etc not to mention people telling him how great he was non stop. The ACL injuries, in addition to the physical challenges, also I think robbed him of the opportunity to fail in the minors. Part of being a professional athlete is keeping an even keel and understanding that you are going to fail more and lose more than you ever have in your life. You have to learn to deal with new things like slumps, ups and downs, better analytics, adjusting your approach, etc. There's a mental aspect to being a pro athlete that some players never master and I feel like Lewis might fall in that category.

Shouldn't the baseline for every professional athlete be "works hard, loves the sport"? Maybe the "attitude" and slow adjustment are related? Last year he said he refused to change his approach because he didn't want to mess up his (terrible) stats. Nothing really "optimistic" about that. There seems to be a large gap between how Lewis views himself as a player, and his actual performance. What is Lewis doing to solve his problem of flailing away at low outside pitches? That's been the book on him for 2 years now, and I don't see anything changing in his approach. Does Lewis even think there's a problem? He didn't seem to understand why he was sent down for a couple weeks.

If the Twins want better results, they need better players. Lewis has been given every opportunity possible. He's just not good enough. The need to incrementally improve at several positions and 1B is one of them. Starting Lewis at 2nd starts you down the path of poor roster management once again as he is blocking Houston/Culpepper. Twins fans have to understand that this current team is not good enough. There are some decent players and some supposedly good clubhouse guys. But it all adds up to a 75 win team. We've seen this 3 years in a row now. How many more 75 win seasons is it going to take for Twins fans to acknowledge that a core of Lewis, Buxton, Larnach, Lee, Jeffers, etc isn't good enough? It was time to move on 2 offseasons ago. Running it back again for the 4th straight offseason is going to lead to a 4th straight season of 70-80 wins and out of the playoffs.

I mean he's been given every chance in the world, it's odd to suggest that somehow he got ran out of town by bad actors. He played his way out of a starting job. Absolutely no one to blame but himself.

Yep. Lots of missed opportunities this year but I'm glad the Twins gave Lee & Lewis (mostly) the full year to see if they were part of the future. I think we've got answers on both.

Didn't they already DFA him a month ago and he cleared waivers?

Careful, you'll poke the "the CEO has no responsibility for anything the organization does" bear... It will be extremely interesting to see how Tommy views this season. He said in the offseason that he wants to be judged on wins and losses....that we will be playing competitive games in September...that he's not a half measures guy. Well, the season was a bunch of half measures that resulted in what will likely be a couple game improvement on last year's busted season and not a single meaningful September game. What he REALLY wanted this year was attendance, so the Pohlads can pay back their limited partners sooner and clear the way for a bigger sale. Don't think that plan really worked out either. So yeah. How does Tommy hold himself accountable? How does he hold his staff accountable? What will his message to fans be this offseason? It will be very interesting to see.