Western SD Fan

I fully agree with your assessment, but there are flaws in it that need to be pointed out as many of the players you mentioned that were AaP spent many years on other teams prior to joining the 2023 Rays. Eflin spent 7 years in Philly, Glasnow spend 2 1/2 years in Pittsburgh, Littell spend 3 years as a Twin, Armstrong spent over 7 years with 3 teams before coming to TB, Stephenson spent over 7 years with 3 different teams. I could maybe give you Fairbanks as he started in Texas but was traded in his first year in the majors to TB. In looking at your 2017 Cleveland reference, I only found Shaw that played for Arizona for a little over a year before coming over to Cleveland. I used baseball reference as my tool. I think Cleveland is the better example as the Rays are more apt at turning around reclamation projects from other organizations (Eflin and Littell are great examples).

Two things can be true at once; that the Pohlads can be scumbag owners with no plan and very reactionary as an ownership group AND that Falvey made enough inexplicable moves/drafts that he deserved to be fired. The argument for the Pohlads: From a business standpoint, there was a lot of convergence of circumstances that they should have seen coming that eventually caused them to pull back on payroll. First, the CARES Act funding from the Covid years ended in 2023 so the government-funded gravy train that likely propped up many of the Pohlad businesses ended and they failed to plan for it. I don't know their other businesses, but the sense from TD is that much of their non-Twins business is in commercial real estate. My assessment from national reports is that this real estate market has never really recovered from Covid, but I do not know the Twin Cities market right now. This absolutely terrible lack of planning likely a factor in the pullback in payroll. Add to this a nearly $500M debt incurred and it's easy to see that just the interest payments could be crippling to an organization. Notice: I don't care where the debt came from, just the result of how it crippled payroll. Finally, Dave St. Peter failed to prepare the Pohlads for the fallout coming from losing at least a reported $45M with the ending of the Bally/Fanduel/Diamond Sports Group/Main Street Sports Group or whatever name they want to call themselves today. My guess is they announced that they were going to start Twins TV in 2024 before researching what happened with the Padres and panicked, which led no money to spend on upgrading the team where necessary and the pullback in payroll after 2023. The argument for Falvey: We have all stated and repeated ad nauseam about the 'pitching pipeline' that Falvey was supposed to create and really haven't materialized. I believe another focus should be on Falvey's drafting of position players. I had always remembered something from Falvey's early drafting that left a mark on my thinking. Early on, Falvey seemed to want to draft big college bats because he believed they be later traded for pitching. Early examples were Sabato and Larnach. I finally found an article relating to this here: Twins 2018 MLB Draft: Minnesota selects OF Trevor Larnach with the 20th overall pick | Twinkie Town. Of course, the flaw becomes that these hitters never materialized into the expected mashers that other teams wanted to trade for. This leads to the issue of having so many corner OFs that all look and hit about the same (Larnach, Wallner, etc.) which leads to a logjam when all the players finally graduated, as we can see now AND did see then when these players were shuffled back and forth on the St. Paul Express. When you the bad FA decisions of both pitchers and position players (Gallo, Margot, Shoemaker, Happ, etc.) and it creates a bad combination that only a few other GMs can match (namely the Rockies). Finally, I prepped a spreadsheet months before when the idea that Falvey needed to go was brought up. The results of my spreadsheet compared payroll, winning %, and playoff appearances to other teams that we have been comparing the Twins to (Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay). I can show my work if you want, but my results were that the Twins, on average, had the highest payroll, the lowest winning percentage, AND the fewest postseason appearances during the Falvey Era (2017-2025, except 2020 since that really threw off the averages in payroll for obvious reasons). Both parties made grave errors causing the Twins to become one of the worst laughingstocks in North American sports. Frankly, Falvey still needed to go. Be it because he couldn't do what Tom Pohlad wanted him to do or because Tom finally realized the ineptitude of Falvey and told him that he could be fired or negotiate a way out and leave. I'll finish with where I started, both premises can be true: the Pohlads are terrible businesspeople that created the chaos of the payroll that Falvey had to swim in AND Falvey was terrible at his job in terms of drafting and quality free agent signings and needed to go.

If we look at this situation as cynically as possible, this may be a possible reason for the whole thing. (cue the rampant speculation music) We have all speculated that when the Pohlad family took the team off the market and took on investors that these investors were brought in to clear the debts, make the books look better, and make a quick return on their investment. Many of us are also expecting a lengthy stoppage in 2027 as it seems that many owners are entrenched in the belief that their only way out is with a salary cap. If you take all of this into account, it makes perfect sense what Tom is doing since he took over as CEO of the Twins. With sports franchises, their biggest value comes in brand reputation and exclusivity. The brand reputation of the Twins is about the lowest it has ever been since they have moved to Minnesota. I remember the 90's Twins, but I'm not old enough to remember the early 80's Twins so I am going off my knowledge. I do believe that Joe and Falvey had a plan to do a more complete teardown and shoot for 2028. While that have made sense from a baseball standpoint, it didn't make sense from a business standpoint if your goal is to boost brand reputation and juice the value of the team for an eventual sale. Tom came in and wants the facade that the Twins will be competitive. This means that they need to spend just enough money to make it look good (congrats!) and keep what little reputation they have left to get through the next CBA negotiations and cash out. If this entire exercise was to raise the value of the Twins so that the Pohlads could get the price they want and sell, then I'll take whatever pain I need to suffer to make it happen.

It also seemed odd that Baldelli, the large majority of his staff, and even Joe Pohlad was fired from their respective positions and Falvey survived. We all questioned the idea when Dave St. Peter retired from his position as President of the Twins and Joe gave Falvey St. Peter's position as well. I saw many comments on this site when Levine and St. Peter left that there's now nowhere for Falvey to hide on his decision-making when it comes to the team. It does look to me that Joe Pohlad had no clue what he was doing as overseeing the Twins and gave Falvey all of the power without any meaningful oversight. Tom took over just over a month ago. If he had no knowledge of the situation prior to taking over, it would be reasonable that he would take some time to get up to speed before making major decisions. From reports coming out of 1 Twins Way (your mileage may vary), Tom called season ticketholders and asked why they did not renew. He flew to Georgia to talk to Buxton, same to CA for Ryan, and visited Lopez at TwinsFest, similar to what Shelton did when he was hired as the Manager. It is quite possible that Tom ended up having questions for Falvey about how he was running the team that Falvey could not answer. If Falvey tried giving Tom one of those same lengthy discussions as he gave to the media and us fans, Tom probably wasn't going to put up with it. It's possible that Tom came up to the same conclusion that us fans did at least two years ago, that Falvey was in over his head. Rather than take a demotion, Falvey just left. None of that leaves the Pohlads off the hook for blame. The Pohlads as a group created the problem, but Falvey was not skilled enough to ride the wave through to smooth out the bumps that the Pohlads were creating. The Correa contract made sense when they were operating at $150M+ payroll. When Falvey was forced to cut payroll, the downfall started and hamstrung Falvey. Even if you consider it lip service, Tom even admitted that it was bad business to slash payroll immediately after the most successful season in Twins history in over 20 years. Falvey did a great job in getting out of the Donaldson contract when it started to look bad. All this adds up to that Falvey likely needed to go and should have been gone after the season. It just took a new sheriff in town to make it happen.

A question to be asked is if this actually increases the chances Joe Ryan is traded between now and the deadline as potential suitors now have a number in mind of what it would take to retain him next season.

Getting back to this list of non-roster invitees and trying to guess whether we will see any of them make the team coming out of spring training. Spoiler alert: none of them, regardless of what kind of spring they have barring injuries. Even if Culpepper or Jenkins tear it up in ST and seemingly force the issue, they will still send them down to AAA. Call it needing extra seasoning. Call it service time manipulation. Cory Lewis probably needs a decent ST or season to not be considered a candidate for the bullpen. That doesn't mean that ST storylines shouldn't be fun to watch. Many of the players mentioned will look to give some hope that cupboard isn't bare and that maybe we will see some of these players sooner rather than later. Finally, about Sabato. I think this is the most coverage he has received since he was drafted. I believe the point that was attempting to be made is that it's pretty common for non-roster invitees to be granted free agency to try to sign on with another team unless they really want to sign on with the team that invited them. I would agree that he is not holding anyone back in St. Paul, but I also wouldn't be holding a roster spot for him, either in the majors or in St. Paul.

Let's look at this offseason holistically first, then drill down to the minutiae of what has actually happened. I have seen signs that maybe the people at 1 Twins Way may finally have a clue on the damage that they have done to their own reputation and the fanbase. There have been reports this week that Tom Pohlad called approximately 50 former season ticket holders to ask why they haven't renewed and apparently received some colorful feedback from some recipients. I also look at the signings of Caratini and Bell as showing that they are going to make an effort to compete this year. Until now, I would suggest this is more spending that many people on this forum (including myself) expected out of the team given the overall landscape in baseball (upcoming lockout). A cynical person would suggest that the Pohlads are finally protecting their investment. Someone must have finally got their attention that the majority of the Twins value is in reputation, goodwill, and other intangibles and not the physical assets they possess. By killing their reputation, they are killing their value to when they finally do sell the team. As for the bullpen, good bullpen pieces are fairly hard to find. We can look at last year that the Yankees, Blue Jays (even after acquiring Varland) had shaky bullpens and they definitely had more to spend than the Twins do. Even the Dodgers traded for Stewart because they needed additional help. All of that to say that bullpens are typically an emerging beast that you are always tinkering with and trying to improve. I can see some spring training invites, some minor league contracts signed, and some additional low-cost contracts given out to round out the bullpen.

Like some of the other posters, I don't see how Rogers slows down any development. I don't mind seeing Prielipp marinate down in AAA for a little while and then come into the bullpen. Let's look at Rogers first. If he stinks, the Twins DFA him. If he is serviceable, he can still probably get guys out in the 6-8th innings, think Okert or Sergio Romo when they were mildly successful. If he is really good, he's likely trade bait for a low-level prospect. In any scenario, he's really not holding anyone back. As for Prielipp, we have seen starters begin their careers in the bullpen, such as the previously mentioned Santana. I would also suggest that Liriano and most recently Crochet have made conversions from the bullpen to a starter. Even Funderburk, who still has some kinks to work out to becoming a trusted bullpen guy, had to start in mop-up work when he was called up. All this for a pitcher than hasn't thrown a pitch in the majors yet. Maybe we should see whether he can actually get ML hitters out first before deciding where to place him and his best opportunity to see the majors is in the bullpen.

I agree with this point. I would say that trading Jeffers would have to more to do with timing than whether the Twins are in "win now" mode. I could see them trading Jeffers at or near the deadline, regardless of where they are in the standings. History tells me that a catcher from another competing team will go down sometime during the season. Add to that a potential lockout and we may see some teams really overpay in order to win the WS this year. We have seen trades like this from other savvy-minded teams (Rays, Brewers, Guardians). Finally, I do not see a catcher such as Jeffers that is used to 1/2 to 2/3 of the load being reduced to a backup role with Narvaez in Boston at least for an entire season. IMHO, this is definitely a wait and see mode to see where the Twins are in the standings as the season progresses, and where they think their primary prospect in Tait finishes in the minors at the end of the season. One question to the collective that knows more about this than I do. In an impending lockout, are the minor league players locked out as well? The last mini lockout in 2021, only players on the 40-man roster was locked out, but the remaining minor league players could still play. I also see that the minor league players are now part of the MLBPA as of 2022, so I am not sure how that affects the minor leagues this time.

One update to the list is the Red Sox signing Ranger Suarez. Of the remaining teams, the Nationals are still running the kids and letting them mature into a core that could be great, the Rockies are what they are, the Cardinals and the Twins are likely in a similar boat of trying to compile the best competitive team they can and letting it ride. I only feel that the Rangers are actually serious about competing. I can see this as being a tough year to be a Twins GM, especially if said GM is way over his head. With a potential lockout upcoming at the end of the 2026, I'm sure that the directive is to try to spend money "wisely". Unfortunately, Falvey must think that "wisely" is spending pennies on 2-ply toilet paper where for a few pennies more you could get 3-ply that performs a lot better. Also, that likely means not bringing up the high-end prospects too early as to preserve service time and team control, which I can see being a sticking point in the upcoming CBA negotiations. All that adds up to a lot of placeholders on the roster to see where they stick or eventually be traded.

When reading through the article and the comments, I do not see who Joe Ryan's agent is. Even a web search surprisingly isn't helpful in finding that information. Let's assume for the sake of argument that Ryan is a Boras client. Boras's clients have historically (not always) tested the free agent market or at least made the rounds gauging interest before signing an extension with a team. Of the players that have be re-signed or signed an extension with their current team, the only player since 2019 that fits the bill of a Twins-type spender was Stephen Strasburg with the Nationals. Every other player resigned or was extended with a high-payroll team. Examples are Pete Alonso, Jose Altuve, Cody Bellenger, etc. Again, let's assume that any half-decent GM has already been in discussions with Joe Ryan about an extension to gauge what he is expecting in terms of a contract (I know, I know, a lot of assuming when it comes to Falvey). It's definitely possible that they have already determined that Ryan is going to be out of their price range and just trying to time the market on when it will be optimal to trade him (think Gerrit Cole) without abandoning the withering group of fans that the Twins have left.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think the point of the article is that there is no one better than Lee currently in the organization at or near the big-league level. The other consideration is where to put Lewis if you move Lee to 3rd. Lewis has to play somewhere as trading him at his lowest trade value makes no sense. One of the big discussions near the end of the season was potentially moving Lee to a Willi Castro type INF if or when Culpepper would be ready to be brought up to the majors, but that will still take time. One more consideration is all of this off-season discussion will be monitoring the negotiations on the new CBA. Would you want to rush some of these players to the majors with the possibility that they will be locked out after the season with no chance of further development.

I encourage you to re-read @Sherry Cerny article that she wrote last week linked here: I hate continuing to hear about how cheap the Pohlad's are while they continue to outspend most of the teams in the region and definitely in the division. Will that get us a World Series? Obviously not, but there is no excuse with the payroll we have had during the Falvey/Rocco era to be more competitive than we have shown on the field. I'm not going to rehash what could/should have been done as Sherry did a great job of that in her article and you should go read it. If you want to criticize the Pohlads, it's not so much the amount of payroll spending. It's the inefficiency of how they are organizing their budgets and that the Pohlads themselves do not know how to run an efficient small to mid-market team. When I looked at the Twins' payrolls (using Sportrac as my reference) compared to other teams that seems to be more payroll efficient, such as Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Tampa Bay, the Twins have wild swings in their payroll, going up $29M from 2021-2022, then dropping by $25M two years later in 2024. IMHO, the Pohlads give a payroll based on the profitability of their other businesses, using the Twins as a cash cow rather than running it as a separate business. I believe this explains the sudden shifts in payroll from year to year and the mystery of what the payroll will be every offseason. We don't seem to hear this much chatter about payroll expectations from the other teams listed above as they seem to operate in a range that is well known to their GM likely years in advance. This situation is where a more experienced GM than Falvey would have been better. Falvey seemed to feel the need to spend his budgeted payroll akin to a government agency that feels like he needs to spend every last dime with the fear that he wouldn't get that budget again. Spoiler alert: Falvey never gets the same budget twice. This leads to inefficient spending (Donaldson, Correa, Margot, Gallo, we all know the list). I also think this led to Falvey not being able to spend at the deadline as he used all of his bullets in the offseason trying to plug holes with aging veterans. Here is my work in showing how the Twins compare payroll wise to teams like Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and Milwaukee. I left out the 2020 year since it would skew my payroll averages. As we can see, the Twins have had the largest consistent payroll of the group but has the worst winning percentage of the group and made the playoffs the least number of times of the group during the Falvey Era. W L Win % Avg Payroll Avg MLB Payroll Rank Post App Minnesota 654 642 0.505 131.325 18.25 3 Milwaukee 734 563 0.566 117.60 20.375 6 Cleveland 714 581 0.551 99.825 23.125 5 Tampa Bay 708 588 0.546 79.738 27.125 4 Per Sportrac, this has been the Twins payroll during the Falvey Era, minus 2020 of course. Payroll is in millions, stars represent postseason appearances, and the MLB payroll rank. Minnesota W L Payroll MLB Place 70 92 129.7 21 82 80 131.2 19 87 75 156.1 16 * 78 84 150.4 15 73 89 121.4 17 101 61 125.3 18 * 78 84 115.5 21 85 77 121 19 *

@Sherry Cerny BREAKING: According to MLB.com, a source is saying that LaTroy Hawkins is expected to be hired as Shelton's bullpen coach. I think this was something we had hoped for in an earlier thread this week. Familiar face returns: LaTroy Hawkins to be Twins' new bullpen coach (source)

I'll make the same comment as I did on the Christian Vazquez thread earlier this week. Try for Jansen or Caratini if they trade Jeffers and offer either of them a 2-yr contract to try to build the bridge to Tait or Enrique Jimenez coming out of the minors. If they don't trade Jeffers, then try for McCann as I think he will be the best catcher as a pure backup for Jeffers. I'm guessing the Twins are not signing back Vazquez since they gave away his jersey number to some scrub named Derek Shelton.

I remember watching a young LaTroy Hawkins starting games for the Twins and being frustrated that he couldn't get through the third trip of the lineup. Little did I know that this philosophy would eventually become the industry standard and all teams start getting nervous once a pitcher starts going through the third time through the lineup. As others have highlighted, LaTroy brings a unique perspective with the fact that he had to reinvent himself as an effective reliever and that he didn't ever have elite stuff and still managed a 20-year career. I hope that they do consider Hawkins as a coach. I have enjoyed his commentary during games. He also brings the perspective of being just a guy throughout his career and knowledge on how to grind out a career. This perspective is probably something a few of these players need to hear and need to start adjusting to so they do not wash out and become a bust or fall to the pressure, be it real or perceived.

I'm not so sure about this statement. Not that Shelton wasn't a fall guy in Pittsburgh, he likely was, but that Falvey would have actually vetted out his time in Pittsburgh. I would guess that Falvey helped vet Shelton when he was hired as Rocco's bench coach, so his opinion of Shelton likely hadn't changed since then. I also believe that Shelton is essentially Baldelli 2.0 and Falvey may have blinders on to whatever warts Shelton may have developed during his time in Pittsburgh.

Per MLB, here is this list of FA catchers listed in order by Fangraphs WAR. For all of the criticism of Vazquez, he actually scores pretty high for who is available in the current FA market. J.T. Realmuto (35 years old, 4.0 WAR) - No way on earth that he signs with the Twins, even if they back up a couple of Brinks' trucks of cash Salvador Perez (36, 3.8) -- club option - Likely retiring a Royal. Twins still not signing him. Victor Caratini (32, 2.7) - IMHO, will likely sign with another team for more money than the Twins are willing to spend. Twins may only pursue him if they trade Jeffers and want a bridge catcher similar to Jason Castro to bridge the gap from now to when Tait or Enrique Jimenez is ready. Danny Jansen (31, 1.8) -- mutual option - don't see him leaving Toronto, but if he does, see Caratini comment above. Christian Vázquez (35, 1.0) - doesn't seem so bad here, plus he does know the pitchers and the team. A 1-yr/3M or a 2-yr/5M deal w/ a 250k buyout may work here. James McCann (36, 0.9) - IMHO is my favorite to replace Vazquez as I have always liked McCann. Elias Díaz (35, 0.8) -- mutual option - Padres have the mutual option and may want to exercise it here to make sure they have a quality backup catcher as well since I would guess Fermin will be their primary catcher going forward. Twins won't trade for him with a $7M contract option for 2026. This is the remainder of the list. None of which inspire me any more than running it back with Vazquez at a more economical cost. Tomás Nido (32, 0.3) -- signed MiLB deal with DET (Oct. 30) Austin Barnes (36, 0.2) Gary Sánchez (33, 0.2) Mitch Garver (36, -0.4) -- mutual option Luke Maile (35, -0.4) Tom Murphy (35, -0.5) -- club option Jacob Stallings (36, -0.5) Martín Maldonado (39, -2.3) -- retired

There may not be players that "want" to come here, but there are always players that need to come to a team like Minnesota for various reasons. Whether it's because they need to resurrect their career, coming off an injury, or it's still better than accepting than signing in Korea or Japan. Of course, these types of signings also have the additional potential of being traded at the deadline for prospects. All these are the perfect Falvey targets of course. Like any small/mid-market team, Falvey needs to be creative in making quality trades that bolster the lineup and making free agent signings that complement the team, not necessarily making the big splashy signing. Successful examples were trading for Odorizzi and Pablo or signing Bader and Carlos Santana. I also look at how players have been developed or talents adjusted during the Falvey Era. Using Odorizzi again, the Twins pitching coaches identified his strengths, weaknesses, and areas he could improve on using analytics. That likely gave him a final life after he left Minnesota. That seems to be using analytics to improve the talent and skills that Odorizzi already had. The other end of the spectrum has been the development of the younger players, both pitchers and position players in recent years. Falvey and Co has let the analytics determine the player's talents. We've been hearing for years about how both minor and major league coaches have tried to change player's approaches at the plate consistently trying to turn singles and doubles hitters into home run hitters. Austin Martin is a perfect example. Twins coaches have tried adjusting his mechanics and swing ever since he has come to Minnesota. Finally, Martin went back to his approach that he had at Vanderbilt and saw some improvement at the end of the season. I think as Falvey and Co has become more reliant on analytics; they let the analytics drive the train and change a player rather than use analytics to improve a player's talents and skills like they did in the earlier days with Odorizzi or Polanco. One final point to make. Many of us here at TD, me included, have been critical of the usage of analytics in making even some of the simplest baseball decisions. There obviously is a need for analytics or places like Driveline wouldn't be in demand. Hopefully, this manager and coaching shakeup will be a chance to reset how they use analytics as an organization and a team and use it like they did in the earlier years and not how it has become in the last couple of seasons.

The Twins could shoulder some blame for trading for a pitcher with a known injury risk, such as Mahle. With that being said, I still agree with you that I would have pulled the trigger on the trade at the time of the trade.

The Lew Ford files went down with the Vikings Love Boat. No chance of recovery. Please disregard the rumors of binders and binders of information supposedly being released.

Gleeman’s representative from the law office of Robinson, Dangerfield and Dice Clay says that Twins Daily has operated under shady business dealings for nearly 15 years, and the public deserves to have their team covered by polished, dignified professionals who have class. The lawyer has a point here. I'm not sure the degenerates here on Twins Daily should be the public that he is referring to, but the lawyer has a point.

I'm not sure that Torii as a manager would tarnish his legacy with the team or at least with the fans. The most recent example would be Paul Molitor as it appears that his legacy or reputation has not been tarnished by his managerial foray with the Twins. IMHO, most of us believe that the Twins are a work in progress to put it nicely so I'm not sure Torii would be blamed if the team didn't succeed as manager. The fact that Torii is not interested in the job says a lot about Torii as he doesn't want to give up his best life for what looks to be a dumpster fire. I think this also says a lot about Falvey and/or ownership that Torii declined to even be formally interviewed for the job.

I have a feeling that the number of former Twins-heavy candidates is because the team in general is looking for any form of positivity for the team moving forward as I'm sure there were quite a few season-ticket cancellations in the last couple months of the season. Many people believe that the manager does not have a huge role anymore and many of the decisions are made by the FO and not the manager. IF that is the case, why wouldn't you want a manager like a Torii Hunter, Nelson Cruz, or James Rowson to come back and manage to bring back some of the nostalgia of when the Twins were better and sort of "grow up" with the team. If nothing else, those types of managers (sans Rowson) will still be loved in Minnesota regardless of how they do at being a manager, similar to Paul Molitor. I personally believe that the manager is still responsible for much of the day to day managing, such as filling out the lineup card, managing the bullpen, sending runners on a contact play, when to deploy pinch-hitters. They also have control over mandatory PFP, hitting cages, fielding work, base-running, etc. They are responsible for finding out what their coaches are doing and if they are addressing problems within the team in terms of fundamentals and game play. To counter the poster that suggested that because Hunter and Cruz have been stars during their career, they would not be good manager material. I counter with Joe Torre, a borderline HOF player (see Torii Hunter). Somehow, I think he did alright as a manager. Think Torre is a fluke because he was able to manage the high spending Yankees? I'll give you a HOF player that managed, Yogi Berra. He managed 7 years for the Yankees and Mets leading each team to a pennant in those 7 years.

Will the firmware update to the Robo-Skipper 5000 have a hat that can be thrown on the field when arguing a call?