Western SD Fan

I assume they would give Tingler the job, which is a worse version of Rocco. Still can't believe we could have had Tito if they only would have pulled the trigger on Rocco.

Can Gaspar develop into the second coming of Willians Astudillo? A player that doesn't belong on the roster that becomes a fan favorite on a bad team.

It seems like they have forgotten the last step in the process and that is to parlay this pipeline into trades that bring back players or prospects that will continue to have a competitive window in the future.

I just say there has to be something in Minnesota because Lance Lynn and Martin Perez were cured of "Twinsitis" as soon as they departed.

Wait?!? What is the sorcery? A relief corps is capable of having a high leverage pitcher go multiple innings?

It has to be sad for starting pitchers to know that if they even give up a single run that they are probably going to be tagged with the loss. Then our resident Swedish Meatballer comes in to pitch in Alcala. I wonder if Rocco is going to demand PFP tomorrow morning?

You could have thrown a dart at any position player with options left and demoted them to St. Paul with maybe the exception of Wallner or Keirsey. Miranda just happened to be the most blatant and obvious of all of them. I agree that Gasper should have been DFA'd instead of sending Miranda down, but it's not a big loss either way at this point. All of this is still flushing the system of players where they spent all their development years on trying to get everyone to hit HR's instead of just trying to put the ball in play and work on fundamentals (See Austin Martin). As for firing Rocco, I don't expect it to happen as that would just create more turmoil when the Pohlads are trying to sell the team, and you would have a new interim manager basically with no hope of staying with the team after the season. My 30 seconds of research also suggests that the Twins have never fired a manager midseason. Only Gene Mauch resigned during the 1980 season, and I don't consider that a firing. We can dream, but it's only a dream.

Having Connor build up as much as possible even if his ultimate landing spot is in the bullpen would be the best. If (or when) he makes the MLB roster, he will likely be in a low leverage situation anyway and will probably need to give multiple innings. We have seen this before with Sand and Varland, as well as going back further in history with Latroy Hawkins. He'll first have to prove he can get MLB hitters out, then will likely get sent back down to AAA to tweak pitches or even cut down his pitch repertoire to his plus pitches and then get recalled and see where he will play in the bullpen. I'd like to see the Twins organization finally flex the best ability any player can have: Availability. If he is healthy, he will make it soon enough.

Nic Lentz behind the plate must be late for his KC BBQ outing tonight.

While we are waiting for Correa to GIDP, separate subject, I do like Latroy Hawkins as a change of pace commentator from Morneau. UPDATE: Correa struck out instead of GIDP.

And we don't get the White Sox and Angels for the next 9 of 12 games like we did last year to catch up.

*Incoming Varland excuse* - Rocco mismanaged his bullpen so badly that he had to put in Varland, who had thrown 47 pitches over the last 5 days including 16 yesterday. Sorry, that was just begging for a troll response. ;-)

At least they are playing Omaha next week at home so the shuttle won't be too far.......

And you feel like that if we have to go into extra innings that Jax will have to stay in with Varland and Alcala at 47 pitches for the last 5 days.

Wasn't that supposed to be the excuse that we couldn't have Luis Arraez at 1B was because he was too short?

I am uncertain at this point how serious the Pohlads really are on selling the team. If you choose to believe all the rumors that they want a premium price PLUS to demand that Joe Pohlad stays as Executive Chairman seems to be borderline insane for any prospective buyer. Option #2 ONLY works if the new ownership owns 51% or more of the Twins and can be in charge of the direction of the franchise. While it is still too early to tell what the new Orioles ownership will be, the fact is that the fanbase has clung on to them and support them in ways we haven't seen in decades is promising on what a new ownership group could do here in Minnesota. A potential new ownership group will have to navigate the headwinds of decreasing revenue from TV contracts, a potential labor stoppage after the 2026 season as even the owners can't agree on what they should do for the new CBA and trying to revive a fanbase that has been disillusioned by the current operating of the team. I was surprised to read an article done by a Pirates beat reporter on the state of their team and that Nutting could actually be losing money, and they have a much smaller payroll than the Twins. I actually wouldn't be surprised that the Pohlads are not making as much money on the Twins as we would like to imagine, or as some commenters have surmised (likely also true in my opinion) that the Twins corporate entity is tied up in other ventures that are losing money so it makes it look like the Twins are losing more money than they really are. The link to the Pittsburgh article is here: Special report: Pirates' finances will leave you at a loss

You're right. That should have been #1 in what would be holding up an asking price as the revenues just won't be there that once were for a new owner. Hence why #2 is important as the owners need to be on the same page with their own revenues before they can go to the players.

First, I would like to suggest that we all tone down the political rhetoric on this subject. While I do believe that the DC gang has too much influence over business decisions, I don't believe that they would be the breaking point on whether the team is sold or not. In order, here is what I believe (my opinion) on the potential headwinds involved in completing a sale (in order of importance): 1. Pohlad's asking price: It has been reported that the Pohlad's have an asking price of around $1.8 billion, which is well above the reported valve of the franchise of $1.4 - $1.6 billion. That's a spread that may slow down buyers as it may come across as not as motivated to sell as they originally thought, especially considering the remaining factors. 2. Player lockout looming: As an earlier poster as noted, it seems to be about 50/50 that the owner's will lockout the players. Even the owners can't seem to agree on a way forward with the changing revenue models before they get to negotiating with the players. A potential buyer may be reluctant to purchase any team knowing they may not have ANY revenue for a year right after completing a sale. 3. General business climate: With a potential recession looming and the DC groups (everyone, not just one person or party) creating chaos in consumer confidence, any potential buyers may wait and see if this asset goes on sale and maybe get a "deal" compared to what the Pohlad's are asking for right now. At the very least, they may be developing a wait and see approach to the overall markets as consumer confidence is key in consumer spending, i.e.: game attendance. 4. Tax implications: These are all billionaires that we are discussing so they have had the tax implications sorted out long before they even started to put together a bid. While some tax breaks may be coming off the table, these are people that plan for taxes 5 to 10 years down the road. While most people consider taxes in their business decisions, it's more like the tail wagging the dog vs the other way around. Finally, I would like to say that my personal issue with the player payroll has not been the year over year spending as they have consistently been the top spender in the AL Central. My issue has been that when they have had the team to make a deep playoff run, the ownership hasn't given the funds necessary to improve the team for such a run.

Just saw a report that Gerrit Cole has a right elbow issue and may miss time. Maybe a good time to see if the Yankees are willing to trade for Paddack.

Here's a question to the intelligence of the group here on Rule 5 for Castellano. I'm not suggesting that he is hurt right out of spring training. I'm asking if he suffers a lengthy injury and lands on the 60-day IL which would allow the Twins to take him off the 40-man? Or does he have to stay on the 40-man regardless of injury or be offered back? I'm not wishing ill will upon him. Just curious what the rules are on injury.

One part that I haven't heard anyone discuss as of yet is that this is also a tryout for Ty France for potentially signing with other teams. Stranger things have happened than the FO bringing in some competition for the younger players to motivate them to secure the job. We have all seen a player that seems to have an excellent spring but still doesn't make the team. Considering this is not a guaranteed contract, France basically gets the workout of a spring training and an audition for another team in case he doesn't make the current roster.

I live in Western South Dakota that carried both Rockies and Twins on Fubo. I found the pre and post-game adequate enough to catch me up on what is going on, especially since I only followed them on Twins off days (Twins broadcasts first!). They covered the upcoming matchup, yesterday's matchup, tomorrow's matchup, and their next broadcast. Essentially everything I needed to watch the game that day. There will be time to record player profiles and more human-interest stories for things like rain delays or postponements if an affiliate is not playing at the moment. I will admit that the production was definitely more simplistic in nature, but it got the job done and I was happy watching Rockies games.

This smells like Logan Morrison all over again. We feel like we needed to fill a spot and one was filled.

One piece of information about PECOTA that would be useful to know. PECOTA was originally designed by Nate Silver (remember FiveThirtyEight, political predictions?). Now that I know that tidbit of information, I have no faith in this model as my first assumption is that it will be as far off as anything Nate Silver has ever developed.

I agree that something needs to be done, but I'm not sure what it is the best appropriate action. I'll go through by subject on things that I see and some changes that could be made. I'm not sure how this would affect the players and/or what concessions will need to be given to the players to get these though. Deferrals: This seems to be a large contention point at the moment. If I am reading Sportrac correctly, deferred contracts like Ohtani's are recalculated in full when calculating the luxury tax. I'm unsure I want to take this tool away from the players as this is more of a personal income tax move that benefits the player more than it does the organization, especially if the full amount is still be used to calculate the luxury tax. Luxury Tax: While we are on the topic, there are some tweaks to this that can be addressed. I believe some of the other teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Mets) abuse this system by paying a low luxury tax percentage the first year, a slightly higher amount the second year, then skirt just under the tax threshold the third year so the luxury tax penalties reset. This should be tweaked to a rolling average of 3 in 5 or 4 of 5 years in order to trigger the more rigorous luxury tax penalties. The concession to the players should be a luxury floor as well where if teams continue to abuse the floor, a percentage of their revenue sharing should be taken away as well. Revenue sharing should be used for player salaries. International Revenues: Another issue has been that there is a significant advantage in revenues from players, specifically Japanese players, generate 10s to 100s of millions of dollars to an individual team by signing up for networks like Sportsnet LA, YES, or Marquee for examples. One tweak that could be made is that 100% of these international subscriptions should be the property of MLB and distributed to all 30 teams in addition to 48% the domestic TV revenues. I don't know how much money this amounts to, but it would help reduce the vicious circle of paying for international superstars and essentially funding it by international subscriptions. Tickets and merchandise sales should stay 100% with the club. Others: Per McKibbin's article, which was linked above and definitely encourage to go read it, the Dodgers currently are exploiting a loophole which was specifically created for them at a time when they needed it. They don't need it now and it needs to be closed. Other penalties which can be addressed may be instead of dropping a team's position by 10 spots, just straight up taking away the draft pick. Removing a team's international pool money could be another penalty. Finally, unfortunately none of these ideas will actually help the Twins in the near or distant future. We currently don't spend enough to attract the best talent consistently nor do we spend so little that an additional fusion of revenue sharing will actually help. I would like to see more guardrails put into place so that all revenue sharing should be required to be used for payroll.