JADBP

WHAT JUST HAPPENED???! What in the world are Twins management thinking? From the mlb.com/twins.....we learn: Throughout the latter stages of Spring Training, even as Bailey Ober kept racking up strong results, he repeatedly told reporters that he nonetheless felt a bit out of sync. His velocity was down, and though he was getting hitters out, he was not pleased with his delivery. Unfortunately, just as Ober felt he had mostly ironed out those wrinkles, another complication struck. He got sick. Ober spent much of Friday in bed and Saturday taking IVs as he battled a virus. And so Ober never really ramped up in ST, never really got it "in sync." OK, so maybe he needs an extra week or two of prep and repetition to get in sync? Then he gets puke-virus-sick and is taking intravenous antibiotics for two days laid up in his hotel room...and the very next day he is asked to don a Twins uni and provide a max effort athletic performance. Come on, what is the chance that he is fully recovered? What is the chance that he is even 50% recovered? Who is the absolute moron that asked foe--or--even allowed Bailey to go out there and pitch on Sunday. It should have been obvious during warmups that he was not 100%. It should have become slap-across-the-face obvious that he wasn't gonna last much longer after the first inning of 28 pitches of declining quality. Same thing last year with Ober pitching. Blink and it is suddenly a half dozen runs. That's a FAILURE on the part of part of the manager. Why did the Rocco keep running him out there? Why wasn't Dobnak warming up in the first inning if Bailey was sick and questionable? Why didn't they see this in warmups? They're hanging over the railing...why didn't they see this in the first inning? Why didn't they hit pause and use one or two mound visits in the first or second innings. They could talk to Bailey and assess his health. They would buy extra time for Dobnak to warm up. Why did they do NOTHING until the StL had score EIGHT runs? Did they not see the train wreck happening? The train was blowing its whistle for the last three days...Ober was not ready, don't run him out there. This one is 1000% on Rocco, He should have scratched Ober. Let him skip a turn. If he wants, he can throw a simulated game, but DO NOT let him pitch in the game. It became a throwaway game. And, this is MLB, not Little League. These games count just as much as a game in September. Its a LOSS. But, immense kudos to Dobnak. He SHOULD have started the game, I find it immensely heartless to send him back down. What a D!@# move.

Yeah, OK...I know...I know...its just Spring Training...but....WHO DO YOU LIKE? CLE: 10-17 added Santana, Resigned Bieber, lost Boyd, Cobb, Gimenez, Josh Naylor, Eli Morgan CWS: 10-16 added Perez, Slater, Tachman, WIlson, Rojas, Taylor, Gilbert, Thaiss, lost Leone MIN: 10-15 added Bader, France, Coulombe, lost Farmer, Kepler, Santana, Thielbar, Moran DET: 12-12 added Flaherty, Torrez, Urquidy KC: 18-11 added ZJonathan India, Estevez, lost Robbie Grossman, Will Smith, Singer, Frazier, Pham DeJong, Gurriel

Uhhhh...play the guys who hit? Then what were they doing late last season...because NO ONE was hitting!

I’d be far more worried about Julien than Miranda but I worry about both. France is a rental/trade chip (if another collapse). Lee, Lewis are going nowhere—here to stay—and likely to star someday. Keashall and others are coming soon. So, if Miranda and Julien don’t start playing at a higher level they will get swapped for a bucket of balls.

Can you imagine where we would be without Sonny Gray and/or Jorge Lopez in the Twins org?

Geez don’t be such a downer, man!

The Twins made the worst roster decision last year in signing Margot. Seems like they are trying to repeat that mistake this year. Bader and France are far from the answer. SO, shame on the FO for these signings...but the real insanity was pushing players out there night after night when they keep repeating the same inability to hit. Of course, Margot is a ridiculous example, but also Julien, Lewis and most of the team in the last 60 days. I am unsure how Rocco kept his job. But, then the Twins did make an off-season move, and it was a huge one! One that will start making a difference immediately. It fixes a really bad mistake made 4 years ago...when they chose to go with Popkins over Matt Borgshulte as hitting coach. I don't know how they made that decision because Matt was doing a bang up job as hitting coach--working his way up the ladder to AAA hitting coach. Then they chose Popkins--who had just one year of as a coach for the A-ball Great Lakes Loons. Oh yay! BTW, Popkins is now the batting coach with the Blue Jays, where he says he wants the players to pick their spots and then swing for the fences. How did that approach work with the Twins? Geez, which did more damage for the team, Popkins or Margot? That's a hard one....

So basically add $6 million to Buxton’s salary because that’s what we have to pay for insurance in the event of the eventual injuries. Not a pleasant thought. He’s far more expensive than we think. Bader adds nothing of any significant value to the team at a fairly high price for a cheap team.

I have two comments: 1. This deferred compensation scheme will continue to work … until a player gets stiffed. Through bankruptcy, through a morals clause, through a cheap owner who just wants to reneg for whatever reason/excuse, a team could CHOOSE not to pay. At this point, you might never get another player to accept deferred compensation. Now if players choose to accept that risk in the hope of getting ever more money, then OK. I am pretty sure that sooner or later some team is going to go belly up and stiff a player—if for no other reason than teams will accelerate this trick and it will get out of control (if not already). 2. This brings up the question of how can other owners accept such salary disparity? Certainly other owners want to win some games/championships sooner or later. Even in the case of the seemingly disinterested Twins, the Pohlads still want to put buts in seats and winning does that. So how can they allow a just a few teams to put forward such egregious payrolls? How does this not hurt other owners? Certainly the Twins franchise is devalued by their inability to compete at this level. The only way that it cannot is if the rich owners PAY the poor teams. Not through revenue sharing. Nope. But a secret deal where owners pay owners to go along with the disparity. Let’s say the Twins are running a loss of $15 million in 2024. The rich teams could pool their massive bucks to cover the loss to keep Pohlad happy. But here’s the trick—it goes to ownership, not players or other salaries. Rich teams could come up with all sorts of ways to disguise this. But there has to be a way to keep teams like MN or Denver or AZ happy because the Dodgers and the Mets are out of control. Soooo … Why aren’t fellow owners complaining?

I boldly predict that the Twins will eclipse the White Sox this coming season. Beyond that--with the management stuck in neutral--I expect a repeat of last year. Same management plan, same management, same team (or even slightly worse without Santana/Kepler), there is just to reason why the results will improve. Aging a fragile team one year won't help. Meanwhile, all of the teams around us are improving...save for the CWS. Oh wait...I forgot that we have new batting coaches! We are gonna win some games....like I said, we will be better than the CWS. YAY!

woops, Tony was #4 for me, not 3.

IT: Great list... but I have to say I am a little confused as to why Tony Oliva--also my #1 favorite Twins Player of all time--didn't make the list! He should be up there at around #4 or #5. I had a rubber-coated "league" baseball that I used to through against the cement block building pretending to be an MLB pitcher. I had a nice neat outline of a batter's box on the way for many years. So, that would have been #3 for me. #1 would have been the whole World Series in 1987 and #2 would have been 1991 WS. I watched the 1965 WS (10 years old) and was so sad to see them lose. #3 is a slightly longer story. I had always professed Tony-O as my favorite baseball player. Around 1990 or so, my mother secretly worked up a great Christmas gift for me. She called the Twins telling them about my love for Tony and would he be willing to sign a baseball. They said, of course, "Absolutely! Tony's the greatest and he will sign anything!" So my Mom bought a baseball and sent it to the Twins office and a few weeks later it arrived with a nice personalized, autographed Tony-O baseball. I was thrilled to receive it that Christmas. Not quite the end of the story....so I wrote a nice thank you note to Tony and sent it to the Twins office, again telling him how much I appreciated his talents, his contributions to the Twins, and his kindness. Still not the end of the story....a couple of years later, my phone rang and when I answered, it was TONY! I was stunned, but after I gathered myself up, we had a wonderful chat for about 45 minutes! He was apologetic for not calling earlier, but my letter had sat on his desk all that time with him meaning to call and say '"You're welcome, and thanks for all the kind words." Now can you imagine a ball player ever doing that? Tony Oliva is simply the finest, greatest man to ever put on a Twins uniform. All the best in 2025! John

No. Sell the team already and put us out of our misery! If this is the best we can expect from the Pohlads then let's move on. Enough already! Twins fan deserve better than this. Twins fans won't pay to come watch a Gasper. I am confident that the Pohlads are not going to put another dime into this team, in the hopes of making the team look like a better value. They are flailing, trying to prop up a financial disaster that THEY made. Astute buyers will buy the team on the super-cheap, because the Pohlads made it a distressed asset. Their only out is to sell the team, take the $$ and run. Retire to Florida and chase golf balls. Imagine, on the other hand, if the Pohlads had pulled the trigger on another SP and maybe a 2Bman at the trade deadline last year? Even a rental could have only cost prospects. And, if they made the playoffs and even won a game or three, the team would be worth far more than the one that absolutely imploded in the last quarter-season. They could be selling HIGH with the team on the upswing, but baby-boy Pohlad is not quite able to see that far ahead.

Sorry, there is little evidence to suggest that the Twins lost $50 million this year. And that is an insane amount. If it were true, that would suggest that the Twins Mgmt is horrible at running a profitable business and they would ALL have been canned. It certainly would be insane to sell the team after suffering a $50 million loss. What this really points to is four things: 1) The family today does not have the affection for the Twins that Carl and Eloise had for decades (before and after buying the team). It wasn't vanity, it was affection, that spurred Carl to buy the team. Today, Jim, Bob and Bill Pohlad are the current owners with Joe as currently EVP (apparently Jim was bored with running the Twins). They see the team very differently than Carl--as an annual paycheck (as if they needed one), or a P&L statement, rather than a cherished part of the community. So, it seems like they just want to cash out. 2) I am guessing that they cut $30 million to try to even out the losses of the Bally contract--making them whole for the year. In their mind, they need to pocket $10 each and every year for upkeep of the mansions on Lake Mtka. What they really miss is how long term Sports management works to earn dollars. Carl understood community investment much better, trying to build value in the team as an asset to the community builds equity. 4) The living Pohlads have been poor stewards as they seem to be bad at hiring people to run their investment. There are far more profitable stream revenue streams than MLB or even Bally--companies that are rabidly expanding into sports steaming and have far far deeper pockets (Amazon, Microsoft, etc). That must be too complicated for them--all this new-fangled computer stuff! So, they keep plodding along with the same old-school management (because it is comfortable) and they manage the team into a tragic decline. The management is as near-sided as they can be. It appears that don't care about winning games, just making $$ to hang on to their jobs. Rather than try to fix this mess that the Pohlad sons have made, they likely believe the estimates and are dreaming of splitting up $1.6 Billion three ways. Pathetic!

Exactly. Kind of like how it took MLV.tv 4-5 years just to get to Hi Def TV. Prob get to 4K by 2030 or so. The problem is that Amazon is jumping up and down screaming We Want In! and we have Billions of $$$ to spend to get into streaming MLB! They already stream some games, some NFl, WNBA and other sports….and did I say they have $$$Billions to spend? Twins should have been the FIRST to jump to all-Amazon. I bet they would have got a bonus and all of our payroll limits could have vanished (presuming the Pohlads don’t pocket it all)!

There is no getting around it. This team has QUIT. Given up. Tanked. Not even trying. And, yeah, Rocco's game decisions are not helping....but he isn't out on the field...the players are and they have completely DONE with this season. I keep wondering how this happened? What are these players thinking? Here's some possibilities: "Hey, all I gotta do is claim bi-lateral leg weakness for a season or two and I will get a statue outside of the stadium!" "Heck, they traded for TREVOR RICHARDS at the deadline! Come on guys, jump on the bandwagon . . . we're gonna win the division now!" "Geez, is this 5th-grade T-ball where everyone gets a chance to bat? What's going on? I can't get more than three innings into a game before the coach subs me out for some lump batting 0.211. Why bother." "Come on, guys, hurry this up! I got a plate of Extra Hot Wings waiting for me at Runyons!" Submit your best suggestions.

Todd Walker? Cordova???

Rocco is NOT the head coach to be their best friend. But, again, I repeat: it’s very hard to be consistent when the coaching is so inconsistent!

We all seem to agree that saying “the players are exhausted” is an inane, indefensible comment by Rocco because these are highly paid professional athletes. One wonders why Rocco would offer such an excuse for their poor play? It doesn’t offer cover for the athletes—it throws them under the bus. It doesn’t offer cover for himself—he’s responsible for their preparation. it doesn’t offer cover for the Front Office—they chose these athletes. I can’t understand where Rocco is coming from with this comment. Could it have been a slip up out of exasperation or frustration? Could it have been truthful? Could it have been directed at the FO (an indictment against the pure analytics-driven approach)? I am open to suggestions but I lean towards its truthful. If so, now what? I say truth because we completely wore out several pitchers from overuse leading to injury. We have bounced players from position to position confounding their preparation. We have many stars on the bench. Its hard to ask for consistency when the coaching is so inconsistent!

This is Rocco's doing. PERIOD.

This is what you get when the Front Office doesn’t give a damn if you win or lose…

I’ve said this a gazillion times…. it’s really hard to admit, but at some point you have to put the old tired horse out to pasture. She’s done a great job for a lot of years but there is just no more game left in her. It’s time to move on from Farmer. He’s no longer capable of playing this game. Period. The bigger problem is the inane inability of this team to admit it was wrong. Sure it’s easy to dump Okert or Jay Jackson. They were really quite bad but they were cheap. The problem here is that Farmer hoodwinked the Twins out of a lot of money in Free Agency. The Twins nearly doubled his salary without a track record to justify the raise. Dumping him now just makes the front office look stupid. well ….???

Big day for any pitcher but the hot seat belongs to the HITTERS! One run yesterday is just confounding. What happens to the hitters when facing good SP? They just get flummoxed! Sure, I get it, they are harder to hit but it seems like they just start flailing at anything trying to get a hit. They lose all patience and pitch recognition. So yeah, Festa could do an SWR and hold CLE to 2 runs and we end up with….???? GO TWINS!!!!