The Great Hambino

Fair enough. Personally, I've only lived in the Twin Cities area, so I don't have a very good personal frame of reference for how the market compares to others. As to the issues with the market you raise, and what new ownership can do about them, I don't think any meaningful change can happen overnight. This is first and foremost a Viking town, and that's pretty ingrained in the local sports culture. For a mid-sized market, it's tough to have two top dogs. Take St Louis, for example. Reasonably similar in a lot of ways to the Twin Cities. They're widely regarded as a strong baseball market, but have multiple failed attempts at supporting an NFL team. To a degree, the Twins will always be fighting an uphill battle in that sense. But they've had relatively strong support at times in the past, so it's not impossible. You mentioned their bland marketing. Can't argue with that. But back in the early 2000's, they had what I think was the best marketing push they've had at least in my lifetime with the "Get To Know 'Em" series of spots. It's still the reason I can spell Mientkiewicz without looking it up. When paired with an exciting, up-and-coming team, the Twins had some real juice that ultimately led us to Target Field. But ever since they caught their white whale, the Pohlads seem to have set everything to autopilot and any stature they'd built up in this market has been eroding away ever since. So while it may not be the perfect baseball market, I think it's safe to say there's plenty of opportunity for growth if handled properly. I don't know if it can happen with current ownership as their relationship with their fanbase might be broken beyond repair. Then again, it kinda felt that way after the contraction saga, which was quickly followed by the exciting era I described above, so who knows

Nothing in particular. If that's how it came off, then that wasn't my intention. I've tried to be pretty consistent that ownership deserves the lion's share of the blame for the situation the Twins find themselves in. If I had a mulligan, I would've just omitted "at least partial" in my response

I can't imagine why the contract talks with Pujols broke down

I think we're all pretty well aware that Kwesi isn't doing the scouting, writing the reports, and making the picks all by himself. But he's the one in charge. He's the one determining the shape of the roster, he's the one telling them what name to write on the card, he's the one choosing the director of college scouting. It's ultimately his responsibility. It's not the only area to judge him on - I think he's done pretty well overall, especially in threading the needle with the "competitive rebuild" mandate from ownership. I think he nailed his coaching hires as well as 2024 free agency. But it's hard to spin his draft record (and it is his draft record at the end of the day) as any sort of a positive.

Attendance generally operates on a one-year lag. I saw a study on it but can't seem to find it. It's why the Twins set their attendance record in 1988. But ownership kneecapped the usual bounce in attendance that the playoff run would normally provide for 2024 by coming out with the right-sizing bit in the immediate aftermath and following that up with butchering the TV situation (the unfulfilled promise of blackouts going away, plus who could've possibly foreseen a bankrupt provider having carriage issues???). Ownership can't absolve itself from at least partial blame for their attendance problems

If not for Keaschall, would they have even bothered handing out the outstanding rookie award?

Geez Louise, might as well keep JJ in bubble wrap if Rouse and Skule are going to be prominently involved

One of the oddest things about Kwesi's tenure has been how much success he's had with undrafted free agents relative to his draft picks. It's presumably all the same scouting reports informing those decisions. Are there just more opportunities available to UDFA's given the lack of spots that ought to be filled with draft picks? If a UDFA beats out a draft pick, does he get as much credit for nailing the UDFA as blame for whiffing on the pick? I don't know. Not sure what to make of it

That is pretty weird. I know there's been some speculation that it could be a sign that teams are behaving differently with the impending lockout, but the Giants apparently inked their guy to a three year deal with an additional year as a vesting option. So for now, I'd chalk it up to Arte Moreno being Arte Moreno

I'm partial to Bonnes filling his dog's water bowl with a local IPA. But that was a good line. The only thing holding me back from calling this great satire is the 60% of me that thinks this article is 100% truthful

I haven't yet seen anything beyond rumors, but there are reports that Torii Hunter essentially told the Twins "nah, I'm good" before they even got to the interview stage. Apparently has no interest in managing the team. Any truth to this?

I found the Wes Johnson term sheet: Was it for a big raise? No (Are the post-season bonuses crazy enough to maybe account for the original gap in reporting?). Could he have waited until the end of the season to take the job? No (had to start July 4). Does that make it okay that he bailed in the middle of the season? Not to me. I hope he enjoys the SEC (which he seems to be, since he's now making $1MM per year at Georgia), because I don't know who would hire him back into pro ball after that. I certainly hope the Twins wouldn't

Agreed. O'Connell's quote "If this was a Sunday game, maybe it would be a little bit of a different story" is the closest thing his word ... salad might be a bit too harsh, it's better than that. Word succotash? It's the closest thing his word succotash comes to tipping where JJ really is health-wise. He's gonna start losing credibility if it's the same story next week. You're gonna have to be able to face tough defenses in this league. Can't keep burning development/evaluation time so JJ can double-dutch his way back in to the most perfect environment possible

To be clear, I think it's possible - perhaps likely - that they get a young catcher in trade, and they absolutely should explore all avenues to get one there. I just also think that if they do that, then the chances they trade Jeffers shoot way up. That's why I'm as certain as I am that some form of cheap vet C will get brought in. They either back up Jeffers, back up Young New Catcher, or split time with whatever else they can cobble together. I don't see them getting a long-term Jeffers replacement and pairing him with Jeffers, just from an allocation-of-resources standpoint. I'm assuming any vet they bring in will be on a cheaper deal than Jeffers' arb figure.

Does any other team have that kind of arrangement? Where drafting and free agency duties are completely segregated? Honest question, I'd never thought of a setup like that before. I'd think that you'd want those two departments operating under a single unified vision, but maybe enough of free agency is settled before the draft that the draft guy would have a clear enough blueprint to work with. Very interesting concept, even if I'm not totally sure if it would work in practice. And if it has worked in practice, that could be even more interesting.

First off, I 100% agree with you about quitting mideason. But the job almost certainly wouldn't have been available if he waited to finish the season. DI coaches can start contacting new juniors on August 1. Official visits can start September 1. No chance LSU sits there twiddling their thumbs waiting on him while they fall behind all their competitors in the recruiting game. Being coachless through that period probably wouldn't have been too helpful in the fundraising department either. He would've had to take a mini-sabbatical or taken a lesser role in order to have a clean break from pro to college ball

For all their roster uncertainty, I think one of the biggest locks in terms of transactions they make this offseason is bringing in a Vasquez-ian veteran FA catcher on a one-year deal - maybe even Vasquez himself. This mystery vet will be the backup to Jeffers (if he's kept) or have the inside track to the lion's share of starts while Pareda/Canterino/various vets with MILB contract offers compete for the rest. A trade for a younger MLB-ready C could be a wild card here (although I think if they do bring in a guy like that, it makes it more likely that Jeffers is traded away), but I think it's a safe bet that a cheap-ish vet on a one-year deal will be factoring in at C in some way.

I can't remember where I read it, but apparently Moreno aggressively cheaps out on pretty much every aspect of the organization that isn't player payroll. Scouting, development, training, etc. Hiring from within saves on pesky things like a legitimate managerial search I also heard/read/imagined somewhere that they had been talks with Pujols about a contract before they broke down and it was reported that Pujols was no longer in consideration. I wouldn't be totally shocked if the Angels were expecting his existing personal services contract to cover his salary. But I think you answered your own question in your first sentence.

Ben Rortvedt

I think that's the right timeline. This 2-4 week injury that somehow became "a 6-week injury all along" somewhere along the way is now coming up on that 6 week mark. The short week helps makes it plausible to stick with Wentz as part of JJ's recovery process. But after that? Yeah, time for some tougher questions Also, the idea of a hypothetical practice injury report is kinda funny

That Week 1 Packer game is looking more and more like the outlier

Fun fact: the Blue Jays have played more games this postseason (7-4) than the Dodgers (9-1) even though they had a first-round bye I'll be pulling hard for the Blue Jays to hopefully at least give us a competitive series. If they can get the series back to Toronto for Halloween, they'll have done well. But I think we all know how this is gonna end. This version of the Dodgers is a force of nature

Thanks @Brock Beauchamp For whatever reason it cleared up when I deleted cookies and browsing history specifically for this site. Hasn't popped back up yet, but I'll keep this in mind in case it does

Show me to the discontinued Axe body spray, please and thank you

Not to mention keeping Darnold would've meant most of the other offseason FAs wouldn't have happened. It's been a mostly underwhelming performance overall from that group, but try to imagine what this o-line would've looked like without Will Fries and with Walter Rouse (or whomever after all the injury juggling) in his place. I feel pretty confident in saying the Darnold we've seen in Seattle would've been different than the Darnold that would've been playing behind an even more depleted version of this o-line. There's a decent chance the narrative would've been the Vikings foolishly ignoring what happens to Darnold when the line breaks down in front of him like it did at the end of last season