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  1. Paved Paradise

    2026 Road Trip

    By Paved Paradise,


    General
    Since 2018 I’ve tried to take a minor league baseball road trip with friends every year. Originally the goal was to see every Twins minor league affiliate in one summer. Distances made that trip impractical, so we’ve usually settled for hitting a bunch of different minor league teams in a week or less. We’ve also added some major league games in. My lifetime totals are nine different MLB stadiums and 18 different minor league stadiums. (The worst stadium by far was the Twins former rookie league team in Elizabethton, TN. The Saints stadium is one of the best and I’ll be enjoying it on Thursday evening.)
    My plans for this year have been finalized. And I’m finally going to be able to see the Twins Double A team. Leaving me with just Fort Meyers to have seen Twins affiliates at all levels.
    Here’s this year’s itinerary:
                   Day One: Boston Red Sox at Kansas City Royals (MLB)
                   Day Two: Reno Aces at Oklahoma City Comets (Triple A)
                   Day Three: Springfield Cardinals at Arkansas Travelers (Little Rock) (Double A)
                   Day Four: Tulsa Drillers at Wichita Wind Surge (Double A)
                   Day Five: Lake Country Dockhounds at Kansas City Monarchs (Independent League)
    We built in an extra day to use in case of bad weather or if we want to do some sightseeing along the way. So, the whole trip will be six to seven days. I’ll post a recap of the trip when I get back.
  2. Paved Paradise
    I’ve seen a lot of articles discussing the Twins where a narrative of the last three seasons seems to be repeated. I don’t believe the narrative is fully accurate. Let’s take a closer look at each season and I’ll explain what I mean.
    2023: The narrative is that the Twins won our first playoff series in a long time. Then the Pohlad’s decided to make a massive payroll cut. And it’s left at that with implication being that “Cheap Pohlad's” was the cause. The part that no longer gets mentioned is that the Twins were about to lose millions from TV revenues. And there was a part that wasn’t known at the time. When the Pohlad's tried to sell the team, we found out that the team was deeply in debt. So, it wasn’t as if the Pohlad’s decided to cut the payroll capriciously. And given that one of the reasons for the high debt was because they didn’t let employees go during covid as most teams did, I’m saying this wasn’t a time when “Cheap Pohlad's” was fair. Especially given the next season our team was competitive going into the trading deadline.
    2024: The narrative is that the Twins were in the hunt for the playoffs, but the players faltered as the season neared its conclusion. But was that the real reason we fell out of contention? I remember that summer there being a lot of speculation that the Twins would make a deal at the trade deadline to improve the team. Much of the speculation was centered around acquiring a big hitter. At the deadline we acquired Trevor Richards, a relief pitcher. His WAR with Toronto at the time of the trade was negative 0.4. The Twins whiffed. I remember in 2003 we acquired Shannon Stewart at the trade deadline. It felt like the phrase I often heard for the rest of the season was how much that trade energized the Twins. I think the reverse can be true. When the Twins didn’t do anything to improve the team it was like letting all the air out of a balloon. Yes, the players faltered. But was that because management gave them no support? I’m not suggesting it was intentional, but subconsciously they were given the message that management didn’t care. And if you’ve worked for a boss that didn’t care about you, you know you weren’t at your best. At the trading deadline, we were eleven games over 500 (59-48). For the rest of the season, we were 9 games under 500 (23-32). When you consider the cost of a rental player for two months vs. the additional revenue from increased attendance of being in a playoff race and potential playoff revenues, I think in this instance “Cheap Pohlad's” is justified.
    2025: The narrative is that the team was not doing well, so management decided to hold a fire sale. That’s true, but it ignores why the team wasn’t doing well. On June 4th, we were 7 games over 500 (34-27). For the rest of the season, we were 29 games under 500 (36-65). Why June 4th? The next day Pablo Lopez went on the 60 day DL. At that point the players knew that based on the last year, there would be no support coming from management to try to pick up the slack from losing our Ace.  So, the players faltered.
    This is why I have a problem with Tom Pohlad’s statements that he’ll see where the team is at later in the season before he decides to make any moves. If he’s willing to do something it should be done sooner rather than later. After the last three years they’re not going to react to vague future promises. Show them that they’re going to be supported.
  3. Paved Paradise
    The success of the coming season will be determined by how well the Twins develop their young players. As soon as I first wrote that sentence it was followed by the thought, “We’re doomed. The only development we seem to have done in the last few years has been to get hitters to swing wildly at pitches outside of the strike zone when they’ve got two strikes.”
    But is that really the case? I’m defining development as how well we turn promising minor league prospects into major league players. That includes more than hitters. Pitchers also need to develop.
    Let’s take a look at pitchers first. What’s indicative of a pitcher who’s been successfully developed? I came up with two criteria. First if another team wanted them enough to trade for them at the deadline when the Twins were holding their fire sale. And since we didn’t really trade away our starters, if they started 10 games or more last season. That gives us 12 pitchers: Pablo Lopez, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods-Richardson, Zebbie Matthews, David Festa, Chris Paddock, Jhoan Duran, Danny Columbe, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, and Louis Varland. Looking at the histories of these players, only four of them have played for an MLB team other than the Twins in their careers (Lopez, Paddock, Columbe, and Stewart). That leaves eight pitchers developed by the Twins. You could argue that Matthews and Festa are still works in progress, but overall I’d say it looks like the Twins can develop pitchers into MLB quality players.
    Now, let’s look at hitters. It feels like all of the young players we were so excited about just a couple of years ago (Julien, Larnach, Lee, Lewis, Martin, Miranda, Wallner) are having prolonged sophomore slumps. Seven promising young players and every single one is struggling. What’s the problem? And why is this so different from the pitchers?
    There’s a clue in an article about Austin Martin from September in the Star Tribune talking about the hot streak he was having. Martin says, “you’re being taught launch angles and stuff, and you want to use what you’ve learned…. I just didn’t feel athletic in the box anymore. I was too concentrated on being mechanical. I’d be in the box thinking about how … to be more of a power hitter. I was trying to be something that I’m not. I tried to do what I was told, and it didn’t work for me….” From this quote it feels like the Twins are so focused on the analytics that they are trying to turn everybody into home run power hitters while ignoring what got these players into the majors in the first place.
    I’m going to do a little case study here about a time in the Twins past when they tried to get a young player to hit the team way. “Don’t swing for the fences, try to hit it the opposite way,” he was told. The Twins released him when his projected arbitration salary looked to be too expensive. He was signed by another team and played 14 years with them, being named an all-star 10 times and after retirement he was elected to the Hall of Fame. Of course, I’m talking about David Ortiz. Tom Kelly was a brilliant manager, but he wasn’t the manager to bring out the best in David Ortiz.
    The Twins should be working on building up the strengths of young hitters, not trying to remake them all into home run hitters who hit at the optimal launch angle with the correct bat speed. One of the reasons that the Twins are better at developing pitchers vs. hitters is that pitchers work on multiple pitches. Imagine if the analytics gurus said that a fastball is the number one strikeout pitch. How would it work out if they told a pitcher to only throw fastballs?
    If these young players try to work on areas that are not strengths they’re just going to move from weakness to mediocrity. At this stage in their careers our young players should be focused on their strengths, which is what got them to the major leagues in the first place. Later, as they become more complete players, they can refine their game and work on their weaknesses. Even David Ortiz figured out how to hit home runs by going the other way.
    The Twins need to change how they have been trying to develop young hitters or we’re in for a long disappointing season.
  4. Paved Paradise

    Letter to Santa

    By Paved Paradise,


    Holidays
    Dear Santa,
    Here’s my list of some gifts you could give this Christmas.
    To Joe Pohlad:  Season tickets to the St. Paul Saints, maybe after a stint in the minors he’ll get called back to the big leagues.
    To Latroy Hawkins:  Arms
    To Joe Ryan:  A contract extension with a clause (Not you Santa, I mean a part of the contract.) that he won’t be pulled out of games where he has a no hitter going until he goes over 140 pitches. If he is pulled, they won’t put in a reliever who gave up a hit in 7 out of his last 8 appearances and they will treat it like a close game they’re trying to win and switch relievers after one inning.
     To the new owners from New York: We don’t know much about them or their other businesses. But if one of the businesses is a cloning facility, some DNA from Shohei Ohtani.
    To Derek Shelton:  The ability to develop young players.
    To the Twins Players:  Backing from management. No more trade deadlines where nothing is done to improve the team. If they are competitive this year, trade(s) to fill improve the team and allow for a deeper playoff run.
    To Thad Levine:  Visits from the Baseball ghosts of the past, present and future. We know at one point Thad will say, “Spirit, what team was that that all the people were laughing at because they were buried in the standings below even the White Sox?”
    To The Twins Daily Community:  Happy holidays!
    I probably haven’t included everyone I should. Feel free to add ideas for Santa in the comments.
  5. Paved Paradise

    The Pohlad's Sale/Not Sale Saga

    By Paved Paradise,


    Twins Sale
    I’ve been reading Twins Daily for some time and finally have signed up as a member as I had a few ideas of topics to write about. For my first blog post I wanted to write about some of the financial aspects of the recent “Selling/Not Selling Saga” and what it might mean for the Twins next few years.
    It’s been about a year since the Pohlad’s announced that they were going to explore a sale of the Twins. It seemed that something would happen soon. Over the winter we heard that the sale could be completed by opening day. Then the Ishbia’s dropped out, and the timeline was extended. However, by All-Star break the talk was that something would be done by the end of the season. That was followed by the trade deadline teardown and the Pohlad’s announcement. They were no longer selling the team but instead were taking on investors who would buy 20% of the team.
    Some interesting items about the Twins came to light during this process. First, the Pohlads wanted $1.7 billion for the team. There was an early for $1.5 billion from a group led by a Minnesota billionaire that was rejected.
    It also came out that Twins have $425 million in debt. The Strib reported that the Twins wanted the buyers to assume the team’s debt. Adding the debt increases the buyer’s price. It’s like buying a house that has a mortgage on it. If the person selling the house says they want to get $300,000 plus there’s a $200,000 mortgage to the bank, your cost to buy the house is $500,000. So, the actual price to the buyer the Twins were asking for was $2.125 billion (1.7b plus 425m).
    The offer that was finally accepted was to sell 20% of the team for $425 million with the money paid being used to pay down the Twins debt. That $425 million is more than 20% of $1.7 billion. But it is exactly 20% of 2.125 billion.
    One additional thing that may have impacted some of the decisions the Pohlads made. The last sale of a professional sports franchise in the Twin Cities was Glen Taylor’s sale of the Timberwolves in 2021. He sold the Wolves for $1.5 billion to Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore. He also provided some interest free financing for the sale, allowing the new owners to pay him installment payments. By the time the last payment was due the value of the team had more than doubled. This led to Glen Taylor feeling some seller’s remorse, and he unsuccessfully tried to stop the sale based on a loophole.
    I’d like to look at what all this means to the future for the Twins. Since things can be interpreted in a good or bad way, I’ll have an Optimist’s viewpoint and a Pessimist’s viewpoint.
    Let’s start with the money. The Twins will receive $425 million for 20% of the team and will use it to pay down their debt.
    Pessimist: This along with the payroll dump points to a lockout in 2027. The owners will try to implement a salary cap and the players will try to stop it. The Twins are preparing for some lean times coming as part the season will be lost and attendance when they come back will suffer for some time. They’re paying down their debt because they think they’re going to need to borrow more money in reaction to the turmoil. If they have $425 million in debt, borrowing more would be difficult and the interest rate would be much higher.
    Optimist: Or maybe they’re looking at the savings that are generated by lowering their debt. Currently the prime interest rate is 7%. Let’s say they use $400 million to pay down that debt. At a little over prime, say 7.5%, they would save $30 million a year in interest. More than enough to add to payroll and have an impact.
    Note: This was first mentioned in Brandon’s blog post “New Found Revenue” posted on Nov 14.
    What impact will the new owners have?
    Optimist: We keep hearing that a former Twin might be part of the Minnesota group. They’ll be able to talk some sense into the Pohlad’s about what their actions mean to the fans. They’re probably just as disgusted with all the trades as we are.
    Pessimist: That’s pretty funny. As part of the process of selling a business, financial projections are prepared so that the buyers can understand what their opportunity is. There is no way the Twins made such a massive change at the trading deadline without having disclosed it in advance to potential purchasers. The fact that they knew about it in advance and still went forward with the purchase tells you what they think about that.
    Why hasn’t Derek Falvey been given a payroll number for next year?
    Pessimist: They’re not going to come out and say how bad it’s going to be. The Pohdals learned that lesson in 2023. They’re trying to bank as much cash as they can to make it through the labor troubles on the horizon. Any additions or free agent signings will be offset by trades.
    Optimist: On the other hand, if they’re planning on using the interest savings from paying down the debt once the 20% sale is closed, then they wouldn’t fully settle on a payroll number until the deal is closed. It would put them in bad situation if they approved a larger payroll and then something happened to cause the deal to fall apart at the last minute. Once the deal is approved at the Winter Meetings, Falvey should get his number.
    What do you make of the sudden shift that was made in going from trying to sell the whole team to selling 20%?
    Pessimist: We’re going to be stuck with the Pohlad’s forever. Or at least through 2030, when the labor situation is more settled and MLB has taken over the local broadcast revenues. So, it will feel like forever.
    Optimist: I think they looked at what happened with the Timberwolves and realized the potential was there for the team’s value to increase substantially. From Joe Pohlad’s comments I think he doesn’t want to sell, so he was probably the one pushing this viewpoint. My guess is that they compromised. They probably picked a point in the future when they would be able to sell the team for a multiple what they were asking for it. Then they compared it to what $1.7 billion would grow to in that point of time. Selling the team won out. But every day that passed was one day less of earnings on the $1.7 billion. At some date a line was crossed and the sale became less profitable than retaining the team. If you have the time frame and the expected return on the sales price it would be easy to set up a spreadsheet to calculate the date to stop trying to sell. I’m assuming that when the line was crossed that’s when they pivoted to taking on minority partners.
    When I started writing this, I was very much in the pessimistic mindset. But as I wrote, I found myself hoping that the optimistic mindset was possible. Off season is the best time for hope, but time will tell.
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