Richie the Rally Goat

Ehhh, many Twins Fans have been Anti-Pohlad since the mid-nineties when they let their team be one of the worst in the AL for 6 years and another big chunk when Carl voted for contracting his own team in 2001. I let the small market thing slide in the mid-nineties as a “well, it’s the Metrodome, they can’t afford…” type of thing. When Carl voted to contract his own team after mismanaging it for half a decade…. He lost me. The whole Pohlad family has been lying, cheating garbage in my eyes for 23 years. As to whether a potential new ownership group is better or worse than the Pohlads: Griffith was awful, The Pohlads were in some ways better, it’s hard to say how Griffith would have responded in the Dome and faced with the contraction issue, and was dead when Target Field. The only thing I can say with certainty is an owner that wants to own the team is a hell of a lot better than an owner who doesn’t. whether the new ownership group are going to manage the team better, I have a hard time imagining they’ll be worse. It’s possible, but then why spend the money at all? Where the buyer beware issue is, the Cardinals grew from 1.5B to 2.5B during the cable tv boom. What direction is that value going from here forward? It could be the new ownership of the Twins are buying the dip. Short term revenue is dropping. It sounds like MLB has a plan to turn that around. I hope for all of us fans that is the case, or the pain of industry change will reduce the number of teams or reduce the quality of available players.

They’ve been visiting Phoenix for a year now

Ron Davis?!?!?

The only way it would make sense to trade either one, is a Hershel Walker colossally stupid lopsided trade in the Twins’ favor. That doesn’t happen

Too much patience becomes apathy, all those Terry Ryan years, just siting on those prospects waiting for another development that never came. Rooker was waived by KC. The Twins got value for Rooker knowing they didn’t have room to develop him on the big league roster. Far more self aware than trading for a guy and giving up on him for nothing and then he develops into a good player.

Florida is to summer as Minnesota is to winter

Florida July heat at an outdoor park? Yuck, no thank you

The problem was hitting (at the end when the injuries mounted) fielding, and middle relief. in the last 6 weeks of the season they went from first in runs scored to fourth. The fielding was awful, and the fielding metrics don’t do justice to the pitching ERAs are ballooned by terrible fielding. All the complaints about losing Gray, while it would have been awesome to have him, SP wasn’t the problem. Twins Sps were 5th in the AL in WAR, first in K rate, second in BB rate, 3rd in xFIP. Edit to add, I think they added depth in the right places, but bad additions, exacerbated by incessant platooning

The Twins ended 2024 with the 4th most runs scored in the AL, but cratered down the stretch as injuries all mounted at once. Especially during the 162 game marathon, depth matters a lot.

The entire Oakland Coliseum was in this year’s rule 6, but went unselected.

Hmmm…

@Cory Engelhardt with prospects being the currency of trades, I think your blueprint is heading down a reasonable path. agreed w/Brock and Levi, not sure how I feel about this much salary dumping, but my picture is a couple of offloading moves for prospects, then packaging prospects together for a trade of a major leaguer. buying the dip on Goldy might be a good move, but I doubt they spend that big. Probably run it back with Smooth. great work

It was a BAD 6 weeks, but they still ended 2024 with the 4th most runs scored in the AL. 4th! Injuries are going to happen, building a better bench, some fielding fundamentals, and better middle relief will go a long ways. All cheap fixes

From Kitty to Cooperstown

Other than your utility infielder doesn’t play SS, I really like this fairly plausible plan. It’s a lot of trades to bank on, but what fun is this if you can’t do anything?

Joe Ryan, Jake Odorizzi, Jhoan Duran, Sergio Romo were all acquired via trade

With the Thermometer graphic bursting through the top when the bake sale reaches its goal

I have it on my Prime list! Great write-up

“Liaison Assistant Surrounding The Health Of Payroll Efficiency” OMG, I just lost it… too funny

When your 3 years old, 3 years is a lifetime, when your 30 years old it’s a first marriage or line on a resume, when your 60 it’s not long at all, when your 90, it’s a blink.

Preston Mattingly is close in age, born in ‘87, but Zoll might be younger, he graduated undergrad in 2012 so likely born in the late 80s/early nineties. However the majority of MLB GMs are in their 40s, he’s young, but not “that young”

Matt Wallner’s .894 OPS 155 wRC+ put him in the top 15-20 in the MLB and he’s “borderline”? Festa’s results were very good for the 7th starter. 60 innings at 27% k rate is top 30ish in mlb. Mathew’s results were good for an 8th starter 24% k rate puts him ranked in the 60s. Yes, there’s more to pitching than Ks, but there’s a lot to work with for those two. Future is very bright

if you sort by most aggregate WAR, the largest pool is Free Agency and the Twins are towards the top of the list (number 6, I think) It just tells you that the Twins lose less talent to free agency than other teams.

Agreed, both directly reducing overhead and also likely retention efforts by Pohlads to keep Falvey and Zoll from taking laterals knowing at some point they’ll be fired. DSP getting a “demotion” keeps him as a voice to help shepherd Joe and keep DSP on the board.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Team&affiliateId=mlbapp-android_referral