Major League Ready

Let’s just talk about what we do know. 1) The Twins pulled Sano from Winter League to concentrate on conditioning. 2) The FO stated publically that the Twins, Sano, and his representation had discussed the importance of Sano managing his weight and that they all agreed to a “plan” 3) Sano showed up having made no improvement in his conditioning. In other words, he did not follow the plan. 4) Sano made no effort to show-up early and/or put in additional effort. 5) Sano opted to hang with his friends instead of getting a jump on learning a new position. I might add #5 – It’s not that hard relatively speaking for a 270 lbs athlete to lose 20 pounds. That goal would be easily through a managed diet and working out a couple hours. We don’t know that Sano just did not care enough to put in the work and/or manage his diet but that certainly seems to be the logical conclusion.

I think you make a good point and the other side of that coin is that the detractors feel his 900 OPS fantastic. His offensive production does not change the fact that he could be even more valuable if he could play a defensive position. His refusal to get in shape would have similar consequences if he were at 3B. being in shape would also help on the bases as well as avoiding injury. Is it really too much too ask of a professional athlete to stay in shape? Is it too much to ask that they eat properly? Is it too much to ask that they devote 3-4 hours a day in the off-season? Considering it would take the average individual 3-4,000 years to make what Sano will make in a 13-15 year career, it seems reasonable that he could make an effort to get in peak condition. Try comparing what a surgeon makes in a lifetime. Take into account the number of years of education and the grueling hours as a resident for a fraction of what Sano will make. I don't think it's too much to expect that he get in the best condition possible regardless of position. How is it that if the front office wont operate at break-even or a loss they are accused of not wanting to win but a player that does not care enough to be in the best shape possible is just fine as long as he hits? Would it be ok if the FO put together a great hitting team and then just ignored the pitching staff or defense because we had a great hitting team".

No. He was never going to be a SS but can anyone possibly think he would not be better defensively if he were slimmed down just a bit. Can anyone argue that a two-way player is more valuable to the team. Can anyone argue that he would increase his earning potential by being a two-way player. There are countless examples of 22 y/o or younger players making a big-time commitment to conditioning. The Twins made a public statement that they had met with Sano and his representation and they had agreed to an off-season program. Sano is not fat by any means but only losing 5 pounds would suggest he did not make an effort. Klove and Shabazz lost 20+ pounds and I think it would be a safe bet that their body fat was lower than Sano's when they started their programs. Sano getting to the same body fat percentage would probably require him to lose 40 lbs.

I guess the good news is that the average of the four would have Murphy's OPS to be 44 points higher than Suzuki and he should control the running game better.

The like button is just not adequate in this case. I have another option for Ricky ... Release the Twins form your contract and go pitch wherever you like.

Where are we now? We are at such a small sample size that is makes little sense to even attempt to draw any conclusions.

I agree completely with how you framed up rebuilding. This F/O and perhaps the Pohlads just refuse to go into rebuild more. I presume it's because sucking that bad is bad for revenue in the short-term and might also damage the brand. I say might because I don't have sufficient information by which to conclude if this true. The other side of this is the insistence by many that the Twins WONT spend. Many do an exceptional job with statistics here but when it comes to offering evidence and support for the claims people make about spending, well lets be nice and say it is absent. The Cubs generated $50M more in 2014 and when the numbers come out this spring I would guess that difference will be $75M or more in 2015. It is also completely ignored that one team in the Twin's revenue class has signed an elite SP to 5 year contract unless we count Arizona signing Grienke. Given they just signed a billion dollar TV contract, that is not a rational comparison. I also never see anyone put up the revenue or profit numbers in support of these arguments. Anything I have ever seen confirms the Twins spending and profits are consistent with virtually every other team. The Tigers have been an outlier but while I would love to have the outlier owner and don't expect it. You also never see any of the people who say the Twin's FO suck post any win percentages relative to revenue. The fact is that even with the very poor past 4 years, the Twins still have a better win percentage this century than every team with equal or less revenue with the exception of the A's. Of course, the way the A's were the king of value acquisitions and selling off good players.

They also generate revenue from minor league games that offsets a portion of the cost.

Thanks for the report. Much appreciated!

Klaw was on Grant Paulsen's radio show this morning. He said that part of the reason he ranked the Twins farm system so high is the depth of talent and he specifically mentioned the number of power arms. He acknowledged that RP prospects flame out at a high rate but that the Twins have a bunch of really good arms in the wings. It is time to acknowledge this club has not quite completed the rebuild and finish the process. Let's see these guys in a ML uniform.

I would bet 99% of all financial analysts would agree with you. More importantly, the Twins have to follow GAAP and tax law with this posting fee and every other expenditure. The test from a GAAP perspective is always a matter of matching expense with revenue/value. I don’t know how anyone could possibly assert that the posting fee does provide value over the life the contract. Of course, they could write it off if they terminated the contract. I have seen a couple of weird tax exceptions that are specific to sports and entertainment but I doubt posting fees have been given any special consideration.

There is a fairly consistent presumption here that the best thing for the team is to leave Sano at DH. I think you are right the FO did not think that it was a good idea to lock-in a relatively athletic 22 year old to a DH role. I doubt any other FO would keep him there either. There has been speculation about his desire to play the field but I cant imagine he would actually prefer a strictly DH role. It might even cause some problems in the relationship and I doubt his agent would tell him it was a good idea to be a DH.

Don't go confusing us with the facts.

It’s pretty hard to make sense of this when we don’t know the set of assumptions being used by the FO. Park is not hard to understand if the Twins did not want to relegate Sano to a DH so early in his career. This is actually pretty safe assumption given Sano’s athleticism. He is more valuable if he can play any defensive position and a lot more valuable if he can play and adequate 3B. The big one for me is how they evaluated his defensive floor and ceiling at 3B. Finding a position for Sano so that we can keep plouffe is ridiculous if they believe he can play the position. That plan is a good way to sustain mediocrity. We have a number of great OF prospects which means we likely would not have room for a player that hits as well or better than Plouffe and that is better than Sano defensively, all so that we can keep Plouffe for 2 years. God help us if they are going through this rigmarole so that we can keep Plouffe.

Now you are completing changing your argument. Your post was very specific. You could not figure out why it cost X amount more for operations now vs the Dome days. The argument about the validity of that expense is a completely different subject. I included an article that explained the change in revenue sharing. You have spoken about fact and opinion here but it is not keeping you from accepting hard facts. The revenue is a bit ironic at first glance but they went from near the bottom to the middle of the pack. Again, the irony, if there is any, is absolutely irrelevant in terms of your original argument which suggested there could not possibly be that big a difference in operating costs. The implication being this was a made up thing to justify not increasing the payroll. The facts are as clear as they can be with our limited information but you still cant acknowledge the differences are very legitimate.

There are three large increases. Target Field, Interest for Target Field, and the difference in revenue sharing. The difference adding the other two is in the neighborhood of an additional $35M and these two are easy enough to get a good estimate. Why would you chose to just ignore these in your argument? It appears you simply are not being objective.

That has absolutely nothing to do with Chief's question. He has been asking what could possible account for what appears to be a $40m/year increase in operating costs. These are contributors. The relative impact on payroll is not present in Chief's question. His question is specific to how the twins now need roughly $40M/year to cover operating expenses. Ignoring for a moment that if other teams had these costs are not are relevant to Chief's question, the two biggest changes are not present for most teams. Those two costs being the difference in revenue sharing and interest.

If we could see their costs categories it would sure help. Most likely influences off the top of my head. ---- Revenue Sharing – somewhere in the neighborhood of $25-30M year. The Twins received revenue sharing funds in the dome and are now a contributor because of increased revenue from Target Field. http://www.twinkietown.com/2010/10/19/1760846/the-minnesota-twins-revenue-sharing-and-payroll-flexibility ---- Interest on bank loan – Not sure of the terms but probably around $10M/year ---- Investments in minor league parks and operations ---- Operating cost for Target field ---- Increase in International operations ---- International signing bonuses ---- Increase in health care costs / insurance ---- Payroll Taxes on the higher team payroll and other personnel additions ---- Increase in travel and hotel cost from 10+ years ago ---- Whatever they have added in analytical personnel I am sure there are several others. I don't think there it is any mystery how the overhead could have increased by $40M.

For starters, the most credible information I have been able to find (Forbes) reported a net income of just under 10% the last two years. Therefore, you are suggesting a break-even or loss. Two, In the last 24 hours someone suggested a $240M payroll and another poster suggested they are making in excess of 100M net profit. Three, turnabout is fair play. The norm here is to absolutely rail on the front office. There is no decorum at all where this is concerned. Would anyone here suggest the context of discussion here on a regular basis is not that the FO is both ignorant and incompetent. Heaven forbid someone suggest the real problem is what the posters don't understand.

MIke, Let me see if I have this right. The other teams should continue to follow their current financial guidelines but the Twins should spend considerably more. We can quibble about the exact impact but it is a fair characterization to say fans here are asking the Twins to spend any profit on payroll or in other words operate at break-even. The last two years Forbes reported just over $20M in profit so any of the elite FAs discussed here would consume any profit the team has earned. Therefore, it seems clear you and others are suggesting all of the other teams should continue to make a profit but our owners should be willing to operate at break-even or a loss. Is this really what you are suggesting? We are really talking about what is reasonable to expect from ownership. I would seem fair to me to expect the team earn the industry average percentage of revenue. We don't have nearly enough information to make an informed assessment. However, any financial reporting I can find suggests the Twin's spending is very much inline with the industry. Do you have any evidence this is not the case or are you really advocating that it is fair to us to expect the Twins to have no regard for profitability. Detroit has shown the least regard for profitability and I would love it if we had ownership that was ok with spending after last dime of profit. I just think it is in very unfair and unreasonable to expect it.

People may not use the term break-even model but the result of what many of you call for in half the discussions that come up here would result in a break-even model. Just because the people calling for these actions don't understand the the result is break-even or a loss does not mean you are not suggesting a break-even model. This $240M is a very good indicator of how little objectivity is demonstrated on this site on an every day basis. Forbes reported the Twins income at just over $220M for 2013 & 2014. That’s a $20M loss just on payroll. Do you really not understand that they have a number of other substantial expenses? You are suggesting they lose $20M plus the following expenses. Other employee’s salaries Payroll taxes on $240M + other employees Travel Accommodations Target field operations Marketing Minor league players Minor league operations Numerous other smaller expenses If you takes Forbes numbers and subtract payroll from revenue you can get a pretty good idea of a total of “other expenses” It would be somewhere in the $100M range. So, now you are suggesting that the team should lose $120M. Some of you don’t even try to look at this objectively and what really cracks me up is those who feel compelled to hit the like button for something this misguided. BTW … Name a team with the Twins level of revenue that EVER spent even $150M. Yet, somehow you think $240M is reasonable. You don’t have to have any financial aptitude at all to compare the Twins spending to other teams with similar revenue.

No doubt some owners a more willing to spend than others. It does not change the premise at all. It makes no difference if a handful of owners are more aggressive now. If the new norm is for all teams to accept a break-even model all teams are now equally aggressive. So, the handful of teams no longer have a slight advantage because of their spending habits. However, big picture, players make more money and the Twins in relative terms gain VERY little advantage. All of the is secondary to the fact that the Twins are at a revenue disadvantage when competing with the top markets from a payroll perspective. The list below is Forbes estimated earnings. If all of the team above the Twins went to a break-even model, these 14 would gain an additional $453M to spend on payroll which is an average of $26.7M. Given the Twins had a profit of just over $21M, the average team would actually pick-up an incremental $5M advantage in the Twins. There is also a couple anomalies in this year. The Dodger had a loss of $12M and they are rectifying that problem as evidenced by recent moves and non-moves. The Phillies lost $39M and that's not because they are less motivated to make a profit. If the Dodgers and Phillies were normalized the difference would be an average of almost $10M/team if a break-even model became the norm. http://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/

How much money did they spend on those three players combined? Probably about what is left on Nolasco's contract and about the same as what they pay Mauer per year. Now, I am sure you will spin this but we are talking SPECIFICALLY about willingness to spend.

This is a reasonable position on their need to earn a profit but what is COMPLETELY lost in this discussion is that the only difference a break-even model would make is that the players would make even more. The payroll gap would be no different. Many people here are looking at profit as the culprit when in fact the problem is very simply that several teams have significantly more revenue than the Twins and a handful have a really significant revenue advantage.