Major League Ready

My guess is that they are hoping for Paddack to pitch well enough that they can get something for him while off-loading his salary. It's $5M saved if they get rid of him by game 54. Maybe they would even be willing to eat most of it if they could get a decent return. Regardless, I believe their first choice is to move Paddack out and Matthews in. I seriously doubt SWR is going anywhere right now unless the return is beyond what we might reasonably expect.

I am not arguing that Clemens is a good player. I simply don't agree that it's reasonable to expect that we have a MLB ready player ready to step-in no matter how many players get injured.

I left of Miranda because he is out due to poor performance which is different in this context but Rodriquez and Martin are good examples. You could actually make the argument they were 6 deep at 2B. (Julien / Castro / Lee / Martin / Eeles / Gasper and Keaschall). They had Bader / Keirsey / Castro / Martin as outfield depth and perhaps McCusker and Holland could be added to the list. That's a lot of back-up. This number of injuries is just nuts. I really hated losing Keaschall. He injected some life in this team. I was looking forward to getting Wallner and Lewis back with him and Buck is going better now. Those 4 playing well together would be an end to the boring baseball we have seen so far.

Your expectation is that they have a starter caliber depth after losing their primary 3B (Lewis), Their primary LF (Wallner), their #1 back-up (Castro), their 4rd option Keaschall who was doing great, their 5th option (Eeles) who is hurt? An organization is in trouble when they have to scramble as a result of this many injuries? Where exactly are they supposed to acquire a solid starter a month into the season? How many teams are willing to trade at this point in the season?

I suspect the teams with the most revenue already use their financial advantage to attract and retain the people that standout in these positions. The Dodgers have done a great job while always picking late.

Could not agree more on aggressively recruiting top scouting/development help. Pay them to come and pay them to stay. I would imagine evaluating scouts is rather difficult but I agree with the sentiment that this investment likely has a greater rate of return than free agent spending. However, it would appear most MLB teams already believe this to be true based on the increase in personnel over the past decade.

Maybe they need an "offensive coordinator" or two. One person with the sole focus of overseeing the scouting and drafting of position players and another person whose sole focus is development of position players. Obviously, they have people in similar positions. I am just throwing out a semi-serious idea because I agree they need to do something different on the position player side.

I didn't give an opinion on their track record. I gave 100% factual data. Those facts speak for themselves in terms of how the team has performed over the past 20 years. They have Machado on the books for 7 years from age 34 at 40M as the result of back loading the contract. That's selling out the future for the present. Darvish is well past his prime, on the IL now, and on the books for 3 more years after this year. The Buxton and Correa contracts are miles better than these two contracts. Boegarts was good his first year and very mediocre last year. He is getting old for a SS and he will have to hit much better to be valuable at 3B/2B. He is on the books for this year and 8 more. They did not get much out of Musgrove last year and he is on the IL now, Cronenworth and Arraez are both free agents that I seriously doubt they can afford to resign with the increase due to Machado. They are great at the moment. Maybe they will have one great year but they certainly have not been a great franchise. They absolutely sucked and got a bunch of top draft choices for several years. They get some credit for getting Tatis for nothing but that was as much luck as it was brilliance.

There is a light. The question is if the light gets turned on. Lewis back fairly soon. He may or may not be a light. Wallner will be back and he should be a light. Should we expect Correa to play like he has over his career or the anemic hitter he has been to start the year. He should provide some light. How about Luke Keaschall. That due looks like a flood light so far. I guess what I am saying is we should not throw in the towel just yet.

We differ in opinion on this one. The Padres have won a couple of wild card series but they have won a total of one divisional series since 1998. They have had two 90-win seasons in the past 20 years. The Twins have had 3. Only the Marlins and Royals have had fewer 90-win seasons. The Padres win percentage of that 20 years is .482, the Twins .493. The Padres recent run was a product of being one of the worst teams in MLB for several years. They did manage to build the best farm system in the league a few years ago after that extended run of futility. (13 seasons missing the playoffs) They now have very little talent in their Milb system. MLB rates them 25th. Baseball America 26th, and Fangraphs 29th. The Padres have an aging team with contract that’s are going to be a real problem for several years. The Padres pushed all of their chips in after many years of being very bad and their outlook in terms of sustainability looks very bad. They have been good not great recently and they are very poorly positioned long-term given the poor farm system and bad contracts. I would not consider this an example of managerial excellence.

Maybe. There are 4 modest revenue markets that have done better than the Twins. Cleveland / Tampa / Oakland and Milwaukee. Most people here advocate rather strongly against the practices of these teams. These teams are the least likely to spend. They never sign expensive free agents and Cleveland / Tampa trade established players for prospects frequently.

There is no easy answer. This situation has evolved over decades and there really isn't a solution that would create parity while being fair to both owners and players. The is an enormous revenue disparity. Any significant artificial manipulation at this point would enormously devalue large market teams and benefit small market teams. Competitors / business owners don't agree to this sort of devaluation without a legal fight. IDK how the owners govern this but I would imagine there is a mechanism in place. I think the league and the owners simply accept this reality now because the current model has grown revenue for all teams.

Recent history strongly suggests that it is definitely a league wide when the measuring stick is winning a world series. Only one modest revenue team has won the World Series since the White Sox did it 20 years ago. Of course that would be the Royals in 2015. Once ever 10 years would suggest it's a macro not a micro issue.

My guess is there is no way a salary cap is accepted without a prolonged strike. The players would fight it furiously. People will argue that a floor will make up for it. Well, a floor has to be set at a level where the team with the lowest revenue can still survive. It would not even come close to making up for the salary loss to players if the cap was set low enough to facilitate anything resembling parity.

I see nothing but positives if our OF becomes Buxton / Erod / Jenkins. Wallner becomes a DH / 4th OFer. That's a good recipe for improvement. Larnach gets traded. Trading from depth is also a positive. Between Lewis / Keaschall / Lee / Julien / and perhaps Eeles they need to cover 2B/3B. My guess is Lewis retains 3B and Keaschall becomes the primary 2B with Lee backing up 3B/2B/SS. If Lee is so good that he needs to be a starter, that's a high-class problem I would like to have. Maybe Keaschall is a super utility and plays a "Castro type" role if Lee performs really well. Miranda and Julien are traded unless one of them steps up offensively and prove they can handle 1B. I think it's more likely they fill 1B with free agents until Amick or someone else claims the spot.

Let's just say for the sake of conversation Erod comes on board looks great. Why not trade Larnach for a 1B or catcher instead of trying to convert Larnach? It's possible Larnach could transition just fine but that's far from a certainty. Of course, it's no certainty they could find the kind of deal I described either. Could Julien be the future 1B with given it would appear Keaschall is already in the mix?

Pitching is the scarcest commodity in MLB. If they develop enough of it, they can trade off the occasional starter (like Cleveland) for some hitting help. Developing enough pitching also makes it feasible to spend in free agency to plug an offensive hole. That said, yes it sure would be great if they hit on a couple more offensive players with early picks. Let's hope Keaschall and Rodriguez are part of the solution and Lewis can stay healthy.

My complaint with their drafting practices is too many unathletic position players in the early rounds. I hated the Sabato pick from the very start and I remember several others here who hated it. I also hated the Cavaco pick even though he was touted as a good athlete because there was a better much more proven player available in the form of Corbin Carroll. Kirilloff and Rooker, also unathletic. I guess we all would have been fine with Rooker had he not taken so long to develop but the point remains. More athletic players have higher upside and are more fun to watch.

The best case scenario is that 2 or 3 of Matthews, Festa, Prielipp, Morris, Raya are what we hope. A couple other guys have a chance to play into that equation as well. That would allow them to trade one of Lopez, Ryan or Ober. That opens up some payroll for free agent hitting and also as you point out is a great avenue to acquiring a good bat. If they continue to suck, and the pitchers named above are looking very promising, the best plan might be to trade one of those SPs at the deadline. Contenders are not at all inclined to give up impact bats but perhaps we could acquire young players that are major league ready like Tampa and Cleveland have done in the past.

Really good point on the Angels. I could not believe the Angels chose to keep Ohtani. Incredibly bad decision that set them back considerably. Without really looking into it. My impression is the Dodgers have done a better job of drafting and developing than the Yankees or Mets, especially the Mets. The Dodgers have one of the top farm systems right now. While those high revenue teams still have to produce, I think we can all agree that constructing a true contender today without well-above average revenue is a big uphill climb. I hated that they did not begin to address this with the last CBA. They made it worse if anything with the luxury tax guidelines. The big market teams like the status quo and the players will likely be a bigger obstacle than the owners in terms of getting meaningful reform. Our saving grace could be the pitching pipeline. If, and it's a big if, we can produce enough pitching to maintain a relatively low cost / high quality staff, we can spend money on bats which are more affordable and easier to come by than pitching. Of course, this is not news to anyone here, I am just trying to stay positive.

The Twins no doubt have not produced much let's call it elite talent but is that the greatest input to success? The Angels had Traut and Ohtani and still didn't do much. There are many other examples. It takes considerable depth to win. If you're the Dodgers you can buy it. Mid-market teams have to produce a large number of above average players to seriously contend. How often has that happened in the past 20 years among teams in the bottom half of revenue? Not often. Did those teams have superstars? Not really. Lorenzo Cain could be called a superstar. How did they acquire him? They traded away a legit superstar SP. What teams in the bottom half have been more successful than the Twins. That would be the As, Rays, and Guardians. Would you agree that those teams have not drafted better than the Twins? They produced more value by trading away established players and acquiring reclamation projects than they did by drafting.

As I am sure you know, Lopez is signed through the 27 Season. Season lost or not, I think the determining factor will be if a couple of SP prospects among the group of (Matthews/Festa/ Prielipp/Morris/Raya) give real good reasons to believe they will have an excess of starting pitching. I know there is theoretically no such thing but if a couple of these guys really step up, they could move one of Lopez/Ryan or Ober for a very good bat. In the process they might be able to also shed some salary.

So, your solution is to get rid of the two best position players (Correa/Buxton) and our best starting pitcher? Then what? Sign more modest price free agents? Those three players produced 11.2 WAR for a total of $74,225,857 which is 6,627,309 per WAR which is well below league average. Signing aa larger number of modest price free agents is the exact opposite of what I see most people advocating here. Most posters advocate the Pablo Lopez type or better and less of the modest priced free agents so it sure seems like you are among a small minority that don't want premium players signed. You would have something to complain about if the big three were producing at below average levels per dollar spent or maybe even if they were performing at league average in terms of production per dollar spent. To complain about players producer well above average per dollar spent makes no sense. BTW ... The Twins have $32.5M coming off the books next year from Vasquez, Bader, Columbe, Paddack and Correa's salary decrease. That will easily cover the arbitration increases. They are also likely to have a significant infusion of low cost talent (Rodriquez / Jenkins / Keaschall / Matthews / Festa / Prielipp / Morris / Raya). Obviously all of them won't pan out be these players will allow the Twins to trade players like Larnach and one of Ober / Ryan / Lopez). This will infuse even more low cost talent and at the same time moving more expensive talent. I just don't see the problem other than the obvious revenue inequity that requires the type of practices mentioned above.

Vazquez was the worst hitter on the team last year. MAT was worse than Vasquez so I am not the least bit disappointed that they didn't resign MAT.

When people say better or worse, I get the impression that they are mostly focused on spending. I suspect we would get about the same. Their spending is consistent with teams of roughly equal revenue. Also, while they are estimates, all of the published profit estimates I have ever seen suggest their profits are modest and among the lowest in the league. I am not inclined to believe some billionaire is going to buy the team and significantly reduce what is already a modest profit. Where there may be opportunity to improve is revenue generation. I would hope for a new owner that really knows how to message, promote, market, and in doing so maximize revenue. However, I don't have the information necessary to have a good understanding of the market potential. I suspect there is opportunity but just how much requires an in-depth assessment. My guess is that increased spending is more likely to come from improved revenue generation than it is from getting a new owner that is willing to cut operating profit in half which by the way would mean adding about $15M to payroll which would not have much impact.