Major League Ready

I think you might be overlooking a crucial difference between Detroit and Minnesota. The Tigers were below $100M in projected payroll before the addition of Torres and are now projected to spend $107M on payroll.

You are absolutely right but we should not be surprised when fans expect their team to pull off big deals nearly every year. It's kind of the nature of fandom. Among the teams in the bottom half of revenue, trading away very good players or just letting them go to free agency is far more common. I would add the guy I think of as the biggest deal maker among modest revenue teams in Dipoto and the Mariners have been the definition of mediocre. They have exactly two 90-win seasons in the last 20 years and not one season over 90 wins.

That's not possible. He made his MLB debut at the end of last season. Therefore, none of his is options have been used.

I like the odds of Larnach and Wallner outperforming Rosario's post-twins production and I like it a lot. I also like the odds that E. Rodriquez out performs what Rosario did post Twins and Jenkins is also on the horizon. Like Rosario, Kepler won't be missed. I just wished they would have packaged Kepler/Polanco for Ford. Who knows, maybe they tried but that was my dream scenario.

Is the logical conclusion of them trading Luzardo for this level of prospect that his health is suspect enough to significantly reduce his value? I just don't not what else to think given the value of cost-controlled pitching.

Totally agree and I would prefer to have Keaschall but we should also recognize that there is a high probability Caba will be an excellent defender at a premium position. Therefore, Caba has a high ceiling and the floor is probably a weak hitting great defender at SS which has value. That's a pretty decent profile when a team is acquiring prospects.

Good point. Cleveland and Tampa are the kings of this practice. Lindor, Kluber, Clevinger, Bauer, and several others were all future focused trades. Even our old friend Carlos Santana was acquired as a prospect in trade for an established player (Casey Blake). Tampa has many examples as well.

By that logic of lagging a year, investment this year would not yield higher attendance this year. The Twins didn't even have a deal with Comcast. They had a deal with Bally's who had an agreement with Comcast. You can make an argument that the Twins should have taken the potential of Comcast not renewing the Bally's agreement but you can't say the twins should have extended with Comcast because they didn't have an agreement with Comcast.

They had record payroll in 2023. The attendance drop-off in 2024 was less than 300 per game even with the collapse so that really does not track. Can you elaborate on any available TV deals that they opted not to take? There are several teams in the same scenario this year and there are no TV deals to lock down. Twins Attendance

OK. I was not tracking with the cost cutting. What you are actually saying is that they should increase spending because it will increase the sale price. As fans we would like to believe this but I doubt it's true. If the process has already begun with the Ishbia brothers has already begun, the sale will likely be completed long before the results of any off-season moves come to fruition. They are not going to assume success. Free agent spending definitely does not have the kind of track record that would elevate the sale price of a team. There are several other factors with much more weight on a team's valuation. A buyer's assessment of the relative health of the league and this market, risk assessment, is the new TV model a permanent disadvantage, and will the growing revenue disparity severely limit the success of teams in the bottom half of revenue. They are looking at a very long-term investment.

I am not quite sure what you mean. Can you give specific examples of players they non-tendered or traded to "clear off the books".

Why would they be sorry about signing their best player? If they had to trade good players to dump salary, I could understand the question but that's not happened.

Would it be useless or inaccurate to make a generalized statement that Twins fans would like Payroll to increase or the twins to sign Rory Sasaki? To suggest Twins fans, including myself don't care for Cleveland's practices is not even marginally a stretch but it illustrates something most don't want to acknowledge it. We are all very eager to criticize the organization but not so willing to acknowledge our own misconceptions.

Is that because you are not in the majority or is it because the majority advocates very little free agent spending and virtually no trades for established players while trading established players for prospects?

I really like the idea of owners that are sports fans. It just seems reasonable to believe they would be more obsessed with winning than the Pohlads and I think we likely see a slightly higher payroll. Will this mean considerably bigger payroll? I doubt it. If the Statista estimates are close the Twins were generally in the $25-30M range in profit and I seriously doubt they will run a break-even business. Private equity guys understand business models and competitive landscapes. They are going to understand spending an extra $20M is a really poor solution to overcoming a $100M or $200M or $300M disparity in revenue. I would look for them to be very focused on any a variety of strategies to build a winner.

Cleveland might be these least inclined of any MLB team to spend on free agents. (6.2% of WAR) and they rarely make a trade for an established player. Less than 3% of their WAR has come from trading for established players where 44% of WAR has been produced by players acquired as prospects. With the exception of Tampa Bay, Cleveland has also traded away more established players for prospects than any other MLB team. Is it fair to say their practices are not consistent with what is advocated by the majority of TD posters?

I was really hoping they could pull off a Polanco and Kepler for Harry Ford + X trade. Now, it's quite possible Seattle didn't want Kepler or were not willing to trade harry Ford but that was my wish at the time. I think they got too cute trying to get present and future value in that deal and it backfired. Tampa has pulled off some good present + future value trades so I am not against it but this one does not look great at the moment.

Cleveland and Tampa have produced considerably more WAR than the other teams in the bottom half of revenue over the past 25 years. I think it’s fair to say most people here do not support trading away established players. For example, Polanco last year and reports of Correa being traded received significant criticism. Would you say more people support trading prospects than trading for prospects? A few years ago I was curious about the strong opinions I read here. It made me curious but I could not find any research on roster construction. There might be something but I could not find it so I compiled the acquisition method for every player that produced more than 1.5 WAR for every 90 win team in the bottom half of revenue since 2000. Cleveland has not drafted all that well. 26.4% of their WAR has come from players they drafted where 44% of their WAR was produced by players that were acquired as Prospects. Only 6.2% of free agents and traded for established players has produced almost nothing. Would you say their methods are consistent or inconsistent with what is popular here? 8 Cleveland Guardians WINS Drafted Intl AaP Trade FA 100% Cleveland 2017 102 24.3% 19.3% 44.3% 4.3% 7.8% 100% Cleveland 2007 96 30.5% 38.2% 31.3% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2016 94 33.1% 22.7% 44.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2019 93 34.0% 17.8% 44.1% 4.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2005 93 7.5% 21.8% 51.4% 2.5% 16.8% 100% Cleveland 2022 92 34.2% 19.7% 46.2% 0.0% 0.0% 100% Cleveland 2013 92 14.9% 0.0% 50.1% 10.2% 24.8% 100% Cleveland 2024 92 33.0% 23.8% 43.2% 0.0% 0.0% Guardians Total 82.75 26.4% 20.4% 44.4% 2.6% 6.2%

I have looked at the data over the years but I have never compiled it but have a pretty good idea what it will portray. I am the not one of the many here that absolutely insists on a given narrative that has never been proven. This narrative is perpetual here. Why should it be up to me to support the narratives of TD writers with empirical data. Again, why wouldn't you want this position you revel in to be proven? Surely, an article that exposed just how cheap the Pohlad's have been would be of great interest to TD readers. Yet, the topic has never been approached in a meaningful way. If I posted the analysis, it would be summarily rejected if the results did not fit the narrative, you so covet. Hopefully, there is a TD writer that is interested in a factual depiction of Twins payroll spending.

Did I say they were great, doing a good job or anything that has anything to do with your post. No. I said profit is irrelevant but some of you insist on arguing something else. You refuse to acknowledge the point and rant about something I did not say. Who would have guessed that it would be a bad thing to be informed? "There is none so blind as he who will not see (Bill Withers). Arguing there is no point in being informed ... That's pretty hard to respect.

Why would you be against an accurate portrayal of the facts? Given your constant harping on this situation. you must believe the facts would provide clear proof of how horribly cheap the Pohlad's have been. Would love to hear why you are against compiling the information that would prove your case.

I asked if the poster understood why spending disparity would actually become greater if the owners all decided to toss profit completely aside and operate at break-even. You are throwing your hands up, ignoring the question, and making this anecdotal, I would not argue for a second they won't sign a big free agent but it's not because of profit seeking. Are you willing to actually address what I said? Do you understand why profit is irrelevant in this context? Would like to hear your thoughts specific to profitability but somehow I doubt you are willing to have a substantive discussion.

It’s not that hard to come up with a reasonably accurate estimate. We have an almost 100% degree of accuracy on payroll spending. The same is true for both local and national TV which is 60% of the revenue. If the people who estimate revenue can just get with +/- 10% of the other 40% they would be 96% accurate. However, there is a significant amount of public disclosure of the various elements that make up that 40%. Any reasonably skilled analyst should be less than +/- 5% which would equate to 98% accuracy. It's true it would be harder to estimate profits and the +/- would be somewhat higher if we estimate profitability but we don’t need to do that to determine how the twins compare to other teams in terms of payroll expenditure. All we need to do is complile their payroll rank and revenue rank over several years and calculate their relative payroll to revenue rank. BTW … There are services like Statista that provide this information so it would be very easy to put together for anyone with a Statista subscription. If you search “is Statista accurate” you will find they have a good reputation. This could be done easily by any TD writer who wished to present an accurate depiction of Twin's spending.

Not at all what I was asking. I am saying that many posters have been very against trading these players and say we are better served by keeping them. It can't be true we would be better off without them and better off with them. For these contacts to be a detriment, we would have to cut productive players to keep them or if better players could be signed with the same money. We don't have to get rid of productive players to keep them and these three players in question are reasonably productive so I am asking for specific logic as to why "they can't afford them" instead of an unsupported declaration they can't afford them. In other words, I am not trying to be combative, I am simply asking for you to support your position with something other than "they can't afford them". They could get rid of Correa and Buxton on a salary dump assuming they can find a way to get the no trade clauses waived. For a present and future perspective, letting them go for nothing would be the equivalent to never having signed them, Would you suggest they let them go for a salary dump? Worst case scenario, they could trade Lopez for good prospects, elevate any payroll crunch and be better off than had we never signed him so how is any of this a net negative?

If you were to look at the post I quoted, it said "they never would have/should have signed Correa, Buxton and/or Lopez in the first place." This is certainly not the only time the collective signing of these three players was said to be a mistake. Some recent signings have made the Lopez signing look good but there have been several posts suggesting these 3 highest paid players should not have been signed if the payroll was going to be under $150M.