Major League Ready

No, I have never used a 40% bar for 3 players. That would only be three 17.33M players even at $130M budget. You are probably remembering that I am generally against a very high percentage of payroll going to a single player and have stated that it's very uncommon among teams in the bottom half of revenue. Teams with below average revenue need to significantly outperform the average production per dollar spent and that’s very difficult to do with the highest paid players. I was against signing Correa when the deal was 12 years and took a lot of grief from the many fans here who were adamant they sign him. I was reluctantly OK with them signing him because it’s so rare to get that kind of player with only 6 years guaranteed. What I said at the time and since then is that they will have to fill the roster from within. They will have to produce cheap talent in maintain the team together as arbitration increases hit. You may recall, I said it will be imperative they produce starting pitching. Conceptually, I am very much in agreement with the article but I have two objections. One, get the numbers right and don’t exaggerate because it helps your claim. I can tell you from experience this sort of error would be met with harsh criticism in an actual business scenario. It also is misguided to use a record high payroll set in a year with a $30M windfall as the bar and then assume payroll is never going to be higher than it is as of this moment. Two, the primary point of the article is the difficulty of filling the other roster spots with a limited budget which is a point I have made myself more than once. Where is the assessment of where the Twins stand in this regard. Cleveland got absolutely nothing from free agent spending so obviously a roster can be built from within. If the Twins have enough talent here and on the way to support spending an AAV of $70M on three players that’s a good thing. Do the Twins have young players for to fill the roster? Do they have young pitching coming? Do they have sufficient payroll coming off the books to cover arbitration increases. The answer is yes but acknowledging that gets in the way of bitching about the payroll decrease. Let’s look at the entire situation and not avoid any explanation that might support their actions. I was as on the fence as you can get about the Correa signing but I have to acknowledge it’s financially feasible given the depth of cheap talent they have assembled. It's also quite possible that the Twins will produce enough pitching that they could trade Pablo Lopez. The Ray’s, Guardians, and Brewers have been known to employ this tactic on occasion.

I think our angles are just slightly misaligned here. I am sure you are correct that BAM money did play a role in the decision to sign those long-term deals. They had never reached these levels without BAM and revenue was not growing substantially from other sources. They knew (I hope) that they were not going to maintain a $152M payroll. It would appear they felt they could absorb the Buxton, Correa, and Lopez contracts and still retain their players as they enter arbitration. That's why a pointed out the $30M coming off next year which will provide the funding for arbitration increases. This was the point of the article, was it not? Isn't the premise of the article that these three contracts prohibit keeping the team together? The other possibility point of the article is that we should never sign high-end talent. Is this how people want the team run?

For starters, everyone is assuming the payroll is not going up a dime or even going down. Let's see what actually happens before we carve this in stone. They also have a lot of cheap talent and quite a bit more that is not far off. That allows them to spend on those three players. They have Vazquez, Paddack, and Castro coming off next year and Correa's salary goes down $4.5M. That's roughly $27.5M and that pays for a lot of arbitration increases for the next couple years. They will also add Rodriquez, Jenkins, and Keaschall in the next couple of years. They will likely displace higher priced (arbitration eligible) players. So, the premise that they won't be able to keep this team together because of the three big salaries is simply not correct. I almost forgot Dobnak. Make it at least $30M coming off the books next year.

It's sloppy and the writers here have a history of presenting numbers that are not accurately portrayed. It's simply a misrepresentation to use year-end numbers to represent one extreme and opening day numbers for the other comparison. You have the numbers, why not provide the exact numbers instead of rounding by $6.3M. This would be subject to pretty harsh critique in an actual management analysis. In the real world, any anomalies would also be reported. Once again, no mention of the significant anomaly in the form of $30M in BAM money. In any business environment, this would be highlighted as it is a very significant and very unusual circumstance that requires consideration. In the dozens of TD articles about spending this year, this significant financial anomaly was continually ignored. I guess it would not get readers nearly as wound up if you wrote the twins had a $30M financial windfall last year and what do you know they spent $30M less this year. With all of the angst over spending, how is it possible that there has never been an article that compares the Twins percentage of spend to the rest of the league?

According to Spotrac 2023 Twins Salaries the Twins had an ending salary of $156.1M. The opening day salary which you should be using for comparison is much closer to $150M than $160M. Is it too much to ask that writers here give an accurate portrayal of salary numbers rather than throw up an exaggerated approximation that best suits a given narrative?

Market size might be relevant to earnings capacity but market size won't pay the bills. Why would you look to a different measure than income to determine spending ability? If they ranked 15th in revenue, they should rank at least 15th in spending on average. Obviously, this can fluctuate based on a number of factors.

I have not double checked this list, but I think these are the players that would possibly be protected. There are a couple others eligible but I did not think there was any possibility they would be protected. Olivar and Cespedes are also highly unlikely. It's likely Raya, Kiersey, and Will Holland who was having a great season before he was injured. Holland, Will 24 Olivar, Ricardo 24 DaShawn Kiersey 24 Cespedes, Rubel 24 Raya, Marco 24 Rosario, Kalai 24

The departures and the raises basically cancel each other out. They will be around $125-130M assuming they keep Vasquez, Paddack and Castro. I think they would have to eat 1/2 of Vasquez's salary and Castro is well worth the cost. If they believe in SWR, that just leaves the 5th spot open. It is conceivable they look at the depth in AAA and trade Paddack if they could get a RH OFer or simply use the savings to sign one or perhaps sign a LH RP.

Which franchises with similar or less revenue have been the most successful over the past 20 years. The answer is Cleveland, Oakland, Tampa Bay, and Minnesota Milwaukee the next two most successful. Cleveland, Oakland, and Tampa have all produced over 80% of their WAR via drafting and players acquired as prospects in some form. The most successful teams have not done it on spending and they have produced 4XZ more WAR from trading for prospects as they have trading for proven players. That's 20 years of history for every team in the league. So, perhaps the disconnect is that these front offices are paying attention to what has worked and what has worked is not what many fans think works.

So what? They cited the TV revenue. They also had an additional $30M decrease in BAM money. Does that not count because the media (especially TD writers) ignored that loss. None of this is a direct comparison of spending so why are you using this number? We know exactly how much spending was cut. You are suggesting there was another $40M that could have been spent when they cut spending $25M. Of course, suggesting spending didn't need to be cut ignores the loss of BAM and whatever they lost in TV revenue. You are only acknowledging information that you want to recognize.

According to Spotrac (links below) the 2023 end of year payroll was $156,104,540. It currently stands at $130,721,902. We could use opening day numbers but the difference is very small. So, that’s $25,382,638. 2023 Minnesota Twins Payroll Table (spotrac.com) 2024 Minnesota Twins Payroll Table (spotrac.com) The difference between the Twins, Milwaukee, Cleveland, KC, Detroit, and Tampa/Oakland in years past has not been spending. Looking there for the answers ignores a mountain of history that explains the difference and how those teams have been successful.

So, if they had spent another $30M on a couple players the other players would have not fallen apart? This argument just ignores all forms of reason for the sake of venting frustration in an entire team that underperformed. If your boss asked you how to compete in an industry where your competitors could spend $100M or even $150M more than you could even if you spent ever dime of profit, would you suggest the solution was spend an additional $30M? That would be a good way to get removed from a leadership position in a hurry. Spending a little more would help a little but it would be almost inconsequential to making this team a true contender. What if they would have signed Montgomery and Hoskins who were among the most popular choices here. We would have been worse and been saddled with those contracts.

Take any 90 win team in the bottom half of revenue for the last 20 years. Then look at the top players by WAR and how they were acquired. You will find that the players acquired as prospects have produced 5X that of players that were acquired once proven and I am using a very loose definition of proven. You have it absolutely backwards. Trading prospects for a proven player to fill a key need is a great strategy but the successful teams in the bottom half of revenue have primarily been built on drafting and acquisition of unproven players.

Would it be fair to say that the most popular choice for free agent SPs among TD posters was Montgomery and Hoskins among position players? How would that have helped. Would it matter if they had added another SP given how the rest of the roster is performing? The premise that the current state of the team is a product of cutting spending is a convenient conclusion without any reasoned attempt to account for this slide. A alternative point of view could be that it's a good thing we don't have $40M+ tied up in Montgomery and Hoskins next year.

How does the team get better by putting players in the lineup that are 50% below league average? This simply defies logic. If you want to argue they would eventually get better against LHP I would say that's certainly possible. I would even understand the investment in the future. However, as of this moment they have established they are far below average against LHP and therefore a liability against LHP.

My bad. I didn't catch that part of it. I would not have minded if they took Cam Caminiti instead of Culpepper with their 1st round pick.

It's quite possible that Larnach and Wallner would eventually become adequate hitters against LHP. However, at the present, Larnach has a career wRC+ of 57 vs LHP and Wallner is at 43. How would they be better right now?

They drafted 12 college pitchers and 1 prep pitcher this year. 12 & 2 last year. That trend has been going on for a few years. I doubt we see them drafting enough prep arms to call it a focus.

It would be fun to look back at the threads about signing both Correa and Buxton. There were people who were emphatic about signing Correa even when it was for 12 years. Very few were opposed to the deal he eventually signed. I also recall posters cursing the front office saying they did not know what they were doing because they were unwilling to give him a huge guarantee. I remember one post that suggested they were not serious about winning and basically incompetent because they were starting at a $150M guarantee. You might well have been among the minority who did not want these players signed but TD was in general very supportive of signing Correa and Buxton.

Very true but I was addressing the very firmly held assumption by some that the reason the Twins won’t catch Cleveland is because of spending. Cleveland is spending less and KC the same so that position is misguided. Why isn’t anyone asking how these teams were constructed? Did KC and Cleveland sign their superstars as free agents. Did they trade prospects for them? They drafted and extended them. That said, the Angels (Traut and Ohtani) are proof that having a superstar or even two is of no value without a team around them. What we should be asking is how successful teams with similar or less revenue accumulated enough talent to be legit contenders. What percentage of their high contributing players were drafted or acquired as prospects vs free agency or trading for established players? There is not one person among those insisting the answer is spending that has shown these acquisition methods are prominent strategies among teams in the bottom half of revenue. The first clue should be that Cleveland does not have a single free agent contributing to their team nor do they have a player that was acquired as an established player.

Someone arguing about finances that actually understands finance. What a concept! Thanks for making the effort to actually illustrate the expense structure. I have put the numbers in a spreadsheet a couple different years trying to estimate their operating costs. Most years the net profit looks to be 5-10%. It sure would be great if one of the TD writers would compare the Twins spending vs revenue to the rest of the league. I have done it for a few years so I have a reasonable idea but it would be great to see if the cheap Pohlad reputation is accurate or a product of being uninformed.

KC and the Twins followed used some similar tactics. The Twins spent their FA / extension money on Correa / Buston and Lopez. The Royals spent their money on Perez / Lugo and Wacha. Perez is playing great while Buxton and Correa are on the IL. Lugo has been better the Lopez. Wacha has been about the same. Both teams landed an important part of their rotation by trading away players at the deadline. If we look at KC, I would conclude they have gotten more out of modest priced free agents. They have stayed healthy, and they got one hell of a gift when they traded a rental for Reagans. BTW … Lugo and Wacha were not at the top of the list here at TD. Cleveland is getting absolutely zero contributions for free agents or proven players acquired by trade. 37% of their WAR is from drafted players. 22% from International drafted players. 41% from players acquired as prospects and they don’t have any free agents. So, how does one look at Cleveland and their 107M payroll and a roster with no free agents and conclude the reason the Guardians are ahead in the standings is the Twins cut spending?

What do you suggest they do about their "superstars" being injured. How would you rectify that situation?

You are on a reasonable track but it's not the measure I would use. During covid it was widely reported that gate receipts and other attendance related spending represented roughly 40% of revenue. Why use a measure that represents 40% of revenue instead of just using total revenue? At least you are associating revenue with spending. Every responsible adult determines the amount they spend based on the amount they bring in. So does every other for-profit business in the world. I really wish a TD reporter would take it upon themselves to write an article this off-season that provided a revenue vs spending comparison for every team in the league. That would definitively illustrate how the Pohlads rate in terms of willingness to spend.

Get Varland up here and see if he can be relied upon during the playoffs. Hopefully Paddack and Topa will be available for the playoffs. Funderburk would be a nice contributor if they can get him back soon. Winder could eat some innings if needed. No to the rest.