Major League Ready

Oakland is presently in a down cycle. However, the 1st 20 years of this century they were better than most. They had (8) 93-win seasons. One more than STL. The Astros, Cubs, Giants, and Twins had 4. The Phillies and Nationals had 3. The Padres had zero. The Blue Jays and 2 others had 1 while the Padre and 2 others had zero. They also had the 6th best win percentage which was almost 100 points higher than the Royals. Sometimes the measure of success seems to be dollars spent over wins achieved. 93 Wins Win % 1 Yankees 13 0.583 2 Red Sox 11 0.553 3 Oakland 8 0.534 4 Cardinals 7 0.536 5 Braves 7 0.559 6 Angels 6 0.480 7 Dodgers 5 0.550 8 Cleveland 5 0.531 9 Astros 4 0.516 10 Giants 4 0.502 11 TWINS 4 0.518 12 Cubs 4 0.493 13 Tampa 3 0.500 14 Mariners 3 0.502 15 Rangers 3 0.483 16 Dbacks 3 0.492 17 Phillies 3 0.497 18 Nationals 3 0.500 19 Tigers 3 0.500 20 Brewers 2 0.505 21 Mets 2 0.449 22 White Sox 2 0.467 23 Orioles 2 0.494 24 Pirates 2 0.469 25 Blue Jays 1 0.494 26 Reds 1 0.455 27 Royals 1 0.441 28 Rockies 0 0.471 29 Marlins 0 0.469 30 Padres 0 0.465

Dobnak is guaranteed $3M next year. The Twins would trade him for a case of Gatorade if another team was willing to give him a chance to start,

That's a really interesting odds summary. It really gets to the core of the discussion here of the impact of what they did or did not do on the likelihood of winning the WS. The Twins had a 6.3% chance of winning the WS before the deadline moves. You are good with numbers and analysis. How much would you estimate the Twins odds would have gone up had they traded for say Kikuchi and Scott?

Maybe but not under the same terms. There will be broader distribution that includes a direct streaming option in some form. That might be a streaming service that bundles sports packages, but you won't have to subscribe to a cable provider or Youtube TV to get the streaming service.

For what it's worth MLB.com slotted him as the Marlins #7 prospect and have a 50 FV on him. Obviously, opinions vary on many players. Perhaps the Dbacks were asking for a 50 FV and their assessed value of De Los Santos was closer to MLB.com than Fangraphs.

We should add Flaherty to the discussion as well. They got a pretty good catching prospect so I seriously doubt Gonzalez or Raya would have gotten it done. Maybe Festa but probably Keaschall or Rodriquez.

Puk brought a 50FV prospect. Kikuchi brought back two major league ready players and a AAA player. Bloss looks to be at least equivalent to Festa. What would comparable packages have looked like from the Twins?

Here are the teams in the bottom half of revenue that have won a WS since 2000. Dbacks in 2001, Marlins in 2003, White Sox in Chicago in 2005, and KC in 2015. If a WS title is how we define success, these are the the most successful teams. KC has (1) 90 win season in the past 25 years and has the worst win percentage of any team in MLB. The White Sox have had (1) 90-win season in the past 17 years. The Marlins are a mess. The Dbacks have had (1) 90-win season in the past 13 years and rank 22nd in win percentage. The Twins rank 13th. One team in the bottom half of revenue has won a WS in the last 19 years so the response "have they won a WS" is a not so clever way of refusing to look at meaningful measures like how many times they put a playoff caliber team on the field. That's a reasonable measure of how well a team has built rosters. How often does adding players lead to winning a WS. If a dozen teams add players, the probability of one of those teams winning the WS is 8.3%. What is the probability that those players are the difference in winning the WS. Let's say 50% which is generous. The probability of winning the WS as a result of adding players is about 4%. Shouldn't we be asking which organizations have produced the most playoff teams and then ask how they constructed those teams?

That's now how it works. This is what actually happened not what would have happened if they traded for established players. If they won 90 games on average 11.9% WAR came from trading for established players. You also skipped over the part where 29% of their WAR came from trading for established players. Therefore, when considering how every player was acquired for literally every team in the bottom half of revenue for the last 2+ decades, we can say that trading for prospects produced almost 3X the WAR as trading for established players. It is also noteworthy that the bar for established player is a player that had produced a 1.5 WAR season. That's obviously not the kind of player posters here were looking for. Up the bar to a player that has produced 2.1 WAR and the ratio would go to 4-5X.

The have been a total of (30) 94 win+ seasons since 2000 among the bottom 16 teams in revenue. Listed below is the percentage of WAR produced by source of acquisition. 34.2% Draft / 8.6% Intl Draft / 29.9% Players acquired as Prospects / 11.3% Trades for established players / 16.1% Fres Agents. The bar I used for established player was having produced 1.5+ WAR in any season. Obviously, a low bar and not the type of player being discussed here. Had I used players that had produced a 2.5 WAR type season, I would estimate that percentage would have been cut in half. What does this tell us about the most effective way to construct a contender?

This is consistent with what Falvey said but the fans who are upset are going to ignore any reports that provide a reasonable narrative.

You perspective is a few years out of date. The RSNs are falling apart and the cable companies are no longer willing to include regional sports without a surcharge. MLB.TV just announced out of market coverage for $5.99/month. The "clear print-fest" is long gone.

What does "overall excellence" mean to you. The Royals won the WS in 2015 and they are the only team in the bottom half of revenue in recent history. They also have the worst win / loss record over the past couple of decades. What team with similar revenues to work with is managing for overall excellence in your view?

It’s not a product of laziness. These guys are devoted and put in a lot of effort. We had articles almost daily bemoaning the reduction in spending in some form or another so there is plenty of effort. It’s a product of a total lack of objectivity which would not be so bad if it was not presented as a factual account. The BAM money is a glowing example. Had we been set to receive BAM money last year, and not increased payroll, I would bet the writers here would have been all over the BAM money angle. We had dozen of articles that completely ignored the loss of revenue from BAM even after I brought it to their attention several times. There is absolutely no way that every author here who wrote these articles missed the numerous times I brought it up. This is not a last year issue. There has not been a topic with more interest and more debate over the years than spending and there is not a more common theme than “cheap Pohlads”. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, there has never been one article comparing Twins percentage of revenue devoted to payroll to the rest of the league. How is a topic with so much interest never addressed in an objective way by the writers here? It’s not even hard to put together. I would think the same writers that are so distraught with Twins spending would be eager to illustrate to the world that the Pohlads are cheap instead of just insisting it's so.

I am it sure there is one too many times. His ineptitude with the media has not been his undoing yet so I doubt it ever will. Falvey is plenty sharp at managing the financial aspect of the business. A marketing guru would be great. It sure seems like they could use some help growing revenue. I was at the Milwaukee game with almost 42K fans. More nights like that would be great for this franchise.

IDK. My guess is Lopez and Buxton, Yes. Correa, Maybe not. I was not trying to comment on how they were spending the money. Just responding to a poster that said the money saved via young talent was not being spent. If I were the Pohlads, I would not let St Peter or Joe Pohlad answer questions because they have no moxie. That's why Falvey "gets stuck" with it. Would you let St. Peter speak to the media?

They are spending it now on Correa, Lopez, and Buxton? That cheap talent will make it possible for them to keep the team together as Ryan / Ober / Duran / Jax / Alcala / Jeffers / Castro / Lewis, and Miranda all become more expensive.

I just saw this MLB New Offer It appears fans we can get out of market games for $6/month. Wow! That's going to have a huge impact on the viability of RSNs. I have been of the mindset that the new model will be wide distribution where they rely on increasing advertising revenue. It looks like that's where they are headed.

With a little luck, we won't have to worry about them signing any 4-5 type SPs for the next few years. That would really help because those guys are getting $12M+.

While they have not done much to inspire confidence in their marketing department, wider distribution is just not that tough given the available options. Lots of details to workout for sure. This is not something you put together in 90 days. That would explain the interim solution. Now they need to make the most of this opportunity significantly increase accessibility to their product. That exposure is the key to increasing fan participation and ultimately increasing revenue.

That's the point. The teams could form a united effort to provide coverage to all of the sports team on a single provider like the YES network. It's the ultimate control over their product.

Two completely different issues. I agree that their messaging has been really poor. However, these articles and posters here don't suggest the Twins need to get better at marketing so that they can spend more. They say the Twins don't spend more because they are unwilling to spend. The vast majority of complaints here about spending don't complain the Twins need to market better so they can spend more. They complain the Twins are cheap. Let's say you and your brother work in sales for the same company. You are the much better salesman and make $200K to his $100K. You both spend $100K. Is your brother cheap because he didn't make as much money as you. Point being, I doubt anyone argues the TV deal and messaging did not hurt revenue. That has nothing to do with if they are cheap or not.

I don't think you understand the core concept. If they are all equally cheap the twins would not be at a disadvantage, would they? The suggestion of most of these articles is that an unwillingness to spend prohibits the twins from signing players and creates a disadvantage for the team. If all of the other teams are as cheap as the twins, what's the complaint? That's not what people are saying. They are saying that the Twins don't sign the players that other teams do sign because they are cheap. If the Pirates are cheap or not is absolutely irrelevant. Would you prefer to make these arguments from an informed position? I would love to know how the twins compare to all the other teams.

I hope they are on Bally's but without any exclusivity. Being on Bally's is ideal for fans who want to keep their current provider. In some or most cases that will likely mean an additional fee for regional sports. You have to believe there will be substantially change next year. The league is not going to just punt. Either MLB will take greater control, or we could see the Twins / Wolves / Wild and Lynx form an entity to distribute their product.

Does half of that 30M go to the players?