Major League Ready

We are very unlikely to replace 3 WAR (according the fangraphs) for $6.2M in free agency. Plus, Castro is not replaced by any one player. His value is as the first player off the bench to replace a number of defensive positions while providing above average offense. Eeles just might end up as the 2B but Castro would still have a valuable role.

How are you coming to this conclusion? Do you think they are allowing the cable companies to broadcast for free? Do you think the advertisers are paying nothing?

The data is from 2000 forward but has not been updated to include 2024. The twins have had six 90+ win teams which ranks 12th among all MLB teams. However, it should be noted that they have only had one 90+ win season since 2010. 1 Yankees 16 2 Dodgers 13 3 Red Sox 13 4 Cardinals 13 5 Braves 12 7 Cleveland 11 6 Oakland 10 8 Tampa 9 9 Astros 8 10 Angels 7 11 Giants 7 12 TWINS 6 13 Mariners 6 14 Rangers 6 15 Cubs 5 16 Brewers 5 17 Dbacks 5 18 Phillies 5 19 Nationals 5 20 Mets 4 21 Tigers 4 22 White Sox 4 23 Orioles 3 24 Blue Jays 3 25 Reds 3 26 Rockies 3 27 Pirates 2 30 Padres 2 28 Royals 1 29 Marlins 1

I am not advocating for the status quo, but this team was as good as any team in the league for a significant portion of last season. The potential is there. Cleveland made zero free agent signings or trades last year and improved from 76 to 92 wins. I don't think the situation is nearly as dire as some would portray it.

My first wish or first 15 wishes would be for our young guys to continue developing. This would include the best version of Brooks Lee and not what we saw at the end of the year. It would include Lewis, Wallner and Larnach becoming more consistent dominant bats. It would include Rodriguez and Jenkins growing into their superstar potential. Another category of wishes would be the often injured guys staying healthy. That includes Buxton, Correa, Stewart, AK and others. We could also include Prielipp and Canterino in the hope they finally get healthy and contribute. I would hope for some of the promising young international prospects to fulfill their potential. These things will be monumentally more important to our success than spending every dime of profit the team currently produces. My wish level where spending is concerned would be to improve revenue through all the things above while also improving marketing and PR. All of these things would lead to better attendance and TV viewership. Then, use that increase in revenue to extend some of our young talent.

There is one problem in how they broke out the data. In terms of roster construction strategy, trading for an established player is the antitheses of trading for prospects or a player that has reached the major leagues but not established themselves. Therefore, it does not make sense to consider all trades as if they are the same in terms of roster construction. The debates about trading prospects and the emphasis here on free agency made me curious enough to collect this data on every 90+ win team (in the bottom half of revenue) over the past 20 years. I also collected the data for the free agents that contributed to these teams. The idea was to determine what types of free agents (years and total money) and how much the teams paid per WAR. I will post the data this winter after updating the summary charts to include 2024.

I have to agree with you that a writer who asks us to accept a position should provide information that validates their position. We have seen dozens of articles here proclaiming the Twins were cheap with nothing but innuendo and antidotal evidence. I guess it's the norm on this topic to make unsupported assertions and conclusions. Wouldn't it be great if a TD writer were to actually put together a synopsis payroll vs revenue compared to all the other teams for the last 10 or 20 years? Then, we could all speak from an informed point of view.

Unbelievable? Let's say they get 1,385,000 for the team. That's $1.2B after the stadium investment. Then, let's say they averaged $20M/year for 40 years which is generous given the earnings were much less in the early years. That's exactly $2B on a $44M investment. Had they invested $44M in a S&P 500 fund, that investment would be worth almost exactly $2B today. Nobody is rewriting the facts. You simply don't understand the math.

No doubt this has been a great investment for the Pohlad family. It's a very select few businesses that have the sustained growth of MLB. I don't believe that same rate of growth will be recognized going forward which makes it hard to believe they get $1.5B. It also makes your point. A potential owner could make $150M/year off an alternative investment. Are they going to be satisfied with making $25M if the valuation is unlikely to grow as it has in the past? There are not too many Steve Cohens out there, especially for a Midwest franchise. I looked at spending for 10 years and the Twins spending percentages or spend against rank were actually a little more aggressive than the league on average. I don't think it's likely we get an owner willing to make less after laying out $1.5B but like you will remain hopeful. IMO, the greatest potential impact is in getting an owner that makes organization changes that result in better messaging / marketing. In other words, the greater potential is on growing revenue as opposed to spending more of what they already have.

The S&P 500 has returned 9.9% since the inception of this index. 44 million over 40 years comes out to roughly $1.925B

They will go with the same tandem next year and Olivar will replace Vasquez in 2026. It's also possible they spend part of the Vasquez salary on a free agent in 2026. They have 25.5M coming off the books in 2026. Vasquez / Paddack / $5M less to Correa and Dobnak. They will need a good portion of that for arbitration increases but should be able to swing a free agent catcher if Olivar or others don't pan out.

MLB has done pretty well without your help.

The league hired some prominent executives from the broadcasting industry seven months ago. It would stand to reason they were brought on to develop a solution in the event Diamond failed. All of these teams are now in need of a solution. It makes no sense for them to go it on their own. MLB will now be able to distribute any game assuming an agreement is made with the teams that have their own platforms. This will provide many options including distributing to all the cable providers and streaming service that current carry or have carried games in the past. Of course, they can also provide a direct to consumer model. MLB Media Department

If you recall, there were reports that the league may have influenced the Twins decision to stay with Bally's for one more year. With Bally's in bankruptcy and hanging on by a string, it's not hard to imagine that the league anticipated their demise. The fact that they hired key executives from the broadcasting industry to support the development of a new solution would be a very strong indication the league was looking for solution for more than a couple teams that would be expiring. You can presume stupidity if it makes you feel good to assume incompetence. However, there was little the league could do with the majority of teams under long-term contract. It also did not take a real sharp business executive to see the current model was likely to fold with the bankruptcy, cable cutting, and other changes in the industry. They hired SMEs with impressive credentials. Why would they do this unless they were working on an alternative in anticipation of getting broadcast rights back. They were very close until Amazon stepped in. With many teams in the same position as the Twins now, we will find out if the league is so incompetent as to have been sitting on their hands while Bally's was on their last breath.

I stated they were the most popular choices. The majority were quite vocal about not bothering with signing someone like Wacha or Lugo. I didn't say there were not options that would have helped but those options were not the players that were insisted upon here. Most wanted a "big name" and Montgomery was the most popular. No matter how you slice it or dice it. $30M in free agency is worth on average less than 4 WAR and they got 3 from Santana so the premise spending an additional $30M in spending was the difference between failure and success is a huge stretch. Even if they would have signed Lugo, he would not have made up for their horrible hitting, base running, and defensive lapses.

You missed the post I responded to which said "Many of us haven't been able to watch the Twins for a few years due to most streaming systems dumping Bally Sports" My provider dumped Bally's. Twins coverage was important to me so I switched providers and this poster could have dome the same. He/she elected not to switch which is certainly his or her prerogative. However, the option was and is still available. If it's important, switch providers. I just don't understand constantly bitching instead of rectifying a problem that is relatively easy to fix.

That's often how it goes. I am not sure how that lines up with the assertion the Twins would have been just fine had they spent another $30M. I think people make a lot of assumptions about how a contender is built. However, I don't think most people have actually taken examples of successful teams and broken down how the players were acquired to build that team. As you know, I have broken down every 90 win team in the last 20 years and the assertions here don't match what I have found in general.

Bulls#!%. The payroll numbers are a matter of public record. I would suggest something like Statista for the revenue ESTIMATES. Yes, they are estimates but reasonably reliable and unbiased. I would be happy to accept numbers from any reasonable unbiased source but there has never been a reasonable attempt made to compare the percentage of revenue spent on payroll. Show me an example where a TD write provided any reasonable attempt to compare the Twins spending percentage with the rest of the league. Show me just one article that actually provides a revenue vs payroll comparison of the league. TV revenues are reported for every team and the national TV revenues are provided from public companies and therefore relatively easy to attain. The gate receipts are an estimate but it's not all that difficult to estimate those revenues within 10%. Companies like Statista make a living putting together these estimates. It would not be difficult at all to put together with a Statista subscription.

Because using all of the data in any given comparison is better than using only the data that supports a given point of view. You find it hilarious that others ignore a set of data points and then suggest we only compare to certain examples. The appropriate way to support a public proclamation that the Pohlads are cheap would be to compare their spending to every other team in the league. Then we would know if they have been the cheapest relative to income or the 5th cheapest of the 15 cheapest, etc. To date, not a single author that has asserted how terrible they have been has provided any objective measure so that we might actually understand how they rank them in terms of cheapness or greed or whatever label you like. BTW ... The Guardians top 5 players make the equivalent of Carlos Correa. They spent virtually nothing on free agents and did not trade for an established players of any relevance. They went from 76 to 92 wins which was the 2nd best record in the AL.

Players get slammed here as well. The difference is that TD writers and posters often provide an array of statistics to support their assertions. In the dozens of "cheap Pohlad" articles I have seen here, not once have I seen a writer or poster support their position with an objective measure. This can easily be done by using percentage of revenue spent on payroll or payroll vs revenue rank. Cheap is a relative term relatively easy to establish. With all of the angst, not one single writer has provider the quantitative evidence to support their claims. You would think someone would be anxious to provide that damning evidence. The dozens of articles proclaiming ownership is the problem would be far more substantive if they were backed up by objectives measures. So, what do you say TD? How about an article that compares Twins spending percentages to the rest of the league? Let's see just how accurate these claims have been. Then, we can rip into ownership from an informed point of view.

I am not sure what the organization wants us to believe but many posters have rigorously supported the position that the shortcomings of the Twins were a product of reducing payroll by $30M. That's certainly not enough to get 3 or 4 players. It would have gotten them one of the popular choices in Jordan Montgomery or Rhys Hoskins. The two of them combined for .7 WAR. You could argue that $30M is worth 3-4 WAR on average. Of course they got 3 WAR from Santana so that kind of negates that argument. Parfigliano suggests the organization is delusional if they believe we are 3-4 players away so what should we call it to believe that spending another $30M would have made all the difference?

What if the restriction was not $30M for this year only? Perhaps my memory is faulty, but my recollection is that the most popular choices for spending were Jordan Montgomery and Rhys Hoskins. Most people were not interested in the $12-15m type pitchers that actually ended up being very good.

The option is key here. Non-tendering him is selling at rock bottom which is just not necessary here. Put him in AAA and see how he and the rest of the team comes together. The upside is much higher than the downside. It's a somewhat risky investment with high potential returns.

Cleveland VS San Diego during Prueller's tenure. 90-Win 80+ Won Lost % Seasons Wins Padres 729 789 0.480 1 3 Guardians 836 679 0.552 6 8 I would bet Cleveland also performs considerably better for the next 7-10 years.

It looks like you are using 40,000 subscribers for your math. I would think that number is really low once the league and fans adapt to a new model. The Twins had 3X that number in the past. This new model will provide far greater access so what seems like a reasonable number?