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Major League Ready

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Everything posted by Major League Ready

  1. Major League Ready
    So, in other words, let's ignore the facts of how teams have been successful because it does not fit your opinion of how to be successful. What you are telling me is that you are not interested in the hard evidence for what has worked for every 90 win team in the bottom half of revenue in the last 25 years. After listening to people repeatedly take your position. I wanted to know if this position held by so many would align with history / actual results. So, I took the time to gather the data to determine how successful teams in the bottom half of revenue acquired the best players on their rosters over the past 20 years. I have posted that factual information more than once but as you said here is no convincing you or anyone else with the facts when you are unwilling to accept hard evidence. I don't know if that should be labeled fanatical but it's certainly not an informed position.
  2. Major League Ready
    They give them whatever it takes philosophy in fanatical. The proof is very clear if you would be willing to look at how TBR and the Guardians or As have outperformed bottom half revenue teams over the past 25 years. This has become common practice for the best teams and FO people who want to keep their job manage assets based on total return as opposed to give whatever it takes to be better right now. Anyone can push chips in to be better short term. That requires very little management acumen.
  3. Major League Ready
    Montas and Flaherty signed for $16M and 14M. Lance Lynn got $11M. Paxton was a little better but he was horrible the prior two years. DeSclafani was quite good before the injuries. His health is key here and we don't have as much information as the people making these decisions.
  4. Major League Ready
    You could also argue that the combination of Farmer / Julien is more valuable than Polanco / Julien. Polanco and Farmer were not both going to be on this roster. Farmer is a far better hitter than Polanco against LHP so did they really lose anything?
  5. Major League Ready
    OK. Then you just disagree with the guys getting paid to make this decision. Fans focus on right now. The same type of logic was used at the 2022 deadline. We had to go for it because we are in 1st place really hurt this team right now. That team was not worthy of that type of investment and here were are in 2023 where those players that were traded would fit very nicely on this team. Putting so much weight on immediate return is a very poor asset management practice. (See Tampa Bay Rays or any finance textbook) and it's an absolutely horrible way to run a business. It's OK to have a fanatical point of view but you're going to be disappointed quite often if you expect the people responsible for the long-term health of the business to follow your basis for making decisions.
  6. Major League Ready
    Thanks for catching that. Farmer is obviously the better defender.
  7. Major League Ready
    Everyone seems to ignore Polanco was not going to be a starter on this team. Julien is the primary 2B but he will be platooned. Farmer is actually the better hitter against LHP. His wRC+ is 25 points higher than Polanco. In a back-up role at least half of the ABs should come against LHP. Framer is the better defender at 2B and by far the better defender at 3B. They also have Castro who hit RHP as well as Polanco last year. If we didn't have Lewis / Julien / Castro, I might agree losing Polanco would be a significant net loss. However, the combination of Julien / Lewis / Farmer and Castro is no worse than if Polanco was inserted given the reality Polanco is not a starter with this roster. Then, add 3 years of a solid RP and SP depth, and I think the team is better. Now, add a top 100 prospect and you have the reason why neutral parties like ESPN are grading this trade in favor of the Twins. Also, DJL44 is absolutely right about how the league is valuing pitching depth / guys like DeSclafani. He has value here or perhaps in another trade, especially given Seattle and SFG are paying most of his salary.
  8. Major League Ready
    The only problem is that you are ASSUMING Seatle was willing to give up the most coveted asset in baseball for something less than an absolute haul. You want the highly coveted asset very badly. Yet you assume Seattle was willing to give it up. There is no doubt the twins were to get their young pitching. It didn't happen so it's not that tough to read between the lines.
  9. Major League Ready
    It's pretty simple ... As much as we wanted their young pitching, they just as badly did not want to give it up. There are more options to get hitting than there are options to get good young pitching. They didn't need to give it up to get a Polanco type of player so they held their ground. As fans we often think deals that we want could have been made but the basis of our desire is the same basis for them not accepting such a trade. Also, I think the money is being a bit overlooked here. Invest that $10M we saved plus a decent RP with 3 years of control and SP depth is not bad. The overall impact on this year's team is at least neutral provided they spend the $10M. Throw in a top 100 prospect and a flyer (Bowen) and I think we did pretty decent for a guy who was not going to be a starter on this team.
  10. Major League Ready
    I think most people here would put a pretty high value on Walker Jenkins and he has a grand total of 56 PAs in A ball.
  11. Major League Ready
    B: Castro C: Martin D: Gordon / Thompson / Keirsey
  12. Major League Ready
    What does this have to do with your claim? They extended both of these players so using them as an argument to support your claim that they trade 2nd year arbitration players because of salary is simply ridiculous. You are also making this out to be perpetual when it's one year because of a never to be repeated problem with their TV contract. BTW .... Arizona's payroll last year was $119M with $18M in sunk cost to Bumgarner. The 101 win Orioles were at $71M. More importantly, the twins will always be at a huge revenue disadvantage. The only way they can win at $120M or $150M is to develop prospects. History is crystal clear if you bother to look at how teams built successful teams with payrolls at $150M or less by today's levels. Roughly 80% of the highest contributing players were draft or acquired before becoming established MLers. They were successful acquiring more modest cost free agents like Nelson Cruz or last year Zach Effrin is a good example. Trades for established players had a very small role. Focusing on this as intently as you have would suggest you have never actually looked at how successful teams were built for under $150M.
  13. Major League Ready
    Keirsey was 26 at AAA last year and put up a wRC+ 7% below league average. He was also below average in 2021 and 2022. He is not high on the depth chart. Martin is next. Then, Gordon or Castro and Erod is not that far off. They would likely put Erod in CF before Keirsey.
  14. Major League Ready
    And when have they done this with the exception of Arraez which was done for very good reason. The other one that comes to mind is Berrios who most definitely was not traded because of his 2nd year arbitration cost.
  15. Major League Ready
    I guess I could have or should have said "Lee who's experience was not exactly parallel or that their aggregate AA/AAA numbers are not all that far apart. However, in context, I was simply saying I am not so sure he has to be a "completely different" player as suggested in an earlier post. The point was meant to be on one hand we have a highly touted prospect that most people are very sure will make it. On the other hand, we have a 1st round pick with a relatively similar AA and AAA performance who needs to be a "completely different player" and who everyone has written him off after 241 PAs in the majors. Your response in defense of Lee only serves to support my point which was not they are equal prospects but that they are being seen in drastic contrast. BTW ... Lee's OPS for AA/AAA combined is .807. Thompson had a bad year in 2023 but during his time at Texas that I referenced he had a combined AA/AAA OPS of .815. Now, I certainly don't think Bubba has anywhere near the prospect status of Lee but I also don't think Thompson is the lost cause as portrayed by some posters here. As I said, nice low risk / no cost shot at acquiring a contributor for nothing.
  16. Major League Ready
    Really good point regarding Castro’s value in covering some many positions. In terms of him needing to be a completely different player at STP, I am not so sure. He was pretty respectable in AA and AAA when he was with Texas. His AA OPS was .808 and his AAA OPS was .829. In comparison, Brooks Lee had an OPS of .750 his first year of AA and .841 his 2nd year and .731 in AAA. I think there is a decent chance they keep him on the 40 man and hope to get a Castro like improvement. He only has 241 ABs at the big league level. Nice low risk play with a guy that still has upside.
  17. Major League Ready
    Their best position players last year were very young players just like the Twins. Our experienced players are better and deeper. Their big free agent (Baez) was absolutely brutal. I like the odds of Correa bouncing back better than Baez. The potential big difference maker is we have Buxton. He might produce nothing but he could have a huge impact. We also have Kepler assuming he is not traded.
  18. Major League Ready
    Do you believe elevating the luxury tax threshold is influencing spending? Obviously, that is not on Boris but the players union was pushing very hard to expand the gap. They also actually wanted to reduce revenue sharing. We needed changes in the last CBA to diminish the disparity. Boris and the union would have never accepted this type of change and the owners of the top revenue teams were not going to just give their competitors more of their revenue.
  19. Major League Ready
    Detroit is still at $17M less in payroll. Seattle is about $7M more than the Twins and they traded away a very good SP to shed salary. Colorado is about $20M above. They will have at least $50M more revenue than the twin this year unless they find a much better TV deal than expected. None of these teams lost their TV contract and STL has always produced significantly more revenue than the Twins. The Twins signed the largest free agent contract in their history last year and extended Lopez after extending Buxton the year before. That’s not going to happen every year.
  20. Major League Ready
    No shortage of people who don't want to bother to get informed. Yet, plenty of people willing to criticize.
  21. Major League Ready
    It's hard to argue that the Correa signing is going to hurt the team if he continues to perform as he did in 2023. I doubt that happens but there have been many just horrible long-term big money deals that have produced virtually nothing. Where we don't agree is that the Gallo deal is not even remotely close to horrible. It's just not possible to hurt the team all that much with a one year deal. We could recite a very long list of 5-10 year deals that have been complete disasters. Gallo plugged some holes with an average bat for 1 year. Big deal! The problem is already gone at no future cost. We could still be paying for Bumgarner who was highly touted here when he was a FA.
  22. Major League Ready
    Would it be fair to characterize the moves for Castro and Stewart as being "around the edges"? I seem to remember similar sentiment towards Castro. While I don't remember the reaction to Stewart I would bet we could find reference to him as "dumpster diving".
  23. Major League Ready
    It's not math, I think the assumptions here limits the potential revenue stream. The first assumption is that would be that fans are only willing to pay $100 for 162 games and 6 months of entertainment. That won't cover the cost of one decent dinner out for a couple. The family spends $266 to attend a single MLB game. IDK the tipping point but $100 seems low. MLB is in trouble if that's all people are willing to pay. There is also an assumption here that the pricing model only includes a monthly option. Streaming allows for a multi-tier pricing model. They could offer 20 or 40 game bundles for the average fan. Obviously, this would be more expensive on a per game basis than a season pass but this would provide a lower price point option. They could also charge separately for playoff games. Perhaps free playoffs could be an incentive to buy a season pass. The most impactful assumption here is the absence of advertising revenue which is more valuable than streaming fees. IDK how many minutes of advertising there are per game + pregame + postgame but multiply that number by 162 and that's far more valuable than the fees charges to viewers. I don't think it's math in this analogy where "math" means economics. They need to find a model and a partner that can maximize the value of the advertising fees.
  24. Major League Ready
    No problem we just disagree on this one. I almost always agree with you but not here. The broadcasting deals a decade ago looked pretty darn good. I would bet the owners and the league pursue strategies based on long-term revenue vs short-term cash flow. It will be apparent with the Twins soon enough. Millionaires don't become billionaires with long-term vision. Do you think Bill Gates made decisions based on immediate term? These guys are the optime of long-term strategists. My firm put together a strategic plan for all of the companies owned by one the NBA owners. Their focus was very much on long-term sustainable growth. In my experience, the vast majority of fortune 500 companies make decisions based on long-term revenue and profitability. They discount future returns but the decisions are almost always based on long-term return and risk mitigation. Granted, we are not talking about owners in this context but this sort of approach is widely the norm.
  25. Major League Ready
    The problem with your logic is that you want a solution that is not possible. Good faith also requires you have a viable alternative. You just can't go replace these guys. The team does not have anywhere near the financial resources to follow the practices you promote. They could trade away their entire future but short of that the fantasy tactics you insist upon are either totally unrealistic or horrible long-term. What is the alternative to relying on Lewis / Kirilloff and Wallner? How do you manage the roster spots. Are you getting rid of them, giving them bench roles or sending them, back to AAA?
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