Major League Ready

The lackluster approach can be explained by the budget but aggressive when you are bad is to reload/rebuild like the Cardinals are doing. Is Falvey telling them the best way to build a contender is what the Cardinals are doing now or like Cleveland and Tampa have been doing for a decade or two? If it were about money, that’s an easy sell because a rebuild would gut payroll and make the team quite profitable for not just this year but the next couple of years at least. So, is Falvey picking a direction that he thinks will save his job or is it ownership, especially the new partners trying to placate fans with a strategy that is likely to fail?

I too have noticed the moves the Cardinals have been making and have to agree their direction is much clearer than the Twins. They have failed to make an aggressive move when they have a real shot and now they are failing to be aggressive when they have almost no shot. I say almost because there is always the very slight chance that everything goes right. What I would like to know is if this is Falvey or is this ownership including the new partners placating fans by putting a 500 team on the field. Is Falvey just trying to save his job because I can't believe he thinks adding some mediocre talent to a less than mediocre team is going to end in a playoff run.

Don't let the guy who traded for Ryan and Lopez be the guy to trade them?

You have to be kidding. Vientos is kind of a 3B vs of Julien. I would rather have the much better fielding more versatile Fitzgerald as a bench option and keep Ober or whomever would be traded to get him.

Good point! I thought about that but was too lazy to address it.

For starters, I am suspect of a player going into their age 35 season, especially a player whose performance fell-off in their age 34 season. Clemens was a good as Walker last year for league minimum. $40M in BP additions would be far more valuable. REALLY bad idea!

What do they know and not know. Let’s start with revenue. Television revenue is widely reported. That’s the biggest share of revenue. As @old nursepoints out, most of the remaining revenue is subject to sales tax and therefore can be verified. Sponsorship revenue is not subject to sales tax but the sponsors are publicly traded entities so that information can be found in their financials. Basically, the revenue side can be measured with a high degree of accuracy. How about expenses. We know exactly what they spend on payroll, regular draft bonuses, and their international bonus pool. Player benefits can’t be audited but they can be estimated with a high degree of accuracy so total player related expense is roughly two-thirds of operating costs. Other personnel and us with operating costs can’t be audited. However, they can be identified with a high degree of accuracy and things like facilities, travel l, and personnel can be estimated with a high degree of accuracy. To sum it up, we know almost exactly how much revenue they have and we have exact numbers on two-thirds of expenses and we can estimate the other one-third of expenses with a high degree of accuracy. So, while it’s true we don’t have audited financial statements, the relative profitability of major league teams is not nearly the mystery that many make it out to be. Why jump to the assumption something can’t be done if you don’t understand the process required to do it?

There are ways it could be done but there is a whole lot of speculation here with no actual knowledge of the situation. In other words, there is a lot of guessing going on which is fine but none of us have the requisite information to do anything but speculate.

The IRS does not allow a business to borrow money for one operation and put it on the books of another organization. Whatever they acquired would be an asset of that organization and the deft a liability. The equity in the Twins might be collateral but that debt belongs to the organization where the acquired assets reside. They could have done something sneaky like have the Twins purchase assets of one of their other companies for $500M but you can't borrow money for one company and put it on another companies balance sheet.

Where are you coming up with the 90% number? That would be a total of roughly 33M for all other costs. If this were true, the team would be making $150M/year. Actually, every team would be making over $150M. The Twins have 942 employees according to this site. IDK if this is accurate. We can find the number of FO people but I would assume their are a lot more non-front office employes. We also don't know their average salary especially given this includes a handful of very high salaries but let's use a very conservative estimate of $60K given we don't have good data, that's $56M or 17% of revenue. Just health care costs would be $25M or 7.5% of revenue. Their draft and international bonuses are around $20M. That's 6%. So, that's a total of $30.5% before considering any cost for equipment, office space, computers, travel, advertising, etc.

Ryan / Lopez replacement is whoever is considered the 6th SP so quite a bit of drop-off. The alternative to Duran is whoever plays the best between Wallner / Roden to start the season and most likely Jenkins by mid-season. It just does not move the needle. It's awfully hard to get better short-term by trading your best SP. If we were to trade pitching, let's target our weaknesses which are the INF.

If I were trading Lopez or Ryan it would not be for an OFer. I am keeping Buxton and with Jenkins / Martin and all the others, I am pretty confident we will have a very good OF by the end of 2026. We have one INFer (Keaschall) that inspires any confidence, and he only has 200 major league ABs. SS/3B/1B are all very uncertain. If I am trading Ryan and/or Lopez it's for a middle INfer or high-end pitching prospect. If we are so fortunate as to have Keaschall continue to hit, and Culpepper make the transition, and Lewis improves substantially, we can move Keaschall to a 1B/OF role.

Bell had better splits against LHP in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. Prior to 2021 he was weaker against LHP every year and he was bad last year in 100 ABs against LHP but he no doubt has been a better RH hitter in recent years. I would think they view him at this point as a better RHH at this point. He has not been much better than Clemens against RHP in recent years and Clemens is the by far the better defender, so it looks to me like they signed Bell for his RHH.

I didn't want to hijack the Joe Pohlad thread, but it would be very interesting to hear from TD participants what specifically the team needs to do to win back trust. Spend more is always popular but they were spending more than other teams in the division and got absolutely nothing done. They signed "higher profile" free agents like Correa and Donaldson and that got us nowhere. Point being we would all like them to spend as much as possible but that would never close the talent gap the team has had for a decade. Regardless of past success, spending as much as possible is a popular practice. Is Joe Pohlad going to make a difference in how we develop? Will he help make the right trades. I doubt it. The most important thing Tom Pohlad and the ownership group will influence is the current practice of filling in a flawed roster and hoping to compete. That necessitates one of two directives. They can commit to a full scale rebuild or they need to really shake up the current roster and add several established above average players and a couple difference makers. We only have one elite player (Buxton) and one above average player (Jeffers) who of course is a FA next year. One or even two trades are not going to make us immediate contenders. They already filled one hole (1B) with an average player at best. This means replacing most of the position players and most of the BP. Here is the catch. These are two polar opposite approaches. I think it's fair to say half of us that post here believe a rebuild is the most likely road to success and the other half want to build around this "core". Obviously, the team can win back trust eventually if they are very successful with one approach or the other but how in the world do they satisfy more than half of Twins fans when we want two very opposite directions?

The 1st thing they need to do if we are to compete is buy a BP to replace the guys they traded. That would pretty much take up their entire budget. Of course, we would just put the team back to where they started from with last year's terrible team, minus Correa. Sounds like the same old thing. Go get Bichette on top of a BP and that would be better than Correa so we theoretically would be a couple games better than last year. Big deal! That team might have a chance to be 500 and basically stay in the race until August if several players perform far better and of course good health. Does anyone believe they are going to spend $175M? Would they and should they replace players like Lewis, Lee, and Martin. Should they abandon Martin, Roden, Rodriguez, Gonzalez, and Culpepper. Outside of Martin . none of these guys is ready to contribute now and if they sign a big free agent or sign for an established star these guys are not starting on a ML roster. How are they going to pursue a post season berth differently if they are not going to spend big and trade away our best prospects to fill the holes in the OF, 3B, and SS? Of course, 1B is not exactly a strength either?

Easier said than done. It's really tough to trade for a really good SS and the cost is going to be extremely high. I could not think of a good SS that was acquired in trade all of last year. Looking through all the Transactions for SS, I don't see an established SS on this list that would make a difference. Even if you could find one, It would take Jenkins plus to get a good SS which makes no sense given all the other holes in this roster, especially if they believe Culpepper can stick at SS. Here are the top SS by WAR. I only went down to #20 but 10 were drafted by their team and 10 were acquired as free agents. The teams with money bought their SS the teams without money who have a good SS drafted them. (Regular & International)

I hope not. If you were to look at successful mid-market teams, you will find that trading for established players has a very small role in building a playoff team. Trading for prospects produces literally 4X more WAR. That kind of trade is a good idea when a final piece is needed. That scenario is the antithesis of this team.

OK. Are we talking about trading prospects or major league ready pitching for a well-proven guy with 2 years of control or are talking about trading Lopez or Ryan for a high profile prospect or a guy with 1 year of experience to compliment Keaschall / Jenkins.

The problem could be perspective, but this is all so generic that it's hard to put in perspective. It sounds like you are advocating replacing more than 1 position player. Which positions? I assume you're talking about established players. Which SPs are you willing to give up because filling two positions with established players good enough to bring this team into contention would cost a lot of prospects. Then, you also need to come up with plan to fill all the BP spots because teams can't contend without a BP.

No doubt it would help a bunch if they could get more out of the young guys you mentioned but I would prefer they trade Larnach. He would take playing time away from the numerous guys that have the potential to be part of the long-term solution. Where Bell is concerned. Signing anyone to a one year at this juncture needs to contribute significantly to contention. If you are going to forego the return on Ryan/Lopez, you better put together a team with a real shot at the playoffs. It's really hard to see Bell as that kind of move. I really don't understand what it is they are trying to accomplish.

I get it but it's kind of a catch 22. They have holes at 1B/SS/3B/RF and several BP positions. $25M for one of the top guys leaves us with a lot of holes. Not to mention, one of those top guys is not coming to this this mess without a significant overpay.

IDK what other teams make of him and IDK what to think myself. I want to believe but it's been a while since he has been good. I do know I will be cheering hard for him to regain his old form.

I thought the same thing until someone pointed out he hit really well the 2nd half last year. I suppose he could have just got hot but we also know he made some adjustments that impacted bat speed. IDK enough about the specifics to believe or not believe those adjustments will produce results similar to the 2nd half of last year when he was quite good. His 2023-25 numbers are completely uninspiring but those 2nd half numbers following swing changes put things in a slightly different light.

Thanks for pointing out his 2nd half. Was this a result of the adjustments he made? IDK but at least it gives us some hope. Just looking at his 2023-2025 does not inspire confidence. However, he produced a wRC+ of 139 the 2nd half of 2025. It's a smart signing if he can replicate the results of those adjustments in 2026.

Lewis playing like he once did would be huge. When a guy like that is down management should be propping him up anyway they can. Apparently, Lewis really needs to feel important and management should know their personnel well enough to give them what they need. However, without knowing exactly why Royce does not feel important in the clubhouse, it's very hard to tell if it's an organizational problem or a Royce problem. He was the hero a lot early on. Is he just missing the spotlight? IDK but it sounds like Shelton understands what Royce needs and hopefully he can help him get back on track. He may turn out to be no more than an average player but it costs nothing to treat him well.