Cris E

The chaos in revenue streams is real, and wide-spread. Even if they know they only had to take a 15% haircut for this year there's still no certainty about 2025 and beyond, Chances are good that cable money will be even lower then so the next deal they get from Diamond could be lower still. This question is still open for the long term, and it's not clear that streaming money will completely fill that gap. I don't expect any answer for this until they open up the CBA after the 2026 season and work it out then, and that could be very messy. Consider this: no one has suggested a model that will replace all the lost cable money that's even remotely realistic. The best bet might be expansion fees, but that's a one-time cash infusion. Where is this magic 10% a year money coming from? Also, the deals people want to sign are mostly not for a single season, so they extend into these coming years of confusion. On top of that you need to start extending some guys like Ryan, Duran, Jax et al and you'll want to save some headroom for them on the 2026 payroll. Listen I know that it's frustrating to watch, but give credit to Joe Pohlad for the risks he's taken in the past year or two. They didn't predict spending that much in 2023, but they did it even though they were in the last year of their TV deal, even as this money question was not getting answered, even as their entire roster went on the DL in 2022. When Correa was available they wrote the check. They wrote the check for Buxton. They traded cheap young players to get expensive starting pitchers. It's not Carl Pohlad running this team anymore, so acknowledge the progress before dragging out your old Calvin Griffith hair shirt. The lamentations are tired.

I was pretty sure I had them right and then I see this. The streams were crossed and now I'm wrecked again.

Plus the move to high A is when pitchers start improving too. You get some separation between the throwers and the pitchers, and guys are better able to exploit poor plate discipline. He'll be seeing better arms and need to lay off the stuff that can't be driven, so I hope he's a guy that can learn. Perhaps our minor league staff learned their lesson with leaving Arreaz alone, and messing up Martin before leaving him alone, but the fact is it's not a lock that everyone makes that jump to plate discipline and a lot is rooted in a guy's willingness to listen and change. I don;t know anything about this guy, but I'm with @Doctor Gast and think he's as ranked about high as he'll ever be, so maybe move him on for something we need if any other org falls in love with him.

Regarding Nick Gordon's achievements to date, his fielding numbers weren't great in 2022 and he doesn't have the supporting seasons to indicate that his 111 OPS+ that year wasn't an outlier. In his entire minor league career he only hit over .300 once (in 21 games in the AFL in 2016), he has only reached .350 OBP at one stop (.381 in 42 AA games in 2018) and in his big 2022 MLB season his BABIP was .340 which was well over the league average. And honestly there's no reason to project it to come in above the MLB average of .306 for this year. In short, he'll have the spring to prove his glove still plays around the diamond and that his doubles power can offset his weak OBP skills. It may or may not get him in the lineup at Target Field, but as an audition for other teams he'll probably prove he's useful to someone.

Kirilloff will be fine if he's healthy, or he won't. It's on him, as he's got a clear open window to step up and claim his spot. Many guys never get a chance as clean as this one, so I hope he's ready. I could easily see the FO trading Gordon to an org that is thin in CF for a bag of balls and lunch money (which is to say a 19 year old "live arm".) It'll be a sign of how great an organization we are and how much we care for our guys, and free agents will talk about it next winter when they sign $2.0m deals to be part of this clubhouse. Miranda won't be traded even if he spends the whole year in St Paul. We don't have many RH bats near ready in the org and he can use this season to reset as a 1B/OF/DH to be ready when Santana leaves or fails or whatever. He has been the type of guy they like so he only needs to return to level after injury, and that's easy to imagine happening this year. Larnach is the one I have trouble seeing a future for. They'll certainly leave him in St Paul to work on things, but ERod is coming and other callow youth are on his heels. Even if there are injuries Martin has passed him for the next shot at a long term gig in the outfield. So unless he figures out a lot this year and hits the living bejesus out of the ball there's a real and frightening chance he's going to be on the Balakvoizspelling career path in a couple years.

Miranda and Gordon are both redundant on this 2024 roster (see Castro and Santana) so while they could make the squad I see Miranda's option as a ticket to St Paul. Similarly I believe Martin starts the season in St Paul to work on defensive consistency and doubles power and stays there until Buxton goes on the DL. Gordon's season in the sun came before they had Castro on hand, so I really see his opportunity coming in ST, not the regular season. So that kind of means the decision rests on the balance between how well Miranda plays and how easily they think they could get Gordon through waivers. I'm skeptical that other teams see Gordon as much more than, say, a less proven Bubba Thompson with a suspect glove in CF and no power to warrant any time in a corner OF spot. EDIT: Martin? Oh yeah, I should mention him. He's going to be a fine CF or utility guy. Maybe not great, but good enough to leave in the leadoff spot for a few years until someone takes it away from him. He'll see a bunch of pitches and run around on the bases and play defense where the openings appear. By June he should be here.

Some thoughts: There's a substantial chance that DeSclafani is not ready on April 1 and he stays on the DL or in St Paul to open the year, and at that point he'd need to pitch his way onto the 26 man. Great if he can, but better if he can't because it means someone else is throwing well with the big club. I am still curious to see how they clear spots on the 40 man to accommodate the new faces. Perhaps they do make a trade to shuffle the deck. It would certainly be good for guys like Gordon that are buried, but it could change where we see depth and risk. (Edit: here I am implying Nick gets traded, not that we somehow rid ourselves of enough 2B or CF depth that he becomes relevant.) Playoffs can be won with OK starters that make no mistakes and a huge pen that can defend small leads. Examples abound, but no matter how good the pitchers look on paper they have to avoid giving up multiple runs and the offense has to put some runs on the board. Modern playoffs don't require a ten inning Jack Morris shutout, just a solid outing that keeps one of the best teams in the game mostly off the board so your guys can stay within striking distance. These days it's high risk game of velocity and home runs, not 1968.

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Gah, I wish people would stop looking at BBTV for anything. Look at that from any angle other than MIN: Miranda isn't very young and has had one decent year and injury problems, DeAndrade is a single A toolbox and ranked well outside our top ten, Theilbar is straight up old and was running out of gas at the end of last year after missing May and June with an injury, and Luis Castillo is a stud being paid something near or below market rate. You might be able to pick up an average but injured #4 SP like Desclafani as a salary dump, but not a valuable player and certainly not a week after they already salary dumped from their starting pitching depth. And this whole discussion assumes that Snell outperforms the cheaper Castillo over the short or long term, which is not a given. BBTV is a plague.

Santana is here in a Gallo role to provide a floor under the roster they want to run out there. Last year they added Gallo and MAT because they had concerns about Buxton playing CF, their lack of power hitting, if any of the young corner guys were going to pan out, and a serious goal to never feature an outfield as bad as what disgraced Target Field in 2022. This year it appears they are not as concerned about CF but they do want a safety net under Kirilloff and Miranda at 1B. Santana isn't great but he's going to provide a good glove and unterrible hitting in the event that Kirilloff isn't ready and Miranda was a comet. And just to be clear I liked the Gallo signing last year because I too was worried that the 1B and CF and LF plans looked weak and wasn't too sold on Kepler's backups either. Solano was eventually signed but there was no guarantee he was going to do any better than Santana will this year. At any rate Gallo did do what was asked on defense and was kept in the batting order far past the point where he should have been. Good on Falvine for signing him, good on Joey for his glove and effort, frown on Rocco and Falvine for his playing time after Father's Day. For 2024 I want a guy in hand that can hit lefties, play a decent 1B and who won't act like a child if the kids do step up and claim the playing time. Gallo only did some of that last year and Carlos can probably beat his performance. I just want Rocco to learn from his experience so this can turn out better than last time.

Yeah, but no. For every time some guy comes out of nowhere to stomp you in the playoffs you have another case of Berrios getting pulled in the fifth. It all averages out in the end, and even if it doesn't you kind of don't care what the other guy does as long as the guy you get does what he's supposed to.

I don't think the Braves have the rotation depth to get rid of Fried and still get deep into the playoffs. If you remove him that puts a 1.0 WAR guy in the #5 spot (and even less lining up behind him in AAA) and assumes Chris Sale is going to fill a spot all year without injury and 400 year old Charlie Morton doesn't die in his sleep. In the NL East that's not going to hold up through Halloween. They can;t go that light in the rotation regardless of cost.

Always? Do you hear yourself? 2022 was only 18 months ago.

Good piece. The thing this latest news calls out is the instability of everything and how little time MLB has to assemble a far-reaching plan to replace the RSN revenue model. There's a chance that Amazon funding a good enough outlet for RSN streaming will blow up any chance MLB has of making their offering good enough to displace it. If a bunch of teams start opting for 50% of what they got before and MLB hasn't got a wide enough list of games to sell who will pay for their offering at, say, $25 if Prime can get it for you at $20? So much uncertainty, so little time, and not enough teams in trouble to slow the whole mess down. All but three teams have 2024 deals, right? Gonna be an interesting couple weeks...

@JD-TWINS I was with you until you claimed Gordon would head north with the varsity because he'd been a first rounder. We gots lots of those, but what we need are ball players and Gordon will need to hit to earn the big uniform. In fact Larnach and Martin and Miranda and Gordon will all be working to show they can hit in 2024, and the rest of the roster will be doing the same. We've got a bunch of guys that had bad years (Correa, Buxton, Vazquez, half of Kepler, Larnach, Kirilloff) and a bunch of others that showed one good year (Lewis, Julien, Castro, Wallner) and they all need to prove where their true level is. The division is a wasteland, so a clear path to the playoffs is open as long as they can play up to their potential talent, stay healthy and not get distracted. Draft pick history won't carry much water when there's a playoff spot on the line.

It's more than that, because that was true last year and they were still throwing cash around like drunken sailors. The difference this year is the uncertainty around so many teams' revenues. MLB has to get a broadcast plan out there in the next few weeks, or at least route the bones of what the plan will be to the owners, so that they can nail down their budgets and start making some plans. There are too many good players on the sidelines, and too many holes on teams that should be spending money to have things stagnate much longer. Moves will be made.

And this doesn't address the annual Who will be the reclamation find of the year? Last year it was Stewart, and this year's candidates include Staumont, Jenson and Stewart (who still has to prove that last year wasn't a fluke.) So there are more options than just these guys to populate the middle innings.

We haven't added the Solano (2/21/23) and Taylor (1/23/23) and Castro (12/20/22) and Gallo (12/16/22) vet augmentation to the roster for 2024 yet, and that's an important part of solidifying things to roll into the regular season. These guys aren't necessarily intended to play a lot of innings, but they really help keep the lights on and the momentum moving downhill when starters inevitably get hurt. We're talking about CF, the RH hitting corner guy and maybe an SP and another bullpen arm or two, but to date they've really only picked through the relief rag bin (Jensen, Staumont, Alexy.) In the past these guys were mostly added late in the winter, and that seems to be a few weeks behind schedule this year because of a slow market in general and the unsettled budget problem in MIN particularly. but there's plenty of time to make a trade: MAT came to MIN on Jan 23 last year, Pablo Lopez on Jan 20 and Correa on Jan 11 so we're still well within that time frame. It's way too early to complain or get too comfortable with the roster as it stands because we've never been ready to go a month before spring training. It's not how things have ever worked, so let it play out a bit.

I agree Ryan and Ober are solid MLB starters, so adding a young star or two to the current set really lines up the Twins for a bright future. I'd reach to get a Luzardo and also try for one more Miller/Woo/Keller type to fill in the back of the rotation to ensure we keep evolving as Grey and Maeda and such move on. But adding a short contract guy like Fried is pretty optimistic. If we don't have money to keep Polanco or Kepler then we're really going to face problems extending Fried followed by Ryan, Ober, Luzardo, etc. The notion of trading that much future for one year of a guy like Fried is not a solid plan unless we get to the World Series or we get an extension signed, and that extension not something ATL felt they could nail down. I don't see how MIN would do it when those deep and smart pockets could/would not. That's why I prefer spending more for more years of control (Luzardo over Fried) and especially so when it would cost a big chip like Lee. (Also, there's no way Luzardo comes to MIN for Polanco, $10m and Festa or SWR. Every team in MLB would make that deal in under ten minutes, which means that it's probably not enough. )

MLB did an excellent job creating BAM back when they needed to produce and stream their games. It's still out there, very capable and owned by Disney/ESPN, which provides an excellent foil to Amazon's interest in putting MLB games on Prime at some sort of discount. Bezos will get a chunk of games for this season to show what he can do and what he'll charge, but it'll just be a one year opportunity. In 2025, when most teams' rights are available again, I expect MLB to assemble most of those into a uniform package that can be sold in such a way as to remove most blackouts and attack the revenue collapse caused by the RSN demise. Whether it be Amazon, MLB.TV or parted out to someone else, that offering will be a big part of the new longer term revenue model for selling games to viewers. That's when we see the new world.

They have trouble if he gets hurt, and that's the serious risk here. It's not going to be a "3.85 ERA works for me, but 4.70 means you gotta go back to the pen." What's more likely is the ERA drifts up, Duran starts trying to throw 100 for four innings and blows his arm up. Anyone who has been a 100 MPH guy with a walkup video knows that's still an option in a tight spot, and he's going to constantly be tempted to go back there even knowing that it is not sustainable as a starter. Some April Wednesday in Detroit it'll be 48 degrees with a light rain falling and Javy Baez will be stepping in with two on in the fourth after a couple walks due to a bad curveball night. You tell me he's not going to reach straight back with 70 pitches on his arm and see if he can get out of it with speed? I foresee trouble.

That's right at the center of this, mostly in a bad way. The reason Bally didn't have streaming blackouts is because they were collecting on both ends, cable and online. The value of the cable rights was plummeting before due to cable-cutters, but if you try to sell them while someone else can offer streaming without blackouts it'll only be worth ad revenue. Letting streaming go to Amazon without strings guts cable revenue so you need Amazon to pay enough to cover that damage, or you need to sell the content to multiple outlets, which also diminishes its value. This is not simple, which is why I keep repeating that this is a smaller deal than they're implying and that it'll take another generation of streaming deals to actually step beyond the RSN money model. The real problem is the mess of old contracts and slapdash rights arrangements. Consolidating as many of those as possible and rebundling them to a more thoughtful set of channels might replace much of the cable money. But dumping things on Prime piecemeal stands no chance of making that money back, and the opportunity to sell and resell and package and repackage goes down to that single deal. There's no way Amazon pays top dollar without including the rights to NYY, LAD and the other top teams running their own networks, which is to say there's no way the have-nots trying to live on Amazon broadcast money will be on an even playing field. Lots will have to change to account for that before the next CBA and this deal is not it.

There are plenty of reasons that this is a terrible idea. 1. Will he be effective? 2. Will he be healthy? 3. Who will throw those missing 65 innings in the pen? Starting is very different from relieving beyond the simple matter of more innings. As a starter you give so many more looks at your stuff, and batters do get to take that into second or third shots at you later in the game. Consequently there are not a lot of starters who can get away with two pitches because it makes it much easier to sit on one or the other. Part of what made Duran so effective was dropping his bad secondary pitches and focusing on his best ones, but he'll need to dust them off and hope they're somehow better if he starts. Cutting back the innings was another reason he improved, as it let him air things out for higher velo but he'll need to dial that back as well if he wants to throw 80 pitches in a game. Tell me that consciously throwing slower while facing a lineup for the second time is going to be great. I have doubts he'll be a #2 pitcher for more than a few weeks if he even makes it out of spring training. But beyond pitching well he'd have to stay healthy, and that's another place where changing the repertoire could come back to haunt him. He's got a month to add conditioning to double his workload and somehow conjure up a new pitch or two. In an organization as injury-averse as Rocco's Twins I say they kill this notion with fire, immediately, then bury it. And if you take away his 65 innings from the pen you'll find that the other high end guys don't look as awesome when the game stretches out all the way to nine innings. Jax can close every once in a while, Stewart looks sharp when he's healthy, Theilbar is old enough to be Duran's dad and Varland can throw a hundred in the sixth, but when they all have to move up a spot it's not nearly as good a pen. Meanwhile in the best case they need to find another 90 innings to fill the Duran voids (65 IP plus 30 shorter starts.) We know what the Chris Archer 4 Inning Method does to a bullpen, so why do we think it'll be easier in 2024 without Duran to finish up? In conclusion, Libya is a land of contrasts and starting Duran is a bad idea. It's one thing for Zach Littel to give up on his dreams of being an average sixth inning guy to return to starting. @awmonahan hit that one on the head: little at risk if that deal goes south. Meanwhile the Twins were already looking a little short in the pen before this nonsense was resurrected. Leave Duran in a position where he'll be one of the best in the game and find someone else to grind out innings in the #4 spot. We've already got guys lined up for that, so why gamble that two transitions work out (Duran to rotation and Varland to pen) when you already have them in place, succeeding and close to succeeding? Madness I tell you. Winter is too long around here and you get all sorts of dumb ideas floating around to fill the idle evenings. Hang on until Feb and we'll be past these fever dreams.

@BK432 I think you're being too optimistic here. Take another look at that "Pricing and availability will be announced at a later date" and tell me Directv will just let MLB give away their games. Blackouts are very valuable and they're priced into a lot of other deals that are not open to renegotiation right now. You think you're the only one who sees this as a direct step towards dropping them and they don't want a piece of this? It's a complicated mess and I don't feel like enough parties are at the table right now to make a full change, so most of the stuff for 2024 will be similar to 2023.

There will not be overt collusion like there was in the past because it cost them a lot of money and left good talent off the field. Modern Totally Not Collusion might get a few guys some lower contracts but all will get an offer and all* will play. Or maybe after last season most will still see a raise because who is kidding who, there's tons of money out there. * All not meaning everyone of course because some people are sleaze and could damage club reputations so Bauer and many other domestic violence types are out but the DWI guys are OK and don't press me on this because it's complicated and/or maybe not thought out too well. Can I go now?