tobi0040

My odds are against Berrios at all this year. Garza is cited as a guy that moved really quick. He was drafted at 21 and appeared at 22 and 250 days. Berrios is 20 and 150 days right now.

I would not be opposed to moving Meyer to the pen to start next year, if it is a pathway to the rotation for him. But you have to go out and sign a good starter if that is the case. We can't roll with only Hughes, Gibson, Nolasco, and May. I have concerns about depth and more importantly, talent. When a guy like Milone is your 5th starter before the eventual injury or inneffectiveness...then you get your AAAA guys..it makes for a long year and more of the same.

I would like to add a follow up to the 50-52% part. If you have gone over, in how many of the 15 years? Because we all know if the went to 52.1% in one year he will say: "Absolutely, of course we have went over. From the ownership group down to Terry Ryan, we spare no expense to put the best team on the field year in and year out" Pivot to Buxton and Sano....

How about: "How do you still have a job?" "Now that he is gone, what do you really think of Gardy?"

I agree we should look at him, but I think this is a case where the hype exceeds the production. Translation, he is going to make a ton of money. He has power, that is great. But he K's a ton and has a low average, resulting in an OPS in the .750 range. If you platoon LF, you will have a tough time NOT getting .750 OPS production.

Well, they gave up Lester for him. So they would likely give him up for some combination of Duensing and our 30th best prospect. Lester had a 2.35 ERA for Oakland, while Cespedes had a .719 OPS in Boston. I don't see that trade as a reason for the decline.

What you are saying here is true, I guess what rubs me the wrong way is service time seems to be the deciding factor over who can help out the club. Burdi was taken 46th and many mocks had him going 21 to the Tigers. He is probably a better comp....if we follow the same service time logic he won't be up for a few years. That would be a poor choice in my view. Same with Reed, regardless of where he is drafted IF he puts up simlar numbers as he moves up. Service time should not be a huge factor for a college reliever.

I am a gigantic no. Cespedes OPS the last 2 years, .737 and .751. Hicks against lefties, career OPS of .750. Arcia against righties .850. I will concede that a guy I have never watched play LF is likely an upgrade over Arcia, but if we can get better offensive production with guys we have....I am against moving prospects for a 1 year deal....then extending and overpaying for this guy. We have limited funds, I say get a pitcher. I can't say that we have five pitchers that will be better next year than Shields or Ervin Santana....so lets invest there.

This could very well be an informed decision based on what the twins have told him. I actually thought a 5k drop was generous. Four of the five people I know cancelled and I don't know anyone new that signed up.

Unless we sign a guy, I think LF will be claimed by the winner between Hicks and Rosario. My money is on Rosario.

Did anyone read Ruesse's article about the Twins season ticket holders? Here are the cliffs notes: -Twins had 17,000 season ticket holders last year. He expects that to drop to 12,000 this year -If you drop 5K a game from this years total, you have 1.85M. The lowest since 2001 in the Dome. -The Twins response is the same as always. Terry quoting that money will be no obstacle and Pohlad saying we will stick to 50%. -Also brought up the competition within the market. Wild are a better team. Wolves are at least interesting. And Vikings are getting a new stadium. Much of the corporates signed up for 5 year deals and those are expiring http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/279691702.html

Be careful....it has been alleged that Ryan has "no say in the draft" as well as "Ryan only has input on the first pick". So the Dozier pick goes to the draft team (SARCASM)

Hopefully a site in MPLS this year, with more fans in attendance.

I think a B is a tad low. I view Dozier as a borderline all-star given the position he plays and Gibson a #2-3 starter in his prime. If you added a borderline all star and good starter every draft, you would have a ton of talent in house to field a really good team, even before free agency. It is the drafts like 2006 and 2007 where you get a whole lot of nothing that kill your team.

I agree with these statements. Even if Hicks loses out in the LF battle this year, I see no reason to cut him. We have given up on too many guys too early.

I will give you this....the cupboards were pretty bare in 2012 specifically. Regarding the signings....it would have been nice to target younger players. Whether that be via trade or international signings. The Pelfrey's and KC's? Just didn't make any sense. Last year was a different story. I work for a fortune 100 company where every quote to the media, commercial, and customer experience is supposed to be consistent. A clear message and direction from the top......I think the Twins could have used a clear directive regarding the state of the team from the owners. Because last year what we had was a GM that was half in and half out, and a manager playing for his job who didn't care about next year even when we were going to lose 90 again.

I have a feeling LF will come down to Rosario or Hicks. Rosario sure looks like he could play there. Clearly as a former CF he would be a huge defensive upgrade as well

Odds maybe similar, but if you are going to cut Parmelee...you may as well try and trade him first. Although i am guessing Terry does this regularly and in this case would not find anything.

I would have loved an Astros style rebuild as well. The kicker is we had the exact same record as they did this year, but of course they did it with future players. I also agree we took some strides that reeked of a rebuild....like the Span and Revere trades. Promoted Vargas, etc. But I don't get the point of doing it half-way. I am torn on what the fans would have thought. Some would call them cheap either way, frankly. But if they would have communicated what they were doing and why....I think fans would have started to see hope sooner. For example, if they would have brought up May and Meyer sooner this year (or Meyer at all obviously), guys like Tonkin, the fan base could have at least been inspired by the future. I think these moves could have also sped up our return to relevance. So even for those folks that were negative, they would have eventually been sold that a real rebuild was the right approach. Losing breeds unhappy fans. But losing with an old team breeds even less hope, IMO.

I guess I don't know what exact comments you are referring to. But that the end of the day in 2011-2013, it was clear they were not going to field a winning team. Yet they repeated the same two lines, we are going to compete this year and money will not prevent us from x, y, or z. But on the field, it is the decisions that don't point to a rebuild, like minor league deals to 34 year old has been's, or Pinto and Santana out of position, or AAAA starters over Meyer, May, etc.

in the 15-20 range for revenue range based on the fundamentals of market, etc. That is probably where the Twins will be in regards to average payroll. They are certainly in the low end now, while they are rebuilding, but they were 9th in 2011 when they thought they were competing. Drawing huge sweeping conclusions based on the last couple of years, when the state of the Twins product on the field is at its worst, seems a little irresponsible. If this is an emotional reaction to them being so bad fine, but if it is a level headed analysis and assumption of what it will be like going forward time immemorial, then there probably will never be any satisfaction in the next couple of years. Time will tell if they are ever 9th again. Even in 2011, a 65 win team with the 9th largest payroll made $26.5M because everyone still wanted to see the new ballpark and/or were locked into season tickets because they too thought we had a winner. I don't think the Twins will have that luxury in a long time. I am not simply frustrated by the losses, I am frustrated because they haven't, in my opinion really fully committed to a rebuild or been honest with the fans about where they are.

Please forgive me for not believing the Twins for claimng losses each year. From 2000 to 2004, Forbest had them losing money in only one year (2004). If we are calling "operating losses" excluding revnue sharing, then yes they lost money every year. But if you have a rich uncle writing a check making you positive, you aren't "losing" anything.

I don't know about hand picked. I went back 10 years. Then added back to 2000 when you brought up contraction. I too agree that most owners have a profit in mind, my theory is that the twins owners shoot for more given that in 10 years they have averaged 18 million in profit while some teams lost money or were closer to zero.

I was saying your opinion is not going to change from your opinion that they are middle of the road. I could go tally up profits by team over the last 10 years that show the twins are in the top 10 in profits and 20 or so in team payroll but then you would question the data somehow, or say that was not the right data point. It is not my job to prove anything, especially since you aren't offering any data whatsoever backing up your claim Regarding the twins fans perceptions of owners relative to other teams,we will just have to disagree.

Contraction was twelve years ago, the economics have changed quite a bit since then. Do you have any evidence the Twins were "consistently losing money?" Forbes records show they made money from 2001 to 2004 in every year but 2004. I could not find additional data farther back than that. Granted, the numbers here are aided by revenue sharing. Here is a link that shows our profit in 2001. I think that is the key distinction. The Pohlads were not consistently losing money, they were being supported by other teams and it was the other teams by and large pushing for contraction. From the Pohlad's perspective, money from the Yankees spends (or does not spend) the same as money from a Twins fan. I don't have a perfect data point, but I have offered a few. If none of these change your mind that the Pohlads are middle of the road on the frugal scale, I don't think anything will. -Over a 9 year period from 2006 to 2014, they made $183M in profits. -In only one of those years did they make under $10M ($7M), seventeen other teams lost money in at least one year. Many teams lost money in multiple years. -In one year while in the dome, only five teams made more money I believe the Pohlads forecat revenue and aim to be make about $20M each year. Priority number two is fielding the best team within those parameters. I also think that this fan base probably has a more negative view of the Pohlads relative to the rest of MLB fans view of their owners. I think a valid reason exists for it. One final note about the reliability of the data. First, this is all we have. Second, unless we have reason to believe the people at Forbes have a vendetta against the Twins and purposefully inflate their revenue and income numbers, or some other unforseen reason why the Twins numbers would be skewed relative to all the other teams, these numbers are all relative. When comparing the Twins to other franchises, this data is sufficient http://home.cabletv.on.ca/~jpalmer/Eco182/baseball%20finances/the%20numbers,%20part%206.htm