Trov

Not sure which pitching prospects you are referring to that were traded away. I am guessing Cade Povich and Chase Petty are maybe 2 of them. We have traded several others or lost in rule 5 draft. Povich is a top prospect still, but in 8 starts this year was not good, and much worse than much of what we have put out there. Povich AAA has been decent, but so far has failed at majors. Petty has hit a wall in AA so far for Reds. He has dropped down their prospect list, and if he put up similar numbers with us would be like our 5th ranked pitching prospect at this point I would guess. Maybe higher just because of his draft status.

If they think he is the best of what we could send out there sure, but I think leaning on the kids would be better move.

I would push back against highest payroll correlates to best players. Generally, the better the player the more they get paid, after they reach arb years or FA, however, many vets sign long term deals that equal very overpaid player. For teams that are not big market teams they cannot have too many of them on their team. I could go on many examples of players that are on contracts but no where near earning their money. Heck, on Twins CC could be argued to be one of them. Last year the top 3 paid teams failed to make the playoffs.

Yes, I said up until recently, was had 8 team playoffs, 3 division winners and the wild card team per league. Then we added a second wild card team in 1 game playoff which started in 2012, which expanded to 10, but only a single game for 2 teams and not a series. Then in 2022 it was expanded to the current format of 3 wild card teams and 3 division winners per league for a total of 12 teams. That is what I was referring to that we recently had 8 team playoffs.

Comparing Matthews to Berrios on path to MLB is a little flawed. First two different FO and systems. Beyond that, Berrios was a high school pick and had several years in organization and was a supplemental first round pick. Matthews was an 8th round college pitcher that is in his second full season in organization. Berrios also had pitched 17 games in AAA the year he was called up and did well. Matthews has moved up 3 levels this year and has yet to settle into AAA. Additionally, Berrios came up to a last place team and pitched terrible at MLB level, 14 games and FIP of 6.20, clearly he was not ready. Matthews will be coming into a team fighting for first place. I am not saying Matthews will not come in and do just fine, he may very well and I hope he does, but to compare him to Berrios and say Matthews is ready because he did better overall than Berrios means we should not be worried is flawed because Berrios was not ready either and had much more time in AAA and AA for that matter. Matthews was not a highly touted prospect with high draft capitol. He is a guy that has improved greatly this year, last hear his stats were ehh where the majority of his starts were at High A and he only had 8 K's per 9 and an ERA of 4.59. This year his K's are up, walks are down, not that they were high last year, but rarely does a guy make the jumps he is doing in terms of levels. I think fans are right to be concerned that he gets blown up at this level. I personally have never seen him pitch but with the low walk numbers suggests to me he stays in zone and has been over powering guys, or his stuff is very deceptive and gets a ton of chase. I do not believe AA has the robo umps now, and only AAA so he has only pitched with that for 4 games. I do agree AAA is a hitter league the Saints are in.

Since 1995, the wild card era, 5 times has the top payroll team, entering the season won the world series, 4 of those times were the Yankees, 96, 99, 00, 09. The other was the Red Sox, 18. 3 times the 2nd highest payroll was the winner, Yankees 98, Red Sox 04 and 07. The 3rd highest has never done it. The 4th 3 times Braves 95, Red Sox 14, Nats 19. 5th did it 1 time Marlins 97. 6th did it 2 times Giants 12 and Cubs 16. Overall, a team does have a at least a top half payroll, but that is not surprising. It is not always because of signing big time FA, but rarely does an all rookie or guys within first few years make playoffs. So if they have value when they hit arb years they will start making good money. Throw in a few resigning your own players or a supplemental FA and your payroll will rise. There are few times the highest paid player ends up taking a team to the WS, but having more high floor guys, or taking on a guy in a trade that is making bigger money normally helps too.

Up until recently only 8 teams made the playoffs, so to be in top 4 or 5 means the top half or more than top half the teams. That is a pretty big ratio.

The numbers stated in article is not surprising. Guys that are known to not be good hitters will get mostly fastballs when no one is on base. Even more so when they are slow. Pitchers do not want to waste pitches trying to get out a bad hitter so they just challenge them. When you have guys on base that is when they will see less fastballs in the zone but more breaking pitches on the edges and fastballs on the edges. Trevor Plouffe did this over his career. He hit 24 HR one year with only 55 RBI. He would hit solo HR when games were out of hand, normally we were losing, and no one was on base. But he would get up with runners on and would strike out or hit weak fly ball.

Since July hit, he has an OPS over .1000 and OPS+ in high 100s. He has been one of the better hitting catchers over that time. Yes, it is only 19 games, but he clearly has been making the most out of those chances. Jeffers on other hand has 24 games and hitting much worse. Agreed Vasquez was so bad the first half it will take a lot to get fans to believe in him, but his defense is why he plays and what you get from bat is bonus and he has been doing well over last month in half.

First they need to decide who gets DFA or 60 day IL. Either Blewett or Dobnak get the DFA, my guess Dobnak gets it like he did before. Funderburk could get 60 day IL as well he is near 30 days on it already so unless you expect him back in next few weeks a 60 day IL may be in cards for him. Then in terms of who gets on 26 man if Blewett or Dobnak do not get the DFA I think either could get optioned, not 100 percent on options left for them.

Matthews may get called up if there is a 60 day IL candidate that will be out for season. If not, it will reduce the chance he gets called up because they will need to DFA someone to put him on the 40 man or DFA someone when the person on the 60 day comes off. Dobnak would be someone they would DFA again, but assuming that might happen when Topa comes off the 60 day.

I would love to see the data on pitchers and innings pitched over a season, and injuries. I just wonder how having a guy pitch 100 innings one season then shutting down for a period of time, only to ramp back up to then increase to say 120 innings the next season. Does that really reduce injuries over the long term? I also wonder how many pitchers do long distance running these days and work on their leg strength. I say that because some of the bests pitchers in the past would talk about how much they worked on leg strength and that is what allowed them to pitch so much. I just wonder how much shutting down for months really helps build up for the future? I have not seen the medical data but sure it is out there.

Varland will get Ryan's spot first. Then they would have to decide between Matthew and Morris if needed. Dobnak, although was terrible in his last pen outing may be tapped to fill starts too. Neither Matthews or Morris are on 40 man, and I do not believe either need to be added during offseason as they both are in their 2nd full season of pro ball. The team hates to add guys to 40 man roster unless they have to in order to avoid rule 5 draft, or they believe the player is going to be at MLB roster for awhile. Sure, the injuries may force that, but when guys get removed from the 40 man they could lose them so that is always a factor.

Our offense is deep enough we do not need Jeffers to hit great, but if he does it is just bonus. If he can hit like he did in April in October he could carry the team a long way.

Shota started off crazy good, but he has had a bit more up and down since his last May start. He has either been pretty good, or very bad. Hopefully he is the very bad version.

I read many fans on hear talking about how we will not be the "favorite" to win the world series and we need to make trades to make it happen. I decided to look and see historically how often the "favorite" team actually wins the World Series. It is a basic look by looking at betting odds pre-season and then post season, as teams most likely changed roster as year moved on. I did not do a deep dive or anything. If the team had the best odds to win either the pre-season or post I considered them the favorite. There was 1 time the preseason favorite was not the post season favorite, but most of the time they were either both, or was a post season favorite. If they tied with another team I counted it as a favorite. I went back to 1995, when the playoffs first expanded to 8 teams. Now I get it, betting odds are not the best judge of who is the favorite, but it gives a decent look as to how book makers and betters may have thought about the team. When thinking about it I was guessing about 20% of the time it happened. It was actually 34% of the time. Two times the pre-season was then tied going into playoffs. Two times the winner was not a pre-season favorite but was entering playoffs. As I said I did include the 2009 Yankees who pre-season was favorite but not entering the playoffs. There are some years where the winning team was considered one of the least likely entering the playoffs, and some years they were close second if they were not the favorite. Overall, if you are the favorite betting odds wise either entering season or entering playoffs, you win it 1 third of the time. Not bad, but far from a lock. Yes, there are years where the second favorite wins, I did not calculate those as the question was just for favorite. There are also years where very deep odds teams and least favorite entering the playoffs manage to win as well. For those who may be wondering, Dodgers were the favorite entering the year this year.

I get the thought that height would help with getting on base, because of walks, but it takes more than just that. For example Altuve the closest in height at MLB level that I know of, walks across all his plate appearances, including minors at 7.4 percent. Eeles walks at 13.1 percent. Altuve also strikes out at 12.7 percent Eeles 12 percent. Eeles is his college and independent league as well as this year with Twins, and Altuve includes his MLB level, but Altuve appears to be pretty close in his minor league time as well. I would agree that his defense is limited most likely to 2nd base but Julien is limited to that as well and he was high on prospect list last year. I think most people do not care about the limited defense as long as guys can hit. It becomes more of an issue if they cannot hit well.

Many a casual fan will say "who" when they see the name. The deep minor league following fans will know the name. For those who have not followed him this year, he is 24, 5 foot 5 inches, one inch shorter than Jose Altuve. He is in his first year in any MLB affiliated team. He went 4 years of college and always put up good numbers in college, but never at any major schools. Mainly, you see a guy his size and just assume they do not turn into MLB players. I am sure some scouts would say if only he was 6 foot. He went undrafted and played independent ball last year, putting up decent numbers, less than college but still good. He started independent league again this year, in 6 games he hit 3 HR and had OPS over 1000. Then the Twins signed him. He started in low A Fort Myers, a pitcher league generally, and he lit it up. Over 34 games he slashed .331/.448/.517. He was moved up to high A, where he did not slow down much. Slashing .275/.473/.425, that was over 13 games. Then fans were shocked when he quickly went to AAA over other prospects like Keaschell who has been tearing up AA, but is only 21. What has Eeles done at AAA this year? He is slashing .268/.411/.451. in 24 games. He has walked more than struck out. He has similar numbers, OPS wise to current MLB players Miranda, Martin, and Wallner. Of course Wallner has much more power than all of the others. He is doing better than Julien who took world by storm last year in his call up, but faltered much this year. On defense Eeles has played all over the infield, 3b, SS, and 2b, as well as 3 games in LF. There is no way he will be super high on prospect lists due to his age, lack of pedigree, and his size, but if he continues to play like he has this year, we will see him on prospect lists and may be seeing him in a MLB uniform next year. He will be another fun story of the kid that never gave up, not that he is old, but sure has to be having some scouts wonder how they missed on him. I am not saying the kid will be some super star, but if he was drafted out of college in higher round we would be talking about him along with several other prospects. The fact that he walks more than strikes out, can steal some bases, and has enough pop to hit a HR, 7 in minors this year in 70 games, if you add the 3 from the 6 games of independent ball that is 13 in 76 games. He is not just a singles hitter. I have read his defense is not great, but he is more than just a 1b or DH guy. Personally, I would put him somewhere around 10 to 15 in rankings, without looking at recent drafted guys. He is ahead of Schobel who MLB had him this year before draft at 11.

I do think on defense he has taken a step back, which may be intentional in his part, not pushing it full bore anymore, or it could just be what his body can now do. He has always been injury prone, and injuries tend to tick up even more as players age. However, if he can play CF at even average level, still has elite arm, and hit at plus level he will be worth his contract. In regards to the DH thing, it has been talked about for years that is not an easy thing to do, and many legends who moved to DH part time would hit much worse as a DH than as a fielder. It is a mind thing, that when in field you can get your mind off your hitting, but when you are just hitting, it is harder to get out of your own head. Which makes when you find a true good hitting DH they are worth more than some think.

Cobb is a lottery ticket salary dump for Giants. He has yet to pitch this year, and have no clue if he has anything in the tank the rest of the year. If we made the move fans on here would tear the move apart as a terrible trade, unless he does come back to pitch well, but even at his better days he is still a mid-rotation guy. He would have slid into at best our 4th starter. That assumes he even can come back from his injury.

I do not see Erceg as some savior of a pitcher. He has been good but not great, and is not a proven talent. We have seen pen guys blow up after trades, remember that Lopez guy we traded for after a great first half?

This is not a post for or against current spending by the Twins, or any team. I wanted to post about how there is more to the cost of running a team than just player payroll. In MLB there is not set amount that will go to player payroll, but NBA has a 50/50 split, NFL is close to a 50/50 split, of revenue to teams and to players. Not sure NHL revenue sharing split. MLB is only sport of the major sports that do not do a revenue sharing split, but seems like for a team to feel break even or profitable 50/50 seems fair. That being said, the 50 percent that would go to team is not just money in hand, but has to go to other expenses. When I see people post on here, many seem to forget that. In baseball, there is not only the MLB player payroll, but all the minor league guys, along with international signings and draft signing bonus money each year. Minor league is not huge, but at 165 per team on average of 25K per player, that is 4.125 million right there. That does not include the housing cost the minor league players have now. Add in the signing bonuses, varies on teams, but Twins was over 12 mil this year. International signing varies depending on team again, but Twins were in the 6.5 mil pool. Looking at non MLB player money but minor league guys, and signing bonus money, assuming all was spent, that is about 23 million. That is just to pay the players that do not play at the MLB level. Looking to other costs. It is not free to run the lights at the stadium, which one article I found suggests it will cost over 1 mil for that. There is also cost of all the rank and file employees, not sure how much that would be, but lets assume 100 employees averaging 100K, that may be way low or high not sure what an employee gets paid there, but if close that is 10 million there, but the team also has to pay taxes for like payroll taxes, unemployment taxes and the like as well. We should assume they give out benefits too like health care and retirement perks, like most employees, that adds more expenses. That includes the club house guys, the grounds crew, the ticket sales people, the janitors that clean the offices, the travel people so on and so forth. Then there is the actual travel expenses at each level. At MLB level, lets assume there are like 40 people that travel with team, and they all get their own room, maybe some share. If on average each room costs $200 a night, might be low in some cities and high in others, but that is 8K a night, and estimating 90 nights, 81 road games and some off days on road, that is 720K, add in per diam estimate 100 a day, maybe more, that is 360k. So over 1 mil just for basic travel expenses. Then there is the club house meals, the cost of actual planes and buses to and from games on the road. This does not include the cost in minor league levels as well. Then there is the cost of front office personnel who make millions, coaches and managers at each level, millions more. There is the cost of advertising, cost of giveaways, and even the cost of basic overhead like printer paper, office equipment and so on. When you operate a business at the level of MLB there are a lot of little expenses that start to add up to very large expenses. I am not saying any team is overspending or underspending on players, not defending or attacking the Twins payroll. However, I read comments and articles estimating how much money the Twins may have to spend and they look at just MLB player payroll as the only expense of the team. Many people talk about how after getting a new TV deal Twins did not spend any more money, but it is possible that money that came in, which is only half because other half is shared with the rest of the league, may have mostly been spoke for in other expenses spread across many things. Recently there was talk about team getting up to 15 mil, if it helps product on field, and that may be more tied to spending on players payroll, as the MLBPA agreed to take from competitive balance tax to do that. But other income sources may have been earmarked for other expenses, and to assume it can be spent on something else is wrong.

The reports the Braves file include the area around the ballpark. They break it down from baseball revenue, and non-baseball revenue. You ask about the valuation of a team going up despite possibly losing money. Well, we have seen many social media companies value increase in the market, but report that they are losing large amounts of cash each year, explain that.

I think people forget that SD had to take out a loan of cash on hand to pay their players. The worth of an owner does not mean they have the cash on hand. Much of the worth is based on what people claim a company is worth. For example, Elon Musk just lost like 16 billion in worth the other day, because the stock price of Tesla dropped. First, he did not lose 16 billion cash, the stock he owns value dropped. Just because someone has something they say is worth x, does not mean they can get that in cash for it. First, it takes a buyer to pay the asking price. This happens a ton in business deals where a company that has no actual assets get valued at a number, and some wonder how. Many times it is based on possible value you can get out of it but not actual assets or cash in or out. If the Twins operating cash is dropping, they will need to cut payroll to pay employees, or they will need sell off other assets, or borrow against them to make payroll. Just because the Pohalds are valued at billions, does not mean they have a money bin full of cash, but that is what Forbes says their assets are worth. If they even tried to fully divest their assets to get cash, they would not get that much cash either.

I agree, I hate when people point to "market size" and compare that as the only factor. Like on here before so many posts about KC and SD market size being same or smaller than TC, now throw in St. Louis. They neglect to then look at what other sports franchises are in the area. How do they draw from the disposable income, and time of the sports consumer. As pointed out, here in TC there is NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS(growing in popularity) WNBA(also growing), where in SD they have baseball, that is it. Yes, they had NHL but it got moved to LA. KC has NFL and MLS to fight with, other than that no NHL or NBA. St. Louis has NHL but no NBA or NFL. They do sell a lot of XFL or whatever league they are now there, but that shows people will go see sports if they have the time and money, but if you have a lot too pick from you may have to pick 1 over the other, or spread it around. That does lead to the argument that the Twins then need to spend more to fight to get the fans to come, but win will not equal attendance always, as Ray for years would fight for their division but have no fans come to games. Point is, do not just look at media market to decide who should be spending what or if they can afford it. You should also look at things like house hold incomes, versus the cost of living. This gets into the disposable income fans may have. It would be poor to assume each fan has a similar disposable income or time to spend for games in each market.