chpettit19

Never said that either. We were talking about the possibility of the Pohlads not being able to sell the team and then being upset with how Falvey ran things so making a change in a year and you brought up that the Pohlads fortune would be fine so I explained I wasn't at all concerned about that and gave you what my concern was. We're just talking past each other at this point so it's time to move on.

Hey, I hope it's close. But it's not often you get a sale of an American professional sports team without anybody being aware of any rumors about who may be interested or anything. I haven't heard a peep about anything, but maybe I've just missed it. The Orioles sale went quite quickly so it's entirely possible. And I'm not predicting the sale won't happen or anything, just playing devil's advocate, and am generally not a fan of putting Falvey in charge of the business and baseball side of things. Glad DSP is gone, wish it would've happened years ago. Hope we have a new owner soon and they bring in somebody with a far better feel for modern broadcast situations and that person can get the fan engagement moving in the right direction.

I'm not complaining about moving on from DSP. I've been asking for that for years. It's just weird timing and I'm just not excited about Falvey being the replacement. Even if the replacement is internal I'd prefer someone who's had (theoretically) more time invested in the business side of things. I'm also not worried about the impact on the Pohlads. Don't believe I've mentioned any impact on the Pohlads at all. I've mentioned the impact on the Twins. I want the Twins to improve. The easiest way to improve in major league baseball is to be able to spend more money. The easiest way to be able to spend more money is to have more money to spend. Having your baseball ops guy running your business ops doesn't feel like the best way to maximize your revenue. That is my complaint. In a year if Falvey has been bad at running the business ops side of things, and the Pohlads haven't sold, my concern isn't the impact on the Pohlads and their fortune it's on the Twins payroll. That's why I don't like this. Because that has an impact on me. And you. And all of us on these boards. If Falvey is worse than St Peter at running the business side of things it means the Pohlads spend even less money on Twins player payroll and the team gets worse. That is my concern. Not anything to do with the Pohlads or their fortune. I've never even mentioned that.

And what if that sale doesn't happen? There have been 2 MLB teams up for sale in the last couple years that didn't sell. The White Sox have announced they're open to be sold as well. I have no idea how realistic that concern may be. Maybe the Pohlads are desperate for cash and are happy taking "just" 1 billion and getting out. But isn't it possible that finding somebody to buy them for 1.5+ will take a little while (as in a few years) as folks wait to see how this new broadcast situation plays out? And now you've promoted a less than ideal candidate who's going to hurt your bottom line because he may actually be even worse than St Peter at getting the most out of this market because baseball is what he's specialized in for the last 15+ years of his life. I get it. I don't disagree with what they're clearly trying to do. And maybe they're in the red zone on a sale and are just really, really good at keeping it a secret. Or maybe billionaires just really aren't worried at all about the switch to the subscription based model and MLB is able to convince prospective buyers that revenue isn't a concern so franchise values shouldn't be viewed any differently. Or they sell expansion as a certainty so fees are coming a new owners way shortly and that'll make up for things. Or whatever it is. I don't know. Just playing devil's advocate. The sale isn't imminent. And I don't like that this org has already been so terrible at maximizing this market. So I'm not a big fan of them half-assing this situation, especially as they move into a time when their revenue will be even more dependent on fan engagement year to year. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Falvey has his finger on the pulse of the Twin Cities and will be able to light a fire in the fanbase. I highly doubt it considering he was the one who originally broke the payroll news just over a year ago that completely tanked fan engagement after the playoff run, but maybe he's learned his lesson. I just want the org to be better at this stuff so they can get more revenue and build a better team. This move doesn't give me confidence that they're moving in that direction. Hopefully a sale happens relatively quickly and 2026 and beyond can get us moving in that direction.

I'm curious who the other execs in baseball are that have full control of both the business and baseball ops departments. I'm not sure how excited we should be about this. Doesn't feel like a best possible hire type situation. There isn't anybody else out there that could have been hired to run the business side of things than a guy who's dedicated his life to baseball for the last 17 years? Nobody else you could bring in who would be better suited to getting the most out of the Minnesota/Twin Cities market? I obviously want Derek to do incredibly well in this position, but I find it hard to believe he's the best option available for maximizing marketing and fan engagement as they move into this new broadcast world. My guess would be that this is a short lived position if/when a new owner takes over, but maybe Derek is a marketing genius.

If the Twins could get Eury Perez for Royce Lewis they'd have done it yesterday. Sorry, the Marlins aren't trading a 22 year old Cy Young candidate for a guy who can't play 100 games a year. Tommy John or not. And I'm the president of the "Royce Lewis is a Star" club. The Marlins aren't trading arguably the 2nd best trade chip (behind Paul Skenes) in all of baseball for Royce Lewis, sorry. Royce just isn't very tradeable right now. He can't stay on the field and he collapsed at the end of the year when he appeared to run out of gas. Teams would be more than happy to gamble on the problem having been that he ran out of gas while paying the price for it having been that the league figured him out. But the Twins aren't going to, or shouldn't, be willing to accept the price for the injury prone guy who may have been figured out. It's the same equation that leads to him not being a good extension candidate. Every player should be able to be traded at any time if it makes the team better. But there's no realistic chance that an outside team is willing to pay anything near good enough to make the Twins give up Royce. Either he's going to put it all together here for a full, or close to full, year or he isn't. There's no trade for a huge return for Royce Lewis. No team is taking on that risk.

Those are the questions, and I have no idea what the answers are. This article and the one it's based on are just talking about the rosters heading into the offseason, though. A lot will change between now and opening day 2025. How the Twins answer those questions will determine how 2025 goes for them. I hope their answer isn't that it was bad luck and they're good enough as is. I feel very strongly that that'd be a mistake. But I also feel strongly that the idea that this roster is closer to the white sox than yankees (or whoever you put at the top of the AL) is also a lot of recency bias and people forgetting how good they were for 75% of the season.

I did read it all. You list 8 teams. 3 of them in the AL. Then say you have the Twins in the 9-12 range. I'm no super math whiz, but I'm pretty sure 9 comes directly after 8. So you have the Twins somewhere in the next 4 spots after the 8 teams you ranked. To call the article a joke for ranking them 4th while then ranking the Twins in the general 4-6 area feels like a weird choice.

4th best in the AL. Which is right in the range you have. Behind the same 3 teams even. Not sure why you're calling the article a joke when you actually agree with it. Other than maybe you didn't read it closely enough to notice that it says very clearly "The Twins Have the AL’s Fourth Best Roster as the Offseason Begins" right in the title.

The Twins don't need to add another guy who can't play a full season. Yoan Moncada has never played 150 games in a season. He played 144 in 2021 followed by 104 in 2022, 92 in 2023, and 12 this year. He's been a below average hitter just as often as he's been an above average one. His upside is nowhere near high enough at the age of 30 to be hoping this is finally the season he puts it all together. I don't think the Twins are going to be giving up the prospect(s) needed to get Yandy, but Yoan Moncada isn't the answer either.

I mean the Twins were 4th in the AL in runs scored. So the offensive production quite literally did match up to this ranking. Recency bias is really making people forget how good this team was for the majority of the season. Does that mean they don't have work to do? Absolutely not. But people acting like this team was horrible all year is crazy. There is talent on this team. And the production was there. Even with the horrible collapse they still finished 4th in the AL in runs scored.

Jacob deGrom has made 35 total starts since the 2021 season began. He made 3 starts last year. 6 the year before. And 11 the year before that. You know this. Pointing to Jacob deGrom as a reason a team wouldn't be looking for pitching is nonsense. He hasn't thrown even half a season's worth of starts in 4 years. Hasn't thrown 100 innings in over 5 years (2020 not being his fault, obviously). It's just flat out hard to get innings out of deGrom. And Jon Gray wasn't a rookie so not sure what context that has to do with the 3 pitchers named.

Holy smokes. Trueblood is one of the better writers around here, but Ryan or Ober for Perkins and "a somewhat valuable secondary piece?" We are officially off the rails.

Put him in the bullpen.

I wasn't predicting that, was just rebutting the other poster's argument for trading Correa and using the saved money to sign Sasaki.

The Twins can sign Roki without trading Correa. The international signing pool is in a different part of the budget than the MLB roster payroll. Why not keep your best player and sign him? I want nothing to do with Tyler O'Neill. That's my fear. They trade Buxton and bring in a far worse version of Buxton. Tyler O'Neill has played 100 games in an MLB season twice. He's had an OPS+ over 100 3 times. In 7 seasons. He can't play CF, let alone at a top level. He's a poor man's poor man's Byron Buxton. And he's going to get basically the exact same deal as Buxton. That's not a win for the Twins. If the Twins trade Correa for a mid-level prospect and sign Willy Adames for 25 mil a year instead I'll call it a minor victory. You get a year younger, but add a year or 2 to the deal while getting a worse player. Really it comes down to whether or not you think Correa can play 135 games a year for the next few years or not. I think he can, but I get that others think he can't. If you don't think he can play 135 games a year I see why you think that can be a nice win. But, after this year, you'll be saving between 3 and 8 mil a year probably for the next 3 years and then adding another 1 to 3 years depending on where Adames' deal ends up. That's adding a middle reliever to your roster. If Correa plays 135 games a year I'm going to take him over Adames and the middle reliever, sorry. I don't want Kikuchi or Manaea or Severino or Bieber coming off TJ. Really, really, really don't want Boyd. Those aren't needle movers. And you couldn't afford them after your Adames and O'Neill signings anyways. Trading Correa and Buxton doesn't have to be waiving the white flag, no. I agree trading your most talented players doesn't have to be waiving the white flag, but the plan you laid out shows how hard it is to improve your team when you do trade your best players.

The quotes I saw were Scott Boras calling him Sandberg-ish, not Falvey. But I may have seen different quotes than you.

deGrom and Mahle aren't exactly the pictures of pitching health. I wouldn't predict a Paddack to Texas trade, but naming deGrom and Mahle as reasons for a team to not being looking for arms is awfully bold. Banking on Jacob deGrom to make more than 15 starts in a season is like banking on Byron Buxton to play more than 80 games.

If you can't name a single team who's ever decided to do it the answer is probably not "plenty." Can you name a single team who's ever decided to do it? Teams that aren't "planning to compete" waive guys every year. Including the worst team in history last year. Nobody is willing to risk their jobs on sitting on a guy and wasting a roster spot for an entire season. "Not planning to compete" and "completely ignoring roster spots" are not the same thing. The answer is not "plenty."

Seems about right, to me, at this point. In basically the same position as they were at this point last year. Going into the offseason as one of the 3-6 best teams in the AL (by virtue of not having much roster turnover). The difference is that it was just over a year ago that Falvey threw cold water on the fan's excitement after a bit of a playoff run while this offseason had no excitement to douse because of the collapse. But my expectations are the same. Other teams will improve while the Twins fight to maintain. Which means by the end of the offseason I expect them to be more in the 6-10 best range instead. If we're just going off of today, right now, this moment, I'd pick the central to be a fight between the Twins and the Guardians with the Tigers and Royals being a half step behind. Tigers and Royals in the 79-83 win range and Twins and Guardians in the 84-88 win range. Basically what I expected coming into this year. The question is going to be what each of those squads is able to do over the offseason to improve their teams. I have my doubts that the Twins can do a whole lot with no money. But we'll see what Falvey can come up with.

How many teams in recent years actually carried 3 catchers all year? How many teams would you consider as rebuilding to the point where they're willing to completely ignore an entire roster spot? The White Sox? Any other? The Rockies owner always thinks they can win. The Marlins are reshaping their organization with Peter Bendix being in his 2nd year as POBO and with a new manager. They're not just throwing away a roster spot on a third catcher. Washington is trying to win. Pittsburgh is trying to win. Cinci is trying to win. San Fran is trying to win. The Angels are the Rockies of the AL. The As won't trade Rooker cuz they're trying to win. The Blue Jays won't trade Bichette or Vlad cuz they're trying to win. The Rangers aren't wasting a roster spot on a 3rd catcher. The Rays would never. That's every team under .500 from last year. I'm not seeing "plenty" there at all. You have to feel real confident in your job security to be willing to use a roster spot on a 3rd catcher on your roster all season.

Top prospects come back for excess value in contracts, not guys making market rates. Correa is still a great player worth his contract, but the other teams aren't going to give up top young arms for the chance to pay him market rates. There's no value in that. They'll pay a mid-level prospect for that chance. If the Twins want to pay down some of his contract so the other team can get him for below market rate the other team will give up a better prospect because then there's value in that. You were the one arguing the Twins could trade them for top prospects yet they aren't worth their contracts. I'm not sure how you feel I'm the one who's struggling with how trade values work.

Those 2 aren't bringing back top prospects. Absolutely not bringing back a top young arm. Trading Buxton or Correa would be for salary relief and salary relief alone. Mid-level prospect for Correa. Unless you think the Pohlads are going to eat a bunch of money on his deal. That could get a better prospect. I find it awfully hard to believe that would be the case, though. You'd be clearing space to bring in more Santanas, Margots, and Farmers. Not changing the future by adding a top young arm or young SS to take over. Correa and Buxton's deals aren't stopping the Twins from keeping the young guys they have and they aren't bringing back top prospects. Trading them isn't changing the Twins future. Trading Carlos Correa and/or Byron Buxton would be in order to add more 1 year veteran nobodies who block the young guys and provide no ceiling. They may play more games than the 2 higher priced guys, but the team isn't going to get any better.

I think they already have the pieces for a lockdown bullpen. Just a question if they're willing to put them (Varland and Paddack for example) there or not.

And they pay for streaming/viewing subscription packages for star players.