chpettit19

Still having an option left may be the deciding factor. The Twins still seem to believe in his talent as he tends to hit in the top 3 spots in the lineup. And I can see why they'd believe, because he has stretches where he looks fully healthy and locked in and mashes. But can you trust him to be healthy? I think it's 50/50 he'll be back. And I'm not sure which way I'd go. Depends on what the rest of my lineup looks like.

Interesting. Nowhere left to hide for Falvey and Rocco. Will be interesting to see if there's any drastic changes in strategy next year.

Falvey said they're not making anymore changes to the baseball ops department. No new GM. It's all on Falvey now.

What a difference a year makes, huh?

That's a no win situation then. That's not an outside hire vs internal promotion discussion, that's just Falvey being a bad leader and who takes the spot doesn't matter at all because Falvey isn't going to listen to any ideas anyways.

Very true. But who's voice is going to be louder? Does the promoted GM have the same ideas and follow the same philosophies as Falvey but the replacement assistant GM has the different ideas? That isn't a situation I'm interested in as the assistant GM's vote doesn't count as much as the GM's. I want new ideas with as much power as possible. If the assistant GM is promoted because they don't see things the same way and have the chance to implement some new strategies, great! But putting somebody with the same ideas and philosophies in Levine's spot doesn't help improve things.

I really hope the replacement comes from outside the organization. No offense to any of the internal options listed here, but I want a new voice with some new ideas in the room.

December 2026 is when the current CBA runs out. That's when we really get to see what this league (MLB and MLBPA) is capable of. The 2027 season already feels like a long shot. Unless they start really putting work into what the future of this league looks like soon.

Contraction would be quite the turnabout from their openly stated plans to expand in the coming years. They've been pretty open about their plans to add 2 new teams once Oakland and Tampa figure out their stadiums. Both of those teams have figured out their stadiums. We're likely getting 2 new MLB teams in the next 5 years. It's another example of them wanting the money right now as the expansion fees for new owners will be substantial. But contraction isn't something on the horizon right now. Always a chance they screw this whole thing up so bad it happens, but teams are still selling for billions of dollars and plenty of billionaires still want to get their own team so there's got to be some sustainability seen by these people.

I think the idea that the Twins move minor leaguers around defensively is widely overblown. They didn't move Lewis around until it was clear he wasn't their SS of the future because they had Correa. Miranda and Severino moved down the defensive spectrum as it was clear they couldn't field those other positions. Every team does that. The Twins actually kept Martin at SS way, way, way too long trying for "defense excellence" when it was clear his future was going to be more about "position flexibility." Lee didn't move off SS until well after he should have knowing he wasn't supplanting Correa. Larnach was always a cOF. Same with Wallner. Julien got tested at different spots early to see where he had the best chance to succeed and then was planted at 2B. Kirilloff was always a cOF/1B. The guys they move around (Prato, Helman, etc.) are guys who's only hope at an MLB future relies on them being able to fill in at multiple spots. I don't know where the storyline comes from that the Twins are moving their guys around a ton. It isn't true. The problem is more about the disconnect between not moving guys around in the minors but then moving them in the majors. They needed to move Martin, Lewis, and Lee off SS because it wasn't their future spot. They move guys too little, not too much.

Shane Mack played his prime years in Minnesota and his numbers were slightly better than his career numbers, but not significantly so. I'm sorry if your memories don't match the actual results. I'm never going to convince you that Kelly wasn't some amazing manager. I gave you his career managerial numbers. If having 10 of 15 seasons be losing seasons is him getting "more out of his troops with less talent" it's hard to image the incredible lack of talent those teams had. If getting more still leads to a losing season they must have had basically no talent. Maybe that's true. But probably shouldn't praise McPhail if that's the case. Can't have it both ways. Either they lacked talent and that's why they lost even though Kelly was maximizing them which means McPhail was not good at building rosters or Kelly wasn't anything special and he didn't really improve "marginal players" like you claim. Enjoy your memories. The 91 World Series were some of my earliest life memories. It was awesome. But your memories aren't more accurate than the actual results. I'm sorry that the actual results don't match your memories.

If this is their plan why hasn't he been removed already? The other 2 corners of the triangle of power have been locked in as staying and they're making personnel decisions on the people under Levine. If they were moving on from Levine why wouldn't they have fired him yesterday with everyone else and started their search for a new GM? If it's going to happen it should happen today.

There's a few of us who'd be ok with it, but not many. I'm not someone who thinks you need to go stop by stop through the minors with guys. Michael Harris in Atlanta skipped AAA, too. Not for opening day, but didn't spend a whole year at AA. It'd actually excite me if the Twins saw a player in their system they believed is a star and just got them up to give it a go. Jackson Chourio struggled a bunch the first half of the year after getting paid before ever stepping on a major league field, but the Brewers didn't demote him, they let him learn and he just carried them to a playoff win last night. I'd love to see the Twins do that with Jenkins or Emma (if he could stay healthy).

Their playoff roster is about 20 mil.

Fans of 3 teams already are paying $20/month for nothing but baseball.

They don't need a continual pipeline now. They have a lot of their guys locked up or controlled for long enough to get more guys ready. Their infield has 3 guys (Machado, Bogaerts, Cronenworth) under control through at least 2030. Kim and Arraez are still there next year. No need to replace anyone on the infield next year, and Kim and/or Arraez wouldn't break the bank. The outfield loses Profar after this year, but has Merrill through 2029 and Tatis through 2034. So they have the core of their lineup locked up through 2029. If they can't produce more prospects in 6 years they're in trouble anyways. Musgrove controlled through 2027, Darvish 2028. Cease and King for next year still. Waldron through 2029. Nobody ever has enough pitching, and that's definitely where they're going to need to do their work, but that's a pretty nice starting point for a staff. They are going to really struggle to pivot if a bunch of their core falls apart, but that's true of every team. But they don't need to produce a ton of high end talent for a handful of years. And they have an elite prospect at catcher on his way soon. They've given themselves a pretty decent pillow to develop more talent while also competing for titles.

Yeah, next time you want to be this condescending and blame customers for clearly poor business plans maybe at least know what you're talking about. Your belief is that Ballys signed an exclusive distribution rights deal with the Twins that barred the Twins from streaming home games only? You can't stream any game that the Twins are playing in if you live in their home market. Whether they're playing at Target Field or in Antarctica. That's what "exclusive" means.

What service gets you coverage of exactly half the games?

It will be interesting to see how the coaching staff shakes out. Feels like a bit of a cop out to me, but it really isn't surprising to see them making some moves. The offense was elite for most of the season so it's interesting they'd remove that segment of the coaching staff over "6 bad weeks" but won't make changes to those above them over "6 bad weeks." Not saying it's the wrong decision, just an interesting look at their decision making. I fully agree there seems to be nothing from an outside perspective to make me believe Dave St Peter is the answer on the business side of things. The more I see how Joe is running things the more I think St Peter is still employed because the rest of the family wants him there as a security blanket for the new Pohlad in charge. They trust him to at least not let little Joe tank the entire thing. But St Peter has dropped the ball left and right. Really mind blowing to me that he's still in charge. Their business decisions seem to be getting worse and worse. Do they even have a PR department? How are these guys out there putting their foot in their mouth time after time? If they do have a PR department they need to fire them because it's just a waste of money at this point. The people at the top don't seem to have any real idea how to bring the business side of the Twins into the current media and entertainment marketplace. They've modernized the baseball side with the hiring of young(ish) execs. It feels like it's beyond time to do that on the business side.

He's not the president of the organization, Dave St Peter is. He's the president of baseball operations. It's just a fancier title for what used to be the team's GM because it allowed teams to say they were giving someone a promotion. Do you think Terry Ryan was doing a lot of revenue work? The problem the organization would have is if they're wasting Falvey's time in meetings about TV deals or radio deals or attendance projections or jersey patch advertisements . That's St Peter's job. St Peter should be giving Falvey accurate general estimates for future payrolls, but Falvey shouldn't be the one making those estimates. Because revenue isn't what sets his payroll. Percentage of revenue as dictated by Dave St Peter and (now) Joe Pohlad is. Falvey wasting time predicting what percentage of an estimated revenue he may get in 2026 would be terrible management of the organization. That's what Dave St Peter is for.

Revenue is not his job. Baseball is his job. Derek Falvey doesn't make decisions on revenue or where to spend it. The Pohlads and Dave St Peter give him an allowance and let him spend it how he sees fit. The business and baseball sides are not the same thing. Derek Falvey is not in charge of any business decisions. He's in charge of baseball decisions. He had no part in cutting the payroll. Not his job.

The "front office" we talk about is a separate entity than the one that deals with revenue and finances. Derek Falvey is likely not aware at all of what the revenue is. That's Dave St Peter's job. DSP and the Pohlads aren't sharing their financials with more people than they have to. They don't have to share with Falvey. Falvey gets told a general range of what he can spend that year, and the closer he gets to the max of that range, or the bigger his proposed deals get, the more he has to check with Pohlad to sign off on things. Derek Falvey wouldn't have insights into what future payrolls are going to be beyond what the Pohlad's and Dave St Peter tell him. He's not privy to revenue numbers. And neither is Forbes when it comes to the numbers that St Peter and the Pohlads are actually making payroll decisions on.

This is going to be one interesting offseason. I have no real guess on what direction they're going to go. No trade clauses are waived all the time. If the Twins really want to move Correa and/or Buxton it very well may be possible. But that's one massive change in direction. The Twins have loved their short-term, 5-10 mil in salary vets. It's been a staple of their team building. From the looks of it they aren't going to be able to sign any, and may not even be able to keep the few they have (Castro, Vazquez, and Paddack). From the outside it looks like they're either going to have to work to move one, or more, of the 4 "big" contracts they have or they're going to have to rely on young guys. I don't think they expected the decrease in payroll so I can't fully blame them for this apparent mess. I think they expected to be in the 145-160 range for the length of the Correa, Buxton, Lopez deals. Now it looks like they'll be in the 120-130 range instead. Can't totally fault them if that's the case. But they're in a bind now and may be forced to rely on youth from the jump, which has never been something they've wanted to do. Will be fascinating to see how they try to work things. On a business side note, an offseason of basically no moves is really going to make it hard for them to drive season ticket, and early season ticket, sales after the disaster that was last offseason followed by the disaster of an end to this season, and this disaster of a PR start to this offseason. Who would've guessed "right-sizing" your business directly after winning your first playoff series in 2 decades was going to lead to bad attendance rates and a challenging path forward? Apparently not Joe Pohlad. Or Dave St Pete and his life-time contract. But here we are.

I do really miss Luis, though. He's fun to watch, even if that was a good trade for the Twins.

He did, or those are the memories that have stuck with you? Tim Laudner career quad slash: .225/.292/.391/.682 2 outs RISP: .209/.316/.373/.689 Late and close games: .181/.251/.321/.571 Randy Bush career quad slash: .251/.334/.413/.747 2 outs RISP: .231/.359/.344/.703 Late and close games: .254/.346/.401/.747 Laudner was worse in clutch situations while Bush was slightly worse or the same. And Randy Bush was platooned like crazy. Exactly how Rocco and this FO regime would've handled him. 3362 PAs against righties. 119 against lefties. And, as @Mike Sixel and I have both pointed out, Tom Kelly had a losing record. He had 10 full seasons where he finished under .500 and only 5 where he finished over .500. That's him getting "the most out of his roster because he put them in a position to succeed?" Finishing below .500 while platooning the heck out of one of your examples and absolutely not getting the other one to perform in the clutch? That's your "leader of men."