Cap'n Piranha

I would think the benefit of more Twins games to you as a Twins fan would be...ya know...more Twins games...

Why does a balanced schedule matter if the games on the field don't matter? A one game playoff is exciting, even though it dramatically increases the odds that the "better" team doesn't advance? Are you also not a fan of the NCAA basketball tournament, since they let in too many undeserving teams? I wouldn't hang a 2024 WC banner, but I also wouldn't hang a 2023 Division banner. I care about a pennant and nothing less, but I still think an expanded playoff is the best way to do that in a sport where interest is driven by local teams, not the totality of the league.

The 5 worst teams in baseball by record are the White Sox, Rockies, A's, Angels, and Marlins; none of them have hit the 70 win mark, and every other team (save the Nationals) has. Of those teams, only the A's are likely to hit 70 wins. The Twins are 25-4 against those 5 teams (they haven't played Miami yet), meaning they are 55-68 against everyone else, which is to say this is not a good team that has been masquerading as one. Back in April we all thought this was not a good team, and I'd like to ask my good friend Denny (RIP) to share his opinion on the Twins

Your second paragraph contradicts your first. You have an opinion of how the Pohalds should operate their business (and it is a business first and foremost, else you'd have a hard time getting billionaires to write all those checks), and are roundly dismissive of anyone who doesn't behave in a manner you find appropriate. You can opine the Pohalds spent more. You can opine they would sell the franchise to a billionaire who likes to throw money around for clicks and giggles. But you can't call someone a loser for wanting some level of return on their business, and then turn around and claim you agree you can't tell them how to run their business.

So you would be in favor of simply handing the World Series trophy to whichever team finishes with the best regular season record? That way we ensure the "best" team always wins. Now that I think of it, that's probably not ok either. We should crown the World Series champion at the end of the offseason, and not let the silly metric of who wins the game on the field determine who the best team is.

You are losing money by opportunity cost. You must realize this, right? It's like trading for a 2 WAR player by giving up a prospect who became a 5 WAR player, and saying you didn't lose the trade because you got 2 WAR out of it. There is absolutely reason, even with the Pohlads losing money, that the Twins might not reach the Cardinals valuation. For one, the Cardinals have much less competition in their market than the Twins do in theirs (no NBA, no NFL for a good chunk of the last 40 years, and no major D1 university). Second, just because you spend money doesn't mean you'll get results. The Angels have outspent the Twins on payroll by hundreds of millions over the last decade, and have a much worse record, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Ultimately, fans are far more likely to show up for games if the team is playing well than if the team is highly paid, and pretending the two are inexorably linked ignores reality. I also don't worship billionaires, or particularly care at all about Elon Musk. I just think it's ridiculous that you think you should have say in how they want to spend their money.

You are aware that literally just last year the 5 seed in the AL beat the 6 seed in the NL to win the World Series, right? Those were by overall record teams 8 and 12 in MLB in 2023.

Everyone likes to point to franchise valuation as a reason the Pohlads are greedy. Did you know that the growth in value you listed above is an annualized rate of return of 7.825%? Seems pretty good until you realize that since 1984 the Dow Jones Industrial Average has grown at an annualized rate of 9.204%. Put another way, on the basis of asset growth, the Pohlads have lost money by owning the Twins (about $80M) compared to if Carl had just put his original $44M in a generic DJIA fund, which would today be worth $978M. Now obviously, the Pohlads have made operating profit on the Twins which surely outweighs that $80M (that is, if you added the franchise value to the post-tax profits for the last 40 years, it's surely a larger number than $978M). However, this actually proves the point--if the Pohlads aren't making money on the Twins every year, they're actually losing money via opportunity cost. I personally don't think anyone has the right to tell anyone else that they should lose money.

Not sure, as I didn't do the research on any other times (my time is finite). That said, point me to these other teams--are they regularly winning playoff games? I'm ignoring UDFAs because if Kwesi truly thought Pace was going to be as good as he was, he would have drafted him, not hoped Pace would agree to sign with the Vikings. The fact that in the past 2 seasons 4 UDFAs have been able to make the 53 man roster is simply another indictment of Kwesi's complete inability to draft at even an acceptable level, let alone a championship-caliber level.

The 20-14 includes a 13-4 season with almost entirely the previous regime's players (since his first draft was atrocious from jump), and a DC that was almost universally hated and considered bad at his job--they weren't 13-4 because Kwesi was good, they were 13-4 because they were far and away the luckiest NFL team of all-time. Going into last year, the Panthers had their "QB of the Future" locked up--how'd that work out? How about the Jets with Wilson, the Pats with Jones, the Steelers with Pickett, the Niners with Lance, or the Bears with Fields? That's 5 teams in just the last 3 years that spent a first rounder on QB that hasn't worked out. I hope McCarthy is a 15 year player for the Vikes, and wins multiple MVPs and Superbowls, but it's ridiculous to assume he's destined to be the answer, when his 50th percentile outcome is Daniel Jones.

Or perhaps they do well on the field because they do well in attendance--it could go either way. I think you are grossly discounting the impact of 6 A-List sports teams (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers FB, Gophers BB) vs 2 (Cardinals and Blues); this also leaves out Gophers hockey and the Lynx. Also, for what it's worth, the St Louis metro area is 2.8M people v 3.6M for the Twins Cities--that's a meaningful difference, but not a massive one. Care to respond to any of the other points I made in my post? Or is the relevance of the Cardinals franchise the only thing you disagree with?

It's actually $64 ☺️. Also, I couldn't see the article as I'm at work, and yahoo is blocked on my computer, but based on the title, I assume the figure you showed is for ALL MLB teams rolled together--perhaps the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, and Cubs skew that? A quick google search showed that in 2024 bookies.com calculated the average cost at $180 (or $45 per person) for the Twins specifically. Applying that number to total attendance is also fallacious, as that number doesn't take into account any discounts on tickets obtained through special programs, or fans that don't park in a Twins-affiliated lot, or buy anything at the ballpark. It's entirely possible the actual number is more like $150-$160 per person. If the Twins payroll is $60M more than the A's, and they only get $30M more in excess stadium revenue, where is the other $30M from? The Statista link you sent is behind a paywall for me--does it say what they're expecting the Twins to generate in revenue, as well a a breakdown of all their revenue streams? The Cardinals are in a smaller market, but are much more popular in that market, and don't have to compete with an NBA team, an NFL team, or a major D1 University. I bet the Twins would become instantly more popular, and receive a lot more revenue if the Vikings moved to San Antonio, the TWolves to Seattle, and the U decided to emulate former Big 10 member University of Chicago and drop sports. Payroll is going to go down as a percent of revenue, based on the increasing cost of running an MLB organization. Here is the Twin's current FO--it includes by my count 277 names, not including former players as special assistants, bullpen catchers, or medical staff outside of the training department. If it costs the Twins $50k to employ each of those people (which means those people are paid less than $50k, since the Twins have to pay payroll taxes, and presumably are providing some form of health insurance and retirement perk), that's still almost $14M. My guess is that the average cost/employee is at lt least 3-4x that, given the number of people with some variant of director, executive, or manager in their title, meaning just to operate the FO, the Twins are paying $45M-$55M right there. Add in about $20M for new player acquisition (draft/IFA), $4M for MiLB payroll, and we're already at $70M-$80M before paying a single MLB player. Add in another $19M in player non-pay (according to fangraphs, $17M in player benefits, and $1.7M to the bonus pool). Now take into account the cost of travel--the Twins will need a team charter 38 times by my count--if that costs $100k each time (not unreasonable given that Delta charges $13k/hour for a large jet), that's $3.8M. Assume 90 nights in hotels, and 50 rooms needed, and keep in mind these aren't Motel 6s--say $300/room/night, and adding in the $117 per diem, and it's $1.5M. Now the big one--how much does it cost to operate Target Field every year, between security, stadium staff, concessions staff, janitorial, technical staff; electricity, waste collection, Wi-Fi, sewer; food, beverages, merch; property taxes, sales taxes, general upkeep. I don't think it's crazy to think that could be $35M or more every year (in 2010, MPR pegged the total cost to operate at $20M/year, which would be $28.4M today.), separate from any upgrades the Twins do. I think $140M is a completely realistic number for what the Pohlads spend every year before they spend a dime on MLB players or on-field staff, putting the total cost of operating the Twins around $270M. This article estimates that each team gets $110M from the 48% split of shared local revenues, and another $90M from shared National revenues--this would put the Twins at $200M. That means the Twins would need the 52% of local revenue they keep to be worth $70M, just to break even with zero profit, or $134M total. Take out the $40M they get from DSG this year, and they need $94M in total revenue. Assume they get $20M from radio and sponsorships (probably high, but let's go with it). That means their revenue at Target Field needs to be $74M--at an estimate 2M fans, each fan needs to spend $37/game, right in line with the number I hypothesized above. I think it is entirely plausible the Pohlads are realizing about a 1-3% profit margin (before taxes) on the Twins.

Here are all the draft picks from the Kwesi era, and their current status. In 3 drafts, assuming no injuries or deaths, Kwesi has drafted 4 surefire starters (Nailor, Addison, Blackmon, Reichard), and 3 pseudo starters (McCarthy, Turner, Evans). That means if you consider a team needs 24 starters (11 offense, 11 defense, 2 specialists), and 5 pseudo starters (2nd RB, 4th WR, 2nd TE, 3rd OLB, 3rd CB) for a total of 29 "1st string players", it would take Kwesi 12 drafts to fill each of those slots. Since the average NFL career is nowhere near 12 years, that means Kwesi's roster is dramatically short of talent every year, forcing him to sign free agents just to round out the roster, and not actually fill holes. Because he's forced to fill significant chunks of his roster with FAs, he will have less money to actually retain any of his drafted players that find success. 2024 needs to be the year that gets Kwesi fired, before things get truly bad. 2022 1st--Lewis Cine--cut 2nd--Andrew Booth Jr--traded (the player acquired was cut) 2nd--Ed Ingram--starter (only because the preferred starter in on IR) 3rd--Brian Asamoah--backup 4th--Akayleb Evans--backup 5th--Esezi Otemewo--cut 5th--Ty Chandler--backup 6th--Vederian Lowe--traded 6th--Jalen Nailor--starter 7th--Nick Muse--backup 2023 1st--Jordan Addison--starter 3rd--Mekhi Blackmon--IR (presumed starter) 4th--Jay Ward--backup 5th--Jaquelin Roy--cut 5th--Jaren Hall--backup 7th--DeWayne McBride--cut 2024 1st--JJ McCarthy--IR (presumed backup) 1st--Dallas Turner--backup 4th--Khyree Jackson--tragically deceased 6th--Walter Rouse--backup 6th--Will Reichard--starter 7th--Michael Jurgens--backup 7th--LDR--backup

And you think the average spend for a fan at a Twins game is $60+? The extra attendance also equals extra cost--you need more staff to handle 14.5k more people per game.

Everyone who was paying attention knew the Twins were going to cut payroll this offseason--you've made almost 4k posts on this site and claim to own season tickets which cost you a significant portion of your disposable income, so you're clearly far more than a casual fan--you really didn't bother to look at the multi-year payroll situation while being fully aware of the chaotic local TV situation, since club spending is so important to you? It's also worth mentioning that while the Pohalds didn't announce they would cut 2024 payroll in August 2023, nor did they announce they would maintain or increase 2024 payroll either. So in reality, you made an assumption on club spending--one that any fan paying more than casual interest should have known to be an unlikely one--and now you're mad that the Pohlads didn't live up to the erroneous assumption you made.

$60M more on payroll. How much more are they spending on everything else? For example, front office staffers, stadium upgrades, training table, etc. Do you also think that the Twins accrue $60M+ more in revenue than Oakland?

As CCHOF points out, this overly simplistic take is essentially meaningless in terms of trying to determine the Twins revenue. Further, my point was never that the Twins are losing money. I think virtually everyone is in agreement that the Twins are at the very worst breaking even, but in all probability are making some manner of profit. My point was to the OP I was responding to, who was claiming Twins ownership isn’t committed to the Twins, by pointing out the Pohlad’s financial inlay into the team is hardly small. Regardless of whatever profit they extract, writing checks in excess of $200M a year is still a significant expenditure.

If the D Line isn't good, the total D won't be either. Not saying the total D will be bad, just that it's ceiling becomes average. Teams going against a bad D-Line will just run downhill until Flores is obligated to pack the box, then they'll go over the top (by the way, I'm not super sold on any of our corners holding up in man-to-man for an entire game, much less an entire season).

In the wide universe of problems, "too many good young players" is at the same level as "my private jet isn't really fuel efficient" and "I can only fit 6 Porsches in my garage".

If a player is getting drafted in the MLB draft, he is very good at baseball--that has been true for decades. However, professional baseball at the highest level, just like any other sport, is a viciously competitive environment where the tiniest of improvements or declines can turns scrubs to stars (and vice versa). I think the Twins have always been good at drafting good players (same as every other team), they've just gotten much better at drafting players who can continue to improve, whether through innate room for growth, or ability to develop those improvements through physical or approach improvements.

Twins ownership will commit at least $200M to the operation of the Twins, likely much more. I think it's funny that you think your "upgraded" season tickets makes you more than a match for the Pohlads dropping (potentially) a quarter Billion dollars in a single calendar year.

How exactly will McCarthy learn the speed of the game and NFL-level defensive schemes when he not only can't see them in game situations, but not even at 3/4 speed in practice? He'll surely be better prepared to begin next year then this year (if he's not, he'll go the way of JaMarcus Russell real fast), but missing the entirety of this year is a massive blow, when you consider he is one half of the package the Vikings essentially traded an entire draft for (to acquire McCarthy and Turner, Kwesi gave up two 2nd, one 3rd, two 4th, and two 5th--they got a 6th back in the McCarthy deal, offsetting the 6th given up in the deals for Turner). That's 7 picks spent on two players, so those two players can't just be starters, or even Pro Bowlers; they need to be stars at the All-Pro level.

Which is just about the worst case scenario, barring an actual miraculous run to the Super Bowl. With only 3 scheduled picks in next year's draft (one in the 1st, 2 in the 4th), the Vikings will have a hard time adding talent to the roster through that route, unless the 1st round pick is high enough that they can get an elite talent, or trade down for a multitude of picks. Sure, they have a projected $67M in cap space, but will need to sign a lot of defenders (for 2025, there are only 4 DL, 3 S, and 5 CB on roster--2 of those S are Smith and Cine, and every single CB is on a rookie deal). This is to say nothing of the need to improve the OL, add more WR talent, as well as RB and TE depth. Finally, if Darnold does thrive, are the Vikings really going to just let him walk, and assume a rookie with no experience will be able to replicate? Kwesi could have had six players instead of Turner; 2nd, 5th, and 6th rounders in 2024, and 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in 2025. It's certainly possible that Turner will be a better player than any of the 6 players selected with those picks; but will he be better than those 6 players combined? For instance, the Twins could offer to trade Lewis, Wallner, Duran, Jax, Miranda, and Ober to the Yankees for Soto, and the Yankees would likely agree. Soto would probably be a better player than anyone the Yankees would receive in return, but would almost certainly not be a better player than all of them combined. Just when the Vikings need to be able to replenish their roster with cheap young talent, due to the sub-par drafts from the last couple of years of Spielman and first two of Kwesi, they have scant ability to do that.

Not when you're winning in the 7th inning of the first game of a doubleheader which is also the first game of a 4 game series against the team you're chasing for the division lead.

To say nothing of the fact that with 7 innings gone, there's not likely to be more than a couple balls hit to left anyways.