Cap'n Piranha

I agree a rebuild is the best path forward, I just don't think Kwesi would be the one to execute it. If the Wilfs agree a total rebuild is needed, they are in essence saying that they think the team is worse off now than it was 2 years ago when Kwesi took over. Why would they retain the guy who told them they didn't need to tear it all down 2 years ago because he could fix it, when it turns out he was unable to fix it, and actually made it worse? If the idea is that Kwesi is making these comments publicly, but privately he and the Wilfs agreed they needed a total rebuild, why didn't he trade Kirk/Danielle/Harrison/Osborn, while cutting players like Ham? Why did he trade a second round pick midseason to acquire a good-not-great TE that needed to be paid? I think when the Wilfs fired Zimmer AND Spielman, they assumed a total rebuild was needed (teams fire GMs when they think player acquisition is lacking and coaches when they think player development/utilization is lacking. To fire both suggests they think the Vikings did not have enough good players, and the players they had weren't being developed/utilized); I'm guessing part of why Kwesi got the job is because he convinced the Wilfs if they hired him they wouldn't have to undergo a total rebuild, which was attractive to a couple competitive individuals who want to win. Therefore, if Kwesi is now going back on his promise of a competitive rebuild, and in essence saying a total rebuild is now needed, he is openly saying either he made the roster worse, or KOC is incapable of getting the most out of the roster.

We should all realize that a total rebuild is not going to happen. When Kwesi Kupcakes got the job two years ago, he said it would be a competitive rebuild, not a total rebuild, and his moves reflected that. He can't now turn around and tell the Wilfs that he failed at doing a competitive rebuild, but they should absolutely trust him with the total rebuild. Kwesi HAS to try to win next year, which to me makes it less likely the Vikings will draft a QB in round 1 (unless something crazy happens, like one of the top 3 dropping to 11, or the Vikings thinking someone outside the top 3 is actually the best player in the draft). To that end, I expect the Vikings to either trade back, and look for IOL help, or to get defensive help at 11. If Kwesi actually drafts well, and brings back Kirk, I feel reasonably confident about being able to compete next year. I don't have much confidence in both of those things happening, so my guess is that the Vikings finish something like 8-9 or 7-10 next year, Kwesi and KOC are both out, and we finally accept the fact that should have been accepted 3 years ago--a total rebuild is needed.

And if Nix, Penix, and McCarthy end up not being the answer, whereas Williams, Maye, and Daniels all look like upper half QBs? Or what if the league goes QB crazy (CHI, WAS, NE, ARI, NYG, and ATL pick in the top 8, and could very well want to draft a QB)? The defense needs to get fixed—maybe that would be easier to do with better draft picks, in order to get better players, or to be able to trade down and get more players? I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that tanking doesn’t work—it’s universally failed every time it’s been tried? Also, I wasn’t proposing tanking in the truest sense of the word, that being actively trying not to win games. I’m saying without Kirk, the Vikings were never going to do anything this year, so why not try to get better for the future? They could have traded Hunter, Smith, and any other player set to leave/be released, and accumulated more draft capital, while also having the beneficial side effect of being more likely to lose, thus increasing the value of their picks, and improving the odds they get players that can actually help. That’s not tanking, that’s declining to see a bet while holding two unsuited number cards.

In the modern NFL, if you can’t get to 11 wins, you’re almost assuredly better off getting to 11 (or more) losses. The Vikings (once Kirk was hurt) were never going to get to 11 wins, but they then failed at failing by beating NO, ATL, and LVR, which is why they’re picking 11th. Lose one more game, and they’re picking 6th. Lose 2 more, and it’s the 5th pick. Lose all 3 of those games, and the Vikings are picking 3rd—guaranteed to get one of the top 3 QBs. Those 3 wins might haunt the franchise for half a decade.

You would think after 7 games of Dobbs/Mullens, people would appreciate Kirk. Somehow they don't. Even though he played less than 8 games, Kirk is still 23rd in pass yards, and 18th in TDs. On a per-game basis, the only player he's behind in either metric is Joe Flacco, who has an obligatory SSS warning. Kirk was having a dynamite season, and there's no doubt in my mind we'd be 10-5 at worst if he never gets hurt. Conversely, if he's injured in preseason, we're probably 5-10 at best.

Sure, if Dobbs was actually able to stay in the pocket, scan the defense, and push the ball downfield. Other than those 3 things, Dobbs is exactly as good in the passing game as Kirk.

We barely lost to the Bears, Broncos, and Bengals. Unless you honestly think Kirk (whose stats bear out that he was playing at a borderline MVP level) would play about the same as Dobbs/Mullens, to the point that the Vikes wouldn't have gotten even one more field goal, the Vikes win all 3 of those games. We started 1-4 because of unlucky turnovers, and a defense that hadn't figured things out yet.

That's exactly what I'm saying. For almost half a century, this organization has been "no better, no worse". I'd like them to finally be truly worse, so we can actually be truly better. You can't win a superbowl anymore without a true franchise QB; to get one of those you either have to be bad enough to get high enough in the draft to pick a blue-chip prospect (which may or may not work), or you have to get lucky and have a developmental prospect develop in a big way. The former is much more likely to happen than the latter.

When we look back on the 2023 season, we will lament two things; the season ending-injury to Kirk, and every victory that came after that injury. With Kirk, this team is 10-4 going into yesterday’s game, on a 9 game win streak, and pushing for the top seed in the NFC. Without Kirk, any chance of postseason success vanished, making every victory after the first GB game a pyrrhic one. Had the Vikes instead lost to ATL, NO, and LVR, we’d currently be sitting tied with WAS for the 4th pick, with an actual decent shot at the 2nd or 3rd pick. Those 3 victories in Dobbs starts might have been fun at the time (other than the LVR game—that was never fun), but they also will probably set the franchise back multiple years.

The money goes directly to the players, the Pohlads get nary a cent. The MLB-wide pool is paid for by all teams, at different levels based on revenues. So the Twins' responsibility to the pool was $1.7M. Twins players received $2.1M from the pool. The only place that $400k comes into the picture is that the Twins don't have to pay their players the bonus, so they're paying $400k less than they would have if they had to pay directly. That said, there is no mechanism for teams to just hand out bonuses to players because they want to, so the POhlads are making no money here. In fact, they're spending $1.7M more than they would have under previous CBAs.

The only way this ever gets truly fixed is to let the MLBPA distribute revenue to the players. The owners would provide the MLBPA with the agreed-upon split of the revenue, and the MLBPA distributes those billions however they see fit. To ensure that players don't just collude to form a superteam, all players will be under team control until they turn 27. After that, there would be a limit to how many over-27's a team can have (this would need to be negotiated, and would probably include a minimum and maximum).

What if the guy with 2 years of experience is doing 2-3x as much work? Should the person with 26 years of experience still get paid more for doing less, just because they've been there longer?

This is insanity. You're saying if I take $20 out of my wallet and give it to my wife to put in her wallet, but also charge her interest, I'm somehow making money? If they're taking money out of one of their businesses to cover a revenue shortfall in another business, they have not increased their overall family revenue. That's what we're talking about here--the Pohlads run their businesses to make profit; they're not going to suddenly start incurring losses by choice, and they're certainly not going to engage in pushing money across different entities just for fun.

What's the market advantage though? It really only comes into play in TV/radio contract, right? As best I can tell from some quick googling, the Brewers TV contract used to be just above $20M, but since 2021 has been $34M. The Twins just finished up a 12 year contract worth $55M. $30M sounds like a huge amount, until you realize only half of that goes to payroll--so only $15M. Given the differences in team position going into different years (in 2018, for example, the Brewers won 96 games, the Twins won 78--makes sense the Brewers would look to maintain a higher payroll given their hope to compete and no revenue reductions), it's not that hard to understand why the Brewers would occasionally outspend the Twins. https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/milwaukee-brewers-local-tv-rights-2021-fox-sports-sinclair-bally-rsn/?zephr_sso_ott=AIMkwI

So you want the Pohlads to run a loss on a different one of their businesses, to finance running a loss on the Twins? Feels like the sort of thing successful businesses avoid whenever possible. This would be like saying you don't want to take out a second mortgage on your house to pay for the new Porsche you want (which is the responsible choice), but then emptying your 401k to pay for it instead.

Spending to market share is irrelevant to your point about wanting them to spend more when they have a chance to win. They've done it, for the past 2 years, with record payrolls. For the record, I also think they should go for it this year, and increase spending; but that's because I think if they do it right, they can increase revenue enough to offset the increase. Clearly, the Pohlads don't agree with that, and given their dramatically better handle on the actual finances of the team, I'm willing to believe them.

To be fair, that was under a different front office. Under Falvine, they have spent to their ownership-provided level basically every year. If you don't think they have upped the ante when they have an opportunity, how do you explain the over $300M they've spent on payroll the past two seasons, coming out of a revenue-crippling pandemic, as well as a lockdown, while knowing for at least the last year that their future revenues were far from certain? If the Twins were acting as you assert they are over the past two years, they don't sign Correa, they don't sign Vazquez, they don't extend Lopez, and they certainly trade Polanco and Kepler prior to 2023, if not 2022 for the savings.

I'm guessing Apple was given strong assurances about both the quality of matchups they would get, as well as how often major markets like New York, LA, Chicago, Houston, etc. would be involved. They also get to access a national (and perhaps international, I'm not sure how the rights work) subscriber base, as opposed to a couple of million households predominantly located in the upper midwest of the US. Same goes for ESPN. The Twins TV rights are not worthless, but to pretend that they're worth the same as rights, albeit limited, to the entire league is not in keeping with reality.

According to stevetheump.com, the Brewers have been ahead of the Twins on opening day payroll 3 times in the past decade--2021, 2019, and 2013. In 2021 and 2019 it was by a grand total of $7M each year. If the Brewers are your prime example for how you want the Twins to spend, then you should be ecstatic with the Twins spending over the past 10 years.

By a billion ahead, I presume you mean the value of the team now versus the value of the team when Carl Pohlad purchased it. In one sense, that is accurate, but in another, it is wildly inaccurate. While the value of the franchise is certainly dramatically up, none of that change is accessible to the Pohlads until such time as they sell the team. The only exception is if they choose to borrow against the perceived value of the team, but I would be very surprised if the Pohlads saw accumulating debt as a palatable option. At the end of the day, no responsible person on this thread would willingly run deficits unless, as Jocko pointed out, there was a reasonable expectation of future revenue outstripping costs. It's entirely possible the Pohlads don't see that, or at least aren't willing to take the risk.

It's a Schrodinger Championship Core. If all 3 are concurrently healthy (and healthy means able to play in the field, not limited to DH), then yes, it's a championship core, inasmuch as 3 players is sufficient to comprise a core. If any of the 3 are not healthy (including being able to play, but only as a DH), then no, it's not a championship core. That last part is certainly true for any team, but the difference with this group is the (seemingly) much higher risk of health/availability issues. Continued emergence from Julien and Jeffers, along with a breakout from at least one of Kiriloff/Lee/Martin/Larnach/Wallner would go a long way towards reducing the need to wish for all 3 of the Buxton/Correa/Lewis triumvirate to reverse their injury trajectories.

I watched the Twins last season. I saw Sonny Gray, Kenta Maeda, and (gulp) Emilio Pagan provide a combined 367.2 IP--that's a full 25% of the total IP by the Twins last year. As you may have heard, none of those pitchers will be with the Twins in 2024. I feel confident that some combination of Correa, Buxton, Jeffers, Kiriloff, Kepler, Polanco, Julien, Lewis, and Wallner (to say nothing of bounce-backs from Larnach/Miranda, or emergences from Lee/Martin/Severino) will produce a good offense. Maybe not great, but good. I feel very nervous about ALL of Ryan, Ober, Paddack, and Varland performing as quality MLB starters across 30 starts. I feel very nervous about Festa and SWR being our only real options for SP depth. And I feel very nervous about at least 5 of the 7 starters (including Lopez) being healthy at the same time for the whole year. I feel very nervous about Duran, Stewart, Jax, Thielbar, Funderburk, and whatever 4 other unproven arms the Twins use to fill out the pen. If Duran and Stewart are both hurt (or unavailable, which will happen regularly at points through the season), I feel very nervous about Jax being the closer, and Funderburk/Thielbar pitching the 8th. I am way more confident about the offense than I am the pitching, and if I can get a solid #2 starter/bullpen alpha without giving up one of the rookies or Lee/ERod/Jenkins, I swing that deal in a heartbeat.

To me, Julien is in another tier of value than Polanco. At 24, in his first taste of the bigs, he basically outperformed every Polanco season except 2021. He’s still young, still learning, and still 3 years away from his prime season. Polanco is a very nice player, and has more than earned the contract he received. That said, he is now now old(er), not still learning, and 3 years past his prime season. If someone wants Julien over Polanco, they’ll have to give me a lot more than if the reverse were the case.

They've done pretty well with Pablo Lopez, Nelson Cruz, Joe Ryan, Sonny Gray, and Kenta Maeda. They've also added Lewis, Jeffers, Julien, Ober, Lee, E-Rod, and Jenkins to the organization during their regime. I'm not suggesting the FO should be trusted implicitly and/or completely, but if you really think they shouldn't be allowed to add players to the organization, then they quite obviously need to be fired.

To be clear, I think WAR has quite a bit of merit, in that it establishes a measure of value that is uniform across all players (different defensive positions are granted WAR bonuses to account for position value to ensure this). My issue with WAR comes only from the fact that fangraphs is projecting an unachievable amount of WAR for 2024 (unless they have altered the formula to untether it from the 1000 number, which would mean they're actually downgrading the value of replacement players). When defining replacement player, what I've always heard is that the idea is a player who is comparable to the type of player every organization would be able to call up at any given time. In that sense, we need to stop looking at replacement as organization specific, but league wide. In this case, replacement assumes that you only have your 26 man active roster; if someone goes on the IL, what quality of player would you be able to acquire?