dxpavelka

replacement(s) could always be worse

New ownership is going to come in and spend like drunken sailors. They will sign every available free agent. In fact they will sign so many free agents that other teams will go out of business. We'll be the Yankees / Dodgers / Red Sox / Angels / Padres of flyover country. We'll win so many titles we'll have to BUILD brand new streets exclusively for parades. And we'll still have to have one in St. Paul every once in a while just to avoid boredom with the designated route. Life will be so good.

Pretty sure LAST year will have little to do with THIS year. Interesting that you brought up Sale, who maybe more than any other pitcher in the game is walking proof that one year as absolutely NO bearing on the next. His combined WAR from 2018 thru 2023 is less than his 2018 or 2024

Is this a roster construction issue? Sure. Is this a financial issue? HELL yes. Everything about baseball finances is f#@!%$ up. About the ONLY thing that isn't is the fact that contracts actually mean something. Sign a Randy Dobnak to a three year $9 million contract and you PAY a Randy Dobnak $9 million for three years. Until baseball gets their financial house in order (Salary Cap / Revenue Sharing) NO sympathy for ANYBODY

He is one of the top dozen starters in the AL. The leap is not as dramatic as you believe.

And yet you just cited 5 examples of how it COULD happen.

So in other words, they need to have a career type year where everything clicks and comes together to a degree that maybe only happens once. You're right. Something like that has NEVER happened in the history of baseball.

Ober, Lopez & Ryan are all among the top dozen SP in the AL. Any of them could win it. Will probably come down to performance. Just a guess.

I'll take "broken jaw, bar fight, 2023" for a thousand Alex.

Funny how those who criticize them for cutting payroll recently were pretty much silent when they didn't do so during Covid.

Not really that difficult to know. The results speak for themselves.

I don't see ANYBODY jumping for the opportunity to buy ANY MLB team. Baseball finances are a disaster. No salary cap. Laughable revenue sharing arrangements. Terrible television rights deals that are only getting worse. AND owners handing out ridiculous contracts like drunken sailors. Remember a quarter century ago when we kept hearing the word "contraction." Don't forget that word.

Typically, when a business is sold, only the assets are sold. Debt stays with the previous owner.

Pony up. Make an offer. It's only money.

Said this from DAY 1. Go back and look at the original reporting on this. NEVER was it said that they were GOING to sell the team. What was said was that they were going to EXPLORE selling the team. Reading comprehension. It's a thing.

Rumored to be expenses in excess of earnings.

But a 30 year old Bader is the answer?

That's my point. We're saying the same thing about Bader as we said about Margot last year. Are you REALLY confident that we got it right this time?

I've been consuming the product through my cable company for decades at only the cost I pay for the channels I already subscribe to from them. I misses half a season last year. If you tell me my cost is going to go up, I learned last summer that I don't need the product enough to pay more. Sorry.

Wouldn't "he'll be good in the field and run the bases well" be the same thing that was said about Margot a year ago?

I have trouble saying we've seen enough of a guy with 250 career plate appearances. Especially when we gave up the best SP we've developed in a generation to get him.

Actually kind of like the way the potential years 7-10 of Correa's contract are structured. Last 4 years are $25 Million, $20 Million, $15 Million & $10 Million IF he meets vesting options. The vesting options are such that if he meets any of them, he'd be a steal at those numbers. If he doesn't meet the vesting options the team still has an option to keep him. Say what one may want to about Twins ownership and FO but to me that looks like very smart deal. For the most part, I'd rather see them keep their home grown talent than spend what I like to refer to as stupid money on outside free agents. I'd like to see them be a bit more aggressive about retaining their own. They could have afforded the contract that Berrios eventually signed with Toronto. That would have removed the need to trade for Tyler Mahle a year later AND maybe even the need to move a batting champion for Pablo Lopez. Don't get me wrong, I like Lopez and think it's pretty cool that we might have three potential Cy Young candidates leading our rotation this year but when you aggregate everything that has happened since July 29, 2021 we've given up a lot to get him. I get a LOT of blow back on this site for my take that we should not have moved on from Eddie Rosario when we did. We moved on to save $8 Million on a guy who was top 20 in MVP voting in his last two years here. We assumed Kirilloff, Larnach, Rooker & Garlick could replace him. I constantly get "well look at what he's done since he left." That first season his WAR was better than Kirrilloff, Larnach, Rooker & Garlick combined AND he was NLCS MVP and got a WS ring. Since I brought up Rooker do I even need to mention that moving him and Rogers for Paddack & Pagan was probably another tentacle of having moved the best SP we've developed in a generation?

Almost every big Free Agent contract proves to be an albatross on the back end.

look back two and a half months

If Lee is down it's next man up. Maybe it's Keaschall. Maybe it's Payton Eeles. Seems like a short lifetime of waiting for Austin Martin. We were told Gasper could play 2B. Maybe he can play 3B as well. We've been told for years that Miranda can play 3B. There's a reason you have 26 guys active and 40 on the 40 man roster and a hundred and seventy five or so under contract throughout the organization. Everybody's looking for a shot. When it comes they gotta be ready.