rationalfan

Bonnes has been particular hard on the Pohlads and the payroll, but my take on this article was that the payroll target would reveal the front office strategy. I agree too much attention has been placed this fall on the Pohlads ($$) and not enough on front office including Falvey (player evaluation and player development). The last two seasons the Twins have been the favorite by most national "experts" to win the AL Central. Both seasons they got beaten soundly by teams with lower payrolls with the Guardians shedding MLB talent and still owning the Twins. The team starting this season around $145M - if they had spent an extra $15 they would not have been a good team. The model isn't working - 2019 and 2020 showed some early reward but it was a mirage - a juiced ball and a very short season deceived everyone into thinking that Falvine knew what they were doing. That being said, reducing payroll by trading Pablo, Joe, and/or Buck would very likely impact performance the next couple of years since they are our best players. Yes, they would generate a very good return of prospects, but we have not had a very good record lately of turning prospects into solid major leaguers (judged after at least one if not two seasons worth of games played). I'm a very patient fan, but if they do option A or B it signifies a total rebuild which I lack the energy for - I will cancel my season tickets if they do that.

That's where I've been this year. A fan can always wish the ownership spent another $10, $20M but that's not why the team was poor this year. Last year's cutting did have an impact, but their opening day payroll was in the mix with mid-market teams including larger than the Royals, Guardians and Brewers. They all won more games and Cleveland and Milwaukee consistently win more games. There is an issue with player selection (analytics? scouting?) and development (approach to molding the players) which goes to the front office: Falvey and Levine with Levine already having left. That being said, on paper, by adding up the individual player values and comparing to wins, the whole is consistently less than the sum of the parts and THAT is what a manager/head coach is responsible for in sports. Starting the season, the Twins were picked to be right in the mix for the division with many picking them as the favorite...2 years in a row and they fell short both times. Last year, they had major injury issues to key position players, but this year failed not because of injuries and by the way, acquisitions were good - imagine where the team would have been at the All-Star Break without Bader, France, and Clemens. The move needed to be made, but unfortunately they have to pay him for next year because they extended him after the May winning streak mirage.

This is the time to win. Unfortunately this season isn't clicking - apart from one 13-14 game stretch in the spring, they haven't been a good team. They are well set up in the next few years if they keep the payroll where it is now. The players they have just need to perform and the manager needs to get the whole to be equal or greater to the sum of the parts which has not happened since the juiced ball and short COVID seasons (anomalies). Ideally, the franchise sale gets completed and the new owner(s) keep the current talent but bring in their own GM and manager and our current players put up the numbers and the prospects pan out. Yeah, it probably won't happen, but that plan is better than starting over. Something else I'd try to do - an extension for Willi. He is extremely valuable to this team and offers value even when slumping at the plate, but it's hard to extend people at this time of year so instead yeah trade him.

I was just thinking about this a couple of days ago. Until the Falvine regime, the mid-market (could have been considered small market in Metrodome) Twins ran the bases well, fielded well, and did in general did little things well. That did 2 things. One, it raised the floor of the team day-to-day: they infrequently gave away games to the other team. Two, it made the team fun to watch even if the opponent had more talent. It was a point of pride when Ozzie Guillen referred to a group of our players as piranhas. By the end of Terry Ryan's tenure, the term "The Twins Way" had become a derogatory term, but now I'd trade the current way for that way. This way is theoretically built to optimize wins per analytics, but it's only fun if you're winning...a lot. I also worry now that they've focused too much on a type and that other teams are better at scouting that common type of player. The best lineups, the ones that are usually winning the pennants like the Red Sox, Astros, Braves, Dodgers, Phillies, D-Backs, are the ones with a diverse lineup of good hitters that have to be scouted and pitched to individually and that can produce runs even when the ball isn't going over the fence and they don't sacrifice baserunning and fielding for a few more walks and dingers.

Very different case. Santana was used as starter and reliever back and forth until finally post-All Star Game in 2003, they let him stay in the rotation to win Cy Young awards. Maybe they thought their strength was the rotation without him? Maybe they were keeping his innings down? Maybe they thought he most valuable tool was his versatility? I like to bring this up as a reminder to people who think he wasn't great for long enough to be in the HOF, but actually he was great longer you think. Jax was a failed starter turned one inning at a time reliever. It would be a big switch back. I could see why he would want to do it...a mediocre starter gets paid more than a very good set up man and even most closers (which he hasn't yet done on a regular basis). Plus who wouldn't want the chance to be a star starting pitcher? For the Twins though, it's a huge risk taking someone who excels in a very important role and putting him in a role he has been poor in the hope that he will be very good in the new role. If they did it, it might be a bad sign - the rotation is good already so would they be planning for trading/letting Ryan or Ober go? Kudos to the organization for finally showing minor league pitching coming up and producing, but I haven't seen the depth yet to be able to do what the Guardians have done in trading them away before they get to expensive and go next man up. Let's keep Ryan and Ober, hope that SWR will follow up his nice rookie year and Festa to develop and keep Jax in the pen to hold onto the leads in the 8th-9th inning.

So, this will likely be an unpopular thought since it's currently pitchfork carrying time, but... The FO knew that there were going to be pay increases for key players (those considered part of the future) due to Pablo's raise and many players hitting arbitration eligibility at the same time. Not desirable, but here we are. Knowing that impacted decisions this year (the only player they are obligated to pay this year is Topa and they will gladly gamble ~1.5M on him). This leads to "no further cuts" but it also means there won't be any significant Hot Stove action either. I don't believe they ever said this year will necessarily need to be the same payroll as last year, merely that last year's right-sizing was significantly lower than 2023. That being said, my calculations have 2025 only about 5% higher than 2024 - perhaps Margot's $4M (the amount the Twins had to pay) in 2024 was not included and also guys like Okert and Staumont were opening day payroll guys but were later DFA'd and they might not have been included. This doesn't ease the mind of anyone who thinks we need to go higher, e.g. $150M, but challenges the assumption that there will be more players cut.

This is the most disappointing finish to a season I've had - the Twins usually finish strong with steady it's-a-marathon-not-a-sprint mentality by Gardenhire or Rocco. After being reminded of 2011, I have to say that was the more disappointing season because we had the players and new stadium to support keeping that team together and then the injuries and the huge whiff that was Nishioka and 99 losses. That wasn't just a surprisingly not good year, it was the end of an opportunity. It may be that this is that also, but as of now, it is just a disappointing end to a promising season. I am worried though about the brand of baseball that was played: putting too much stock in maximizing OPS and righty-lefty matchups resulting in players playing out of position leading to poor situational hitting results, bad defense and throw in awful baserunning and then pulling your best pitcher who happens to be your starter with fewer than 90 pitches thrown to bring in a mediocre reliever who may or may not have good stuff that night. Even Gardy's disappointing (or for that matter bad) teams were fundamentally sound.

The specific idea of Vazquez leadoff doesn't deserve serious discussion, but it does create the opportunity to talk about the over-importance of the lineup and the over-complicating of setting it. The best offensive players go in the early spots of the order to get more PAs. After that, you can squeeze out a win or two out of a 162 game season by where you put the top 5 guys (OBP and speed early, aggressive bad-ball hitting ability and power later). The hardest part is weighting recent performance (a good player in a slump vs a not so good player on a hot streak) and lefty-right splits. That being said, my intention isn't to take away one of the most fun things about baseball: thinking about and arguing about batting order and thanks to our manager being Rocco, the man of a thousand lineups, we get to do it routinely.

I've thought about this often. There are different scenarios based on what (how much wealth do I have and is the team my own or shared with me being in charge of team operations), how (inherited or grew a business myself), when (young, middle-aged, or old), and did I get the team when the value was lower or did I just recently buy the team for >$1B? If I'm being realistic, if I was making that much/worth that much $, I'd like to think that I would try to make the community better as well as larger national and even world impact. But, let's have a little fun with it and say that here I am, middle aged and worth several billion and so I buy the Twins. I would look to own this team the remainder of my life, running it in a sustainable fashion that allows the team to be competitive but allow me to also help the community and maintain wealth such that I can keep it going for decades. Losing tens of millions a year puts the sustainability in jeopardy - a decade from now my worth has decreased significantly and if a recession hits it may lower to the point of cash flow issues. Sure, the franchise is growing in value, but that doesn't mean much if I'm not selling. Also, there's that balance with what else I could do with that money - losing $1B over 10-20 years to win means a lot less investment in the community (and to avoid making this political, that can mean a balance between running good businesses that offer good jobs and charitable contributions and foundations). If I get in the Ilitch (old) or Seidler (illness) situation where it looks like I'm not going to live much longer, then I could see perhaps spending a lot more in my final days (heck, my family is gonna be ridiculously rich anyways and if they're gonna be sour later that they inherited less than they could have, I ain't gonna be around to hear it).

1. The Twins have been pushing some chips more than once in a while in the last few years both at the trade deadline and the offseason. 2. The new format with 6+ (it has been 7 and even 8 in recent years) playoff teams for each league means that unless you're doing a tank/rebuild, you will be "in it" almost every year. Does that make you obligated to trade away prospects to "go for it" each of those years? The new format is interesting for small and mid-market teams - I don't think it's feasible to be buyers every year that they're pretty good. Last year, Cleveland was a seller which helped seal the deal for the Twins. THAT would tick me off (making my team worse for the stretch run). As for the "10th richest owners" thing, yeah it feels good to be jealous of fans that have/have had an owner that acts like a fan (Steve Cohen, Mike Ilitch, George Steinbrenner III, etc.), but for most of us the best we can hope for is our team to be competitive financially such that if the team is run well it can win a fair amount of the time giving its fans hope most years. I'd like to see the money invested in getting long-term contracts for good core players and then hope that those players don't get hurt or regress.

It is nice to be able to really think about this topic compared to the days when the Twins would clearly be holding a player back just to manipulate team control ($$$). This team is making moves to compete now. The best opening day roster has Lewis, Correa, Julien, Kiriloff, Santana and Farmer for infield/DH. Lee has not shown that he is picked up everything he can in the minors. He will develop better playing every day at AAA than platooning, or even worse...off the bench, in the majors.

Good article. My initial thought was "click bait!" but it was a good thought experiment on the current state and future direction of the team. There is a current dearth of reliable options in the outfield (Buxton frequently injured and takes time to find his groove each time he returns, Wallner needs to show how he responds to inevitable change in pitching he will see due to scouting his rookie season, Larnach hasn't yet shown he can stay at major league level, Gordon hasn't shown he is worth investing in long-term). 3 of the top 4 prospects, all listed as MLB Top 100, are outfielders though Jenkins is really young and therefore a few years away. The other good aspect of the article is diving more deeply into Kepler since most of the time we fans have a visceral reaction of "why haven't we traded him yet!?!" or "he's underappreciated". I think the FO can be happy that they picked up his options - he was key to the second half surge last year and is needed this year. I don't see them pushing their luck with a 3 year extension. One particular area of concern for me is that Baseball Savant link showed his success last year was due to being more aggressive early in the count and crushing fastballs. I expect scouting leading to him getting fewer fastballs - more pitching in reverse with more breaking pitches and fewer strikes early in the count. It would be great if he handled that, but considering he's only had a couple of great hitting stretches in his career, I'm not counting on that. That being said, if he is hitting in May like he did last summer, they may offer him the extension, but at that point does he play it out for the best deal he can as a FA next off-season? Probably.

Good thing they have 2 weeks with additional starts from these guys to allow Rocco to get a better idea on which version of them we have going into the playoffs. It would be a very difficult choice if WC game 3 was this Thursday.

No Gallo provides opportunities. Sure Wallner gets some of those PAs but it could also provide more MLB PAs for Larnach. I grimace when I see Gallo's 100 OPS+ and positive WAR knowing how many 2 out walks and solo HRs (oh, but that glorious 3 run HR...against a utility infielder) he has to bolster those numbers. His -1.2 WPA and -5.3 RE24 confirm he has not provided value. It would have been better to give the younger players opportunity to reach their potential.

The article reads as a provocative "time to give up on Larnach" piece, perhaps to generate discussion but maybe he really believes it? 500 AB that has been broken up due to injury is not enough to declare failure. However, this is a team with a realistic goal of winning the division, winning a playoff game and hopefully with that monkey of the back, who knows...and Larnach has an option. So, it's definitely reasonable to send him down to work on a pitch selection and punishing pitches in the power zone while providing the MLB at-bats to someone else for awhile. The ultra-talented Soto is also taking too many pitches which puts him into poor hitting counts. It's hard to find that balance. I'm hoping that Larnach is smart enough to be able to figure out how a pitcher is trying to pitch him and then be ready and able to hit a pitch on the edge of the zone.

When I think of "past performance", I'm looking at more than the recent past. There is not one relief pitcher on this staff with dominant performance going back more than one year either because of youth (Duran, Jax, Moran, Winder) recently switched role (Lopez) or injury (Alcala). Pagan hasn't been good since 2019 and Hoffman, Megill, Coulombe and Ortega are just not good. I'll grant that Thielbar has built up 2-1/3 years now of being good, but last year was his first full year with an FIP of less than 3.5 and an average WPA the last two years of 1 certainly keeps him out of the dominant I-feel-super-confident-when-he-comes-in class of reliever. So I get where puckstopper1 is coming from.

Very fair assessment with pros and cons. Of course everyone wants an ace or two and it's hard to win a WS without it, but the first thing is to make the playoffs - ideally win the division. The way they do that is consistently being in games and racking up wins against the bottom half. Legit depth will help a lot. Last year, it was digging deep into the 40-man roster while this year there is a lot of MLB experience. I'm looking forward to watching games with faster pace and fewer less-than-five-inning starts which should also lead to more wins. And yeah it would be nice to see a number one (maybe even an ace!?!) emerge, get the playoff monkey off the back and make a run. In baseball, spring = hope!

My mind weighs 2 things. One is how much do I care about the rotation order to theoretically get an extra start for my best pitcher(s) and/or match up with other teams' best starters? I don't know that this matters a lot now. Managers, especially Rocco, like to stick with a schedule and actually look to minimize usage rather than maximize it and since there are so many off days in April, teams have their rotations lose alignment pretty quickly so by mid-May, the matchups are off anyway. So that leaves the second thing which is what it symbolizes. When healthy, Gray is the better pitcher so Rocco could send the message that the best player plays. However, due to his age and very good start to his young career, Ryan is the most likely to be part of this rotation down the road so the message could be "you're our guy". I'm old school enough that I would choose the best pitcher and would go with Sonny which promotes the message of "we aim to win this year and we're starting the season with our best".

To me, it means the Twins are ideally not in the "what do we have to lose" situation of calling up a young player early on a bad and/or injury-ladled team. Correa is ideally playing 90% of the games at SS. Hopefully, Miranda and Kiriloff and Larnach are staying healthy and playing well enough to earn more time out there. We all want Polanco to have another really good odd-numbered year. As summer wears on, hopefully Royce is ready. If someone told me that Lee would be having a great year, but still in the minors in August, it would be good news because it should mean there's no room on the winning major league roster.

I have this "debate" all the time with a friend. His perspective is a principled point of view/how things should be - the Twins ownership is worth billions and we as fans should put pressure on them to spend it, the most visible way of doing that is spending the money needed to land and keep stars. My perspective is pragmatic/how things are - the Twins are owned by a family that has owned for 40 years now and looks like many years into the future. They have not and almost certainly will not intentionally run the team at a loss with the comfort of knowing it is worth more when/if they ever sell and it is doubtful they would all agree to run the team as a fan would without regard for the financial aspects. With that in mind, I focus on how the ~50% of revenue dedicated to player payroll should be spent...depth or stars? SP or hitting? lock up home-grown future stars or bring in free agents? try to create a team consistently in the mix or go all-in when things peak and then start all over when the opportunity has passed? In this case, is spending 15-20% of the player payroll on one player with a 10 year guarantee the best way to construct the team? I think without the MRI thing, its' a definite maybe. His knee seems fine the last couple of years, he fits a position the team has not been able to fill internally, he's consistent, his game is not built on speed (which is the first skill to decline) and the roster has a lot of youth such that signing him doesn't create painful decisions in the near future (those decisions down the road would be a good "problem" to have). I personally would prefer an ace starting pitcher - this rotation is filled with low-2, 3 and 4 starters. The MRI thing suggests it may be a good thing he didn't take their offer - perhaps his knee is showing worrisome wear. What I need to say from Falvine is the development of pitching seen in Cleveland, keep trying to extend players as they've done with Polanco, Kepler, Dobnak, Buxton in trying to mimic Atlanta, and then supplement with the right trades and free agents. That and I want that ~50% payroll thing to be an average, not a cap, meaning if they are below that during rebuilding then they are above it to keep a good team together.

I think there's a time and place for manufacturing runs and forcing the action. For example, facing great pitching where hits are hard to come by. We'll get our hits off of Baltimore pitching so why give them the potential free outs? Yes, Kepler had not been caught stealing since 2019 and both runners looked like good slides would have led to runs, but why take the risks? I wonder if it was an emotional response to hitting into 5 double plays the night before. Couple of questions for the elite baseball minds out there. 1) Why didn't the Twins challenge the knuckle shot by Correa? Had they used their challenge? Did they think the replay crew would have ruled it a strikeout (his hands being in the zone) and they preferred the result of the play with a runner on second instead of first? 2) It appeared Kepler cringed when seeing he was going to slide into the catcher head first. Should the catcher have been in that position per the new rules?

Of course I want the Twins to obtain more talent, but I'm not convinced they will be particularly competitive this year. If I had a choice to spend money this year or next year, I'd choose next year after evaluating the younger players in 2022 to determine greatest needs and have a good fresh free agent SP pool to choose from. Using the Red Sox as the example is laughable to me. 1) In 2021 they had a payroll of $180M which was down 10% from the previous year (prorated) which means they didn't do much in the off-season actually. 2)Those big moves are exactly what the Twins get ripped for: Kike and Renfroe were value additions for a whopping $9M in 2021 and commitment for only 2 years. Ottavino was a 1 year commitment. No big names. No significant commitments. 3)Boston always has potential due to the market. That was their lowest payroll in several years and even without those additions would have been a top 10 payroll. Boston should always be in contention at the start of each season.

I wish it wasn't necessary, but players are unwilling to go with a "spirit of the game" mentality. It used to be that we could enjoy the quirky pitchers or hitters that took extra time but now it's the norm and it's just too much. The most common comment of surprise I heard from the experiment in AAA was a sense of rhythm in the game. I look forward to it.

Great question, not just for Twins fans, but for what the HOF should be. I think the greatest players at the various positions/roles in each time frame should be represented. There of course is no magic formula for how long or how great you have to be, but Santana was belatedly promoted to the rotation in summer of '03 (classic Twins move) and pitched so well he finished 7th in Cy Young, then was top 5 the following 6 years with 2 crowns and could easily have had 3 or 4 (look at how comparable his 2008 season with the Mets was to Lincecum). On top of that, he was excellent as a post-season starter with one bad inning (game 4 in 2004) out of 5 starts -unfortunately the rest of the team didn't hold their weight. He and Halladay were the best pitchers of that time with Halladay a first ballot and Santana doesn't get past the first year. So he's the bigger snub to me. That being said, Nathan was one of the very best at his role - relief pitching/closing out games under pressure. Mariano was his own level, but after that Hoffman, Wagner and Nathan were all excellent. Hoffman did it for longer, so he's in. The difference between Wagner and Nathan is so close so why will one get in within the next two years and the other is dropped off the ballot after one year? Also a snub. Right or wrong there are levels of induction: near unanimous, first ballot, inducted years 2-5 gaining momentum each year, made it but was forced to sweat it out, veterans committee, waited until he died. Eventually Johan and Nathan could get in.