Part of the problem is you are comparing some weekday home games the last two years to the 2011 season which were friday-sunday night games.

I have no doubt that attendance this year will be lower than last year - until Buxton comes up at least - but it's not a huge deal for us anyways until/unless the payroll is affected and there is no indication that it will be.

Buxton? Who are you kidding? A slight wrist sprain, "He's day to day." Is now 4 weeks and won't play until May, "We're being cautious." Is this another example of the Twins great medical team at work? Remember a Guy named Sano who had a sore elbow? "He'll rest it over the winter?" Then when spring training arrived, Tommy John surgery.

The problem the Twins face is that their time to add free agents to improve this team was two years ago after the second terrible year. I think Terry Ryan being from the old school was going to rebuild this team way he did in the 90's and into early 2000's this was from within not spending money on free agency. This was the plan and he was more optimistic that team could play close to 500 baseball which he told the Pohlads. The problem was the team under performed and injuries decimated the team to point where they were not even competitive the last month and half of season. This left the fan base with memory of terrible team and one of the worst records in baseball. The problem with this scenario was that it repeated itself for the last two seasons.

This is when Pohlads I believe came into discussion of baseball operations of the team telling Terry Ryan that needed to spend enough to keep the brand value up by putting together team that could be respectable until this new wave of talent that is coming will be here at the major league level. The problem that has caused is that Twins did sign pitchers that fit into this rebuild but were not dominate and they have gotten off to poor start. Also the Twins signing free agents I believe have been hampered by free agents don't want to play for looser and just gap filler between that new wave of talent unless its for ridiculus amount of money. This has left us with 2014 and probably part 2015 until we can see the turn around of this team. Not helping this is that new wave of talent is getting hurt further delaying the process. Terry Ryan could be held at fault but he was rebuilding team the way management wanted previously from the within and with very little money spent. He has done that again I believe and has to just wait and keep adding talent to the minors as he goes along. Manager Gardenhire could be held at fault and would likely would have been gone in a lot of other organizations for on field performance but truth is that nobody could have won with this team. Maybe a manager or two could have tweaked one or two more wins or they could have easily lost several more. The Pohlads ultimately are responsible but I do believe they as owners have been willing to put a winning team on the field. I think what we have had here is lack of communication and management plan for the goal of this organization on how quickly they wanted to have competitive team on the field. I am betting this has been addressed in the last year and is on going how to structure and get organization on the same page from owners, baseball management, to total Twins business management on same page and be able to improve the Twins brand. I believe this is the case based on Jim Pohlads statements he has made in the last year.

The Twins went through this like in late 70's and early 80's and again in late 90's and early 2000's the difference was in ownership and management how they did it. The first time under

Griffiths they just brought all the young talent up and let them play at majors but this was draw for fans to watch future of Twins grow. The risk is that some may never recover from being beaten up at major league level but this group core was basis for Twins 87 world series win. The second time was in early 2000's when they had worked a core group of players until they were ready to be at major league level the result was nearly a decade of winning baseball. Personally I liked the first because I think it created hard core nucleus of players that just wanted prove to rest of baseball that they were winners and they went out and did win the ultimate prize. But the time was different now players seem to have confidence that they can win and if they have lost it they can't get it back. Our only hope is The Twins pitching does get better and Plouffe , Colabella, Mauer, and Arcia when he gets back continue to hit like they have now or in past and Hicks, Dozier, and Suzuki continue to have average performances. What I have seen so far this year by eye test this is better club than last two years maybe stats don't bare this out yet but I can see they are better team and more talented than they have been previous two years. Some players just look better and are prepared to play at this level examples are Dozier, Plouffe, Arcia, and Pinto. Lets just hope things start coming together nothing I like better than to watch baseball if it played well not what we experienced last year at the end of the season.

Buxton? Who are you kidding? A slight wrist sprain, "He's day to day." Is now 4 weeks and won't play until May, "We're being cautious." Is this another example of the Twins great medical team at work? Remember a Guy named Sano who had a sore elbow? "He'll rest it over the winter?" Then when spring training arrived, Tommy John surgery.

All we've heard is Sano this, Buxton that, those two are on the shelf for a big chunk or all of this season. That means the Twins need to find a new mechanism for 2014 and 2015 optimism.

Next year will be the big test. This season they can still count 17,000 "paid attending" because the season ticket numbers haven't dropped as drastically as they might have, thanks to the All-Star Game.

Next year the bottom could very well drop out, even if the Twins scramble to mediocrity. Minnesota fans have always been very fickle.