Article: Dissension on Spending?

[Kwak]

Baseball is a zero sum game. Your loss is my win. Right now teams are doing more and better than the Twins and consequently we are losing the game. In the highly competitive world of MLB a team needs to find a competitive edge and right now the Twins don't have one. The Twins won't win the World Series until they find one.

 

You are assuming (incorrectly IMO) that the Twins' plan is to build a World Series winner. No, it is to put an inexpensive team that is just interesting enough for people to follow. Ticket sales revenue isn't the driver of MLB teams. Its media and shared revenues that drive MLB. The Twins can make a healthy profit by keeping payroll low and losing to the "big" clubs. There is no need to be a champion. Sadly, it is almost a negative because when a team wins, everybody has both hands out demanding more money.

[JB_Iowa]

You are assuming (incorrectly IMO) that the Twins' plan is to build a World Series winner. No, it is to put an inexpensive team that is just interesting enough for people to follow. Ticket sales revenue isn't the driver of MLB teams. Its media and shared revenues that drive MLB. The Twins can make a healthy profit by keeping payroll low and losing to the "big" clubs. There is no need to be a champion. Sadly, it is almost a negative because when a team wins, everybody has both hands out demanding more money.

 

While I agree with much of this, I do think that ticket sales, food & beverage sales and merchandise sales play a part in the Twins thinking.

 

I think they want to field a team that will have enough success to put & keep b*tts in the seats throughout most of the season. That doesn't mean they aspire to the World Series or even the playoffs but to some level of competitiveness that keeps fans interested through most of the summer. (I think we agree on that being their basic goal).

 

They've failed miserably at that the last 3 years and I would speculate that is part of what is driving Jim Pohlad's comments. Not necessarily a return to the playoffs but at least a return to where they aren't an utter embarrassment so that after the 2014 season, season ticket holders renew (even without the lure of the AS game) and so that they keep people coming through the gates in reasonable numbers in August and September.

 

Food, beverage, merchandise sales, ticket sales may not be the biggest part of baseball revenues but they surely have an impact -- isn't that why they wanted TF in the first place?

[ThePuck]

“There’s going to be a lot of competition for quality, there always is. But we’ll be in the mix,” Ryan said of the free-agent market for pitchers. “We pursued a bunch of free-agent pitchers last year, and there was a number of them we didn’t get, for whatever reason.”

 

Twins' search for starts never ends | Star Tribune

[Mike Sixel]

I'm not sure Presley (assuming you mean the OF) and Collabello are young players.....they are 28 and 30.....

 

I don't think a rebuilding team signs Doumit. I think a rebuilding team trades Willingham in the offseason. Other than that, I don't know what Ryan has done or not that is not pure rebuilding.

[gunnarthor]

I'm not sure Presley (assuming you mean the OF) and Collabello are young players.....they are 28 and 30.....

 

I don't think a rebuilding team signs Doumit. I think a rebuilding team trades Willingham in the offseason. Other than that, I don't know what Ryan has done or not that is not pure rebuilding.

 

I think they'll hang onto Willingham this offseason and hope he regains some of his value for next years trade deadline, which shouldn't be too hard to do. I suspect he'll be DHing most of the time and if his knees are ok, his power should be ok. Even this year, his OBP was pretty good even with the bad avg. And at the deadline, he'll only be owed about 3.5m or so.

[YourHouseIsMyHouse]

I see it as a PR move. I'll believe it when I see that the Twins spend money.

[Mike Sixel]

I think they'll hang onto Willingham this offseason and hope he regains some of his value for next years trade deadline, which shouldn't be too hard to do. I suspect he'll be DHing most of the time and if his knees are ok, his power should be ok. Even this year, his OBP was pretty good even with the bad avg. And at the deadline, he'll only be owed about 3.5m or so.

 

I meant last offseason....when he had value. Should have been more clear. A rebuilding team would not have kept him around, imo. A team that thought they could play meaningful games in September would though.

[gunnarthor]

I meant last offseason....when he had value. Should have been more clear. A rebuilding team would not have kept him around, imo. A team that thought they could play meaningful games in September would though.

 

The rumors were that his value wasn't very high, despite his strong season b/c he was still on a 2 yr deal, was aging and had injury history. Teams were wary of that. The reports were #4 type starter prospects like Atlanta's Sean Gilmartin. If nothing else, a strong first half next year will still bring back that type of prospect.

[ashbury]

I meant last offseason....when he had value. Should have been more clear.

 

In addition to what gunnarthor stated, Hammer actually finished 2012 hurt. It is not clear to me that fantastic off-season offers were out there to be considered - it's easy to envision other GMs replying "let's talk again in March, OK?"

[nicksaviking]

The Twins are clearly following a rebuilding plan. Whether or not you are I like it is beside the point, but there is a plan. I get your frustration with Doumit, but that one is on Gardy who continues to play him at the expense of guys like Parmelee. That said, I also think that this is one of many reasons why Gardy will not be managing next year.

 

The Twins are clearly rebuilding, and they are doing it their way (hence trading Span, Morneau, and Revere and somehow blackmailing the Dodgers into Sulbaran).

 

No, clearly the Twins are rebuilding, but they do not clearly have a plan other than wait and pray for the prospects. If Gardy is playing Doumit against Ryan's wishes, Ryan simply could have traded or cut him. Morneau was traded for one and likely two more players +27 years old. If Morneau simply could only bring back another stop-gap OF taking up a roster spot, why was Morneau moved at all? Not a rebuild move.

 

Butera brought back a young player and dumping Carroll, even for nothing, cleared some room on the roster, but I don't know how you can insist that a proper rebuild should include this many AAAA 27+ year olds. I'll agree that Ryan has taken a few strides this summer, but the gameplan for the rebuild seems to be made on the fly. Kevin Correia had no business being on the Twins radar last off-season. It should have been a one-year vet or a longer term solution, same with the Carroll and Willingham signings the previous year and Doumit's extension this past offseason. All this seems more like ad-libbing than an actual gameplan. In fact I think one can make a pretty strong argument that until this summer, Ryan had deluded himself into thinking the Twins didn't need a rebuild but instead needed to reload.

[PseudoSABR]

they do not clearly have a plan other than wait and pray for the prospects

Having a plan doesn't mean it automatically works out. Part of the plan (it seems) was to buy time (with semi-affordable vets) until the prospects get here and play competitive baseball; the latter of course, totally failed. But that had far more to with the failures of Worley, Diamond, Morneau, Willingham, Doumit, Parmelee, Plouffe etc. (players we thought would be at least league average if not better) than it does with not signing enough free agents or some such. (Indeed, one wonders, if they players I mentioned had played to anticipation, how that might have shaped the upcoming offseason).

 

27 year olds can certainly be part of the rebuilding plan, especially if they establish some value whether that be a veteran along with our core or a tradeable asset. Pressely looks better than anyone else we've thrown in center this year. And really, it's not TR's fault that Morneau's value was craptastic.

 

There's simply no reason to cut bait with Doumit; he's going to get paid either way, and there's still a chance he can establish some trade value.

 

I'm just not sure what plan would have satisfied you, and if such a plan was realistic. Any path through last year's free agency class was mired with duds, and even the successes would have not made this club competitive. (And is signing one big name free agent, that much more of indication of a plan?)

 

It stinks--whatever the Twins hopes were to be competitive in 2013 totally failed--but they didn't at all mortgage the future for the myth that was 2013.