Using Derek Falvey and Thad Levine's Past to Forecast the Minnesota Twins' 2019 Trade Deadline

Bill Smith was given enough rope, it seems, but Jim and Terry were both clear that every expenditure had to be run through both Jim Pohlad and Dave St. Peter after Smith was demoted.

 

St. Peter has stepped back since Levine was hired, but Levine has still made it clear that he has to run things through Jim.

 

The closest thing to what you are alluding to is a statement by Jim Pohlad during the Terry Ryan firing stating he was surprised that Terry Ryan didn't come to him more often to ask for more money in order to make a move. Considering payroll is heading downward since then, I suspect this statement was largely for PR.

 

Heck, every statement this team has made since 2010 regarding payroll has been for PR. Reality has never jived with their statements.

I get why you'd paint this picture, but I think it's more than blurred. It's mostly a false read.

The Pohlad Companies are not some small, unsophisticated affair. As with every other one of their businesses, they expect management to adhere to very clearly laid out disiplines and to comply with standard practices regarding corporate governance.

Businesses the size of, say, United Properties or Minnesota Twins Baseball, to name two of the Pohlad Companies' 30 businesses, will always have a governance control that requires management to present potential expenditures of a certain amount to the board of directors.

That's all that's going on. People love to opine (and to believe) a narrative that equates running expenditures by "Jim Pohlad" as clear evidence of cheapness or an unwillingness to invest additional cash (it ain't spending, folks!) when management views it as a prudent investment.

So yes, these are business decisions, absolutely. You are entitled to believe Minnesota Twins Baseball as a billion dollar business shouldn't be run like a business. But we're not entitled to that.

I personally get tired of the cheap and the not wanting to win and the stuffing it in his own pocket stuff.Yes, the three boys are the majority shareholders and major beneficiaries of any profitability. But I promise you, if you spent any time at all around them ( I have), you'd see that they care about the welfare of their thousands of employees, all the other shareholders, their community, and even you.

As for your cynical PR bit, I'd tell you that Jim Pohlad hardly knows how to spell it. He's only slightly better at avoiding PR blunders than the old man was.

It is kind of stunning to read so many withering criticisms of current ownership. Most of the “supporting” examples reference Carl Pohlad’s ownership. They do not appear relevant as the Twins have clearly been run differently since Jim took over. To me it seems as if virtually every unproductive philosophy the “old Twins regime” had has been thrown out. Hard to believe all of the negativity when we are watching one of the best Twins teams ever, brought to you by people hired by current ownership.

I think is a really good post!

The "modern" Twins organization, whatever dates you wish to use, consists of 2 different eras, the Metrodome era, and the Target Field era.

Those 2 eras were run, including today, by 4 different FO, if you go back to MacPhail. There was a massive payroll explosion that began about 30yrs ago, along with a revenue explosion, to be fair. Remember when Pucket was the highest paid player in baseball for about 3 days at $2+M before Ricky Henderson signed his deal days later.

Despite Target Field, the Twins remain a mid market team due to many factors. In 2010, if memory serves, the FO and ownership believed in the team's contention status and raised payroll to an all time level. If memory serves, I believe they were around 10th or so that season.

In 2018, coming off a late surge that lead to a WC spot in 2017, this new FO took a shot on various moves that took the payroll up to right about middle of the pack of MLB. Unless you have a team going all in, that's about where you would expect amid market team to be most years.

Huge dollars and payroll are nice. But it's also about spending money wisely.

Some came unglued when the Twins cut payroll after last season. I get it. But looking back now at the season's mid point, can you really see any move made, or not made, that hasn't turned out to be smart as well as prudent?

Financially, the team is in fine shape at this point for additional extensions, a couple re-signings, as well as bringing on additional payroll in the form of trade acquisitions. Can this even be disputed?

Now, exactly who and what they add remains to be seen. Is there really a SP to add that makes SENSE and is AVAILABLE? Considering the way this FO, and an entirely new way of thinking and examining players has changed, do they target a big name RP or two? Or do they see another Nathan, another Pressly out there that makes more sense?

I stated in another thread I believe the FO will bring in 1-3 new arms. Depends a lot on trade cost, availability, and who is on hand they believe in. I maintain we could be surprised by who they believe in and bring in, not necessarily a BIG NAME.

But everything this organization is doing now is very, very different in how things were handled previously. The old mantra of ownership is cheap and doesn't care is not only tired and old, it also doesn't apply to everything we've seen thus far with the new regime.

Until, or unless, this FO just does nothing, I think it's time to let old arguements go.

Anyone think that a guy like Mejia might be a throw in on a deal? He’s relatively young, he’s controllable for four more years, he’s left handed, throws hard and until this year was a better than average MLB pitcher. A non-contending team might try to stretch him out and put him in their rotation and see what happens.

Obviously, he’s not going to be a centerpiece. But I’d imagine there’s someone out there that thinks he can turn him around and steal a guy.

Mejia is pretty likely to be DFA to make room for any incoming reliever as it is, why not throw him in?

I'm not from Minnesota. What is it that the Pohlads stand for which is so lothesome?

Running a sports team strictly for profit, and never taking the big financial risk to win.

Well for starters, we have a Twins Daily writer, in a different thread, confirming that the Pohlad's refuse to authorize the FO to overspend their draft allotment, something 23 other teams did last year, even though it would only cost them a $1 million penalty.

Can anyone tell me if anyone has asked why the organization elected to honor their agreement with the other clubs to adhere to the agreed-upon system and not harm other clubs by breaching their agreement?

Is there any chance, whatsover, that management decided to stay within allotment limits for a reason other than that they're frugal?

Don't forget the stupid moving to North Carolina saga

But isn't this history irrelevant in 2019?

Hey bird...ask Jim to prompt Falvine to get some GD bullpen help, stat.  

Will do, Chief. Any requests about what he should tell United Properties to do?

I get why you'd paint this picture, but I think it's more than blurred. It's mostly a false read.

 

The Pohlad Companies are not some small, unsophisticated affair. As with every other one of their businesses, they expect management to adhere to very clearly laid out disiplines and to comply with standard practices regarding corporate governance.

 

Businesses the size of, say, United Properties or Minnesota Twins Baseball, to name two of the Pohlad Companies' 30 businesses, will always have a governance control that requires management to present potential expenditures of a certain amount to the board of directors.

 

That's all that's going on. People love to opine (and to believe) a narrative that equates running expenditures by "Jim Pohlad" as clear evidence of cheapness or an unwillingness to invest additional cash (it ain't spending, folks!) when management views it as a prudent investment.

 

So yes, these are business decisions, absolutely. You are entitled to believe Minnesota Twins Baseball as a billion dollar business shouldn't be run like a business. But we're not entitled to that.

 

I personally get tired of the cheap and the not wanting to win and the stuffing it in his own pocket stuff.Yes, the three boys are the majority shareholders and major beneficiaries of any profitability. But I promise you, if you spent any time at all around them ( I have), you'd see that they care about the welfare of their thousands of employees, all the other shareholders, their community, and even you.

 

As for your cynical PR bit, I'd tell you that Jim Pohlad hardly knows how to spell it. He's only slightly better at avoiding PR blunders than the old man was.

You start by saying they are not unsophisticated. You end by saying they don't know PR.

In the middle, you talk about things I wasn't talking about, all while saying I'm wrong.

Thanks for the vent.

It's not a hard cap.
It's akin to the HOV lane, you just have to pay a small fee and you can use it.

That's not entirely true.  You can go over your allotment by 5% with what I understand is a 75% cash penalty.  The Twins allotment this year was what, $6,400,000 something, so 5% would be roughly $320,000.  So they couldn't spend another million, as you suggest, without the harsh penalties kicking in.  And those penalties are severe as they deal with the loss of future draft picks.

It's not a hard cap.
It's akin to the HOV lane, you just have to pay a small fee and you can use it.

I realize this is the almost universal belief around here. But it was a contractual agreement. The original intent was crystal clear, even though the language in the contract was poorly written. The penalty provisions were poorly designed. This allowed teams to rationalize the original intent away and dismiss their breach of faith with the non-cheating teams and instead treat it as a "pay for privilege" thing.

They tightened it up and made the penalties onerous to eradicate the cheating. This by an organization which is not exactly reputed for its virtuous ethical behavior.

My point was, if an organization's ethics demanded it comply with the intent and terms of that CBA contract and refuse to blow through their agreed-to allotment, then presuming they did so for another reason, like frugality, is, well, presumptuous.

It's not an agreement. The agreement is you can go over, with penalties. 23 teams were over last year. The agreement is you can go over if you want.

Has anyone looked at how much those 23 teams were over?  Someone could have gone over by just a few thousand to be included amongst those 23.  So spending 100% of this year's allotment may not be all that different than some/most of those 23.

I don't understand all the angst about the Twins spending 100% of their allotment this year.  When I look at their picks, I see they signed 32 of 41.  That's a lot more than most/all years before last year.  They signed all of their first 26 picks except the Canadian lefty taken in the 17th round.  Who would you want them to sign that they didn't?  And are you certain that pick could be signed for $445,000 ($125,000 max plus $320,000 (5% of allotment))?  

I just don't understand all the griping about this year's draft.  

It's not an agreement. The agreement is you can go over, with penalties. 23 teams were over last year. The agreement is you can go over if you want.

This is patently false, Mike. I'm assuming we're talking about the IFA allotment?

The CBA is a contractual agreement. If you read the old CBA contract carefully,  you'll understand that teams agreed to not go over. That was the intent. 

I understand that 23 teams elected to breach their agreement. But they did in fact originally agree to abide by a contractual agreement to adhere to the allotment system.

Apparently, your understanding was that there was no contract, and no agreement, just some arbitrary "rule" that said, "hey, go ahead and go over your allotment, but we're gonna charge you extra."

It's a moot point now, because they cleaned up the language and stiffened the penalties as a reminder to organizations that it ain't a pay for privilege thing, and breaching faith with the other teams is cheating.