With Correa Gone, What Will Bring Fans Back to Target Field? 

Back in my college days and the Timberwolves were a terrible team, they offered a ticket upgrade from the upper to lower level if you showed up early enough. I got to see Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook destroy the Wolves up close and personal! 

The Twins are truly approaching the apathy level of the Timberwolves from 2006-2020. Not even free tickets to the game would entice my friend group of casual Twins fans. 

Melissa's asking the right questions, which IMO are more important than the tactical ones of putting a winning team on the field.  I'll summarize by saying Joe Pohlad seems well suited to finding answers and of course is well placed to see them implemented.  For me the benchmark would be, how can a family of four come to the ballpark for $100 and come away feeling good even if the home team loses 6-3 that day.  The higher tiers of revenue will fall into place if they can answer that one successfully.

1 minute ago, ashbury said:

Melissa's asking the right questions, which IMO are more important than the tactical ones of putting a winning team on the field.  I'll summarize by saying Joe Pohlad seems well suited to finding answers and of course is well placed to see them implemented.  For me the benchmark would be, how can a family of four come to the ballpark for $100 and come away feeling good even if the home team loses 6-3 that day.  The higher tiers of revenue will fall into place if they can answer that one successfully.

Start the game earlier during the week....lower prices......other than that, what? Why would a casual fan go to a MLB game? Especially for a team they can't even watch on tv and learn about?

They are going to have to offer all kinds of special deals, making pre-sales even harder! Because whose going to buy tickets early in the year if they think the team will offer discounts later? I don't envy the sales department right now.

53 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Start the game earlier during the week....lower prices......other than that, what? Why would a casual fan go to a MLB game? Especially for a team they can't even watch on tv and learn about?

They are going to have to offer all kinds of special deals, making pre-sales even harder! Because whose going to buy tickets early in the year if they think the team will offer discounts later? I don't envy the sales department right now.

As I tried to imply when I said "summarize", it's a complex and nearly intractable problem, and I certainly don't claim to have the answers.

This is an issue that goes above Falvey and Levine.  I would say Dave St Peter should be thinking in these strategic terms, except I can't for the life of me figure out what he does at work on a typical day, except to sign the paychecks of the guys in charge of making sure enough hot dogs and beer are ordered.  Another poster above suggested Mike Veeck, which is along the lines I'm thinking (I posted something about a month ago concerning "fun"), and if you go back to Mike's daddy Bill, well Bill was renowned for going into the cheap seats and talking with fans.  I have real doubts St Peter has ever done this.  IMO Joe Pohlad should, as market research; executives ought to get their hands dirty and really, *deeply* understand their markets.

Markets.  I come from a field (software development) where marketing isn't a dirty word.  Product marketing is its own subniche in the marketing world, and they work closely with the product side to construct plans for what will fill marketing demands, and then translate for Sales so they can convey the message to customers. You NEVER expect Sales to come up with solutions like we're talking about - they have enough to do when matching product to the customer's needs, "where the rubber meets the road."  As with my understanding of Analytics as a field, I see no evidence that the Twins treat marketing as where significant investment toward high-end talent is called for, anything greater in scope than taking pictures of the players and getting those to news outlets.  Product Marketing, if properly hired, should be empowered to tell FalVine, "no, you can't trade Arraez," if that's the solution they have to the overall marketing plan, and should be prepared to take it up to the top level for a decision if they can't see eye to eye.

One of the principles I learned in product marketing was to devise half a dozen or so "personas" to exemplify the variety of customers we are trying to satisfy.  Apparently that became second nature for me, because that $100 family of 4 is exactly a persona, one that I would then want to explore in such depth that I can write a realistic story about their day going to the ballpark, probably down to the detail of whether their Toyota is a Corolla or a Camry and how old a model.  Bill Veeck could have written a dozen related stories of the 1940s version of this family, in his sleep.  There are certainly other personas - the fat cat wanting to impress a client in a luxury box, etc. although the high-end ones I fear are already well-enough covered.

It doesn't matter what ideas I may propose, but I want to feel that Joe Pohlad will throw out previous approaches and start with a clean sheet of paper. Certainly fielding a winning team needs to be part of the strategy, but in a 30-team league with other franchises trying to make their own fan bases strong, it can't be the only part, not year-in and year-out, because then it's a zero-sum game, whereas I want every fan base to be strong.  Now I'm definitely repeating myself.

58 minutes ago, ashbury said:

For me the benchmark would be, how can a family of four come to the ballpark for $100 and come away feeling good even if the home team loses 6-3 that day. 

Make the game on the field the secondary entertainment… Take a page out of the indyball Saints or Savannah Bananas’ playbook and get as gimmicky as possible.

If improving the on field product is off the table, then they have to provide value elsewhere. I can go to any hole in the wall bar and order a craft beer for far less than what you pay at Target Field. There are tons of indoor and outdoor parks that kids can go to for far less than the price of a Twins ticket. They’re going to have to take a hit somewhere to make Target Field a desired destination. 

5 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Make the game on the field the secondary entertainment… Take a page out of the indyball Saints or Savannah Bananas’ playbook and get as gimmicky as possible.

If improving the on field product is off the table, then they have to provide value elsewhere. I can go to any hole in the wall bar and order a craft beer for far less than what you pay at Target Field. There are tons of indoor and outdoor parks that kids can go to for far less than the price of a Twins ticket. They’re going to have to take a hit somewhere to make Target Field a desired destination. 

You don't have to pay to get into that bar either......and the selection is likely a lot better and cheaper. And the parking is less. And it is closer to your house.

4 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

 

Why is everybody thinking the Twins got hustled or fleeced by Boras?  Do we actually think that we as fans know Boras and the rest of the teams FO are full of fools?  We seriously need to find a different excuse here...

Anybody think that maybe the Twins are "playing" the Yankees?  Rodon is not coming here, why not work to boost his salary another team pays... 

You know what you get when you deal with Boras, he will do everything in his power to get the most money for his clients.  Period.  By all accounts the Twins had a very solid offer on the table that was destroyed by the Giants insanity.

The Correa dealings had basically zero impact on other FA signings for the Twins (outside of the other big name FA shortstops).  Yeah, I said zero impact.  It didn't stop them from getting Vazquez.  The Twins are basically showing that they want to give their youth movement a year to see how they do.  They have enough talent to supplement things later if the season starts positive. 

Go FA contract by contract and find me the ones that were not overpays?  

Andrew Heaney threw 72 IP last year and got 2/$25
Kenley Jensen 2/$32 with a ton of red flags
Bassitt 3/$63 at the age of 34!
Stripling got 2/$25 after one good year
I am not going to even touch on DeGrom or the Mets

Argue that this is the market if you want.  Argue the Twins aren't willing to pay what other teams are paying.  But stop with the "Boras is looking for top dollar and every FO is too stupid to know this" argument.
 

If they want to give the youth movement a go, they need to be trading Gray, Mahle, and Kepler. None of them will be here when the youth take this team to greatness. 

22 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

Gray is a cheap(ish) veteran transition piece,  Mahle is a potential long term keeper.

The Twins have too much potential youth talent to gut everything.  That is why they won't chop everything down just yet.  If the kids show something, they will need those guys.

Neither is here past this year. Those are the players you trade in a youth movement. It is one plan or the other....