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When the Minnesota Twins transitioned from Terry Ryan to Derek Falvey in the front office, it was an ushering in of change. Falvey came from the Cleveland Guardians and a more new-school way of doing things. We have now seen enough with the Twins to understand a repetitive process, and it again may be time to challenge that. Image courtesy of Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports Derek Falvey’s hiring was largely celebrated through the lens of Cleveland’s pitching pipeline that he helped to develop. The hope was that the Twins could see a similar level of success. Thad Levine was brought along as the general manager. Thus far, we’ve seen a few instances of that but more needs to be done. On the free agent front, we’ve watched the tandem spend to franchise-record payrolls over each of the past two seasons. It’s beyond nice to see Minnesota raising that water level, and for a team that should unquestionably remain near league average, the top has to continue going up. After being around $140 million for 2022, a push to $160 million seems like a reasonable request in 2023. A 17% increase makes sense for a team whose attendance was low in 2022 despite being in first place through most of August. The problem lies in how they get there. Over the past few offseasons, the Twins have preached patience. Falvey and Levine have said all of the right things and then waited out the market. They did so when pivoting to Josh Donaldson after whiffing on Zack Wheeler. They did so in grabbing Lance Lynn and Logan Morrison as spring training kicked off. They even did so last year when shortstop options were gone, and yet Carlos Correa landed in their lap. It now may be time they use the talent to dictate the budget. In waiting for players to agree to their offers, it seems as though the front office is working backwards from an agreed upon amount (as all MLB teams do). This is understandable when ownership likely throws out a number they initially feel comfortable with budgeting. Although Jim Pohlad is no longer the ownership face of the Twins, there will likely not be a substantial financial change with Joe Pohlad in charge. That said, Falvey has always reiterated they have the full support of the front office, and are unafraid to have conversations about spending dollars where it makes sense. That continues to fall on deaf ears when the Twins are left with no opportunities to push the pockets. While Correa and Carlos Rodon are the only premier talents left on the market, Minnesota has a substantial amount of dollars yet to allocate simply to reach last season’s thresholds. By waiting to see if he accepts whatever they have presented, the Twins also are leaving the door open for another team to surpass what may not be their best effort. Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Jacob deGrom have all already signed. The likelihood a free agent is waiting to bleed out every last drop isn’t high (although that is what Scott Boras is known for any typically secures for his clients), but rather they are looking to have their match met. If the Twins operated from a place of talent or targets first, getting Correa done with a $35-40 million average annual value over whatever amount of years would then give them the baseline as to what they have left. Instead of waiting for the acceptance of what’s out there, talent worthy of dollars eventually becomes non-existent. Minnesota wouldn’t be well positioned to go sign Correa and Rodon for a combined average annual value of $70 million, but if they did the roster could be filled out from that point. Maybe there’s conversations that follow and requests for additional funds to round out the roster, or a pitch is made that spending could help to increase interest that resulted in an attendance lower than anything we’ve seen since the Metrodome. This is a strategy we have not seen this front office employ. Instead it has been wait and see, and while that worked once in landing a big fish like Correa, it has often left hefty pockets with only leftovers to spend it on. Pushing the budget up from the bottom, rather than subtracting from the top, could help to provide a more clear direction on what way the 26-man is constructed for Rocco Baldelli. View full article