Levine, Popkins, sacrificed to the baseball Gods

 As no doubt long time readers are aware, Minnesota men's sports are cursed. I'm not sure what can be done to break the curse, but it reared its ugly head again for the Twins in 2024. Just when fans of the organization were feeling hopeful, the team slashed payroll, precipitating a chain of events that ended with a disastrous conclusion to the 2024 campaign.

This was an unforced error by the Twins management. If the organization is actively working against the success of the team, that seems to suggest they are in cahoots with the curse, or at the very least seek favor from different baseball gods than those that the fans do. This is obviously the case. The fans look at wins and losses, while the Pohlads wins and losses are in black and red on the ledger.

So yes, fans demanded that there be changes to the organization after a catastrophic end to the year, though the Twins perhaps didn't feel those same pressures. At least, not from a wins and losses stand point. If they did, the changes the organization would have made would have been to the payroll. If you asked many fans, say, those chanting at Target Field, the personnel move they would have preferred was to "Fire Rocco" Baldelli.

But instead, it was the hitting staff, including hitting coach David Popkins, that was let go. Justifiable, certainly, given the offensive collapse and the overall streakiness of the hitters, but maybe not as extensive as some of the more disappointed fans would like. And then there is Thad Levine, also leaving, though the press release seems to indicate it was a mutual decision. I'm not sure there were many people out there saying "boy, Thad Levine is the entire problem, the Twins will be better if he is replaced" but he was an executive, and replacing him is certainly symbolic!

If you haven't figured it out, the gods Levine and Popkins were sacrificed not to the gods of on field fortune, but to the gods of baseball fortune, in the monetary sense. Popkins' firing may mollify some of the fans that still plan on paying for tickets, while Levine didn't hold as much sway as Dave St. Peter or Derek Falvey, the two who kept the budget in check in 2024. 

No word on this will do anything for local curses. 

Grasping at straws

 I'm mad about the end of he Twins season. I am mad about Joe Pohlad's statements, essentially indicating that payroll shouldn't be a determining factor in putting a winning product on the field (despite all evidence to the contrary) and seeming to be unwilling to put any extra investment into the team from a financial standpoint to get through times that are lean for other reasons (Media rights, in this case). Rather than leaning into the momentum of 2023, the organization trembled at the downturn in revenue projections, and subsequently made it worse by pronouncing a reduction in payroll. 

I'm mad because I thought there was a chance that the Twins were making misleading statements, knowing that they were just going to contend with pre-arbitration players, and would necessarily spend less money on players, and would supplement at the deadline if they needed to. That was obviously not the case, and the team instead is doubling down on their unwillingness to increase payroll.

But it's the offseason, and if anything, the last few days have reminded us that it's a blessing to be able to be upset about something as silly as baseball. Yeah, the Twins are a frustrating, spiteful organization, but they also aren't worth a winter's worth of negative energy. That in mind, there is one very dramatic piece of good news.

I was particularly worried, in the face of the various bits of bad news that were tacked upon the end of a bad season that the Twins were going to be happy enough to go into a tailspin for the long term, limiting payroll to operate their business, rather than consuming their minds with winning. Carl Pohlad won a World Series on a 22 million dollar payroll, so dammit, why not do it now?

Obviously, with a mentality like that, anyone that could get out with their reputation intact would go. Dave St. Peter is pretty committed to the Pohlads at this point, but Derek Falvey has a career ahead of him, and by all reports was in a contract year. And Falvey is the Chief Baseball Officer, whereas St. Peter is the one keeping a closer eye on the bank. Falvey is taking the hit to his reputation if things go awry on the field, not so much anyone else. 

And Falvey is staying. 

2024 was a bad year after one of the best in a while, but Derek Falvey, a baseball man as close to the story as anyone could be, isn't giving up on the organization. It might not mean much, but it certainly means something.

Tell me again about the bullpen

 

The Twins just lost three of four to the Guardians and have now fully blown their advantage in the AL Wild Card race. With current trends, it seems unlikely that the Twins are going to be able to shake it off and get back into position for the postseason. The Twins lost the last two games in extra innings, and saw the Guardians pull ahead in the 8th inning in the other game. There is a lot of grousing about the bullpen.

Fine.

The root of the problem, the A Number One element that is cause of the collapse continues to be the inability to put runs across the plate. They were competitive in 4 games, close enough to blow it late, because they had good starting pitching. On offense, they needed extra innings in order to score more runs in a four game set than Shohei Ohtani drove in in one game. 

In my graciousness for the Twins, and how they are trying to build for the future, I would say that this season is intended to get some of their youth experience. The Twins have a good farm system, and the team undoubtedly hoped that some of those young players would ably serve as depth when injuries emerged. Last season was saved by quality depth., and this season may potentially be sunk by young players running out of gas.

Royce Lewis will be a key cog in the future, but he has been terrible for the last month. Edouard Julien was leaned on as a rookie, but hasn't been able to match that success in his second spin. Jose Miranda, similarly, is coming apart at the seams. A lot is made about the young rotation having inning limits. Position players haven't shown themselves to be capable to play a full season either. 

Last year, depth was augmented by Michael A Taylor, Donovan Solano, Joey Gallo and Kyle Farmer. This season, they are most particularly missing Taylor and Solano, as Manuel Margot doesn't play center to cover for Buxton, and while Carlos Santana has been brilliant, he isn't as flexible as Gallo in the field, or the top of the order threat that Solano is.

I'm finishing this post off as the Twins once again have scored only a run through 8 innings. The team is in this by the grace of David Festa, but if the Twins ultimately drop it, it will be laid at the feet of the pitching staff, who mostly did their part. Everything is magnified in a playoff race, which was wrapped up by this point last year. Just make sure the microscope is on the greatest problem. 

Set up for the future

 This is going to be a momentous offseason for the Twins. Not only will there be questions about the roster after consecutive playoff runs, but the front office is in contract years. Will they be willing to continue in Minnesota, even as the restrictions on payroll increase?

My thought is that they will, for as long as Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa are under contract. That is, they will stay on for another four years, unless they are blown away by some  huge offers to take over elsewhere. I think that, yes, the Twins have made some frustrating payroll reductions, but I also believe that their window for being competitive is both wide open, and exactly what Falvey and Levine have been building towards.

I was listening to KFAN last week while in the car, and Dan Barreiro suggested that the Twins might be in trouble because of the issues with Correia, Buxton and Lewis's health, and the inability to get all three of them on the field at the same time. Sure, there are concerns long term, but this year, I think Buxton and Correa are being kept on the shelf to ensure they are at 100% for the post season.

Going forward, I think there is a concern with all players. There is simply a different body type playing Major League Baseball now, and bigger stronger players are going to have a greater tendency for injury. Barreiro reference the Braves as a team with good health and players that play every day, conveniently leaving out the season ending injury to Ronald Acuna and Spencer Strider, and lengthy absences for Austin Riley and Ozzie Albies. It affects all teams, not just the Twins.

But with the Twins in particular, I don't think the team is concerned. Correa was sitting with plantar fasciitis, something that you can play with, but Correa was dissatisfied with his performance playing with it in his other foot last year. As someone who has suffered from the same ailment, I can guess that he is not in the lineup because his fielding is most greatly affected, and he has so much value as a fielder. 

I'm not yet concerned about Correa long term, especially given the start to the season he had. With Buxton, most of his injuries came via his incredible effort, which is certainly no reason to excoriate him. Nevertheless, the potential for injury is baked into his contract. Even if you are grousing about it, the Twins are unbothered. 

Royce Lewis has the worst, and most unforced injuries of the three. He's also the bulkiest, putting strain on his ligaments, a common concern for athletes of his generation. Fortunately, Lewis is the only bat first player of the three. His bat will likely play, even with ravaged knees as he grows older. 

Even if you remain unconvinced, there is still enough there, in my opinion, to continue to go for it with this roster. With the payroll limitations in place, but a fairly young roster, there aren't likely to be many changes in to either payroll or roster for at least the next several years. The rest o the core of the team is still under team control for several years, including Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, David Festa and Simeon Woods-Richardson, many of whom will get valuable playoff experience this season, should they make it. Despite the risk of a beleaguered core, they should have the makings of a playoff experienced rotation for the next several years.

That seems to be the most important thing to a lot of fans. Watching the Twins flail offensively for weeks, I am not sure I fully agree with that. But the Twins future looks good there too. Not only are the three subjects of this post under contract, but Matt Wallner, Ryan Jeffers, Brooks Lee and Jose Miranda are going to be staples, with Walker Jenkins and one of the best offensive prospects in the game, Emmanuel Rodriguez coming soon as well. 

The Twins, barring a complete tear down (which I don't rule out, sadly, because of the ownership and not the front office) are well positioned to be competitive for the next few years. If they can hang on and make the playoffs this year, that will be a big step towards longer term contention.

The Twins are scuffling, but which scuffle is greatest

Since around mid-August, the Twins have been in a tail spin. Starting with August 18th's loss to the Rangers, it's been nearly a month of drudgery. A lot of this has been pinned on the team's financial woes, managerial missteps, and general team exhaustion. I have two other theories that kind of go hand in hand. 1 - The Twins, as are all Minnesota men's sports, are cursed. 2 - Since about mid-August, the Twins have been without the three top WAR producers on the team, Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Joe Ryan. That's unlucky, but it is fortunate that some combination of those three will be back before seasons end and the post season. 

But if you want depressive takes on what is going on, or someone who is willing to pack it in for the rest of this season and look at the future as a Pohlad (modestly) funded abyss, then you can go to Twins Daily. I'm here because of something I heard on the news last night, roughly, "It's not just the pitching and defense that are bad, the offense isn't very good either." 

Oh? I have been under the impression that the set back in offense has been significantly worse than the run prevention side. I dug into it a little bit. First, I looked at the runs against. In the season ahead of the slump, so through the 17th, opponents were scoring at a clip of 4.3 runs per game. Since that time, that number has jumped to 5.1 runs a game, or about .8 runs more per game.

On offense, the Twins have scored at an abysmal 3.3 runs a game, compared to their pre 8/18 average of 4.9 runs a game. The offense has cratered at twice the clip of their run prevention. In fact, according to Fangraphs, the Twins have the 4th highest pitching WAR in the Major League baseball, which suggests they are pretty good. Since they lost Ryan, they are #12, which means, and hold on tight... they have dropped to slightly above average. Lost in the misery is the fact that Pablo Lopez has been great, Bailey Ober has been incredible, and Simeon Wood-Richardson has silently been a strong back of the rotation starter all year. The pitching seems worse because the Twins are so bad at scoring runs themselves.

Since 8/18, the Twins offense has been 4th from the bottom in all of baseball. They were 7th overall before that The only player regularly producing is Carlos Santana. Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's a slump. Maybe it's Maybelline. I don't know, but the offense is the problem, underlined, bullet pointed and starred. The Twins need Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton back to give the offense a hard reboot. Hell, I would take Alex Kirilloff at this point. 

The pitching since the slump started has taken a mild step back. The offense went from being a strength to no longer being competitive. It's as simple as that. 

Bracing for the Worst

  The last couple of weeks have been tough for the Twins. Their bullpen has started to come apart at the seams, their bats aren't coming through when they are needed, and in the last 10, the Twins are 4-6. What maybe hurts the most about all of this is that everyone in the American League seems to have hit a similar bump in the road. They are now 4.5 games away from having the best record in the American League.

Wait, hold on. Is that right? We are all worried about the team, and the Guardians, Orioles, Yankees and especially the Royals are all treading water or backsliding as well? The Twins have overtaken the Royals, and still, remarkably, are within 4.5 games of the league's best. But this isn't just a "vibes" issue, the leaving the Twins for dead, thing. I'm here to provide optimism, that there is more to come.

The top Twins trio of Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis have all been healthy at the same time on 17 occasions this season. Buxton is gong to be back and ramping up for the postseason soon - he i already playing in St. Paul. Correa played through plantar fasciitis last year, and didnt like what it did for his regular season numbers. After a pause to recuperate, he could also be back to pick up one of the best seasons of his career. Even at 80%, playoff Correa is a force to be reckoned with. And then there is Lewis. 

While ink is often spilled about the Twins pitching, both the starters and the bullpen and it has struggled lately, but since the 18th, when the recent struggles began, the Twins scored more than 5 runs only 4 times, and 3 or fewer runs 7 times. It's hard to win games if you aren't giving your pitchers routine run support. Theoretically, the veterans returning to the lineup should be a boost. 

The pitching is going to be very youthful. The best case scenario, which is reasonable, is that Joe Ryan can return and get some work in during the postseason. At this point, I think the Twins could look forward to a Pablo Lopez, Bailey Ober, Simeon Wood-Richardson postseason trio, with David Festa pitching in a longer series, with Joe Ryan working high leverage relief as he comes back from injury. Again, the concern isn't that the Twins rotation is bad. They are simply young and inexperienced in the postseason. 

Despite it all, the Twins are among the upper echelon of the American League this year. They aren't even functioning at full capacity right now, but may well be there by the post season. Still, given all of our collective history and the messaging around the team this year, Twins Territory is bracing for the worst in October. 

Wasted energy

 I'm sure it's a function of living within the local media market, and being an obsessive follower of Twins fan sites and social media accounts, but it sure seems like the Twins ownership, the Pohlad family, gets a lot more heat than other ownership groups. I'm not here to carry water for the family, if that's what it seems like I'm doing, but rather I'm here to give context to this season's payroll reduction, TV situation, and suggest that even if the Pohlad's sold the team, I'm not sure it would get that much better.

This offseason was marked by television negotiations. The team was expected to find a new streaming friendly deal that would keep the team on the air throughout the 5 state area. In the end, they were only able to get a 1 year deal for an undisclosed amount less than they had made under their previous contract. The Twins took the deal with their previous carrier, the now bankrupt Diamond Sports, which meant no streaming, and fans were upset about the cash grab. 

But if this was a cash grab, that implies that this deal, the one that brought the Twins less (I would guess about 30m less per year) than they had in 2023, for only one year, was the best deal on the table. Last year, I didn't hear about any other options, and there is no buzz about the potential of another deal this offseason, either. 

The argument about the Pohlads is that they are extremely wealthy, and yet they are short changing the Twins. At this point, the Twins are a generational asset for the Pohlads, and not one wealthy person's flight of fancy. Financial decisions to some degree are not fully siloed within the Twins organization, and also, the wins and losses of the team aren't necessarily as important to all the decision makers as the bottom line. 

A case has been made in recent years, certainly, to make the Twins more marketable, and there was an increase in payroll, but it didn't work. There is no lucrative TV deal. The Twins won in the playoffs for the first time, and admittedly in part because of the terrible PR and bad vibes, attendance is down, despite wins being up. No TV, decreased attendance.... The Pohlads may never spend on players again.

But there is value in scarcity. The Pohlads will see the Twins value increase, because there are only 30 teams in the league. There will be a chance that a passionate Twins fan will be interested in the team some day, but they will have to pay through the nose for the team. I wonder who that could be, if such a person even exists. 

If the Pohlads sell, it would likely be to an investment minded person or organization. The Pohlads at least have ties to Minnesota, and despite the tight purse strings, are not as miserly as Contraction Carl. Does the next investor in the team look at the history, the difficult media partnership possibilities an declining attendance in the face of an improving roster and feel any additional desire to augment the team? 

The Pohlads are entitled to do what with their money they please, and you are allowed to feel how you want. Just understand that the days of the free spending Pohlads are probably over, and there is no guarantee that they are ever going away.