twins/mlb
Startribune.com digital sports editor Howard Sinker used to cover the Twins and now shares season tickets with friends in Section 219 of Target Field. He blogs about baseball from the perspective of a long-time fan who loves the game, doesn’t always believe the hype and likes hearing what others think.
Posts about Twins fans
Section 219: Twins begin their hunt for competence
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: October 5, 2012 - 8:31 AM
First of all, the Twins didn't intend for the news to come out this way, for the coaching staff casualties to dribble over over the course of Thursday in ones and twos.
That was the excellent work of writer La Velle E. Neal III, who was hard-wired into the organization and went all Brian Urlacher, totally disrupting whatever plans existed and reporting on the firings in as close to real time as they could be confirmed. La Velle was also in transit from Toronto to the Twin Cities, getting the information and getting it to startribune.com as quickly as he could confirm things.
Let me suggest that the Twins should get on with their overhaul with the same intensity that La Velle showed on behalf of Twins fans.
General Manager Terry Ryan decimated Ron Gardenhire's band of brothers Thursday -- firing three coaches, reassigning two and sparing the manager's best baseball buddy, pitching coach Rick Anderson. If we assume that the Rochester pitching coach, Bobby Cuellar, will take over as bullpen coach and Gene Glynn, the Rochester manager, will get a Twins coaching job, you can consider Gardy and Andy to be on a very short leash in 2013.
Talk all you want about the weak starting pitching -- or obfuscate even more and blame it on the injuries to several of the failed starters -- and you ignore the fact that the "Twins way" has become one of mental mistakes in all aspects of the game: Mental errors, giveaway at-bats, flawed pitching. All of those traits manifest themselves in a second season of frightful baseball unworthy of their new ballpark.
However hard the coaches and Gardy were working, things were lost when the messages were delivered from the staff to the players. Ten years ago, the Twins were in need of Gardy's folksy approach as a replacement for the taciturn Tom Kelly.
Now, Gardy is being told by Ryan that what his staff was doing had stopped working and that he'll be given one more chance to fix things without a staff of his own choosing. Faced with what Ryan decided, there are managers who would have walked away with their guys.
I'm going to take it as a good sign that Gardy decided to take on the challenge. Whether he can lead the change is an interesting and debatable question.
Over the last few weeks, when people have asked what I thought would happen, I suggested that things were too quiet for big changes not to be made. I am also certain that nobody in the Twins organization thinks a new coaching staff alone can be sold as big change.
Players will come and go during the off-season. I would bet on minimal drama before things happen and a couple of dramatic moves intended to make 2013 more than a season of meandering toward .500. Many of the empty seats that you could see at Target Field as the season wore on were generating revenue because they were held by absentee season-ticket holders. In my circle, many people are bailing out on their season-ticket investments -- cutting back or getting out entirely.
Baltimore and Oakland this season have shown what's possible. Keep in mind that, with better geography, either of those teams would have handily won the AL Central based on the bigger chunks of Twins, Royals and Cleveland on their schedules.
The Twins not only finished last in their division, but they finished last in the only division in baseball that had three teams lose 90 or more games. The AL Central finished 28 games under .500 against the West and 24 under .500 against the East. (The Twins were 22-50 outside of their division, a .305 winning percentage.)
What happened on Thursday was a message to Gardy. He will have a boatload of work to do during the winter, preparing a new coaching staff -- one that won't of his choosing, however the replacements get spun -- to function the way he needs when the Twins gather in Florida next February.
In return for keeping his job, Gardy has basically forfeited the right to make personnel decisions about his staff that, in a better situation, a GM wants to be able to mostly leave to his field manager. On Twitter, Patrick Reusse described Gardy and Andy as being on "double secret probation."
That's the price of stink.
What needs to happen next are more moves by Ryan and ownership to further show that the painful performances we've witnessed for two years will be replaced by ones we can watch without holding our noses and looking away.
Section 219: Liriano and a game of chicken for the Twins
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: July 24, 2012 - 11:14 AMThis Francisco Liriano thing looks to be playing out quite sloppily. After a series of good to excellent starts -- sometimes people have mistaken good starts for great ones because of Liriano's awful work earlier this season -- he melted down in Chicago on Monday night.
Less than three innings, three home runs, seven runs allowed, no command.
Some people are bemoaning that Liriano pretty much nuked his trade value with Monday's performance.
Not really. There wasn't much trade value before that, in part because of changes in the free-agent compensation rules that are frequently talked about and not always completely understood. And, in another part, because Liriano doesn't exactly bring a track record of quality to market.
The bigger issue for Twins fans is the game of chicken being played by the team.
Here's the deal: In order for the Twins to get draft-choice compensation for Liriano, they would have to offer him a one-year contract for about $12.5 million --the average of baseball's top 125 salaries. Liriano would have to decide whether to accept the deal or look elsewhere, most likely for a multiyear deal.
These are new rules that will be in effect for the first time after this season. Here's the best primer on the rules, from the website mlbtraderumors.com.
Do the Twins want to risk making an offer and having Liriano accept it? Fool me once...
Do Twins fans want to hear that other moves will be limited because the Twins spent $12.5 million to keep Liriano? You can fool some of the people...
There's more that works against the Twins. For one thing, a team trading for him will not be eligible for free-agent compensation. So Liriano would basically be a two-month rental. For another, teams looking at Liriano aren't just looking at his recent success when figuring their offers and counteroffers. You're not going to get a Top 25 minor-league prospect, the way Miami did when it got pitcher Jacob Turner from Detroit on Monday for starting pitcher Anibel Sanchez and second baseman Omar Infante.
Interest in Liriano is one thing; interest at more than a modest price is another. Teams know that starting pitching is the Twins' biggest need to again become competitive, so when they see Liriano being dangled, what conclusions do you think they're making?
So do the Twins shun modest offers for Liriano, and risk offering him $12.5 million after the World Series or losing him without getting anything in return?
Can they afford to trade him and not get much in return, like Seattle did when it sent Ichiro to the Yankees?
Can they afford not to deal him?
It's a messy situation the Twins have created for themselves, one without a good outcome.
What would you do?
Section 219: Trades, free agency and the Twins' checkbook
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: July 13, 2012 - 9:03 AMYou're going to read a lot about potential trades in the weeks to come. Some of it will be pretty frivolous, in the sense that even those who generally have keen insights may lose perspective from time to time.
If you look at the Johan Santana situation five years back, people with baseball savvy were writing that the Yankees could perhaps make fans forget some of their struggles by trading Santana for a package that would have included Ian Kennedy, who went 21-4 for Arizona last season, and All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera, plus others. Or the suggestion that a Santana deal would yield a star for the Twins. Robinson Cano, maybe, or Jose Reyes.
Instead, there was Carlos Gomez and the others.
And baseball's rules are different now, even from last year, in a way that won't facilitate some of the Twins dealing that's being imagined. Unless a team offers a free agent about $12 million, it won't receive a draft choice as compensation for losing him. So Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel wouldn't have fetched compensation based on the deals they were offered and eventually made with other teams.
What does that mean for the Twins as the trading deadlines approach? For one thing, don't expect much of anything for midlevel players.
Will contenders be very interested in Matt Capps when Kansas City's Jonathon Broxton, San Diego's Huston Street and Milwaukee's Francisco Rodriguez should be available now because their current teams won't make an effort to keep them under the new rules? We're dreaming if we imagine significant help coming this way for anyone other than Josh Willingham, Denard Span and Francisco Liriano. Anything else is strictly a salary dump with a body or two thrown in. (Think Delmon Young deal.)
Owing to his performance and contract, Justin Morneau has pretty much fallen into the salary dump category, and I can't imagine another team taking on his $14 million contract for this year and next. The Twins best hope is to hold on to him, hold out hope for improvement and see where he stands at this time in 2013, and again at the end of next season.
So where does that leave the Twins?
Needing to change the way they do business, at least in the short term.
Twins management talks of team payroll being a percentage of its revenues. That's fine, until the credibility -- or perceived credibility -- of the product is threatened. The Twins can talk about their $100 million payroll until Minnie and Paul turn blue, but the fact remains that 23 percent of that payroll is tied up for the next 6 1/2 years in Joe Mauer -- a move that had to be done by the Pohlads.
I have made the case previously that the Mauer contract needs to be considered as a separate item from the rest of the payroll. Kind of like an endowed chair at a college, supported by funds from outside of the regular budget. Ownership simply could not have moved into Target Field in 2010 with the Mauer situation unsettled. (The Angels and Tigers made first-cousin moves in their signings of Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder, paying them for a year or two longer than they are likely to be useful so they can better compete in the present. Better to do this on purpose than by accident -- see Wells, Vernon and Soriano, Alfonso.)
To say that the current and near-future payroll is limited by Mauer's contract is a disservice to anyone who follows the team. (Financial disclosure: I'm in for enough as a season-ticket holder to cover about 2 1/2 innings of Mauer's contract this season. Three innings, I guess, if you count expenditures on beer and the monster yams behind Section 102.) If the Twins need a couple of proven starting pitchers as an anchor for the coming years and a quality middle infielder, then they need to adopt a spend money-to-make money approach as part of becoming a contender.
That's what Wild owner Craig Leopold just did, right?
A total of $27 million comes off the payroll after this season if you assume the departure of Pavano, Liriano, Capps and Scott Baker. (I'll assume the Twins will offer Baker a smaller deal with significant incentives.) After 2013, another $22.5 million comes off the payroll with the Morneau, Nick Blackburn and Tsuyoshi Nishioka contracts expiring.
Should the Twins to commit that total -- $49.5 million, plus some "Mauer money" -- toward the 2013 payroll? Yes, if they want to remain relevant, both in baseball and in the Twin Cities. Ownership can afford it.
The Twins have $43.5 million committed for 2013 to Mauer, Willingham, Span, Ryan Doumit, Glen Perkins and Jamey Carroll. Nobody else on the roster is due for a major salary bump through arbitration.
Terry Ryan has scored well with the Willingham, Doumit and Jared Burton signings and got an infield upgrade with Carroll. The team has done well with its handling of Trevor Plouffe, Scott Diamond and Ben Revere, and is rightly using the remnants of this season to figure out the futures of Brian Dozier and a few others. There are some interesting prospects in the minors and hopes that last month's amateur draft will yield significant pitching help in a few years.
The Twins aren't good right now, but they're interesting -- not like the Twins of the mid- and late-1990s, who were bad and uninteresting.
Despite their record, Ryan's staff is doing pretty well with the mess it was handed -- maybe as well as possible. But to talk about the Twins "improving to .500" next season, or needing a few seasons to become postseason competitive, isn't a discussion that most fans will want to hear. Not when 10 teams make the playoffs.
One more issue: The Twin Cities pro sports landscape has changed markedly and at a lightning pace. The Wild just spent megabucks on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter; the Timberwolves are again interesting and relevant, and the Vikings are getting their new stadium. So continued atrophy, or running in place, could easily land the Twins as No. 4 among the four major pro teams in the Twin Cities -- status as darning as being at the bottom of the weakest division in the American League.
Twins ownership needs to trust Ryan's baseball skills by being willing to go more-in financially.
Otherwise they'll risk people saying: "No, I don't want your Twins tickets. I'm going to see the Lynx."
Section 219: Where the Twins are at (and where they should be going)
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: June 11, 2012 - 9:13 AMMaybe it was a good thing that the Twins didn't sweep the Cubs. For one thing, it did some good for the self-esteem of the Cubs fans who made the journey to the Twin Cities over the weekend. If you were at Target Field, you know they were there. We were surrounded by them near the top of Section 114 on Friday night, and they seemed as resigned to that night's outcome (the bullpen blowing a couple of leads) as Twins fans were earlier in the season to watching one of the local starters get knocked around.
Now please don't laugh or call me names, but on Saturday -- for the first time this season -- I did some scoreboard watching during the game. The division lead has been cut to single-digits for the Twins and, providing things continue somewhat close to as they have been lately, we'll no longer talk about the Twins in the "worst team in the majors" context.
Now, the coming dilemma. If the Twins continue playing well and chopping a few more games off the division lead in the next couple weeks of interleague play, they will be within aroma distance on first place in the American League Central. Then they'll have a week against the White Sox and Royals before the schedule turns tougher.
And then the buyer/seller question will be asked.
A few days back, Jim Souhan wrote that the team's recent success shouldn't alter plans to sell off some veterans and look to the future. He's right.
I know that some people feel you should never turn down a chance to take a run at a title, no matter what the circumstances, but the fact remains that the Twins' roster still needs to get stronger to do anything more than lurk at the fringe of one of baseball's two weakest divisions. (The NL Central, ft. the Cubs, is the other.) They could have dealt with issue this last season, but opted not to -- with the possible payoff being further down the road with the extra draft picks the Twins received through free-agent departures.
Baseball's free-agency rules have changed so that is almost certain not to happen in 2013, and for as long as the new rules remain in place.
The Twins have several bargaining chips that could help them get stronger -- and without sacrificing much in the short terms. If Denard Span is traded, Ben Revere can move into center field. If Matt Capps is traded, Glen Perkins and Jared Burton can move to the end of the bullpen in its current build. If Francisco Liriano is traded, we will finally be done with the drama.
If you want to commit to Brian Dozier at shortstop, the Twins could still stand to be stronger at second base and third base. If you are willing to give Trevor Plouffe 400 at-bats, you have the flexibility in the long term of having him play third base, right field or (if Ryan Doumit isn't around after this season) DH.
Justin Morneau is an issue deserving of more than a sentence, which it will not get here. If another team thinks he'll help bring a championship and offers a good haul in return, then it should happen. That's the starting point for a discussion that will take place for the next season-and-two thirds -- until his contract expires at the end of the 2013 season. A Morneau deal is the only move that could create a gaping short-term hole -- based on the idea of losing a 25-homer talent.
The Twins are in a position where they can make trades and not suffer much in the short term. In fact, the right pieces could even make them stronger for the short haul, as well as for the years to come, when the current group will be joined (in theory) by reinforcements from the minor-league system.
Whatever moves are made need to strengthen the starting pitching.
I'm not expecting Terry Ryan and his staff to bat 1.000 with their personnel moves. That simply doesn't happen. But the good has outweighed the bad so far and I do expect Ryan's posse to have the fortitude to make moves with the coming seasons in kind, not the coming months.
In return for that, I promise not to bring up (too often) that things should never have reached this point in the first place.
Section 219: Some sweeping thoughts about what's ahead for the Twins
Posted by: Howard Sinker Updated: May 31, 2012 - 9:12 AMWell, we got the Papa John's 50 percent discount Wednesday because the Twins won the night before, so the household pizzas really did have Josh Willingham's name on them. And we'll probably hit Leeann Chin in the next few days because those ticket stubs from a victory are good for 2-for-1 deals for a week. Combine those deals with the almost half-price seats in the Legends Club that we picked up for the Willingham walk-off, and Twins tickets are still a great value, don't you think?
At least in a coupon-clipping sense.
We were ready to be really frustrated on Tuesday. Remember how they were hitless in 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position going into the ninth, and then -- after getting the first two guys on base -- Ben Revere popped out bunting and Joe Mauer came within an shifted infield of adding to his GIDP (grounded into double play) total.
And then Willingham made it all go away -- and came back the next day, with his kids in the stands, to drive in three of the Twins four runs in the Liriano/Burnett/Gray shutout of troubled Oakland.
Back to Tuesday's game, though. More than anything else, it was a game that made me wonder about the Twins' future. How will the twins continue to keep fans engaged and buying tickets through the struggles the organization has brought upon itself? The promise of discounted food only goes so far, after all. The most noticeable thing about the Tuesday game was how empty the stands were by the time Willingham hit his home run.
The announced crowd was 31,781; the actual crowd was smaller and I'm sure the number of people in their seats at game's end was no more than half of that number.
People took in their seven or eight innings and took off. Given the 2012 product, I totally understand -- although we did wonder why so many fans stayed through the top of the ninth and then left before the Twins had their final at-bat. I mean, if you're in for that long, you might as well stay to the end.
Unsouring the fan base will be a major challenge. What will the Twins do with the $23 million (or more) that almost certainly will come off the payroll during or after the 2012 season. (Those are the contracts of Carl Pavano, Jason Marquis, Scott Baker and Francisco Liriano.) What else could be freed up when the Twins become sellers at the trading deadlines in July and August? And can the Twins use that money as wisely as they did in picking up Willingham and, to a lesser extent, Ryan Doumit?
Knowing that others -- Justin Morneau, Nick Blackburn, Jamey Carroll and Tsuyoshi Nishioka -- are signed only through 2013, will the Twins combine their richness in next week's amateur draft with a payroll bump for next season to juice the schedule for recovery?
Here's a list of potential free agents for 2013. It's an interesting list to play with, and sometimes you (you = Pohlads) need to spend more than you might like to keep people buying those $7 beers in the short term and bringing back those who are drifting away.
I have confidence in Terry Ryan's ability to make more good decisions than bad ones: Willingham + Doumit + Carroll + Burton > Marquis + failures sniffed out during spring training. I want to have confidence in the revamped front office to do better in developing talent, a test that will be passed or failed by looking at draft results and the progress of players still a couple of years away from the majors.
It's an interesting time, even if it's not what most of us imagined for the Twins. It's also a dangerous time if things continue going so wrong.
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