Twins' president Dave St. Peter: 'We have a lot of work to do'

Twins President Dave St. Peter says that at this point in the offseason the team is falling behind last year's season ticket numbers, but he and the team's front office personnel understand fans taking a wait-and-see approach.

"We have a lot of work to do," St. Peter said. "We're coming off 100-plus losses. We knew going into the offseason [it] was going to be challenging from a renewal perspective. I am really excited with the number of people who have renewed their season tickets. We'll go into Opening Day with a season-ticket base of anywhere between 11,000, 12,000, and I'm excited about that.

"We have work to do to sell group tickets over the next several months. Our single-game on-sale for the home opener is Friday, but the balance of the season isn't until February 25. We have a goal, of course, to sell upward of 2 million-plus tickets and, longer term, we need to be back to 2.5 million to be back to where we ultimately should be within this marketplace."

St. Peter broke down the difference between early sales last season, when the team was coming off a second-place finish in the AL Central, and this season after posting a club-record 103 losses.

"We're off a little bit," he said. "Not as much as I think I would have expected, but we're off probably a couple hundred thousand tickets year over year. We're going to need to make that up as it relates to single-game sales as well as the balance of season tickets. We understand. We are where we are for a reason. We're going to need to earn our way back and rebuild our season-ticket base.

"I'm optimistic we'll be able to do that based on what I think will happen in terms of our on-field product, the Target Field experience — which remains one of the best in sports — and this fan base, which I think wants to see the Twins succeed and will be behind this club as they have been during every other juncture when our baseball team is relevant on the field."

St. Peter has been with the Twins since 1990 and president of the club since 2002. Newly hired Derek Falvey will be the first chief baseball officer and Thad Levine the fourth general manager he has worked with, not including Rob Antony's interim run as GM last season.

"Admittedly it's early, but Derek Falvey and Thad Lavine have been everything we thought they would be in terms of their devotion to making the Twins better," St. Peter said. "They have spent a lot of time on culture and getting to know people internally within our organization. I think they have worked really well with [manager] Paul Molitor in reshaping our major league coaching staff.

"I think the changes we've made with our scouting crew in naming Deron Johnson into more of a senior role while naming Sean Johnson the head of our scouting department, I think that will pay dividends."

Still, St. Peter recognizes a lot of those moves are restructuring staff more than the roster, but he thinks the team will continue to improve there, too.

"It has been probably more of an inside-out approach," St. Peter said. "We have added [catcher] Jason Castro, and we think he's going to be a significant addition. Some of the other things they have tried to do with the major league club haven't panned out. The offseason is still ongoing, and I think there's still some work to be done. … It surely wouldn't surprise me to see us add a couple players before we report to spring training in Fort Myers."

Does St. Peter see the team making any big moves?

St. Peter said about 15,000 people are expected at Target Field for TwinsFest this weekend. He said the team has been in discussions with U.S. Bank Stadium officials to potentially hold the event there.

"A great player lineup, and we certainly would expect a lot of questions about where our club is going, but it's a great opportunity for us to showcase our young talent and make an introduction of our new baseball leadership in terms of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine," St. Peter said.

"Virtually everybody on our 40-man roster [will be there]. I think we'll have upward of 60 current and former players, top prospects, and obviously it's a great chance for those players to interact with our fans and raise money for the Twins Community Fund. We do a lot of our medical work for the coming season over the course of the TwinsFest weekend, so there's a lot of positives that come out of this event on a practical basis."

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