Derek Falvey: Twins expect to carry lower payroll in 2024 season

When Derek Falvey assessed the Twins roster at the start of the offseason, he was encouraged by the lack of significant roster holes.

One reason why a more complete roster is more important this year, particularly compared with some recent winters, is the Twins won’t have the same level of payroll flexibility to make major additions to their roster.

The Twins carried a club-record payroll above $156 million during the 2023 season, ranking around league average according to FanGraphs, and all indications are the payroll will drop. They no longer have a TV contract with Diamond Sports Group, the parent company of Bally Sports North, which netted the team $54.8 million this year.

“We’ve pushed our payroll to heights that we had never pushed it before with the support, certainly, of ownership. We know there is some natural ebb and flow to that,” Falvey said Tuesday from the annual General Managers Meetings. “Will it be where it was last year? I don’t expect that. I expect it less than that.”

Dick Bremer, Twins TV broadcaster for 40 years, retires to become a team ambassador

Dick Bremer, the television voice of the Twins for the past 40 seasons, will leave the broadcast booth and join the team’s front office as a special assistant.

He retires as the longest-tenured television broadcaster for a single team in Major League Baseball.

The Twins are assessing their broadcasting options for next season as Diamond Sports, parent company of Bally Sports North, works through bankruptcy.

Bremer’s new role will include being a team representative at Twins community and fan events.

In a news release, Bremer said, “In those 40 years, I broadcast 4,972 Twins games. Over the last year or so, I thought it would really be cool to make it to 5,000. Then, I thought to myself, how selfish would that be? A broadcast should NEVER be about the announcer. It should ALWAYS be about the game and those who play it.

“I hope in my final season, I proved that ‘I’ve still got my fastball’, a goal I set when I started with the Twins in 1983.”

Former major league pitcher Dan Serafini arrested for alleged murder, attempted murder of in-laws

Serafini was one of two people arrested in connection to the June 2021 murder of Robert Spohr and attempted murder of Wendy Wood in Lake Tahoe, California. The victims were reportedly Serafini’s father-in-law and mother-in-law

Twins finally break record postseason losing streak

The Minnesota Twins have finally broken out of their postseason slump.

The team beat the Toronto Blue Jays 3-1 in the wild-card round of the MLB playoffs Tuesday, their first postseason win since 2004. A lengthy drought between wins isn’t unusual, but what makes the Twins’ run particularly galling is that they lost 18 straight postseason games. That’s three straight losses in the 2004 ALDS, four 3-0 sweeps and losses in the 2017 wild-card sudden-death game and the 2020 wild-card round.

It’s not the only such streak of playoff futility in American sports, but sadly for Twins fans, it was the longest. In fact, every other MLB team has won at least one playoff game since the Twins’ last win, on Oct. 5, 2004. Now that they’ve finally notched a postseason victory, Twins fans can breathe a sigh of relief—and remember other teams from MLB, the NBA and the NHL who can relate to their struggles.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli: ‘I’m not doing my job and the players aren’t doing their job’

No time was written Wednesday after the Twins were swept by the Braves, totaling three runs in the three-game series. Players sat behind closed doors to conduct a players-only team meeting as manager Rocco Baldelli declared none of them would be made available to speak to reporters.

“This plane will leave whenever this plane leaves,” Baldelli said. “I don’t know what they’re talking about exactly in there, but I hope it’s a lot of what I’m saying right now.”

Baldelli criticized the team’s offense, which has sputtered for months. How bad has it been? They had a .723 OPS in April, a .718 OPS in May and a .674 OPS in June. They’ve scored the second-fewest runs per game in the majors this month, ahead of only the Royals. Their strikeout rate has increased every month and they remain on pace to shatter MLB’s all-time record in strikeouts.

The Twins struck out 14 times Wednesday, whiffing on 29 of their 72 swings (40%) in a game where the starting pitcher entered with a career 6.07 ERA. Baldelli said the team looked “flat” and lamented the inability to make any offensive adjustments.

“It’s a huge bucket of at-bats that I’m talking about,” Baldelli said. “They are just so far from where we need to be that we need to own it. I’m not doing my job and the players aren’t doing their jobs if we don’t actually sit here and acknowledge this. They know it. They’re smart players. They understand what is going on. Fixing it is never easy, but we better freakin’ fix it fast.”

Twins failing in many ways — and it starts with the bad deals they’ve made

What has followed has pretty much been a series of front-office follies. There are excuses, of course, and some personnel decisions that were not derided originally, but here’s the deal:

Baseball boss Derek Falvey and his enormous collection of brain wizards are paid to be correct, and sports writers and other independent media members are paid much less to second-guess — and the fans pay for the right to deride all of us.

It was a minor transaction in the big picture, but the feeling here is that the first sign that aliens from Pluto were running the Twins came on March 28, 2021, when the Twins signed Randy Dobnak to a multi-year contract worth $9.25 million that runs through 2025 — with three option years afterward.

Yeah, let’s lock up the Dobber.

Orlando Cabrera To Retire From Baseball

OH NO, EXPO!

Last season, Orlando Cabrera batted .238 with the Indians and Giants, posting a 61 OPS+. The season before that, he posted a 76 OPS+. The season before that, he posted an 85 OPS+. Orlando Cabrera has been declining, and just turned 37 years old. As a free agent, Cabrera didn’t drum up much interest, which I’m guessing is why he’s intending to hang ‘em up. Enrique Rojas:

  “Orlando Cabrera to retire from baseball, he said in Colombia radio station. Thanks for memories!”

Cabrera had a long career that’ll be difficult to forget. He debuted with the Expos in 1997, and remained there until the giant Nomar Garciaparra three-way trade in 2004. That year, with the Red Sox, Cabrera won a World Series. He wound up with the Angels, earning the unfortunate nickname “The Wizard of O.C.”, and then he wound up with the White Sox, and the A’s, and the Twins, and the Reds, and the Indians, and the Giants ... He remained a shortstop to the end, and collected 2,055 hits. He will always be remembered as a pest. An absolute pest.

Zumaya agrees to deal with Twins

Game on!

The Tigers could end up seeing a lot of Joel Zumaya this year after all. It’ll just be in a different uniform, albeit an awfully familiar one.

After throwing for teams in December and holding out for a roster spot and the right situation, Zumaya has agreed to terms with the Minnesota Twins, the reliever told MLB.com. The two sides spent Saturday putting together a deal that could pay him anywhere from $800,000 to $1.7 million if he reaches incentives.

A Twins official would neither confirm nor deny the deal to MLB.com, but said they’ve been in negotiations since December.

Zumaya weighed what he called “good offers” from three other clubs,  but the Twins included guaranteed money rather than a minor-league deal with a Spring Training invite. If he’s healthy, they’ll bring him to the same mound at Target Field where he last threw a Major League pitch. He fractured his elbow throwing for the Tigers against the Twins on June 28, 2010.

MLB Trade Rumors: Bartolo Colon Agrees to Sign With Unknown Team

Bartolo Colon has agreed to a deal with an unknown club reports Bob Nightengale of USA Today (on Twitter). The right-hander wouldn’t divulge the team because he has not yet passed his physical.

Pretty sure it’s either the All-Stars or the Champs.

BBPro:  Heartburn Hardball - Jack Morris in Motion

Morris, who was the face of the Detroit Tigers’ pitching staff for the entirety of the eighties before spending the early nineties hopping between the Twins, Blue Jays, and Indians, has every right to be thrilled at the news. And the rest of us, especially those who were too young to see him pitch, have every right to ask…why Jack Morris? Why now?

To answer that question, I decide to watch the most famous performance of his career, the game that proved once and for all that he was a true ace and a true winner.

....

The Twins will win 1-0 in the bottom of the 10th, winning the second World Series title in franchise history and solidifying Jack Morris’s place in baseball history.

And when it’s over, I will be more convinced than ever that Jack Morris is not a Hall of Fame pitcher.

Goldman: Bernie Williams vs. Kirby Puckett

Let’s ask Erardi!...okay, maybe not.

I was watching the Hall of Fame announcement show on the MLB Network on Monday–congratulations to a very deserving Barry Larkin–and something Peter Gammons said as an aside in a discussion of Bernie Williams’ suitability for the Hall of Fame stuck with me: “He wasn’t as good as Kirby Puckett,” the Great Gammo almost muttered, as they cut to a commercial break.

I haven’t been able to put that comment out of my mind, because I’m not certain why Gammons is so sure. Both were excellent hitters with very different skills who nonetheless arrived at similar results. Puckett was short and stout, Williams long and lithe. Puckett reaped a huge benefit from his Metrodome home park, hitting .344/.388/.521 at home, .291/.331/.430 on the road. Williams was about the same hitter everywhere. Both were Gold Glove center fielders who won several of the defensive awards with their bats. Both won a single batting title. Puckett led the AL in hits four times; Williams walked too much to compete in that department.

Career-wise, Williams looks a little worse overall, but that’s because his peak isn’t quite so high and his career is a little longer. Due to glaucoma, Puckett’s career came to an abrupt end, depriving him of a decline phase, whereas Williams got to play until he was no longer useful. If you consider both through their age-35 seasons, it’s a virtual tie: Williams had hit .301/.388/.488 in 1804 games, while Puckett hit .318/.360/.477 in 1783 games.

The Greatest Animated Sports .GIFs of 2011

32. Cliff Lee declines to run out his own grounder

I’m a firm opponent of the designated hitter rule, because just as I love to watch a punter try to scoop up a bad snap and try to throw it, or see a 7’1” center with no range try to chuck up a last-second three, I love watching pitchers hit.

Never will I come closer to seeing what it would be like if someone with my skill set tried to perform on a professional level. I mean, how nuts is this: in the National League, five to 10 percent of all at-bats are taken by men who, by everyone’s admission, are profoundly bad at it! It’s Dada performance art, and the ubiquity of such comical nonsense—over the course of a game, a season, and the history of baseball—is unrivaled by anything in any other sport.

This GIF features a delightful bonus: the catcher starts jogging to the dugout well before the play ends. It’s beautiful.

Jason Marquis, Twins agree on deal

Marquis de Target Field?

Mackey: Don’t laugh, but healthy Mauer, Morneau vault offense near top ?

Leapin’ Lavillenie’s! Good luck with that.

- The team run total projection was derived by using David Smyth’s base runs estimator formula—a formula that is generally accurate within 10-15 runs.

...- The biggest reason for the jump in runs, besides health, would be due to a massive injection of on-base percentage—specifically with Carroll and Willingham. Mauer and Morneau are on-base machines as well, when healthy.

- If any of these players performs better or worse than the numbers listed, the overall run total of the team will obviously be affected. In other words, if Morneau struggles like he did last season, all bets are off—and 771 runs could turn into 720 or fewer, and so on.

- Plate appearances for each player were rough estimates, and they may be optimistic in the cases of Span, Mauer and Morneau.

- It’s highly likely the Twins will use more than the 13 batters listed. In that case, the additional players will cut into the playing time of those listed above (Drew Butera and Joe Benson, for instance). Those additional players may or may not affect the overall end run total.

Scoring 771 runs would have ranked the Twins fourth in baseball last season behind the Red Sox (875), Yankees (867), Rangers (855) and Tigers (787).

But what are the chances Mauer and Morneau are healthy and productive for six months?

Kubel, D-backs reach two-year deal

Heyman says 2 years, $15 million. That is one expensive pinch hitter!

The D-backs have agreed to terms with free-agent outfielder Jason Kubel on a two-year contract with an option, a baseball source confirmed Monday.

The move is somewhat surprising in that the D-backs had not been linked in any rumors to Kubel, nor had they been rumored to be in the market for an outfielder.

Kubel, 29, hit .273 with 12 home runs and 58 RBIs for the Twins in 2011. He was originally drafted by Minnesota in the 12th round of the 2000 First-Year Player Draft…

Over his career, Kubel has split his time between the outfield corners. With the D-backs, it would appear that he would become the starting left fielder with Gerardo Parra being shifted to a fourth outfield position, or used in a trade to acquire another position of need.

Twinkie Town: Twins Officially Sign Josh Willingham: Contract Breakdown and Analysis

I’m guessing Willingham is a strike-throwing pitcher with no velocity?

Twitter is blowing up with the news that the Twins have made the Josh Willingham signing official. He’ll get three years, earning $7 million in both 2012 and 2013, with the possibility of adding another million on top of all that in 2014 should he reach 525 plate appearances in ‘13. It’s a good deal, and here’s why.

Over the next three years, each win above replacement should cost somewhere just north of $5 million dollars, depending on the baseball and more wide-ranging fiscal markets. With the understanding that we want to be conservative we’ll estimate that from 2012 to 2014, when Willingham’s contract expires, cost for each win above replacement will average at $5.25 million….

If Josh Willingham maintains his averages, he will have been worth almost twice what the Twins will pay him. And if he exceeds those numbers, the value of this contract obviously becomes even greater.

To be honest, I’d be surprised if he maintained his 2.5 WAR-per-season average at this point in his career. We’re paying a guy for his age-33, 34 and 35 seasons, so it’s unrealistic to expect him to perform like he has through his prime. But that doesn’t make this a bad deal. It’s still a very good one.

Where Does Target Field Concert Cash Go?

$300 to see Kenny Cheney and Tim McGraw? That’s the shitkickingest thing I’ve seen since Elton Britt ran for President in 1960!

If taxpayers pick up the tab for a new sports stadium which later hosts a concert, where does that money go and does the public get a kickback for their investment? That’s a question currently occupying many minds after the first concert at Target Field sold out in only four hours.

FOX 9 News reporter Tom Lyden began looking for the answer after a viewer e-mailed, asking if the team pockets all the profits from the concerts held at the ballpark—but when it comes to the money trail, there are few simple answers with public stadiums.

Baseball may be the game of the summer, but Target Field is now proving that there’s big money to be made beyond baseball. Soon, about 39,000 country music fans will pack the house to see Kenny Cheney and Tim McGraw. Some fans even shelled out $300 per ticket.

So who gets that money? Twins spokesman Keven Smith says he wishes they did, but the concert promoter and performers take in all the money generated at the gate. The Twins keep the concessions cash—but they don’t know how much that will amount to.

“We don’t know how concessions go,” Smith admitted. “We run a baseball team, not a concert venue. Not yet.”

Joe Mauer engaged

Joe Mauer, perhaps Minnesota’s most eligible bachelor, on Saturday became engaged to fellow Cretin-Derham Hall graduate Maddie Bisanz.

Mauer, 28, the Minnesota Twins catcher, proposed to Bisanz, a St. Paul nurse, in Sanibel, Fla.

“A place that is special to both of us,” Mauer said Sunday from Florida. “We couldn’t be happier, and we’re both really excited.”

No wedding date has been set. The couple has been friends for about seven years and has been dating for about 1-1/2 years.

Insert “well played Mauer” joke here.

Rule V Results

1.Astros take Rhiner Cruz from Mets.
2.Twins take Terry Doyle from White Sox.
3.Mariners take Lucas Luetge from Brewers.
4.Orioles take Ryan Flaherty from Cubs.
5.Royals take Cesar Cabral from Red Sox; traded to Yankees for cash.
6.Cubs take Lendy Castillo from Phillies.
8.Pirates take Gustavo Nunez from Tigers.
  21.Braves take Robert Fish from Angels.
22.Cardinals take Erik Komatsu from Nationals.
23.Red Sox take Marwin Gonzalez from Cubs.
  25.Diamondbacks take Brett Lorin from Pirates.
  29.Yankees take Brad Meyers from Nationals.

Closer Matt Capps to be back with Twins in 2012

This would never happen if baseball had a salaried Capps.

The Twins are finalizing a deal to re-sign closer Matt Capps, who struggled last year when handed the closer’s role during the season. Two sources with knowledge of negotiations confirmed the deal.
Capps was 4-7 with a 4.25 ERA and 15 saves for the Twins last season. He replaced Nathan as closer in April but lost the job later in the season. It was discovered later on that Capps was pitching with a sore forearm that affected his slider but didn’t want to use it as an excuse.
UPDATE:Capps to have physical Tuesday. He’ll earn $4.5 million in 2012. Option in 2013 is for $6 million, or a $250,000 buyout.  Performance bonues are in the deal too.

Rockies get Kevin Slowey from Twins

Well he tells you right in his name he’s going to suck. What did you expect Minnesota?

The Minnesota Twins have traded winless pitcher Kevin Slowey to the Colorado Rockies for a player to be named.

The deal was announced Tuesday during baseball’s winter meetings.

Slowey went 0-8 with a 6.67 ERA this year and was out from May to August because of an abdominal strain. He made eight starts and six relief appearances and the Twins went 0-14 in those games.

Slowey became the first major league pitcher to make at least eight starts and lose them all since Lou Sleater of the St. Louis Browns in 1951, STATS LLC said.

The 27-year-old Slowey is 39-29 with a 4.66 ERA in five seasons with the Twins. He’s been one of the best control pitchers in the majors over that span.

Former Twins pitcher Jim Kaat on his ‘squabble’ with Calvin Griffith

“Golden Era” Hall of Fame candidate Jim Kaat, the former Minnesota Twins pitcher, makes for an entertaining hour-long interview Monday evening on “Studio 42 with Bob Costas” on the Major League Baseball Network.

Kaat, who won 283 career games and 16 Gold Gloves, chats about his relationship with penurious late Twins’ owner Calvin Griffith.

“I had a contract squabble with Calvin every year,” Kaat said. “Calvin one day said, ‘Can you go downtown and earn 18,000 dollars a year working at any place in Minneapolis?’ I would say, ‘Can you go out on Cedar Avenue and find a left-handed pitcher who can win 18 games for you?’ “

Thanks to Parky.

Ken Davidoff: The best general managers, 2011

I’m assuming Dayton Moore just missed the cut.

3. Brian Cashman, Yankees (5 in ‘10, 6 in ‘09, NR in ‘08, 8 in ‘07) . It was a banner year for the Yankees’ baseball operations department, even if it didn’t end with a new banner to fly over Yankee Stadium.

(Sorry.)

After seeing their top target Lee bolt to Philadelphia, Cashman put his faith in the likes of Ivan Nova (whom he had refused to trade to Seattle for Lee in July of ‘10) and low-rent free agents Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. No one could’ve anticipated how well those would work out, most of all Colon, but look: It’s not like the Yankees pulled his name from the sky. Cashman listened to a recommendation from Yankees bench coach Tony Pena, who was managing Colon in Dominican winter ball.

Cashman also hit on veteran additions Eric Chavez and Andruw Jones, and in all, luck dictates that the Yankees won’t do as well in the bargain bin this upcoming winter. But CC Sabathia is back, the lineup is largely intact and the Yankees have a farm system that appears poised to contribute even more in 2012 than it did this past season.

It also should be pointed out that the Yankees GM job, because it is the Yankees GM job, offers unique challenges both internally (the late George Steinbrenner’s “World Series title or bust!” philosophy lurks) and externally (the media and fan pressure is greater than ever). Cashman, who just re-upped with a three-year deal, handles those demands quite well.

Murray Chass: A GOOD POLICY IN NEED OF REVISION

Selig gets and takes credit for the [minority interviewing and hiring] program, and I suppose he deserves it because he was the commissioner who implemented it, and he did it before the National Football League instituted a similar program, the Rooney Rule. ...

This off-season clubs created openings for six general managers and five managers. A total of seven members of minorities were interviewed. White male interviewees numbered at least three times that number.

Clubs don’t always include minorities in their interviews, and the commissioner often shrugs it off, offering some lame excuse for the team. ...

But when Selig exempts teams, he misses the point of his own policy. The idea is to allow minorities to be exposed to the interviewing process and to enable themselves to be exposed to other teams for possible future consideration. No interview, no exposure. ...

Since the end of the 2009 season baseball has had nine subtractions and only three additions among minority general managers and managers. But two of the additions, Guillen and Fredi Gonzalez, also count among the subtractions, and the third addition, Edwin Rodriguez, became a subtraction when he resigned last season from his managing job with the Marlins.

In other words, no new minority appears on baseball’s landscape. ...

From what I have been able to piece together – Major League Baseball will not disclose lists of candidates for each team – three members of minorities (one each Hispanic, black and female) were interviewed for six general manager openings, two for the same opening, and four (three Hispanic, one black) were interviewed for five managerial vacancies, one candidate by two teams.

That’s not exactly a torrent of candidates. If Selig is “quite satisfied that all the clubs have done what they’re supposed to do,” he needs to set a higher standard. How can Selig be satisfied that Major League Baseball has only seven people who are considered worthy of being interviewed for top jobs? He shouldn’t be satisfied; he should be embarrassed.

Charlie Lea, former major league pitcher, found dead at Collierville home

Charlie Lea...RIP.

Former major league pitcher Charlie Lea, a star at Kingsbury High and then-Memphis State University before embarking on a successful pro career, was found dead in his Collierville home Friday. He was 54.

Collierville Police Chief Larry Goodwin said Lea died of a suspected heart attack.

Winner of 62 games in an eight-year major league career that ended with the Minnesota Twins in 1988, Lea pitched a no-hitter for the Montreal Expos against the San Francisco Giants in 1981, and was the starting and winning pitcher for the National League in the 1984 All-Star Game.