All Things 2024-25 Minnesota Twins Off-Season Thread

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Ope3 said:
I would like to know what was going through that person's skull to look at the ballot and go, "Ichiro...hmmm, nah...not quite Cooperstown material".
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To me, the most ironic aspect of all of this is the only player who has ever been unanimous in election is Mariano Rivera--a specialist. A specialist who threw roughly the same amount of innings in his career as Carlos Silva. A specialist whose particular craft the baseball cognoscenti had long past moved away from awarding Cy Young's and MVP's due to the limited innings pitched each year.

Make no mistake, I have no issue with Rivera as a unanimous HOF'er. He was the most dominant closer ever. But if he's unanimous--certainly Derek Jeter and Ichiro should be as well. I know, different voters in different years, but it is bemusing.
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
No worries and thank you, I forgot about that play; my favorite play in baseball is the outfield assist, as it requires two players to field the ball and a long, accurate throw- seeing the ball fly through the air is a thing of beauty and such an exciting play.😃

Ironic that play involved Jimmy Rice, as his COF partner Dewy Evans had another legit cannon and won 8 GG to boot.

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How bout a little love for Ellis Valentine and Jesse Barfield too? One of baseball's great joys is the right fielder with a gun for an arm, as you've already stated.
 

coolhandgopher said:
How bout a little love for Ellis Valentine and Jesse Barfield too?
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Absolutely- the more the merrier, as it is an expansive RF and I am not its arbiter.

Perfect timing, especially for Ellis Be My 💝, as his namesake holiday sneaks up on us

coolhandgopher said:
One of baseball's great joys is the right fielder with a gun for an arm, as you've already stated.
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when Harmon Killebrew retired, he was 5th in Career HR's in MLB history. He was 2nd to Babe Ruth for career HR in the American League, and was the reigning American League career leader in HR for a right-handed batter.

he was elected to the HOF on his 4th year on the ballot.
His vote totals:
1981 - 239 votes (59.6%)
1982 - 59.3%
1983 - 71.9%
1984 - 83.1%

yup - his percentage of votes went down from 81 to 82. (Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson were elected in '82 on their first year of eligibility).

the knock on Killebrew by voters - .256 career batting average, only 2086 hits and 1699 K's.
 


reported at Twins Media Luncheon on Friday --

Twins President Dave St. Peter, who will be in that role until Opening Day, announced the team’s plans to stream games for the 2025 season. In conjunction with Major League Baseball’s production, Twins.TV will be debut Feb. 11 with Grapefruit League spring training play in Fort Myers, Fla. Fans can preview the service with five spring training games.

Consumers get a full season subscription for $99.99, or can do a monthly pass for $19.99. Twins season-ticket holders can get the full season for 50 percent off. Most importantly, there won't be any games blacked out in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota or Iowa.


The Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers and other select teams have similar streaming plans for the 2025 season.

Twins officials say plans to make Twins.TV available via cable and satellite providers are still in the works.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
reported at Twins Media Luncheon on Friday --

Twins President Dave St. Peter, who will be in that role until Opening Day, announced the team’s plans to stream games for the 2025 season. In conjunction with Major League Baseball’s production, Twins.TV will be debut Feb. 11 with Grapefruit League spring training play in Fort Myers, Fla. Fans can preview the service with five spring training games.

Consumers get a full season subscription for $99.99, or can do a monthly pass for $19.99. Twins season-ticket holders can get the full season for 50 percent off. Most importantly, there won't be any games blacked out in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota or Iowa.


The Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers and other select teams have similar streaming plans for the 2025 season.

Twins officials say plans to make Twins.TV available via cable and satellite providers are still in the works.
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I'm assuming they will be included through MLB.TV also.
 


howeda7 said:
Not in market. You would have to pay the $99 on top of MLB.TV. Perhaps there will be a discount on MLBTV or something though.
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I'm out of market so I'm good (except when they play the Brewers).
 




for cable and satellite, it all comes to the fees requested by MLB.

I know that for FanDuel (formerly Bally), cable TV providers were paying roughly $10/month per subscriber. of course, that included games for the Twins, Wolves and Wild. The contract for FanDuel (which I have seen) stated that the fee would be reduced if they lost the rights to any of their main teams. the Twins - according to the contract - amounted to 40% of the total value.

so let's say the Twins as a stand-alone property are worth $4/month per subscriber. can MLB get that from cable and satellite providers? there is also the question of where the channel would be located - on the basic or expanded basic tier - or on a separate (higher-priced) sports tier.

I would think that MLB wants to have this finalized very soon - as Spring Training games begin in mid-February.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
for cable and satellite, it all comes to the fees requested by MLB.

I know that for FanDuel (formerly Bally), cable TV providers were paying roughly $10/month per subscriber. of course, that included games for the Twins, Wolves and Wild. The contract for FanDuel (which I have seen) stated that the fee would be reduced if they lost the rights to any of their main teams. the Twins - according to the contract - amounted to 40% of the total value.

so let's say the Twins as a stand-alone property are worth $4/month per subscriber. can MLB get that from cable and satellite providers? there is also the question of where the channel would be located - on the basic or expanded basic tier - or on a separate (higher-priced) sports tier.

I would think that MLB wants to have this finalized very soon - as Spring Training games begin in mid-February.
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They won't get $4/subscriber, but even if they get $2-3, I'd estimate conservatively that there's 500K subscribers in Twins territory between Comcast and DirecTV (the main ones that carry FanDuel). So that would be $12-18 million/year. If they get $4 million of the streaming, that's $16-22 million. Still a big hit from $42 least year but not as bleak as some in the media are saying.
 





Also announced today, Corey Koskie is going into the Twins HOF.
I get that the standards are wildly different, but the guy was here for 7 years and had a pretty average career.
 



howeda7 said:
They won't get $4/subscriber, but even if they get $2-3, I'd estimate conservatively that there's 500K subscribers in Twins territory between Comcast and DirecTV (the main ones that carry FanDuel). So that would be $12-18 million/year. If they get $4 million of the streaming, that's $16-22 million. Still a big hit from $42 least year but not as bleak as some in the media are saying.
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the $4 figure I suggested would - I assume - be split between MLB and the Twins. MLB is assuming some cost for administration and production of games. So, under my scenario, I estimate the Twins' share would be about $2 a month per subscriber, or $12 per sub for the 6-month season. If they get 500-thousand subs, that would be $6-million a year for the Twins.

BTW - here are some actual fees paid by a cable TV company for various channels - all are per sub per month:

KARE ch 11 (Twin Cities) $7.75
KSTP (Twin Cities) $5.27
WCCO (Twin Cities) $4.28
ESPN - $11.11
TNT - $3.78
Fox News - $3.70
FS1 - $2.25
TBS - $1.95
 

howeda7 said:
They won't get $4/subscriber, but even if they get $2-3, I'd estimate conservatively that there's 500K subscribers in Twins territory between Comcast and DirecTV (the main ones that carry FanDuel). So that would be $12-18 million/year. If they get $4 million of the streaming, that's $16-22 million. Still a big hit from $42 least year but not as bleak as some in the media are saying.
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I don't think you're math is figuring in MLB.TV's cut/Production costs.

They got that $42 million without any of that burden.

I think it will work out in the future, but I also think $10 million is going to be a tough get in 2025.
 


Ope3 said:
I don't think you're math is figuring in MLB.TV's cut/Production costs.

They got that $42 million without any of that burden.

I think it will work out in the future, but I also think $10 million is going to be a tough get in 2025.
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They also get all of the advertising. That should cover the production costs and then some.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
the $4 figure I suggested would - I assume - be split between MLB and the Twins. MLB is assuming some cost for administration and production of games. So, under my scenario, I estimate the Twins' share would be about $2 a month per subscriber, or $12 per sub for the 6-month season. If they get 500-thousand subs, that would be $6-million a year for the Twins.

BTW - here are some actual fees paid by a cable TV company for various channels - all are per sub per month:

KARE ch 11 (Twin Cities) $7.75
KSTP (Twin Cities) $5.27
WCCO (Twin Cities) $4.28
ESPN - $11.11
TNT - $3.78
Fox News - $3.70
FS1 - $2.25
TBS - $1.95
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I assume the fee is monthly not just during the season since we are basing it off of the Bally's fee. MLBs fee/production costs should be offset by advertising $$.

The disparity in fees is interesting. How is KARE 11 worth almost twice as much as WCCO.
 

howeda7 said:
I'm hopeful DirecTV will offer it. Streaming ruins it when you watch games on a delay.
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Is there not a DVR or replay included with the service?

That's trash if so. That's one of the main benefits and points of streaming, to me.
 

howeda7 said:
I assume the fee is monthly not just during the season since we are basing it off of the Bally's fee. MLBs fee/production costs should be offset by advertising $$.

The disparity in fees is interesting. How is KARE 11 worth almost twice as much as WCCO.
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At the end of the day, money in TV comes from advertising.

So whether it is pure ratings alone, or ratings in combination with some kind of understanding about a possibly wealthier audience for KARE that is worth more to advertising, I imagine that is how it is determined.

Of course, as with all fees on all channels, the carrier has to sign on the line. They certainly do push back from time to time.
 

I guess this is the new bullpen lefty. Such poverty.

 
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GopherGrit said:
Is there not a DVR or replay included with the service?

That's trash if so. That's one of the main benefits and points of streaming, to me.
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You can watch on demand as far as I know. But the problem with streaming is that it shows you how much time is left. So if the Twins are down 1 going to the top of the 9th and there's 3 minutes left in the stream, well you pretty much know they lost. It would be easy enough to fix by just defaulting how long it plays to 5 hours or something, but no one has so far.
 

howeda7 said:
You can watch on demand as far as I know. But the problem with streaming is that it shows you how much time is left. So if the Twins are down 1 going to the top of the 9th and there's 3 minutes left in the stream, well you pretty much know they lost. It would be easy enough to fix by just defaulting how long it plays to 5 hours or something, but no one has so far.
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Ah, yes good point.

Agree that is something you lose by not watching the game live. Or watching knowing you won't catch up to live before it ends live.

The "perfect stream" is to start late enough that you know you can fast-forward through the commercials and catch up to live right before the live ending :)
 




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