All Things 2024-25 Minnesota Twins Off-Season Thread

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After leading the majors with 239 hits and a .388 average, Rod Carew was named American League Most Valuable Player on this date in 1977.

He was the third of five players in Twins history to receive the award, succeeding Zoilo Versalles in 1965 and Harmon Killebrew in 1969, and preceding Justin Morneau in 2006 and Joe Mauer in 2009.

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TRF Guy said:
After leading the majors with 239 hits and a .388 average, Rod Carew was named American League Most Valuable Player on this date in 1977.

He was the third of five players in Twins history to receive the award, succeeding Zoilo Versalles in 1965 and Harmon Killebrew in 1969, and preceding Justin Morneau in 2006 and Joe Mauer in 2009.

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He was immortalized on this Time Magazine cover during that magical summer.


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Former Minneapolis Millers and Twins manager Gene Mauch was born on this date in 1925.

"I'm not the manager because I'm always right, but I'm always right because I'm the manager."

Fun Fact: Mauch was Roy Smalley's uncle (by marriage).

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If you have a subscription to The Athletic, Evan Drellich has a long but interesting article on Baseball's future plans for local TV rights.

the gist of the story is that MLB is looking ahead to 2028, when all of MLB's national TV deals are up for re-negotiation.

MLB plans to create national packages for major streaming companies to bid on come 2028, the year that the league’s national television deals with ESPN, Fox and Turner are set to expire. The commissioner needs as many of its teams’ local media rights available as possible by then, and all six clubs returning to Diamond Sports Group are on deals that were designed around that goal.

MLB already is handling the broadcasts for an additional group of seven teams in 2025, and will be partially responsible for an eighth team. As of today, close to two-thirds of the league’s 30 teams appear to have their rights available come 2028, if not more.
Bundling all the rights together will be another matter. Producing the changes the commissioner seeks would require some heavy lifting. Manfred wants the league office to take over teams’ local media rights — the traditional, linear TV rights, as well as the in-market, direct-to-consumer streaming rights, both of which currently belong to the individual clubs.

To achieve that, Manfred needs the owners to agree both on that transfer of control, and the way the teams would then share the local TV income, a difficult task because the worth of media rights varies greatly from small markets to large.

He will also need approval from the players’ union. The Players Association does not control how MLB uses its TV rights, but it does have a say in revenue sharing between teams. The current CBA between owners and players expires in December 2026. This ultimately means that 2026 and 2027 will be crucial years when baseball television and labor issues collide.

there is a lot more dealing with how teams share revenue and how that will impact the negotiations for the next CBA. but it lays out a case that the next few years will be very interesting and could bring some significant changes - but also bring significant challenges. BTW, according to the story, 15 of 18 teams that were being covered by RSN's have seen their local TV revenue reduced in recent years due to cord-cutting.
 

TRF Guy said:
After leading the majors with 239 hits and a .388 average, Rod Carew was named American League Most Valuable Player on this date in 1977.

He was the third of five players in Twins history to receive the award, succeeding Zoilo Versalles in 1965 and Harmon Killebrew in 1969, and preceding Justin Morneau in 2006 and Joe Mauer in 2009.

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Gopher_In_NYC said:
He wasn’t a highly touted prospect, if he’s included in a trade for a middling fourth OF.

Sometimes you get lucky; Duran was a throw in the Escobar trade, IIRC.
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Gil hadn't even thrown a pitch in the US when he was traded. He was playing in the Dominican Summer League.
 

Tuesday was the deadline to put minor league players on the 40-man roster and protect them from the upcoming Rule 5 draft. from the Strib:

Righthanders Marco Raya and Travis Adams were added to the Twins’ 40-man roster Tuesday, protecting them from the Dec. 11 draft, which allows teams to pluck eligible minor leaguers from each others’ systems.
Raya, 22, started 24 games for Class AA Wichita and one for AAA St. Paul last summer, posting a combined 4.05 ERA while striking out 103 batters in 97⅔ innings. Taken in the fourth round of the 2020 draft, Raya missed the 2021 season with shoulder fatigue but has made 64 starts in the three seasons since.

Adams, 24, was Raya’s teammate at Wichita for five months, then started four games for the Saints in September. The Twins’ sixth-round pick in 2021, Adams made 22 starts and 26 total appearances, compiling 118 strikeouts and a 4.39 ERA over 127 innings.

The additions of Raya and Adams bring the Twins’ roster to 37. The Twins haven’t lost a player in the Rule 5 draft since 2020, when the Tigers claimed outfielder Akil Baddoo, and the Orioles added righthander Tyler Wells. Both players debuted in 2021 and have remained in those teams’ systems ever since.
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this leaves several players in the Twins' minor league system exposed to the Rule 5 draft including Kala'i Rosario, who was playing in the Arizona Fall League. others now eligible to be drafted include C/OF Ricardo Olivar, INF Jose Salas, SS/OF Will Holland, and INF Rubel Cespedes.

in other news, the Twins have signed minor-league deals with Yunior Severino, Daniel Duarte and Scott Blewett. Severino was recently dropped from the 40-man roster.
 



bring on the robot umpires - at least during Spring Training. details from the AP:

Major League Baseball will test robot umpires as part of a challenge system during spring training at 13 ballparks hosting 19 teams, which could lead to regular-season use in 2026.

MLB has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in the minor leagues since 2019 but is still working on the shape of the strike zone.

An agreement for big league use would have to be reached with the Major League Baseball Umpires Association, whose collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1.

Triple-A ballparks used ABS this year for the second straight season, but there is little desire to call the strike zone as the cube defined in the rule book and MLB has experimented with modifications during minor league testing.

The ABS currently calls strikes solely based on where the ball crosses the midpoint of the plate, 8.5 inches from the front and the back. The top of the strike zone was increased to 53.5% of batter height this year from 51%, and the bottom remained at 27%.

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and a quick reminder - these are the 3 laws of robotics - according to Isaac Asimov:
  • First Law: A robot must not harm a human or allow a human to come to harm
  • Second Law: A robot must obey human orders, unless those orders conflict with the First Law
  • Third Law: A robot must protect itself, unless doing so conflicts with the First or Second Law
 

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