All Things 2025 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

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Ope3 said:
Ok, I am still rather skeptical of the Twins/MLB leverage with the other cable companies (especially when fans can pony up for the Twins App instead) but maybe at some point there will be concrete data.
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The leverage is that live sports is one of the only reasons to keep traditional video services. If DirecTV had failed to have the Twins, I'd have cancelled the next day and I'm sure I'm not the only one, especially when factoring in all 6 teams.

Besides DirecTV is literally passing the buck to the customer in this case. Most of the cable companies/Fubo add a regional sports fee now too.

But if you want the most concrete evidence that they're still getting ~$25 million for local TV: They didn't cut the payroll further. From 2023 to 2024 the TV revenue went from $54 million to ~$40 million and the payroll went from $155 to $130. They lost $14 million in TV $$ and cut $25 off the payroll, probably because they thought they were doing this a year ago. So this year it's flat/up slightly at ~$135 million. If they had lost more than $40 million in TV revenue from 2023, the payroll would surely be $125 million or below.
 
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From the Parkinglot said:
I not sure you can manage by fear in 2025. We as a society are soft. At a minimum he should apologize to his teammates and probably sit a couple of games.
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To clarify, I wasn’t advocating fear - what I was stressing was accountability.

It looks like maybe you have a differing concept/definition of fear than I do😃.
From the Parkinglot said:
It’s also on Miranda to I don’t know maybe give a shit too.
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I thought my chastisement of him was apparent by the actions I called to be taken for him.

Glad he got sent down.
From the Parkinglot said:
With this Collection it’s gonna be a long season cause no one is coming to save the .
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It likely will be due to a vacuum of leadership by the coaching staff and players.

A good team has some pricks on it.
 










Twins have one of the worst Defense in all of baseball.

This team need to be blown at season end. fired everyone.
 

I am sorry but Alcala needs to be gone after today. Can’t throw pitches for strikes reliably and now can’t throw to first base.
 





Lowest ever (non-Covid) attendance at Target Field tonight.
Right about now ownership has to be wondering if it might have been prudent to spend a little more money upfront to entice people to come to games and buy concessions and merch.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Lowest ever (non-Covid) attendance at Target Field tonight.
Right about now ownership has to be wondering if it might have been prudent to spend a little more money upfront to entice people to come to games and buy concessions and merch.
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I wonder how many of those attending were Mets fans. I saw several downtown MPLS this afternoon.
 



gophersfan said:
Twins have one of the worst Defense in all of baseball.

This team need to be blown at season end. fired everyone.
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Rocco should not see May 1st.

-Fire Rocco now.

-Sell the team by July.

-Fire Falvey at season's end

Start over.
 

From the Parkinglot said:
I am sorry but Alcala needs to be gone after today. Can’t throw pitches for strikes reliably and now can’t throw to first base.
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Alcala, Vazquez, Paddock, Gasper and Rocco all need to be gone. All are far below replacement level right now.
 



Breakin' The Plane said:
Just disappointing. I really thought replacing Max Kepler with Bader and moving Hank Conger to the bench was going to fix a team that absolutely collapsed at the end of last year.
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I can't imagine struggling to reach 800,000 in total attendance this season is going to have a positive impact on the Pohlads' effort to sell the team at a price they seek.

Ope made some very chilling yet honest observations in a previous post. There is a decent chance that the Pohlads still own this team a year from now.
 

howeda7 said:
The leverage is that live sports is one of the only reasons to keep traditional video services. If DirecTV had failed to have the Twins, I'd have cancelled the next day and I'm sure I'm not the only one, especially when factoring in all 6 teams.

Besides DirecTV is literally passing the buck to the customer in this case. Most of the cable companies/Fubo add a regional sports fee now too.
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For that "leverage" one needs to have a product that is in demand. That doesn't just apply to the Twins. ESPN is getting out of the MLB Business.

While you may have cancelled DirecTV, how many others would have? Dozens? How many bailed on Xfinity when they couldn't agree on terms last summer causing many to not being able to access the Twins?

The providers and distributors are more and more playing hardball.

howeda7 said:
But if you want the most concrete evidence that they're still getting ~$25 million for local TV: They didn't cut the payroll further. From 2023 to 2024 the TV revenue went from $54 million to ~$40 million and the payroll went from $155 to $130. They lost $14 million in TV $$ and cut $25 off the payroll, probably because they thought they were doing this a year ago. So this year it's flat/up slightly at ~$135 million. If they had lost more than $40 million in TV revenue from 2023, the payroll would surely be $125 million or below.
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Plausible, but I am still skeptical.

There are likely several other factors which caused the player payroll to go up slightly. Also, what triggered this discussion as Shushpush noted, there are other cost saving measures taken.

Players were already due raises, notably Lopez. Any further cuts to player payroll would have made trying to hustle subscriptions an even more monumentally difficult task.

Perhaps they wanted to maintain some semblance of a competitive MLB roster to make it attractive for a potential new ownership group. Fail.

If they don't turn it around by Memorial Day then we will really some payroll being shed.
 


Breakin' The Plane said:
Lowest ever (non-Covid) attendance at Target Field tonight.
Right about now ownership has to be wondering if it might have been prudent to spend a little more money upfront to entice people to come to games and buy concessions and merch.
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It still is more than the Scott Stahoviak days. Without the daycare kids at those dome games we would not have broken 2000 fans.
 

Spaulding!No! said:
It still is more than the Scott Stahoviak days. Without the daycare kids at those dome games we would not have broken 2000 fans.
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Those teams had lots of problems. They didn't get any money from suite sales, and got almost no in-stadium advertising to generate revenue for the team. Maybe it's time that we visited the idea of building the Twins a stadium so that they can field a more competitive team.
 
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Ope3 said:
For that "leverage" one needs to have a product that is in demand. That doesn't just apply to the Twins. ESPN is getting out of the MLB Business.

While you may have cancelled DirecTV, how many others would have? Dozens? How many bailed on Xfinity when they couldn't agree on terms last summer causing many to not being able to access the Twins?

The providers and distributors are more and more playing hardball.
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Sure. But if you're charging your customers $10.95 for regional sports, paying Bally's $4 of it and the Twins $2 and pocketing $4.95 is still a good deal. I think the $2/subscriber is conservative to be honest.

MLB negotiated deals for all 6 teams together with the national providers. So DirecTV/Comcast etc. either have all that are in their markets or none of them. Sure, the small town providers are only negotiating over the Twins but they were actually the first ones to get on board and a lot of them were the only ones that carried Victory Sports back in the day.

Ope3 said:
Plausible, but I am still skeptical.

There are likely several other factors which caused the player payroll to go up slightly. Also, what triggered this discussion as Shushpush noted, there are other cost saving measures taken.

Players were already due raises, notably Lopez. Any further cuts to player payroll would have made trying to hustle subscriptions an even more monumentally difficult task.

Perhaps they wanted to maintain some semblance of a competitive MLB roster to make it attractive for a potential new ownership group. Fail.

If they don't turn it around by Memorial Day then we will really some payroll being shed.
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The entire reason they stupidly went on the "we're rightsizing the payroll" journey is because they intended to ditch Bally's after 2023. That cut was meant to offset the lost revenue until they changed their mind and went back one more year. If they were really going to drop from $40 million to $5 million, there's zero chance they'd have held payroll flat for 2025. It would have been very easy to trade Lopez or possibly even get someone to take Correa.

We'll probably never learn the true $$, but I'd be willing to bet it's a lot closer to $25 million than $5.
 
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howeda7 said:
We'll probably never learn the true $$, but I'd be willing to bet it's a lot closer to $25 million than $5.
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Again, I think it probably in the middle (when start up expenses are factored in). I agree we'll probably never know.
 

Slim Tubby said:
I can't imagine struggling to reach 800,000 in total attendance this season is going to have a positive impact on the Pohlads' effort to sell the team at a price they seek.

Ope made some very chilling yet honest observations in a previous post. There is a decent chance that the Pohlads still own this team a year from now.
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They have ~10K season tickets, so they'll likely get to at least a million in paid attendance. But 800K butts in seats might be about right.
 

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