Jump to content

Vixen Twins watch Wild Wolves and Loony Lynx (MN Sports Thread)


Heimdallr

Recommended Posts

6 hours ago, Heimdallr said:

As a soccer fan this may be treason, but I believe it - salary caps make a better league. For the same reason that MLB is complete joke, same goes for every European soccer league. 

Obviously things are different in a sport that actually allows international competition (soccer), but things have also changed incomprehensibly since the Twins last won a World Series. 

The Twins will never again be  'competitive'. The Twins are the equivalent to Everton or Crystal Palace (on a good year). They are allowed to exist to prop up the profits of the big clubs. They aren't actual competition. 

The entire current sports world is just a marketing creation to sell jerseys and TV/streaming packages, and is 90% of that is driven by the stars. The rest of the league/players are just people to play against.

1M people care of the Twins are good. 10x that number care if Aaron Judge does well. 100x that many people care if the Yankees are good.

Messi and Ronaldo (the most successful and influential athletes in the world) make more from their Instagram accounts than they do from their $100M+ contracts. Players are bought and sold based on how many followers they bring, not on their ability to win a title. 

Baseball needs to change, or just lean into the same format that the Premiere League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, and Bundesliga follow - acknowledge the 'super clubs' reign supreme.

I think a hard salary cap in MLB and a requirement that teams spend a minimum would go a long way to increasing competition. You do get some lightning in a bottle teams (KC, Tampa) from time to time, but it's usually clear that the big spenders are the odds on favorites. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Heimdallr said:

As a soccer fan this may be treason, but I believe it - salary caps make a better league. For the same reason that MLB is complete joke, same goes for every European soccer league. 

Obviously things are different in a sport that actually allows international competition (soccer), but things have also changed incomprehensibly since the Twins last won a World Series. 

The Twins will never again be  'competitive'. The Twins are the equivalent to Everton or Crystal Palace (on a good year). They are allowed to exist to prop up the profits of the big clubs. They aren't actual competition. 

The entire current sports world is just a marketing creation to sell jerseys and TV/streaming packages, and is 90% of that is driven by the stars. The rest of the league/players are just people to play against.

1M people care of the Twins are good. 10x that number care if Aaron Judge does well. 100x that many people care if the Yankees are good.

Messi and Ronaldo (the most successful and influential athletes in the world) make more from their Instagram accounts than they do from their $100M+ contracts. Players are bought and sold based on how many followers they bring, not on their ability to win a title. 

Baseball needs to change, or just lean into the same format that the Premiere League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Serie A, and Bundesliga follow - acknowledge the 'super clubs' reign supreme.

Obviously certain teams have the deck stacked in their favor, but I don't think baseball works in a way that completely prevents teams with lesser salaries from winning the World Series. The Twins have obvious been able to win several division titles in their current situations, and baseball is a sport where weird things can happen in a short series.  The Braves I believe had the fewest wins last year of anyone in the postseason, and they won.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, swede700 said:

What I read last night is that the Twins are freeing up money to make a bigger move. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense.

Trevor Story and a pitcher (Cueto or Grienke) seem to make sense. But Grienke didn't want to come here a couple of years ago. Don't see that changing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From a roster building standpoint, this is not what this regime has done in the past. There’s no way these are the final moves. 
 

I’ve seen several tweets from insiders/anonymous execs suggesting that Story is going to be a Twin. I’ve also seen it suggested that the Twins will go after Montas  and/or Manaea from the As via trade. If they can move some of the hitting OF prospects they could look like this in a few days:

C: Jeffers/Sanchez
1b: Kiriloff
2b: Polanco/Gordon
SS: Story
3b: Urshela/Arraez
RF: Kepler/Rooker
CF: Buxton
LF: Larnach/Arraez 
DH: Sano/Sanchez 

SP: Montas/Gray/Ryan/Ober/Dobnak or Jax (until Maeda comes back)

RP: Duffey, Alcala, Rogers, Theilbar, Stashak, Dobnak or Jax, maybe one of the younger flame throwers like Duran comes up.

I don’t think this is a division winner, but a healthy team could make a run at a WC this year. I think the goal should be to see what you have at the top of the prospect pool. Martin, Lewis, Miranda, Balazovic, SWR should all be contributing this year and they should be selling guys like Kepler, Sano, and Arraez.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JDBrocks said:

From a roster building standpoint, this is not what this regime has done in the past. There’s no way these are the final moves. 
 

I’ve seen several tweets from insiders/anonymous execs suggesting that Story is going to be a Twin. I’ve also seen it suggested that the Twins will go after Montas  and/or Manaea from the As via trade. If they can move some of the hitting OF prospects they could look like this in a few days:

C: Jeffers/Sanchez
1b: Kiriloff
2b: Polanco/Gordon
SS: Story
3b: Urshela/Arraez
RF: Kepler/Rooker
CF: Buxton
LF: Larnach/Arraez 
DH: Sano/Sanchez 

SP: Montas/Gray/Ryan/Ober/Dobnak or Jax (until Maeda comes back)

RP: Duffey, Alcala, Rogers, Theilbar, Stashak, Dobnak or Jax, maybe one of the younger flame throwers like Duran comes up.

I don’t think this is a division winner, but a healthy team could make a run at a WC this year. I think the goal should be to see what you have at the top of the prospect pool. Martin, Lewis, Miranda, Balazovic, SWR should all be contributing this year and they should be selling guys like Kepler, Sano, and Arraez.

I'd think Lewis goes if they sign Story, in a trade for pitching. Not an OF. I also expect them to acquire a catcher. Possibly from Oakland as part of the pitching deal 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, PrplChilPill said:

I'd think Lewis goes if they sign Story, in a trade for pitching. Not an OF. I also expect them to acquire a catcher. Possibly from Oakland as part of the pitching deal 

I don't think they see Lewis as a SS anymore, but I'd bet on Martin going before Lewis.

EDIT: They have Larnach, Rooker, Martin, and Wallner - all hitting OF prospects that are blocked for the foreseeable future.

Edited by JDBrocks
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

I don't think they see Lewis as a SS anymore, but I'd bet on Martin going before Lewis.

EDIT: They have Larnach, Rooker, Martin, and Wallner - all hitting OF prospects that are blocked for the foreseeable future.

I don't get why people want Martin gone more than Lewis. Martin is probably a better MLB player than a good number of current twins, right now. Wallner? Yuck. Rooker.... He's not good at all. Can't field and strikes out more than Howard Wollowitz did. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, PrplChilPill said:

I don't get why people want Martin gone more than Lewis. Martin is probably a better MLB player than a good number of current twins, right now. Wallner? Yuck. Rooker.... He's not good at all. Can't field and strikes out more than Howard Wollowitz did. 

wait, you've watched Matt Walner play baseball?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The point i'm trying to make is that the Twins have tons of hitting OF prospects and not very much infield depth. Deal your big leaguers or prospects from a position of strength. 

Latest reports from Lewis's rehab is that he was timed close to Buxton speed home to first. I'm still in on Lewis.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, JDBrocks said:

The point i'm trying to make is that the Twins have tons of hitting OF prospects and not very much infield depth. Deal your big leaguers or prospects from a position of strength. 

Latest reports from Lewis's rehab is that he was timed close to Buxton speed home to first. I'm still in on Lewis.

Speed doesn't matter if you aren't on base. Martin was a very good hitter in his first full year as a pro. Better than Lewis was at any level. Lewis has a very low floor, imo. Higher ceiling, but I'd bet Martin has multiple three WAR seasons, and at least one or two at four. It's not like he's a slouch. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...