The Twins are 55-44 and currently in possession of one of the American League Wild Card spots, as well as sitting just four games back of the Guardians in the Central division. That should put them in clear buyer position ahead of next week’s trade deadline but Jeff Passan of ESPN reports that they might have to walk an “add-and-subtract” tightrope due to financial limitations. Per the report, the Twins would have to move out some money if they were able to acquire any player with a notable salary.
Last year, the Twins broke a notable streak, winning their first playoff game since 2004. Though their season was eventually ended by the Astros in the Division Series, it was a relative high note for the franchise. But any optimism for the 2024 season quickly hit an obstacle.
President of baseball operations Derek Falvey told reporters in early November, just days into the offseason, that the payroll would be going down. That was seemingly in connection to the club’s TV revenue situation. The club reportedly received $54MM from Diamond Sports Group in 2023 but that company has been in the process of going bankrupt for a while, casting plenty of uncertainty about how things will play out going forward. The Twins and Diamond agreed to a new deal in February of 2024 but it was only a one-year pact and reportedly with reduced fees coming to the club
Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the Twins reached a new franchise high in 2023 with an Opening Day payroll of $154MM. That dropped to $127MM here in 2024 and it seems there’s not much wiggle room to go much higher than that. It’s not clear if the club is in such a tight spot that they can only consider revenue-neutral trades or if they have the ability to take on a small amount of money, but it seems like the budget will have to be front of mind for the club as they navigate the deadline.
If the scenario does come to pass where they need to move money out to bring some in, they would have some options. Manuel Margot might be somewhat expendable in a fairly crowded position player mix and he’s making $10MM this year, though the Twins are only covering $4MM of that after acquiring him from the Dodgers in February. By deadline time, there will be around $1.3MM of that left to be paid out.
Max Kepler is making $10MM and is an impending free agent but is playing every day and in the middle of the lineup. Ditto for Carlos Santana and his $5.25MM salary. Moving either of those two would be a hit to the club’s lineup, though perhaps they feel they have enough internal position players to make up for the lost production. Infielders Royce Lewis and José Miranda are each on the injured list but nearing returns. That could perhaps push Brooks Lee, who has been covering third base lately, to second base. That could theoretically nudge Edouard Julien from second to first base to supplant Santana. Willi Castro, who has been covering shortstop with Carlos Correa also on the IL, could wind up in the outfield if Lewis or Lee covers short. Trevor Larnach has been the club’s regular designated hitter lately but he could perhaps take more outfield time if that crowded infield spills into the DH slot.
Christian Vázquez is in the second season of a three-year, $30MM deal and is currently one of three catchers on the roster alongside Ryan Jeffers and Jair Camargo. The Twins would likely be open to moving Vázquez and had some trade talks regarding him in the offseason but his performance has been declining and the club would likely have to include some prospects in order to get someone to absorb that money. Kyle Farmer is making $6.05MM this year and has a $250K buyout on a mutual option for 2025 but he’s currently on the injured list. Caleb Thielbar has a $3.225MM salary and is an impending free agent but he has a 5.79 ERA this year. Anthony DeSclafani is making $12MM this year but the Mariners agreed to cover $8MM of that as part of the trade that sent him to Minnesota. He’s done for the year but the Twins could theoretically send a prospect or two to another team in exchange for that club paying the remainder of what they owe DeSclafani.
There are plenty of moving parts there and the Twins will ultimately be making decisions based on what kind of offers are coming their way from other clubs, as well as the health or lack thereof among the players currently on the roster. Ideally, a club in a playoff spot would just be looking to add and not have to play this kind of seven-dimensional chess, but the financial situation in Minnesota might make it necessary.
As to what they will be looking to add, Falvey confirmed that the club is looking for pitching, per Bobby Nightengale of the Star Tribune. That aligns with previous reporting from Dan Hayes of The Athletic that the club would be looking to bolster its starting staff, perhaps by taking on rentals. Hayes floated Yusei Kikuchi of the Blue Jays as a possible target and Nightengale reports today that the Twins have shown “at least preliminary interest” in him.
Kikuchi signed a three-year deal with the Jays going into 2022 and is now a few months from returning to free agency. The $36MM guarantee was frontloaded, so the lefty made $16MM in the first season followed by successive $10MM salaries in the final two years. By the time the deadline rolls around, there will be roughly $3.3MM left to be paid out.
That’s not a massive sum by baseball standards but if it’s too rich for the Twins, they could always ask the Jays to keep most of that money on their books. Such an arrangement would require the Twins to part with more prospect capital but that might be the way they have to operate if they don’t have financial wiggle room. It’s unclear if the Jays are going to be focused on adding talent or dipping below the luxury tax, but they’re ten games back of a playoff spot and looking to trade their rental players.
If the two sides can work out those finer details, Kikuchi makes plenty of sense for the Twins. They’ve lost DeSclafani for the year and Chris Paddack is on the injured list due to a right arm issue for the second time this summer. David Festa and Louie Varland have struggled at the major league level and are currently on optional assignment.
The club still has a decent foursome in Pablo López, Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Simeon Woods Richardson, but there’s also sense in adding to that group as they need a fifth starter and an injury can also change the calculus at any moment.
Kikuchi’s results have been up and down but he’s having a strong season in the aggregate. He’s thrown 111 innings for the Jays here in 2024 with a 26.4% strikeout rate and 5.9% walk rate. He has a 4.54 ERA but at least part of that appears to be due to a .334 batting average on balls in play. His 3.58 FIP and 3.41 SIERA suggest he’s actually been far better than his ERA would suggest. Most of those numbers are roughly in line with his 2023 season, wherein he posted a 3.86 ERA with a 25.9% strikeout rate and 6.9% walk rate. His .314 BABIP was closer to league average last year and he had a 4.12 FIP and 3.86 SIERA.
Classic twins one of the teams that adjusts to inflation and gets lower and lower payrolls than the year before
Mariners gotta Mariner.
Oh wait wrong team.
Ticket prices I’m sure continue to go up
Yep my teams in the top 15 in revenue but bottom 15 in payroll it’s fun
Hey, at least you don’t have an owner who is one of the 5 richest in baseball, worth almost 9 billion, but keeps a payroll in the bottom 6 of the league–and impressively almost 45 million under the average team’s spending.
Oh, did I forget to add that his dad, who left him the team, carried a payroll only bested by the NY & LA quartet + Boston?
I give you… Chris Illitch and the Detroit Tigers
Who should Tigers have sent onlast season that was willing to come here? It’s easy to just say spend, but let’s here an explanation that makes sense.
The rebuild started to show signs of life and they signed Baez, ERod, and Lorenzen. Yes they most certainly regret Baez and most of us fans wish they had not. But they made an attempt.
This ast off season they picked u option on Cahna, signed Flaherty, and Urshela. They ve been making wise signings complementing the young talent that is there.
Even so at the start of the offseason I saw no one clamoring about flaherty or Maeda or urshela or canha and loving the tigers off-season additions
Only 1 out of 4 of them have performed
Again who should they have signed instead?
It’s easy to say they should have spent $. But on who specifically
And as a Tigers fan I liked the Maeda and Flaherty signings at the time. I thought Urshela was a perfect fit to plug a hole with a veteran on a young team. Cahna I really wasn’t not a fan of. I thought his option was an overpay for him and he’s had 20 HRs once and doesn’t hit particularly well for contact.
Who do thse guys think they are the Mariners?
Man it’s not like your team takes on huge payroll bumps at the deadline.
I am a Cardinals fan they are usually active at the deadline although not usually adding big contracts.
But the Mariners aren’t just standing pat. They are trying to dump salary like with France. And now the Twins are claiming poor when they are right in the thick of it. I really hate it when a team earns the chance to make a run and ownership doesn’t back them up.
They are cutting bait on France cuz he sucks. It’s not about his salary. He’s dead weight and they should have done this weeks ago because the writing was on the wall last year with his declining numbers. Plus Stanton the Chairman said there will be room to add payroll if need be.
France isn’t terrible. Even if he wasn’t starting he’s at least a capable bench bat. They are dumping him now to try to save money and that’s lame. Especially after the nonsense they pulled st least years deadline and last offseason.
6+ million for a bench bat doesn’t fly either. Yeah the cost cutting last offseason & deadline looked dubious but this move is not of the same ilk. The Mariners need to get way more production out of first base and France is definitely not the answer. Using him solely off the bench is terribly inefficient as well, he’s gotta go.
He can go at the end of the season. Doing this now is a way to try to save money plain and simple.
M’s 6th-best prospect (99th in MLB) is a right-handed hitting 1B, called up today.
France doesn’t bring anything to the bench. But back to the Twins…
Also not really seeing how they will save any money here. They will be paying France to play for a different team. Also doing him a favor and maybe he can catch a full time slot somewhere else. There is no place for him here. So still not seeing how this is being cheap???
Christ Joel.
. They’ve given France a season and a half to turn it around and he hasn’t. That move isn’t financially motivated. How many 1B can the Mariners roster at once? Garver, Raley, Locklear are all capable there. You can’t platoon Locklear and France. He’s a waste of a roster spot with Locklear up.
Garver is needed for catching or DH so count him out of first
Theoretically we could have 3 first basemen on the roster with locklear sharing reps with France (we don’t have to strong side platoon everything) and Raley staying in the outfield
I think this was like the geno Suarez situation where he’s underperforming (like the rest of the roster) and his money costs too much
They aren’t the only team hurting.
The Pohlad family should be embarrassed.
They need to get in line behind Chris Illitch who spits on his dad’s grave each year he carries a bottom payroll while increasing his net worth to nearly double digit billions
But don’t worry…last year we were told how the MLB clubhouse has a new kitchen and this year how the spring training complex has a new lockerroom by the beat writers, who remain nothing more than PR lip service for ownership
Self-imposed.
I’m going to make some sort of sports business consulting firm called Payroll Limitations.
I’d consider partnering with the Twins but I hear they’re already working with payroll limitations so $ is prob too tight for my retainer. I’ll check in with Seattle…
Seven dimensional!?
I’d prefer they make no moves than ship out Kepler/Santana/Margot for someone marginally better than Paddack
Why don’t these financially struggling near broke poverty level owners use Gofundme to get the funds they need to maintain a quality baseball team?
What a dumb post. A team can’t add payroll at the deadline. But if a team makes the playoffs they will make plenty of money to offset any contracts they take in.
I am not familiar with the Twins’ ownership structure. If it is just the Pohlad family without any limited partners than in theory that scenario is far easier to put $ into the team. If there are limited partners then that becomes more difficult as the team would need to do a capital call and all the limited partners would also need to contribute pro-rata to maintain their ownership %.
While the Pohlad family might have a net worth of ~$4 billion how much is that net worth is the Twins team and just how liquid are they to inject cash into the Twins that will not come back to them anytime soon?
That said, ownership and baseball ops had to have planned for this potential before the season started and based on this post, it would appear ownership doesn’t plan to capitalize the team further to allow them to make add players/$. I suspect that like many ownership groups who got into MLB a generation ago, they are “poor” owners and as an ownership group do not have the true wealth required to operate a MLB team.
There’s also the issue of how do all the various family members view their ownership of the team. You saw this with the Angelos family in Baltimore, I believe the situation in Minnesota is similar less the intra=family lawsuits. I whole heartedly believe Oakland owner John Fisher’s entire net worth is his ownership of the A’s and family GAP stock and little else. The problem here is “net worth” isn’t cash and cash is what is required to pay the bills.
It should be a bigger story but Diamond/Bally’s has cast a shadow on the sport starting last summer and it’s not clear when there will be a “new normal” for the impacted teams. Much of the large growth in franchise values that Forbes puts out is from those local media rights contracts.
The Pohlad family collectively own the Twins.
John Fisher is also a founding partner of a private equity firm, owns small pieces of soccer teams in Europe, and is one largest land owners in California.
Wealthy people don’t spend their own cash, they borrow.
Well before they borrow they use “other people’s money”
Today’s announcement that CBT money is being rediverted to those impacted by the bankruptcy is a win for the Twins. Think how much goodwill they could accrue by matching whatever comes from MLB/CBT
On the flip side, this is a loss for Fisher. Fisher via that PE firm is a principal in two large timber companies in CA with the A’s and the GAP stock his other two assets. He does get $27M before taxes from his GAP stock which he oddly sold some of earlier in the year raising $32M.
MLB in late 2019 changed ownership rules for MLB teams, permitting Private Equity to take minority.LP stakes in teams. This was just a sign that buying and operating a team had moved past just being a rich family or wealthy local ownership group of individuals.
As interest rates normalize, expect to hear announcements of teams being put up for sale. This family situation in MN is the 3 sons collectively own the team however at some point in time like any family business, who are the next generation and how do they estate plan?
Jim is 71 remains the point person for the team to MLB but day to day has moved then next generation Joe, Jim’s nephew. How many people are in the next generation of the Pohlad family and don’t they look at what Baltimore just sold for and wonder….
We need someone like Cohen to buy out the Pohlads. I worked for both Calvin Griffith and the Pohlads, and at least Calvin had a reason to hold back. The Pohlads should just go all in or get all out.
Thank You Jeppeson. Was going to mention Calvin griffith for those griping about the Pohlad family.
You and other older fans will remember how mlb pretty much chased him out of the game and forced him to sell an organization he moved from DC to Minneapolis in like.. 1961? 62? and was it’s original owner in that town,
FA pretty much did in Griffith, not being a big shot owner, like it did Bill Veeck and Pohlad was looked at for years as a savior. Times do change for fickle people.
The Bally’s fiasco continues to hamstring half of baseball yet Robby the robot does nothing.
It’s such a shame to be in a contending window and finances won’t allow you to improve before the playoffs. Total sham! Twins fans deserve better.
To ALL the other 29 teams in the MLB…Be extremely Thankful You Do Not have shapiro and his useless carryon baggage the lackie GM atkins running your team….
FIRE the 2 CLEVELAND CLOWNS ….!! We have gone nowhere in 9 years !!
Unfortunately they are still in Toronto …