Twins

[Gunner55]

I would guess that Matt Wallner will get a shot at that spot. Wallner's OPS was almost .200 better than Kepler's last season & he's much younger too. He'll just be starting his 5th season, so he just signed a new deal for 1 year & $800K. So, that saves the Twins $9.2 million.

[dutchboy]

Rocco will set up another platoon with Wallner is my guess.

[Gunner55]

Yeah, he hit almost .100 better against righties, .275 vs .184.

[LPS]

Huge difference. 

[Gunner55]

  The sale of the Twins could be final by Opening Day, according to this. https://twinsdaily.com/news-rumors/minnesota-twins/sale-of-the-minnesota-twins-franchise-reportedly-trending-toward-completion-r17603/#comments

[dutchboy]

They're gonna have their hands full creating any excitement for them this year. I in a way hope they don't get sold until fall. I'd like to see how low the attendence figure can get.

They have done nothing this winter except trade for another catcher from the Dodgers the other day.

I truely love baseball but they keep making it harder and harder every year.

[Gunner55]

Most of the die-hards that post regularly on that site said much the same. They said that it probably wouldn't do much to get fans excited about this year's club but quite a few said they thought it could make the trade deadline a lot more interesting. Many said that just the sale itself & moving on from the Pohlads would rev them up some.

[dutchboy]

I dunno, fans are fickle. Seems there is a shelf life for owners. People are pretty jealous that these guys are rich and think they should spend every dollar they have on players. These people didn't get rich by being stupid and tossing money away. There is that fine balancing point between being a good owner (Mets) and being cheap asses (Twins, Cardinals,Cubs)

I doubt new ownership is going to change things much around here. They might spend an extra $50 million for a couple years but it will soon slide back to where they make an acceptable profit.

[Gunner55]

  I agree, nobody, including the biggest hedge fund guys, buy a pro sport franchise & intend on having it continuously lose money. But I'm also sure they all want to win too, so having to spend more on players should come as no surprise. They also should be smart enough to realize that turning a franchise around doesn't usually happen quickly. I have to see what next offseason looks like myself & then it might take another season or 2 to get things going the right way. 

[Steve-o]

Sports ownership is always a vanity investment:  status, prestige, etc.  I don't think anyone has lost money in the long run owning a pro franchise in one of the Big-4 sports.

Owning a baseball team seems to be different than other sports with salary caps.  Yeah, they got egos and want to win, but in baseball, that comes with an increasingly higher price tag.  I see three tiers.

Ya got the teams that spend whatever they think they need to spend every year to win a championship. 
Ya got the teams that won't play that game, but will go "all in" and spend extra while they've got a good thing going and at least try to make a World Series run. 
And ya got the teams that stick to their operating budget and that's it.