0:20

We are fresh off

0:22

the home opener. We

0:25

are present by black

0:27

stag brewing. Now in the

0:29

liquor store near you.

0:31

I'm Jean Bonoso Truis

0:33

Daily. That's the table for

0:35

me here in Cleveland. We

0:37

are fresh off the home

0:39

opener. Which, the first inning

0:41

could have been better, John.

0:43

I don't know if I'm

0:45

that fresh, but yeah. No,

0:47

well, what did I text

0:50

this morning? Are you alive?

0:52

Are you alive? And he

0:54

said, yeah. He said, yeah,

0:56

I'm okay. Yes, I am.

0:58

I said, you still want

1:00

to record at 9 AM

1:02

and he said, yes, let's. Yes,

1:04

let's. Which was an odd way

1:07

to reply, I don't know. Very

1:09

different. Opening Day,

1:11

very different ballpark experiences. John

1:13

led a cast of thousands

1:16

around the ballpark drinking,

1:18

including my beloved girlfriend, who

1:20

by the way, texted me.

1:22

Uh-oh. Last night, at 830, which you

1:25

guys must be on like your ninth

1:27

location at that point. And all

1:29

she said, I hadn't texted her for

1:31

a few hours since I left

1:33

the ballpark. I just text her, I

1:35

was like going home. She said, uh...

1:37

John is being very sassy towards me.

1:40

How was it? I didn't reply. I

1:42

was like, yeah, okay. I'm gonna guess

1:44

you deserved it. Probably. Yeah, she deserves

1:46

all the sass. There's a question about

1:49

that. So that was John's experience.

1:51

Dan Hayes next to me in

1:53

the press box spent, he has

1:55

new binoculars for this season that

1:57

he was very proud of. Okay.

1:59

He spent the majority of the game

2:02

trying to find John as if you

2:04

were wears Waldo and multiple. I forgot

2:06

the shirt. Yeah, right. You needed the

2:08

red and white. Yeah, that's right. Red

2:10

weights. Multiple times I said to him,

2:12

he's like scanning the park. He's like

2:14

looking up in the sky. He's like

2:17

focusing on the batter. I'm like. He's

2:19

probably in Great Duck, right? That's right.

2:21

I don't think we ever left Great

2:23

Duck. Now, I wasn't on the rail

2:25

in Green Duck. We were kind of

2:27

back by the bar. But I know

2:30

my customer. I know, I know my

2:32

tiny boy where he goes and see

2:34

their center field or Gray Duck or

2:36

something. So yeah, Dan was looking out

2:38

for you. It was a great first

2:40

inning. It was a great first. Actually,

2:42

the weather was less bad than I

2:45

expected it. Warm at the start of

2:47

the day the start of the game

2:49

when the sun was shining on us.

2:51

Yeah, we I wasn't gonna go stand

2:53

out on the the if you have

2:55

a media pass you can go stand

2:57

out on the field like for batting

3:00

practice or you can sit in the

3:02

dugout which I more often do because

3:04

I like to sit and I left

3:06

my jacket upstairs so I was like,

3:08

oh, I don't want to go out.

3:10

It was actually like very pleasant. So

3:13

you can't even really use the cold

3:15

as an excuse for them going over

3:17

after the first inning basically. But it

3:19

was very strange because Joe Ryan looked

3:21

phenomenal in the first inning. Yes, he

3:23

did. Both. He struck out three all-stars.

3:25

Altovey parades and Jordan Alvarez was the

3:28

scariest guy ever. an average like 94

3:30

and a half of this fastball got

3:32

up to 95 8 or whatever it

3:34

was and then pretty much every subsequent

3:36

inning he lost like a mile or

3:38

two per hour and by the end

3:41

he was at a couple fastballs that

3:43

were below 90 and we asked him

3:45

after the game like what's up and

3:47

he he you know because he missed

3:49

the last six weeks of last year

3:51

right and he had a little bit

3:53

of a weird spring training just a

3:56

little behind or doing some back field

3:58

work and stuff like that, but he

4:00

had a good first start, that's the

4:02

weird part against the Cardinals in St.

4:04

Louis, and He basically said, I didn't

4:06

feel fatigued, I just feel like I

4:09

need to get back in like the

4:11

rhythm of it, like pitching and ending,

4:13

sitting, going, but he said I didn't

4:15

feel too worried about it, but you

4:17

know, add him to the pile of

4:19

things that will be worth watching next

4:21

time out. And then the. Same thing,

4:24

they score a couple of runs. They

4:26

play some small ball, actually. I mean,

4:28

Walner almost hit a Homer to lead

4:30

it off. But after that, they scratch

4:32

out two runs. Flexing with a stolen

4:34

base. Yeah, a couple infield singles. They

4:36

get two runs off a really good

4:39

pitcher and Hunter Brown, you know, a

4:41

number one caliber starter, an all-star caliber

4:43

starter. And I'm thinking, oh wow, okay,

4:45

this can be a fun opener. And

4:47

then Ryan gives up back-to-back Homer's in

4:49

the second inning. We've seen that before

4:52

I mean his Achilles heel when he

4:54

struggles. It's almost always home runs right

4:56

because he's a fly ball pitcher But

4:58

then the fourth inning where he gave

5:00

up two more runs Was it just

5:02

a weird messy? It started he hit

5:04

a batter. Yeah, then he bought he

5:07

boxed two guys up based second and

5:09

third and if he hadn't balked they

5:11

don't play the infield in Rogers what

5:13

was a two run single to score

5:15

both those runs or both those runners

5:17

probably is an inning inning double play

5:20

and it's two to two at that

5:22

point and but then they mounted no

5:24

offense after that they went I think

5:26

15 of the last 16 were set

5:28

down by brown and then the bullpen

5:30

came in through three shutout I think

5:32

no hit innings it's you know well

5:35

the Buxton was the Buxton when they

5:37

hit no they're probably an error no

5:39

yeah yeah that was a I'm sorry,

5:41

Walter, Walter, that was an ear. That

5:43

wasn't ear hit. On the pitcher, I

5:45

think. Yeah. So you look, I mean,

5:47

there's not a lot, we're recording this

5:50

on Friday morning, off day. They're two

5:52

and five, they haven't beaten a team

5:54

yet, that's not the white socks. Which

5:56

we talked about this a lot last

5:58

year when they went 12 and 1

6:00

against the white socks. Like, I'm not,

6:03

you need to beat the white socks.

6:05

And so beating the white socks. they

6:07

took two out of three, or last

6:09

year took 12 out of 13. You

6:11

shouldn't criticize the team for beating the

6:13

White Sox, but it also doesn't really

6:15

pad your resume much. It's just sort

6:18

of like, you either took care of

6:20

business, or you should get criticized for

6:22

losing to them. They're not in that

6:24

spot, but their own four against non-

6:26

White Sox opponents. And it's been largely

6:28

similar stories here. Not only, you know,

6:31

the starting rotation has struggled for the

6:33

most part. That's being the unforeseen at

6:35

the problem, right? But the lineup, I

6:37

mean, it reminds me so much of

6:39

last April. Well, that too, but I'm

6:41

saying when it was cold, how I

6:43

looked up the numbers actually, last year

6:46

through 20 games, there are only seven

6:48

games in now, but through 20 games

6:50

last year, they had a seven and

6:52

13 record, they dug themselves a hole,

6:54

they hit 190. through the first 20

6:56

games. I remember, you know, Carlos Santana

6:59

was hitting one 10 and all this

7:01

stuff. They recovered after that to finish

7:03

okay in offense, obviously, but it reminds

7:05

me of that, because I, here are

7:07

their numbers through seven games, offensively, 180

7:09

batting average, 240 on-base percentage, a 294

7:11

slugging percentage, which equals a 534 OPS,

7:14

which is the worst in the American

7:16

League and second worst in all of

7:18

baseball. You know, the pitching staff also

7:20

has a 534 ERA, which is second

7:22

worst in the American League, only the

7:24

A's are worse. They've given up, the

7:26

pitchers have given up 12 homers and

7:29

59 innings. I mean, that's been the

7:31

issue, honestly. And there's been a bunch

7:33

of multi-run homers in there, not from

7:35

Ryan yesterday. And one from Ryan yesterday.

7:37

I looked it up, they only had

7:39

five bucks as a pitching staff all

7:42

last season. Not only do they have

7:44

two bucks so far, but every runner

7:46

involved came around to score. Two for

7:48

Lopez and two for Ryan and it

7:50

had a big impact on both games

7:52

and that's just not something you And

7:54

the Lopez one, it wasn't clear to

7:57

me that it was a balk. I

7:59

mean, I will say this. There was

8:01

a lot of discussion about whether or

8:03

not it was really a balk. We've

8:05

lost, you and I have watched a

8:07

lot of baseball. Twins and otherwise. 90%

8:10

of the time, a balk is called,

8:12

I'm like, okay, fine. But the Ryan

8:14

one yesterday, he like short-circuited basically. And

8:16

so afterward, what he said about that

8:18

was that he was that he was,

8:20

uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

8:22

uh, uh, uh... Jeffers, right? Yeah, Jeffers

8:25

was catching and he said we were

8:27

cycling through signs Because we just hadn't

8:29

gotten to the pitch I wanted to

8:31

throw Which is interesting because he really

8:33

only throws three pitches But okay, and

8:35

he said then I noticed like we

8:37

finally got the sign whatever the pitch

8:40

was we weren't on the same page

8:42

and I noticed oh Crap, there's one

8:44

second left on the pitch clock. Right.

8:46

And I forget what the count was,

8:48

but he didn't want to give up

8:50

the automatic ball and get called for

8:53

a violation. So what you can do

8:55

in that spot is disengage from the

8:57

mound. You don't even really have to

8:59

throw over. You just step off the

9:01

mount and that counts for your one

9:03

per plate appearance disengagement. Right. Except he

9:05

like freaked out while doing that and

9:08

his one foot moved before the other

9:10

one and he kind of hopped off

9:12

the mount and the umpire was just

9:14

like well what are you doing? I

9:16

mean even I was like that's something

9:18

right like what and he started to

9:21

argue and then he didn't argue and

9:23

then from there both guys are in

9:25

scoring position right Brennan Rogers hits a

9:27

what would be a double play and

9:29

past uh Korea yeah and then four

9:31

to two and that was it it

9:33

it's just such a weird and but

9:36

but but I hesitate to And

9:38

I don't think the twins like Baldelli

9:40

and the players haven't really used excuses

9:42

on this front, but it's so natural

9:44

We saw it last year when they

9:46

started so slow where it's like the

9:49

weather's bad or we're facing good pitching

9:51

or we've been unlucky We got it.

9:53

We asked Baldelli about it in spring

9:55

training He talked a little bit about

9:57

yeah, that's been a problem for us

9:59

hitting in the cold weather right to

10:01

me and you know Have they had

10:03

some hard hit balls caught? Sure. I

10:06

mean, Korea's hit some balls hard that,

10:08

you know, he shouldn't be hitting 80,

10:10

oh, 80, he might be hitting 180.

10:12

But the reality is, that's not really

10:14

that true, in my opinion. They haven't

10:16

faced phenomenal pitching. They've made some mediocre

10:18

pictures look phenomenal. Hunter Brown's a really

10:21

good picture, but think about, you know,

10:23

they faced Sunny Gray and Eric Fetti

10:25

and St. Louis. But these are not,

10:27

you know. Elite level pitching game after

10:29

game, they're hitting 180 against these guys.

10:31

It's the same stories last year. Have

10:33

they hit some hard hit balls that,

10:35

you know, been well struck that if

10:38

you hit a hundred of them, they're

10:40

gonna be a hit more often than

10:42

not? Yeah, but I don't think they've

10:44

been that unlucky really. And, you know,

10:46

the weather, I mean, I'm over the

10:48

weather. Guess what? You're a team in

10:50

Minnesota. Like, who cares? And Joe Ryan

10:52

even said. Yeah, somebody suggested maybe the

10:55

weather had to do with my velocity

10:57

fluctuating But I'm not a I don't

10:59

buy into that and I was I

11:01

wanted to like clap in the back

11:03

of the room like yeah, good Because

11:05

what does that do for you? You're

11:07

gonna be playing games and your opponent

11:09

by the way is playing in the

11:12

same weather right the Houston Astros in

11:14

fact pre-game talking to a couple of

11:16

their beat writers who were in town

11:18

Including My favorite people on the beat.

11:20

I met Chandler last night. I bet

11:22

you did. I bet you did. He's

11:24

fun. Yeah, he was nice. He showed

11:26

us a good time in Houston when

11:29

I was at the playoff game. I

11:31

always liked that. They had played all

11:33

seven previous games indoors with 72 degrees

11:35

and they were hit and coming into

11:37

the game even worse than the Twins.

11:39

They had more extra base hits yesterday

11:41

than they had in their first six

11:43

or seven games combined. They were as

11:46

cold in offense as the twins are.

11:48

And they're also a hot weather team

11:50

coming to play in the cold. So

11:52

yeah, I mean, I'm not saying these

11:54

excuses. some of them first of all

11:56

I'm not saying the twins are overwhelmingly

11:58

making them it's things that get mentioned

12:01

I just I'm over it at this

12:03

point like how many years in a

12:05

row can you talk about a poor

12:07

April or how many years in a

12:09

row can you talk about all this

12:11

stuff so it's frustrating the bigger concern

12:13

to me it's not yeah they're making

12:15

some you know weird mistakes etc the

12:18

bigger concern to me is it just

12:20

looks like this offense is stuck where

12:22

it was last year last I feel

12:24

as if this goes on longer and

12:26

longer and longer and it's only seven

12:28

games whatever But they've scored

12:30

three runs or fewer in five to

12:32

seven games. And the concern this year

12:35

about this team was the lineup. And

12:37

you know, just bigger picture, what you're

12:39

saying, I agree with, it's like, at

12:41

some point, if they, if this continues,

12:44

and they're not hitting, and you know,

12:46

they're just, it looks a lot like,

12:48

like last April, when everyone was obsessed

12:50

without cold, it wasn't all that, but

12:52

it really looks also a lot, like

12:55

you said. The collapse lineup where they

12:57

just no one hit they all just

12:59

kind of shut down at the same

13:01

time and You know at some point.

13:03

I don't know why you would be

13:06

surprised necessarily that a lineup that was

13:08

horrible the last two months last season

13:10

and really only made like one change

13:12

And it wasn't an upgrade necessarily is

13:15

now strong. It's the same group I

13:17

mean the hope had been you bringing

13:19

new hitting coaches the whole all the

13:21

the obsessive talk during spring training of

13:23

like we're changing how we're doing things

13:26

and all that But as we talk,

13:28

I mean, I, as I'm always known

13:30

to buzzkill stuff, while it was going

13:32

on during spring training, I said, why

13:34

are we assuming this is going to

13:37

work? Just because it's different. And it

13:39

sure as hell doesn't look different. And

13:41

the results have not been different. Now,

13:43

again, seven games, the sky's not falling.

13:46

There's 155 on them left. Today's an

13:48

off day, and they'll be back out

13:50

there on Saturday, they'll be back out

13:52

there on. I've just got enough questions

13:54

about enough players suddenly in the middle

13:57

of this rotation. i thought i thought

13:59

the biggest takeaway from yesterday wasn't oh

14:01

well they had a bok or you

14:03

know they're not hitting it such a

14:05

like that those i know the velocity

14:08

thing for ryan worried me yeah although

14:10

he has done that in the pep

14:12

he's probably i would say the most

14:14

prone to that in game yeah where

14:17

he'll flash ninety five and then be

14:19

ninety two and i don't know why

14:21

that is it's just mechanically i guess

14:23

something but i mean he's been asked

14:25

about that it just given

14:29

it's look it's similar to the collapse

14:31

and now if you were just struggling

14:33

for seven games we wouldn't be offensively

14:35

let's say sure we wouldn't be having

14:37

the same type of oh no conversation

14:39

if it wasn't on the heels of

14:41

the collapse same thing with Ryan if

14:43

he had a good first start in

14:45

St. Louis yeah I'm not saying he

14:47

was horrible yesterday I mean the balk

14:49

did him bad and you know whatever

14:51

him giving up a couple of solo

14:53

homers is kind of how things go

14:55

with him a lot of the time

14:57

And normally, he is a guy whose

15:00

velocity will fluctuate. Like he has a

15:02

very wide spectrum of velocity. Like there

15:04

are some guys who are just sort

15:06

of a very tight window, you know,

15:08

94 to 96. He's 90 to 96.

15:10

So that's not super uncommon, but because

15:12

he missed the final six weeks of

15:14

last season with an arm injury, a

15:16

shoulder injury, and had kind of a

15:18

odd spring training just from a workload

15:20

standpoint. Well, there is some context to

15:22

it that that makes it more than

15:24

just one bad start or more than

15:26

seven bad games for a lineup and

15:28

all that and unfortunately because of how

15:30

the twins finished and some of their

15:32

individual players finished either injured or struggling

15:34

it magnifies or at least Turns things

15:36

that might not be a red flag

15:38

on their own like on an island

15:40

into more plays into a narrative that

15:42

we already had to establish. It's a

15:45

very easy dots to connect and be

15:47

like Well, they're not hitting. Well, they

15:49

finished last year not hitting. Or Ryan's

15:51

velocity seems weird. Is he healthy? Or

15:53

what is all that said? They are

15:55

a half game on a first place.

15:57

Yeah. Fortunately for them, they have central

15:59

stakes. Yeah, there was a five-way tie

16:01

yesterday for first place at two and

16:03

four and last place at two and four

16:06

The twins were the only central team that

16:08

played yesterday and lost so now they're in

16:10

last place at two and five I half

16:12

game out I mean, that's the nice thing

16:14

the the beauty of the central and even

16:17

last year Which was one of the

16:19

central's best years in a long time right?

16:21

The beauty is like you don't have to

16:23

sprint out of the gates. You can

16:25

just treat Even short distances like a

16:27

marathon because you know nobody's gonna lap

16:29

you like there's not very rare I

16:31

mean last year they did right last

16:33

year Cleveland got out of the gates

16:36

really fast built up a eight-game lead

16:38

or something early on in April although

16:40

by mid August it was somewhat of

16:42

a race down like down to two

16:44

or three games so that's kind of

16:46

my that's what I'm saying now the

16:48

twins drop the ball and whatever but

16:50

so and the other thing you know do they miss

16:53

Royce Lewis absolutely but you know

16:55

I don't know that you can look at

16:57

what's going on so far and really blame

16:59

it on injuries because they really have three

17:01

guys injured. You know all due respect to

17:04

like Michael Tonkin and you know he wasn't

17:06

gonna have a big impact on these first

17:08

seven games and it's not like they're short

17:10

on bullpen arms like that hasn't been the

17:12

cause of this basically. They're down Royce Lewis

17:14

which he's one of their best players

17:16

except you know last time we saw

17:18

him in the regular season he was

17:20

one of their worst players so who

17:22

knows. They're down Brooks Lee, but again,

17:24

it's not like Brooks Lee had a

17:27

great rookie season anyway, like there are

17:29

questions about him anyway. And they're down

17:31

Brock Stewart. Now that hurts too, but

17:33

they haven't blown leads, which Brock Stewart's

17:35

impact would have been protecting late leads.

17:37

They just haven't had late leads, basically.

17:39

And if you look at the believers

17:41

and how often they've been used, their

17:43

best relievers have been used the least.

17:45

Like Jack and Duran have only pitched

17:47

twice. Some other guys have pitched three

17:49

or four times. Varlens pitched four times.

17:51

I'm not saying he's their worst reliever,

17:53

but he's clearly not elevated into that

17:55

class yet. So yeah, might they have another win

17:57

with Lewis Lee and Stewart? Yeah, maybe, but it's.

17:59

It strikes me that like that's

18:01

not even really that's another one

18:04

that I don't buy that as

18:06

an excuse. And I mean the

18:08

result of those lineup things that

18:10

are going on there are the

18:12

lineup injuries is that we're seeing

18:14

a lot of Harrison Bader in

18:16

left field which is probably Harrison

18:18

Bader in the lineup I think

18:20

is part of the effect of

18:23

all that. Well that's been a

18:25

good thing. You know we didn't

18:27

expect it to be a good

18:29

thing. Here's a stab for you.

18:31

Harrison Bader has three homers. They're

18:33

all against righties, which is the

18:35

weird part. He has three home

18:37

runs. The rest of the team

18:39

has two home runs. Not great.

18:42

Great for Harrison Bader, who I

18:44

chatted with briefly. He's very energetic,

18:46

I would say. Oh yeah. He's

18:48

got a very interesting energy. Like

18:50

he's just, I don't know. I'll

18:52

be curious how he is like

18:54

on a day to day for

18:56

six months basis. I get tired

18:58

looking at him, but also I

19:01

get tired waking up in the

19:03

morning. So some people are just

19:05

built. John's got a little of

19:07

that, where it's just like, a

19:09

little bouncy. Doing stuff energizes him

19:11

to do more stuff, where I'm

19:13

like, I don't get it, man.

19:15

Anyway, the last thing was, before

19:17

we get to some actual like,

19:20

you know, analysis, I guess. You

19:22

know we spent a lot of the

19:24

off-season Talking about the ownership crap and

19:27

the television crap. Yeah and the lack

19:29

of moves lack of trades lack of

19:31

science the payroll crap a lot of

19:34

a lot of not fun topics And

19:36

you know the are they really gonna

19:38

run back this roster just as it

19:41

was basically which they did and now

19:43

we're getting this result But one of

19:45

the things we talked about was you

19:47

know the poll ads are gonna be

19:50

a storyline the lack of moves or

19:52

storyline the front office coaching staff, the

19:54

players struggling down the stretch. All this

19:57

is a storyline up right up until

19:59

the point they win. Right. If they

20:01

win, if they were five and two

20:03

right now, let's say. And look, it's

20:06

still just seven games, but no one

20:08

would be talking about this stuff, but

20:10

they're not winning. And so like we

20:13

said, when that matches kind of the

20:15

preconceived narrative, and I also feel like

20:17

narrative, we use that word a lot

20:19

on the show. It's often like a

20:22

pejorative, like it's often like a criticism,

20:24

like oh that narrative, like it's wrong.

20:26

Well sometimes narratives are narratives for reasons.

20:29

They're a frame around the reality. And

20:31

so yeah, we did spend quite a

20:33

bit of the offices and being like,

20:35

there's no reason this team can't win,

20:38

especially within the AL Central, which is

20:40

a weak division. There was no standout

20:42

team. And I think the AL as

20:45

a whole struck us as like somewhat

20:47

wide open or at least not 100

20:49

win teams present. We saw that in

20:52

the overenders. But you gotta just win

20:54

baby you can't you can't stumble out

20:56

of the gates at two and five

20:58

Whatever support there was whatever and it

21:01

you know I'm not blaming the fans

21:03

for a damn thing the twins are

21:05

getting what they deserve in terms of

21:08

fan support and all that but I

21:10

They put a real hard press On

21:12

selling tickets to opening day sure they

21:14

opened it up for twins past which

21:17

means you could get in for four

21:19

dollars, which they haven't previously done right

21:21

and I got emails I'm on some

21:24

list which is hilarious to me they're

21:26

trying to tell me to boy barking

21:28

up the wrong tree but on multiple

21:30

fronts they were selling tickets for like

21:33

seven bucks eight bucks or whatever still

21:35

couldn't sell out opening day and you

21:37

were you saw more square footage of

21:40

the ballpark than I did I'd say

21:42

two-thirds full maybe Something like that. Yeah,

21:44

maybe three quarters. Yeah, maybe four or

21:47

fifths, whatever. It's like 70, 80. And

21:49

this is in no way criticism of

21:51

the fans. They're lucky to be three

21:53

quarters or two thirds full, given how

21:56

they've played so far, given all the

21:58

off season, given the overall vibes, but

22:00

when you're not selling out old. day

22:03

even though you're basically letting people in

22:05

for free right I think that speaks

22:07

more than anything and I'm going to

22:09

be very curious what the Saturday Sunday

22:12

because this is only a three-game home

22:14

stand which is good odd what the

22:16

Saturday and Sunday because that's always much

22:19

more telling second and third game are

22:21

much different than much more kind of

22:23

normal business as usual And they're usually

22:25

I mean they're usually probably some of

22:28

the lowest attended games of the year

22:30

the second and third is that right?

22:32

I think I think that's generally true.

22:35

Yeah, although the Astros are sort of

22:37

a good draw. They have been. It's

22:39

always funny to me that people boo

22:41

Altovei. The double play partner of Korea.

22:44

What are we booing? It was amazing.

22:46

I don't know if you realize what

22:48

you what you were watching. Five strike

22:51

outs. Oh for five with five strike

22:53

goats. For one of the great contact

22:55

hitters in modern history, a career three,

22:58

whatever hitter, first time in his career,

23:00

obviously, it's only the third time in

23:02

Twins history that a guy has gone

23:04

over five with five strikeouts. It's a

23:07

hilarious trio. I looked this up at

23:09

the end of the game. The trio

23:11

is two first ballot hall famer, El

23:14

Tuve, who will be a first ballot

23:16

home famer, and Reggie Jackson. And then,

23:18

uh, John Hicks, and you're starting like

23:20

once every two weeks, and I love

23:23

list like that one's like Okay, how

23:25

two of a mmm. That's weird Reggie

23:27

Jackson struck out a lot And the

23:30

third string catcher for the 2019 Tigers

23:32

John Hicks is like telling his grandkids

23:34

you I belong in some elite company

23:36

I do wonder like if you're John

23:39

Hicks and you're starting like once every

23:41

two weeks and you're over four with

23:43

four strike guts does it occur to

23:46

you like? Over five with five shark

23:48

goats gets me on a list for

23:50

the rest of my life. You know,

23:53

my brain is bad to think like

23:55

that. Before we get to some some

23:57

news and notes and other stuff, let's

23:59

talk about our first response. Our presenting

24:02

sponsor Black Stack Brewing, where we had

24:04

a party, we had a opening day

24:06

party just a week ago. You and

24:09

200 of your closest friends. 200 plus

24:11

closest friends. And it was great. I

24:13

mean, it's a great, if it was

24:15

a great location. Yeah, it's like 94

24:18

and 280. Yep. Good space, big space.

24:20

I saw a lot of good pictures from

24:22

it. Becky, Becky enjoyed it. But

24:24

also, I mean, the nice thing

24:26

about the taproom is they have. a

24:28

wider variety of beers than they have

24:31

in distribution, right? So all of their

24:33

hazies were available there. They have so

24:35

many good hazy beers. Final Fantasy Four,

24:37

I think, was the one that I

24:39

really, really liked. But also they're getting

24:42

distributed in liquor stores. That is correct.

24:44

That's the big change for them. And

24:46

that's what we're alerting everyone to, which

24:49

is they are getting wider and wider

24:51

distribution and odds are whatever your go-to

24:53

liquor store is. They're either already available

24:55

there. Or if you say, hey, you

24:58

guys should get Blackstack, it's gonna be

25:00

available. That's exactly right. I mean,

25:02

it used to be that you could only

25:04

get them at sort of the specialty beer

25:06

stores or something like that. But now you

25:09

can find, I'll just recommend Local 755 New

25:11

England IPA. If you're in the IPAs, you're

25:13

going to love that. We hear from people

25:15

in social media like, hey, thanks for recommending

25:18

Blackstack brewing. This is my new summer beer.

25:20

So. Anyway, check out, you know, so stop

25:22

by Blackstack Brewing, it's near 94 and 280,

25:25

or even easier ask them for them at

25:27

your local liquor store, and check out some

25:29

of their. Our second sponsor, we just

25:31

did a sponsor that is a brewery.

25:33

Now we're doing a sponsor that wants

25:36

to reach out and talk directly to

25:38

people who work at bars and breweries.

25:40

That's right. If they're looking to bring

25:42

people into those businesses, there's

25:44

a new option for hosting,

25:46

amazing bar trivia. It's just

25:48

fun to play. Public quiz

25:50

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25:52

You don't have to play

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on your smartphones. It gets

25:57

people interacting instead of just

25:59

sitting there. and you don't have

26:01

to worry about cheating. That's right, yeah.

26:03

And the best part of it is

26:05

that it's no frills because it's affordable,

26:08

right? You can just host it yourself.

26:10

You don't have to bring somebody else

26:12

from another organization into your bar and

26:15

set up all their stuff that's set

26:17

up on, no. For just 20 bucks

26:19

a week, you get a new themed

26:22

set of questions and answers delivered to

26:24

your inbox every week. So all the

26:26

tools you need to host a successful

26:29

profitable, profitable trivia night, you just get.

26:31

that's sent to you in your inbox

26:33

for 20 bucks a week. And we

26:35

can attest to the work that the

26:38

man behind this, Andrew, he's a listener

26:40

and also we've attended one of his

26:42

new events that Doe Young Park hosted

26:45

a year ago or two years ago

26:47

at Latonia. Yeah, it was a great

26:49

time. Yes. And We've also been to

26:52

his old brewery and he treated us.

26:54

Yeah, kings there. We had a really

26:56

good time. Yeah, so if you're part

26:59

of an organizer, they also do custom

27:01

trivia for events or parties. So if

27:03

you have, you know, if you're doing

27:06

a special event for your business or

27:08

something like that, they can take care

27:10

of you there too. It's a really

27:12

simple name to remember. It's no frills

27:15

trivia.com. Okay. We

27:18

we tried to get because Royceless

27:20

wasn't on the road trip obviously

27:22

because he's rehabbing Brooks Lee and

27:25

Brock Stewart and I think Tonkin

27:27

aren't even in Minnesota There's don't

27:29

Fort Myers because they're dealing with

27:31

their injuries, but We tried to

27:33

get an update from Lewis or

27:35

from fall viewer from the trainer

27:37

Nick pop rest on Lewis the

27:39

status Didn't receive it. We're hoping

27:41

to get one Saturday Sunday. So

27:43

once we get that and hopefully

27:45

get an update on Stuart and

27:47

Lee and Tonkin and various other

27:50

injured guys, even some minor league

27:52

guys I want some updates on,

27:54

we'll have that hopefully for the

27:56

patron crew. our beloved patron subscribers

27:58

Monday morning first thing Monday morning

28:00

and we'll recap the whole Astro

28:02

series at that point correct yeah

28:04

we shouldn't I mean the patron

28:06

has shifted from per episode to

28:08

monthly so it's eight bucks a

28:10

month and so you're gonna get

28:12

more than eight episodes right so

28:15

actually the per episode price has

28:17

dropped were such brilliant businessman lowered

28:19

our price and We're coming up

28:21

with kind of bonus, now that

28:23

everything's, it's all in one subscription.

28:25

And we don't feel like everything

28:27

has to be a dollar. John

28:29

did a special like 25 minute

28:31

video reviewing the new food items

28:33

at Target Field that he tried.

28:35

I posted the podcast I did

28:37

with the racket, kind of anything

28:39

we can think of to just

28:42

add something else to the subscription.

28:44

So we would love to have

28:46

you join us and if you

28:48

want to update on. Lee

28:50

Lewis Stewart etc. We'll probably have

28:53

that before we'll cover the whole

28:55

Monday morning on Monday morning We'll

28:57

probably have a you know a

28:59

Mailbag on Wednesday. Yeah multiple? Commercial

29:01

free patron exclusive at hour and

29:04

a half long. Yeah, plus we'll

29:06

start to have some gas on

29:08

Patron.com/grooming P-A-T-R-E-O-N-P-A-T-R-E-O-N-P-T-A-O-N-P-T-A-T-A-A-A-A-O-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A- Just it's not going

29:10

to be a great update if

29:13

they're avoiding giving it I don't

29:15

mean like it's a new injury

29:17

It's worse than but you know

29:19

we speculated not based on anything

29:22

the twin said but just based

29:24

on other guys who had moderate

29:26

left hamstring strains including Jorge Planco

29:28

in 2023 it tends to center

29:30

around six weeks as like a

29:33

baseline. Well, it's been what three

29:35

two or three weeks something like

29:37

that so I mean he was

29:39

walking around he looked okay it

29:42

was crawling or anything like that

29:44

but so we'll see hopefully an

29:46

update over the over the weekend

29:48

I did think as I was

29:50

sitting there looking at the crowd

29:53

and watching them lose and just

29:55

kind of the malaise of it

29:57

all, how different it felt. not

29:59

that long ago October 23 where

30:02

it was just euphoria I had the same

30:04

seat looking at the same crowd just

30:06

a completely different vibe and I saw

30:08

like Joe Paul I'd walk around yesterday

30:10

and all this stuff and I just

30:12

thought well two things occurred to me

30:15

one this is the twins it was

30:17

the twins first home opener without Dave

30:19

St. Peter as team president since 2003

30:21

right 22 years ago whatever it was

30:23

started okay I mean he had a

30:25

different job before that before that but

30:28

it was and I personally

30:30

hope it's their last opening day out

30:32

of 41 owned by the poll ads.

30:34

Now, that's not set in stone. Right,

30:36

yeah, most definitely. But I would

30:39

say just from, maybe for

30:41

different or the same, but from

30:43

stuff I've heard and talking

30:45

to a couple people yesterday,

30:47

I don't know that they're close

30:49

to a sale, but I think things

30:51

are at least continuing to move forward

30:53

on that front, at least if, I'll

30:56

say this. They got me fooled at

30:58

least. Okay. And I continue to think

31:00

things are still going to keep advancing.

31:02

I still think they're going to sell

31:04

the thing. I mean, I do too because because

31:07

I think they are motivated sellers, but we

31:09

were talking about that for a year to

31:11

have. So, you know, I don't want to

31:13

get into too much on that front. I'll

31:15

leave that to Dan Hayes to do the

31:17

actual reporting and all that. But since we

31:19

last did the free show to. We talk about

31:22

the $475 million. $425,000,000. $425,000,000. Well,

31:24

that was two, three weeks ago.

31:26

You could be higher. Yeah, that's

31:28

right. I didn't pay for media

31:30

lunch yesterday. I just skipped it

31:32

so they didn't get my 16

31:34

bucks on that. Yeah, I don't

31:37

know. I mean, I don't know

31:39

if we talked about that on

31:41

the free. That's an example of

31:43

stuff if you want. deeper dives on

31:45

that go that's a set up a patron and

31:47

get on give it try for a month you'll

31:50

like it even when the twins are playing

31:52

bad I mean hell there's somebody asked

31:54

me this I did a read it AMA the

31:56

other day which I'd never done before I had

31:58

to create a read it account which I

32:00

may never use, may become addicted, who

32:03

knows. And one of the questions was

32:05

like, what are you guys gonna do

32:07

on the podcast if the twins, like

32:10

if this doesn't get better? Like if

32:12

they're just bad. And I said, oh

32:14

brother, you don't know. We started this

32:16

in 2011. The first 90 lost season,

32:19

they had five and six years. It

32:21

was one of the worst stretches in

32:23

twin history is when we started the

32:26

podcast. We're used to this by now,

32:28

and I will say this. Obviously, in

32:30

2011, it had gotten bad enough that

32:32

they were firing everybody. 2016, I guess.

32:35

And, by the way, my childhood, you

32:37

know, my first baseball memories were like

32:39

91 when in the World Series, but

32:41

then if you look at what happened

32:44

in the five to eight years after

32:46

that, it was horrible. I mean, it's

32:48

probably the worst stretch in franchise history.

32:51

That's when I was a teenager. falling

32:53

in love with baseball yeah so our

32:55

brains are already broken like it and

32:57

and i was 1974 to 1983 right

33:00

which was much better yeah if and

33:02

obviously we would prefer the twins to

33:04

play well personally professionally whatever it's just

33:07

more fun to talk about a winning

33:09

team sure but i don't know that

33:11

a winning team is necessarily always more

33:13

interesting to talk about sure It's more

33:16

fun to talk about and more enjoyable

33:18

and there are more people interested in

33:20

talking about them. But I don't know

33:22

that the topics themselves are any more

33:25

interesting than a losing team. Now they're

33:27

definitely, I'd take a winning team or

33:29

a losing team over a mediocre team.

33:32

But losing teams have much different topics.

33:34

Fireings, massive changes, trades for prospects, that

33:36

sort of thing. And when there's a

33:38

lot of little moves that go on

33:41

with a losing team to try and...

33:43

gradually watch it get better. I also

33:45

think that a lot of the interest

33:47

has to do with which direction it's

33:50

going. If this team is not who

33:52

we thought they were, that they are

33:54

not an 80 plus win team, that

33:57

the offense Just doesn't develop that none

33:59

of the players that we thought were

34:01

going to be sort of you know

34:03

Had you know all-star ceiling availability to

34:06

them, you know, two years ago, and

34:08

they just don't continue to develop It's

34:10

gonna make for a tough year. Yeah,

34:13

it what? It's gonna trend down and

34:15

it's gonna trend down hard. Well, I

34:17

think that's a big I agree that's

34:19

I still and again. I'm just dome

34:22

naive I don't think this is a

34:24

horrible team. They've played horribly through seven

34:26

games and they played horribly for the

34:28

last 30 something games of last year.

34:31

So I mean the evidence is mounting.

34:33

Unfortunately. But I continue to believe that.

34:35

But we thought the same thing by

34:38

the end of August too. Like this

34:40

just doesn't, that's bad a team, this

34:42

little two weeks stretch that they've had

34:44

to play really poorly. And then at

34:47

some point then another four weeks. The

34:49

samples get bigger and you have to

34:51

adjust your I do think that a

34:53

large part of, you know, malaise, like

34:56

I said, or just the femoral sinking,

34:58

and I suspect we're going to start

35:00

to see that in ticket sales in

35:03

a real meaningful way, and if we

35:05

ever find out about the streaming numbers,

35:07

I suspect they're going to keep those

35:09

secret, but is what you just said,

35:12

a sense that not only are they

35:14

playing poorly, but like, where does this,

35:16

like, what are they latch on to

35:19

as they're falling? And it's becoming tougher

35:21

and tougher to kind of point to,

35:23

well, just grab a hold of that

35:25

and pull yourself back up, because it's

35:28

like, okay, we thought this was gonna

35:30

be, we thought that was gonna be,

35:32

I thought the starting pitching was gonna

35:34

be a strength this year, you know,

35:37

all this, the changes that they talked

35:39

about, and it's a difficult spot, we

35:41

talked about this in the last patron,

35:44

so I won't get that far into

35:46

it, but it's a difficult spot to

35:48

be a week and a week and

35:50

a half into a season that's six

35:53

months long. with a team that's played

35:55

as poorly as they have and all

35:57

the narrative surrounding it. Right. But I

35:59

don't think it does anybody any favors

36:02

if we were to sit here and

36:04

go, they got to load the whole

36:06

thing up, they gotta fire everyone, this

36:09

team's headed towards 100 losses, because I

36:11

don't believe that. And I'm not gonna

36:13

say that just for clicks and hot

36:15

takes and all that. And maybe we'll

36:18

be proven wrong in two months from

36:20

now, we will say, man, we should

36:22

have seen this come in. But I

36:25

just think the talent level on this

36:27

team is too high. And that's even

36:29

with. We've spent off-season kind of talking

36:31

about some of the guys like you

36:34

just mentioned like have we or have

36:36

the twins even kind of overstated even

36:38

internally what the true talent level of

36:40

this is with some of the, especially

36:43

on the hating side, I would say.

36:45

With the 20-something year old hitters. Are

36:47

we worried that, you know, Julian is

36:50

never going to become Julian, the Julian

36:52

that we saw in 2023? Are we

36:54

worried that Miranda is never going to

36:56

show through the promise that he showed

36:59

in the middle of last year? But

37:01

even with a lot of those question

37:03

marks, I just, I don't see this

37:06

as a truly like terrible team. Now,

37:08

I'm absolutely at this point. several weeks,

37:10

hopefully starting tomorrow, but it's just it's

37:12

tricky. There's almost there's only so much

37:15

analysis, you know, meaningful analysis as opposed

37:17

to just mad or whatever that you

37:19

can do about seven games good or

37:21

bad. But there's also only so much

37:24

like you can do seven games in

37:26

for a team that like I just

37:28

I look at it and it's just

37:31

like this is not a 90 lost

37:33

team. It shouldn't be. And if it

37:35

is by the way. This team's gonna

37:37

get people fired. Oh, and it should

37:40

like if this is a 94 lost

37:42

team or something like that I don't

37:44

given How last year ended I just

37:46

punched my microphone out of anger so

37:49

mad. I can't take it anymore Better

37:51

it than you John. Yes, you're too

37:53

far across the table. I don't have

37:56

that great of a reach That's why

37:58

I got a long table. Yeah, I

38:00

have a Desmond bained as Bainesk winspan.

38:02

There's a NBA reference for his very

38:05

short arm. But you know, if it does

38:07

get to that point, and we

38:09

actually we talked about this

38:11

at the end of last season

38:13

like after fall these kind

38:15

of closing statement thing,

38:18

or it was like, yeah, you can

38:20

probably all keep your jobs

38:22

and they did. And you can.

38:24

Turns out not make many meaningful

38:26

changes. But I don't know that

38:28

you can do that and then

38:30

have it fall completely flat. That's

38:32

right. There not be any consequences.

38:34

That's right. And hopefully long time

38:36

listeners of ours know, even going

38:38

back to the garden hire days

38:41

or whatever, we're not really called

38:43

for people's jobs type of guy. I

38:45

just don't really see the value in that.

38:47

But by the end of the Gardi era,

38:49

there were... Such little historic

38:51

precedent for a guy keeping his

38:53

job after like you know five

38:55

ninety lost seasons out of six

38:57

years or whatever it was and

38:59

that's not the case here because

39:01

their struggles aren't that extreme yet

39:04

But I just think how can you

39:06

end last season the way you did have the

39:08

basic non-existent off-season that

39:10

you did and ownership played a

39:12

part in that with the payroll

39:15

limitation. I'm not saying otherwise and

39:17

if you fall flat this year Well,

39:19

who's the scapegoat at that point? I

39:22

mean, you're already fired the hitting coach

39:24

right? I mean, like at some point,

39:26

I don't know and I Actually kind

39:29

of feel like The players have to

39:31

right and I don't mean fire the

39:33

players because whatever what I mean is

39:35

like and maybe they should have come

39:37

to this conclusion Coming off

39:39

last year. I mean we spent

39:41

the first part of the off-season

39:44

kind of saying is that this core

39:46

need shaking up right? you know, do

39:48

they need to make a big change

39:50

somewhere? Right, and that wouldn't necessarily require

39:52

a lot of payroll flexibility. Like you

39:55

can trade a 27 year old

39:57

arbitration eligible player for a different

39:59

27. or for prospects or for whatever

40:01

you want and so you know I always

40:03

point to the players first good and

40:05

bad I mean you will rarely have heard

40:07

us either of us say even in

40:09

like 2019 whatever one ball deli

40:12

one manager the year he wouldn't have

40:14

been in my top 15 things for why

40:16

they want sure and that's I'm not trying

40:18

to insult him but the flip side is

40:20

also true like when they're losing I point

40:22

to the here here's honestly how I do

40:24

it and maybe you disagree good or bad

40:26

I always point to the players

40:28

first and that might seem simple

40:30

but I'm shocked across all sports

40:33

how often that isn't the case

40:35

like a losing team it's always

40:37

about something other than the players

40:39

I'll always point to the players

40:41

second I'll always point to the people who

40:43

chose the players which is a front

40:45

office yeah fair and then I mean

40:47

you could you can find things that

40:49

managers screw up absolutely and if that's

40:51

the case but I'm not seeing a

40:54

lot of that what I'm seeing is

40:56

him trotting out what I think is

40:58

you know about the way I would

41:00

trot it out and they're just not

41:02

performing right and interestingly enough from the

41:04

from the front office standpoint the guys

41:06

they brought in like

41:08

Bader and France those

41:10

are the guys who are actually

41:12

doing something so far this week where

41:15

it versus in 160 but yeah

41:17

nobody's been doing

41:19

anything I mean the problem is they

41:21

didn't bring in anyone well so yeah France

41:23

has three homers I mean Bader has

41:25

three homers I'll give you that but I

41:27

mean the other two guys were like

41:29

a okay first baseman who's hitting 160 and

41:31

he's again had some hard hit balls like

41:33

you said and I've you know lefty

41:35

middle reliever was pitched three times well in

41:37

inconsequential spots so it hasn't really meant

41:39

anything but I I'm

41:42

not saying you know give Baldelli a

41:44

contract extension I have no problem with

41:47

people I mean he has to take

41:49

ownership no pun intended after the

41:51

ownership discussion of this team I

41:53

mean this team is now played a third of

41:55

a season as the worst team in the

41:57

league yeah I mean that's that's the reality But

42:00

the weird thing is they've

42:02

played so badly that it

42:04

almost makes it hard for

42:06

the manager to affect things.

42:08

Now, behind the scenes, sure,

42:10

sure. But when the lineup is

42:13

hitting 180, including, you

42:15

know, Carlos Kray at O80 and,

42:17

you know, go down the line,

42:19

and the pitching staff has a

42:21

550 ERA. What strings

42:23

was he going to pull there? I

42:26

mean, they haven't had a late lead

42:28

for him to choose relievers. They had

42:30

that once, basically. There's been no pinch

42:33

hitting, really, because they've been down five

42:35

runs right away. And that's

42:37

frustrating, too, because it's not five

42:39

runs right away. And that's frustrating,

42:41

too, because it's not that fun

42:43

to just go, they're so bad,

42:45

there isn't even that much to

42:47

talk about. In terms of, in the

42:50

fifth inning, they should have. Well, can

42:52

you really do other than climb out

42:54

of that hole hopefully over the next

42:56

couple of weeks? I mean, we saw

42:58

it last year. They climbed out of

43:01

it last year. Unfortunately, then they fell

43:03

in a different hole in mid-August. To

43:05

some extent, you know, the manager

43:07

is responsible for when that, when

43:09

this kind of thing happens, you

43:12

know, people look to the manager

43:14

to have some sort of mystical

43:16

ability to provide a rally sausage

43:18

or something like that, you know what I

43:20

mean? to objectively evaluate,

43:22

you know, whether or not he can

43:25

do anything about that. But I just think

43:27

it's true, I think we've, or at

43:29

least I strive to be pretty

43:32

consistent even when things are

43:34

going extremely well for them. I

43:36

just don't think that the manager

43:38

has that much pull and I also

43:40

think it's just such an easy

43:42

thing. Fire the codes, fire the

43:44

manager. It's like, it's almost always

43:47

the players. You know. When you're paying

43:49

a guy 35 mil and he's the

43:51

face of your team in Carlos Gray and

43:53

he gets oh 80 What do you think

43:55

rockable though? He's gonna do how

43:58

entertaining was it watch him? his arms

44:00

up in the air around first base on

44:02

Wednesday after. Yeah, he got his first, he

44:04

snapped the over 18 with like the cheapest

44:06

single ever, which is funny because he had

44:08

a bunch of hard hit balls go for

44:10

outs. And I think they got the baseball

44:12

as if it was the first hit of

44:14

his career. And yeah, he threw his hands

44:16

up and they were celebrating. It was funny.

44:18

I mean it. You know, it's

44:21

gallows humor, I guess, at some point.

44:23

It is a little bit, it's also

44:25

very because, you know, you know, you

44:27

know, if you asked him before he'd

44:29

be like, I'm not worried about it,

44:32

blah, blah, blah, blah, then you see

44:34

him, the relief that he has, that

44:36

ball squeaks through the infield, and he

44:38

throws his arms up in the air,

44:40

and like, yeah, you're maybe the case

44:42

when you start two and five, but

44:45

I feel like even within that context,

44:47

there's on and off the field. I

44:49

tried to put together a list of

44:51

like bright spots. Sure. I don't see

44:53

if you can either agree with these

44:55

or think of another one, but it's

44:58

a pretty short list so I can

45:00

go over it. All right. They're gonna

45:02

take the rest of the show. This

45:04

first watching Buxton yesterday, yeah. One day

45:06

after he hit a 450 foot Homer,

45:09

he used his legs to get two

45:11

infield singles and then stole his first

45:13

base, came around to score. It is

45:15

fun to watch him right now. He

45:17

ended last season healthy, which was a

45:19

rarity. He had a healthy full off-season,

45:22

which has been a rarity for him,

45:24

and he arrived at and exited spring

45:26

training healthy, which is even another rarity

45:28

for him. It's just very... He started

45:30

all seven games. He's in the center

45:32

field, too. Right, yeah. Which is interesting,

45:35

I'll see, after an off day, he

45:37

should be in there Saturday, too. Harrison

45:39

Bader hasn't played center for him, he's

45:41

been exclusively a corner guy. He's

45:44

had, I mean, for the most part,

45:46

when healthy, enough to play, he's been

45:48

great. I mean, look at his numbers.

45:51

It's always great numbers in 75 games,

45:53

or last year, 102 games, which was

45:55

his most since 2017. But he does

45:57

look actually healthy now. to just healthy

46:00

enough to be good when he's on

46:02

the field. And the way I always

46:04

look is running, but he's always fast.

46:07

And he's been fast even when it

46:09

hurt to the point that we've talked

46:11

about like he'll steal a base. There's

46:13

been years where he stole a base

46:16

and it was incredibly fast and then

46:18

it took him 30 seconds to pick

46:20

himself up off the ground. What we've

46:22

seen now is he's incredibly fast. He's

46:25

made some good catches in center field,

46:27

he's run the base as well, he's

46:29

beat out singles, he stole a base

46:31

yesterday, like I said. But also, like,

46:34

he seems able to stop himself while

46:36

running, as opposed to like, sometimes when

46:38

he's injured and his hip is hurting

46:40

or his knee is hurting, he looks

46:43

like one of those race cars where

46:45

they put the parachute behind it to

46:47

gradually slow it down. And now he's

46:50

making hard stops, he doesn't appear to

46:52

be in pain, he can hop back

46:54

up. That's different

46:56

and you know he also then

46:58

the day before hits a 450

47:00

foot Homer I mean that's the

47:02

Byron Buxton experience Unfortunately injuries have

47:04

also been the Byron Buxton experience,

47:06

but he's looked as healthy And it's

47:09

not like he's hitting 350. He's

47:11

off to like a mediocre start

47:13

overall, but he just looks Actually

47:15

healthy as opposed to in past

47:17

years healthy enough to keep playing right

47:19

and still be good. But he

47:21

actually looks and he talks like

47:23

a guy who it feels different.

47:25

Yes, yeah, it does One of

47:27

my favorite moments from that first

47:29

meeting yesterday was when he got that

47:31

little bloop infield single and they

47:33

pick up the ball such a

47:35

strange had so much backspin on

47:37

it that it like such a

47:39

weird thing right and the pitcher pitches

47:42

picks it up to throw to

47:44

first base the camera the camera

47:46

work on it was fantastic in

47:48

that by the time the camera

47:50

got followed the ball to first

47:52

base Buxton not only had beat it

47:54

out he wasn't even in the

47:56

frame of the Like you could

47:58

see 40 feet down the line

48:00

and he was already outside of

48:02

it. He didn't even, it was just

48:04

fit. I was like, it's like

48:06

he's disappeared. Yeah. He was that

48:08

one, Doe Young Park, who cannot

48:10

quit the twins, posted it was

48:13

like 31 five on the sprint

48:15

speed, which anything about 30 is like

48:17

considered elite speed even for Buxton.

48:19

So he was moving. I loved

48:21

that camera. So yeah, that was,

48:23

everyone seems very excited about that,

48:25

including Buxton, which, you know. There's

48:28

not enough wood in the world to

48:30

knock on for this, but... For patron

48:32

listeners, heard this, but somebody's gonna make

48:34

us, a woodworker's gonna make us a

48:36

piece of wood, like a design gleaming

48:38

and geek piece of wood for John

48:40

to knock on every time here and

48:42

tries to jinx us. Yeah. Here's a

48:44

couple other... Bader hitting the three home

48:46

runs is a bright spot, although like

48:48

you see it in like two ten,

48:51

but yeah, I'll take it. Three homers.

48:53

He has three homers all against Rides

48:55

already after seven in like 300 played

48:57

appearances against Rides. Last year, that's been

48:59

clearly a bright spot. And as you

49:01

pointed out, some of the negatives, injuries

49:03

and you know, guys like Miranda and

49:05

Julian not stepping up forward have created

49:07

an opportunity for Bader and he's. pop

49:09

three homers including between between Lewis and

49:11

you know Julian and Miranda not really

49:14

doing anything there's just You can take

49:16

a look at the line of I

49:18

go well do I want one of

49:20

these guys who's not really providing much

49:22

either offensively or defensively Or do I

49:24

just want the guy who's probably? Or

49:26

defensively or defensively? Or do I just

49:28

want the guy who's probably not going

49:30

to be that good? defensively said yes,

49:32

so I tried to ask Baldelli yesterday

49:34

Or I forget who asked, but because

49:37

I was curious, like, is this just

49:39

an example of a 10-year veteran in

49:41

Bader who, it's not like he hasn't

49:43

had power, but his numbers against Rides,

49:45

as we've talked about a few times,

49:47

just aren't that good, to the point

49:49

that he is someone you would look

49:51

at the career track record against Rides

49:53

and not want to play him a

49:55

lot. My question has been kind of

49:58

like, has he just, you know, put

50:00

three good swings on pitches, including a

50:02

couple that were just, you know, meatballs,

50:04

but whatever, you still got to take

50:06

advantage. Or is there kind of something

50:08

behind the scenes going on? Did the

50:10

twins target him because they thought there

50:12

was something to fix? And Baldell was

50:14

asked about that yesterday and basically just

50:16

said, well, Bader's been injured a lot.

50:18

That is true. That is something we

50:21

probably have not talked about. So we

50:23

feel like he's healthy now and that

50:25

helps. And Baldelli also basically said, look,

50:27

this is a guy who's had power

50:29

before. Maybe not consistently, but you look

50:31

at him and he's a guy who

50:33

looks like he's going to have power.

50:35

Yeah, that's true. And you know, he's

50:37

averaged 15 homers per 150 games or

50:39

something like that, 15, 20 homers over

50:41

the years. And so would it take

50:44

that much for him to pop 15

50:46

20 homers? 20 homers? No, if they're

50:48

going to play them regularly. But there

50:50

wasn't like a, yes, we, we highlighted

50:52

this. Because he saw that, you know,

50:54

he need to make an adjustment on

50:56

this type of pitch or blah, blah,

50:58

blah, blah. And once he did that,

51:00

we've unlocked something new. Right. Which that

51:02

would have been very satisfying to hear

51:05

that. Yes. Like, oh yeah, we thought

51:07

against Rites, he was, you know, he

51:09

was taking a stride the wrong direction

51:11

and we thought this and we thought

51:13

this. But the health narrative is interesting.

51:15

But the health narrative is interesting. That

51:18

he had a reputation for not being

51:20

able to stay particularly healthy and even

51:22

I mean one of the things that

51:24

he talked about even in spring training

51:26

I think Was like well, you know

51:28

last year at least you know, I

51:30

didn't have a great year But at

51:32

least I stayed on the field like

51:34

you know, although we get like 160

51:36

in the second I know I know

51:38

but yeah, but yeah, he also he

51:40

also did not do he also had

51:42

a hot start last year Yeah, for

51:44

the first half and then faded a

51:46

lot in the second half and you

51:48

know for a guy who has not

51:50

been healthy most of his career it's

51:52

not too surprising that he gets three

51:54

months into the season and maybe he's

51:56

running out of gas a little bit

51:58

in the second half you know yeah

52:00

so we'll see it's quite a way

52:02

could be a month from now when

52:04

he still has three homers and this

52:06

seems like a you know topic that

52:08

we don't even remember but and then

52:10

the other I said it'd be a

52:12

short list bright spot Willie Castro's hitting

52:14

okay really yes just right yeah like

52:16

I mean this is where we're at

52:18

like a guy who's sort of hitting

52:20

his career norms were like there's a

52:22

bright spot right there's been 13 position

52:25

players to step to the plate for

52:27

the twins this year Bader and Castro

52:29

the only ones with an OPS of

52:31

even 700 yeah that's remarkable. Yes. And

52:33

the last bright spot, because I tried

52:35

to get more than three, Pablo's looked

52:37

mostly okay, like from a velocity standpoint

52:39

and standpoint. He looked awesome versus the

52:41

White Sox, but right. But the first

52:43

start, like he botched it with his

52:45

own fielding, right. Yes. Again St. Louis.

52:47

But you know, the stuff is good

52:49

and as I guess I kind of

52:51

thought about this as I was watching

52:53

Ryan lose four miles an hour during

52:55

the yesterday's game, where at least Lopez

52:57

has kind of maintained the raw stuff,

52:59

the strikeouts haven't quite been there, but

53:01

that's really all I've got for bright

53:03

spots. I'll add Varlind. I think Varlind

53:05

has looked pretty good and I like

53:07

the fact that they're you feeling empowered

53:09

to use him a lot in a

53:11

lot of situations. You got hit hard

53:13

yesterday. And you give well. Two games

53:15

ago, but I think the issue with

53:17

Varlen, I mean, I do like that

53:19

they're using him. He's been used, I

53:21

think he's got a team high four

53:23

appearances on seven games. It's clear he's

53:25

being used as like a traditional, I

53:27

would say secondary setup man, one inning

53:29

at a time, which I like that.

53:31

I think in time he will succeed

53:33

in that role. But yesterday was a

53:35

good example of, well, actually something we

53:38

talked about with all pitchers, the kind

53:40

of difference between control and command. And

53:42

they often get. treated as one and

53:44

the same when people talk about pitching.

53:46

But to me, we've always tried to

53:48

kind of differentiate between that and the

53:50

way I view it as different is

53:52

control to me is throwing strikes. Command

53:54

is where are those strikes? You know,

53:56

there are tons of pitchers and the

53:58

twins have had many of them. who just

54:00

pound the strike zone. But they give up

54:02

a lot of runs because they're throwing

54:05

the ball down the middle too much

54:07

or they're leaving the ball down the

54:09

middle too much. Whereas like Mariana Rivera,

54:11

who's the greatest relief picture of all

54:14

time, had okay control, not pinpoint

54:16

control. His walk rates were not

54:18

spectacular for a picture of his

54:20

caliber overall, but he had what

54:23

I would consider the greatest command

54:25

in modern baseball history. I once

54:27

saw a presentation about this at

54:29

a saber convention where they took his

54:31

heat map for all the pitches he had

54:34

thrown in like his 20 year career. And

54:36

when you put it in- It looks

54:38

like a frame? It looks like

54:40

a frame. It looks like a frame.

54:43

It looks like a horseshoe basically around.

54:45

It was just everything on what they

54:47

call the black, everything on the

54:49

edge of the strike zone and almost

54:52

nothing right down the middle. And

54:54

Varlen strikes me as a guy. who

54:56

can definitely throw strikes and doesn't

54:58

walk a ton of guys never really

55:00

has I'm pretty I'm never concerned like

55:03

if he walks a couple better

55:05

oh he's gonna walk six guys

55:07

right so he throws strikes but

55:09

his issue I think as a

55:11

starter and I think we've seen

55:13

it a little bit as a

55:15

reliever you hope moving to the

55:17

bullpen solves that a little bit

55:19

is with command because he's

55:21

throwing 98 99 which is great

55:23

But like once every 25 pitches

55:26

he just leaves one right down

55:28

the middle of the plate and it

55:30

gets definitely the case for him as

55:32

a starter for sure right and he

55:34

gave up a double wall yesterday and

55:37

that's to me the step that needs

55:39

to happen for him to go from Good

55:41

reliever to actual guy you want to

55:43

rely on well, yeah, I mean the

55:46

other thing is that You're allowed

55:48

to get away with some of those mistakes

55:50

as well, you know that and he's got

55:52

I think good enough stuff in the bullpen

55:54

that if he does make those mistakes, even

55:56

if he continues to make the same mistakes

55:58

he made as a starter. He might

56:00

get away with it because he's all

56:02

throwing an extra three miles per hour

56:05

faster. A meatball, a middle, middle, as

56:07

we call it, at 98 or 99

56:09

versus 93 or 94, at 98 or

56:12

99, at 98 or 99, you might

56:14

still get a swing and a miss

56:16

because it just overhaul ball or fall

56:19

ball or it pops it up or

56:21

grounds it, whereas meatballs at 92 get

56:23

hit, you know, five or a few

56:26

feet. So yeah, I agree with all

56:28

that. And I'm still very optimistic about

56:30

Varlin long term as a reliever, as

56:33

a reliever, but I think this. This

56:35

is an issue from starting that he

56:37

needs to prove he can get rid

56:40

of, as opposed to just assuming he

56:42

grew up. That's really all I got

56:44

for bright spots. The weather yesterday was

56:47

a bright spot and it wasn't even

56:49

that night. That's where I'm supposed to

56:51

be a little bit of a bright

56:54

spot on Saturday and Sunday as well.

56:56

Before we talk about some other stuff.

56:58

Let's talk about another bright spot coming

57:01

up. Mother's Day. Mother's coming up? Sure.

57:03

You know, I'm telling you, my mother

57:05

has pair of these. A couple years

57:08

ago I got her and she enjoyed

57:10

it. She goes on walks, she wants

57:12

a wireless earboat. Well, that's because they're

57:15

just really well engineered. Yeah. They're very

57:17

comfortable. They've got a ridiculous battery life.

57:19

They're easy to pair with your whatever

57:22

you've got. If you're wearing them, like

57:24

you guys go on runs with them.

57:26

I sit on the couch with them.

57:29

They feel good better than other. earbuds

57:31

that you can get right the actual

57:33

fit in your ear I find to

57:36

be better which if you're gonna wear

57:38

them for an hour and a half

57:40

while you're running or whatever that's a

57:43

key consideration too and mom will be

57:45

happy that you're not spending too much

57:47

on her because you don't want you

57:50

to spend you shouldn't spend that much

57:52

on me yeah because they're about half

57:54

the price of some of these other

57:57

you know You know brand name earbuds

57:59

that are else if you go to

58:01

and you can get a 20% off

58:04

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59:13

right. I'm not going to list negatives

59:16

because it's only an hour and a

59:18

half show. That would be funny. It's

59:20

like reading the phone book. Okay, we're

59:23

on page two of the Johnson. Never

59:25

liked this guy. Yeah, I mean the

59:27

negative obviously Nobody's hitting right even the

59:30

guys who are hitting they're just you

59:32

know whatever Korea particular You know I

59:34

do think he's gotten a little unlikely,

59:37

but it's not as if his expected

59:39

numbers are that amazing. They're okay. Sure.

59:41

I also just think he looks Slow

59:44

even by the last couple years standards,

59:46

which tells me either he's just getting

59:48

older and two years of heel problems

59:51

have, you know, sap some of the

59:53

speed in athleticism or he's just going

59:55

out of his way to not put

59:58

any running effort in. He doesn't seem

1:00:00

to be slow in the field. He

1:00:02

just seems like he's facing his base

1:00:05

paths. But and I don't I'm not

1:00:07

one of these guys who needs false

1:00:09

hustle. You know, if you're Carlos Korea

1:00:12

in the fourth ending of a game

1:00:14

and you hit a chopper third base.

1:00:16

I don't need you bust an ass

1:00:19

down the line if you know because

1:00:21

of his his heel problems But we

1:00:23

saw two years ago when he took

1:00:26

that same approach to try to stay

1:00:28

in the lineup and he did successfully

1:00:30

stay in the lineup You know any

1:00:33

ground ball with a guy on base

1:00:35

Basically turned into a double play for

1:00:37

him, and we've seen that a couple

1:00:40

times already this year. That's a worry

1:00:42

for me. I don't need a guy

1:00:44

pretending he's Nick Pundo and diving headfirst

1:00:47

on routine ground balls and all that

1:00:49

stuff And I get the conservation of

1:00:51

health, particularly for a guy who's had

1:00:54

leg and foot problems and all that.

1:00:56

It's the same deal with Buxton. It's

1:00:58

the same deal they did with Josh

1:01:00

Donaldson. It's the same deal. They're probably

1:01:03

going to do with Royce Lewis when

1:01:05

he comes back. I'd rather an attempt

1:01:07

to stay healthy than an attempt to

1:01:10

beat out one infield single a season

1:01:12

by, you know, hall and ass down

1:01:14

the line. But... Again, two things can

1:01:17

be true. He could he could also

1:01:19

just be slower. I mean if you

1:01:21

look at the year by year from

1:01:24

aging Sure, he went from when he

1:01:26

was with the Astros pretty fast to

1:01:28

pretty quickly being kind of average runner,

1:01:31

which is unique among shortstops I mean

1:01:33

now he's certainly below average runner. So

1:01:35

that's something to keep an eye on.

1:01:38

I mean, again, if he's hitting 290

1:01:40

instead of oh 90 right now, nobody

1:01:42

cares, but that's something to keep an

1:01:45

eye on I think You mentioned Miranda

1:01:47

a little earlier, to me his approach

1:01:49

just looks, even by his lost standards,

1:01:52

just up there, taking strikes and swinging

1:01:54

at crap, and I did think it

1:01:56

was noteworthy yesterday, it was basically the

1:01:59

same lineup as opening day. Yeah, so

1:02:01

that's kind of what you respect like

1:02:03

the the opener opener and the home

1:02:06

opener except they essentially Benched Miranda for

1:02:08

Julian and they did that by moving

1:02:10

Castro from now We should mention you

1:02:13

know on opening day Julian was we

1:02:15

think sick Yes, right that week that

1:02:17

serious for the Cardinals he was but

1:02:20

I still don't think he would have

1:02:22

started on opening day But it was

1:02:24

against a right-handed picture both times. Yep.

1:02:27

So I think that's noteworthy because if

1:02:29

you're in a spot given how the

1:02:31

last year or so has gone for

1:02:34

Julian and the fact that I don't

1:02:36

think he was going to make the

1:02:38

team out of spring training, if not

1:02:41

for Brooksley's injury at the last minute.

1:02:43

Then a week later, you're basically benching

1:02:45

Miranda, who not so long looked like

1:02:48

a building block type of hitter, for

1:02:50

Julian, on the home opener, which doesn't

1:02:52

quite carry the same... like symbolic nature

1:02:55

in terms of making lineup decisions as

1:02:57

the opener opener but there is a

1:02:59

little bit of that sometimes so I

1:03:02

thought that was something to keep an

1:03:04

eye on too. I mean I think

1:03:06

Miranda is in danger of finding some

1:03:09

time in St. Paul at this point

1:03:11

that if Lewis ends up returning or

1:03:13

Lee ends up being available I could

1:03:16

see that being one of the moves

1:03:18

that they make. Oh I'm not sure

1:03:20

they have that much faith in Brooks

1:03:23

Lee at this point to necessarily hit

1:03:25

a major league level either. He made

1:03:27

one bad play at second, but he's

1:03:29

barely played like you said he was

1:03:32

said, but Let's see there was one

1:03:34

other Yeah, we talked about Ryan, but

1:03:36

I wouldn't be shocked if he goes

1:03:39

down as opposed to say, you know,

1:03:41

a gasper Well, I agree with that

1:03:43

because I mean if Lee and or

1:03:46

Lewis are back You're gonna want a

1:03:48

couple guys that aren't in need of

1:03:50

playing time, right and gasper certainly is

1:03:53

much more, I don't know, fine with

1:03:55

sitting on the bench. Right, he fits

1:03:57

that role, that bench role better than

1:04:00

Julian or Miranda or really a lot

1:04:02

of these guys that we're talking about.

1:04:04

Obr's velocity is worth tracking, although by

1:04:07

the time people listen to this they

1:04:09

probably will have played some of the

1:04:11

people. So we can talk about that

1:04:14

on Monday show too. That'll definitely be

1:04:16

a topic. And then the other thing

1:04:18

is we're gonna see Paddock again here

1:04:21

this this weekend Sunday. And he got

1:04:23

bombed in his first start. we

1:04:26

go back to the narratives, I

1:04:28

mean that was a narrative all

1:04:30

off-season of will they trade Paddock,

1:04:32

will they not trade Paddock, why

1:04:35

are they sticking with him versus

1:04:37

turn into one of the young

1:04:39

guys in that role? And so

1:04:41

not only did Paddock perform so

1:04:43

poorly and that's after again, it's

1:04:46

not just the narrative of this

1:04:48

season, it's connecting it to last

1:04:50

season, which is he didn't throw

1:04:52

a pitch in the second half

1:04:54

because of arm problems coming back

1:04:56

from second Tommy John, all that

1:04:59

stuff. You know, he's... I don't

1:05:01

think he's in a spot where

1:05:03

another bad performance would get him

1:05:05

booted from the rotation, but his

1:05:07

performance, his lack of consistency last

1:05:10

year, combined with the fact that

1:05:12

the twins have at minimum three

1:05:14

good, and if not, MLB-ready, very

1:05:16

close to ML-ready pitching prospects at

1:05:18

AAA, Festa, Matthews, Andrew Morris, and

1:05:20

to add a little intrigue to

1:05:23

this, all three of them. through

1:05:25

five shutout innings, exactly five shutoutings

1:05:27

in their first start of the

1:05:29

season. One, two, three. They've combined

1:05:31

for 15 shutout innings. So that

1:05:33

is definitely going to be a

1:05:36

thing to track on both sides

1:05:38

of the defense. St. Paul and

1:05:40

in Minneapolis, basically. So that's worth

1:05:42

watching. I also tried to think

1:05:44

of, like, what have we learned?

1:05:47

other than, you know, the capacity

1:05:49

for the human mind to be

1:05:51

depressed. How many people are willing

1:05:53

to follow John around target field

1:05:55

like the Tide Piper? How many

1:05:57

beers can... John... Right, yeah, okay,

1:06:00

we learned a lot about that.

1:06:02

I've learned so much about that

1:06:04

over the years. I guess we

1:06:06

should be, we also learned a

1:06:08

little bit about the food situation

1:06:10

at Target Field. You could also

1:06:12

listen to that on the page.

1:06:14

Yeah, we learned John doesn't like

1:06:16

pickles. Which I agree with. Yeah.

1:06:18

That really upset a lot of

1:06:20

people. I think people for some

1:06:22

reason headed in their head that

1:06:24

John was gonna be a guy

1:06:26

who likes pick pickles. And he just,

1:06:29

I start gossiping about someone and John goes,

1:06:31

yeah that guy does suck. It throws me

1:06:33

a curveball just enough to keep it alive.

1:06:35

So that I don't assume it's always gonna.

1:06:38

You know what I mean? People think, of

1:06:40

course John likes everything. No, I've done like

1:06:42

pickles. So we talked about that on the

1:06:44

pageram. There's a sales pitch for you. But

1:06:47

what have we learned? good bad whatever well

1:06:49

i think the bater thing we've learned right

1:06:51

which is they're gonna play him in the

1:06:53

corners and against righties more than at least

1:06:56

i anticipated you seem to be well you

1:06:58

talked to Baldelli during spring training

1:07:00

right he's got the vibe yeah I think

1:07:02

we learned about Varlin what we

1:07:04

just talked about, which is not only

1:07:06

is he in the bullpen, but he's

1:07:09

being treated like an actual reliever, which

1:07:11

is to say one inning, pitching basically

1:07:13

every other day, pitching kind of

1:07:15

medium leverage situations, which I think

1:07:17

makes sense, but it's possible he

1:07:19

could have been used in sort

1:07:21

of the Dobnik, uh, McGaukin? Is that

1:07:23

how you say is there? Darren McGaukin.

1:07:25

Yeah, let me tell you. Sitting next

1:07:28

to Dan Hayes as a guy named

1:07:30

McGaukin was pitching. was not a pleasant

1:07:32

experience for me, just the number of

1:07:34

failed joke attempts and the whatever, but

1:07:37

he looked good yesterday actually. No,

1:07:39

Dan looked horrible. And in fact, Dan

1:07:41

did something so funny. I saw Dan.

1:07:43

Well, you saw, maybe he looked better

1:07:46

with your beer goggles on. Dan did

1:07:48

something so funny yesterday that we

1:07:50

could have made, we could have led off

1:07:52

this episode with it. And I mean

1:07:54

embarrassing to him, not just funny. But

1:07:57

I'm a nice person, so I'm not going

1:07:59

to do that. It was nothing like

1:08:01

nefarious or like illegal, but it's

1:08:03

just something so damn-like that everyone

1:08:05

he's told and I've told have

1:08:07

immediately rolled their eyes and laughed

1:08:09

and I'm choosing not to, he

1:08:11

can self-report if he wants. Okay.

1:08:14

Oh, I want to talk about

1:08:16

it so much, but I'm not

1:08:18

going to. Don't you dare? Anyway.

1:08:20

And then the other, I think

1:08:22

maybe the biggest thing we learned,

1:08:24

we discussed this at length already,

1:08:26

but Buxton. Yeah, just how he

1:08:28

looks and again, this isn't really

1:08:31

attached to performance. Yeah, it's not

1:08:33

like he's hit in 240 He's

1:08:35

got you know an okay overall

1:08:37

numbers, but just he just looks

1:08:39

Healthy, and I don't mean we've

1:08:41

said this in years past where

1:08:43

it's like oh, he looks okay

1:08:45

But there's always this sense and

1:08:48

look you might get her tomorrow.

1:08:50

Who knows there's that would we

1:08:52

need to knock on again, but

1:08:54

I think that's a big deal

1:08:56

and then the other thing is

1:08:58

I think the Miranda Julian are

1:09:00

on less solid footing I think

1:09:03

so too. In part because of

1:09:05

each other's presence, like there's an

1:09:07

alternative. Yeah. And you've got enough

1:09:09

flexibility that you can put Castro

1:09:11

in one of their two spots

1:09:13

on a regular basis. Yeah. And

1:09:15

that's why I'm very curious to

1:09:17

get, hopefully, tomorrow, which we'll share

1:09:20

Monday and the Patreon, some level

1:09:22

of update, not only on Lewis,

1:09:24

but on Lee. I guess I'm

1:09:26

assuming Lee will be back before

1:09:28

Lewis, because the injury that they...

1:09:30

You know made public about him

1:09:32

was just a sore back basically

1:09:34

except That's also what it was

1:09:37

phrased as last spring and he

1:09:39

ended up missing three months with

1:09:41

a herniated disc in his back,

1:09:43

but Again, hopefully we'll have an

1:09:45

update on that on Monday to

1:09:47

end on We the Forbes annual

1:09:49

sure like report on Team finances.

1:09:51

I guess I would call it.

1:09:54

Yes. And these are estimates because

1:09:56

like teams other than the Braves

1:09:58

and I guess the Blue Jays,

1:10:00

teams don't open up their books

1:10:02

because they don't have to open

1:10:04

them. The only reason those two

1:10:06

do is because they're publicly traded.

1:10:09

Correct. So they have to. And

1:10:11

funny, the Braves are tremendously profitable.

1:10:13

They have huge revenue streams. That's

1:10:15

always why when teams like the

1:10:17

Twins claim huge losses and claim

1:10:19

we're not making money and stuff,

1:10:21

I'm always like, well, I wouldn't

1:10:23

open those books up and show

1:10:26

it. Sure. Yeah. But they don't,

1:10:28

because they're not compelled to do

1:10:30

that. But. Forbes has for as

1:10:32

long as I can remember, Forbes

1:10:34

magazine, has attempted to estimate these

1:10:36

numbers and it's not like they're

1:10:38

just throwing darts. I mean, they're,

1:10:40

it's a business magazine. They have

1:10:43

sources, they have sources in the

1:10:45

league, they have sources with teams

1:10:47

and they know enough about the

1:10:49

way baseball teams are run, etc.

1:10:51

to be able to get some

1:10:53

estimates and so to some back

1:10:55

of the napkin kind of figuring

1:10:57

out. Yes. I mean, it honestly

1:11:00

wouldn't surprise me in some cases

1:11:02

or most cases if they're just

1:11:04

literally getting numbers from. teams are

1:11:06

the lead but it leaves open

1:11:08

the ability for teams to go

1:11:10

I don't trust Forbes their way

1:11:12

off. It's like well how can

1:11:14

we prove it your books are

1:11:17

closed but I read through their

1:11:19

2024 report which is published in

1:11:21

early 2025 about last season's revenues

1:11:23

and spending and all that stuff

1:11:25

and I read through it and

1:11:27

there were a lot of interesting

1:11:29

notes about the twins that are

1:11:32

made even more interesting by the

1:11:34

fact that they're for up for

1:11:36

sale and as Dan Hayes and

1:11:38

Ken Rosenthal and brick O'eroli reported

1:11:40

last week at the athletic last

1:11:42

week two weeks ago whatever it

1:11:44

was the twins have rejected an

1:11:46

offer somewhere in the vicinity of

1:11:49

1.5 billion dollars well that's noteworthy

1:11:51

because about 10 days after they

1:11:53

reported that Forbes estimated the twins

1:11:55

value at 1. 1.5 billion dollars.

1:11:57

And so that tells you right

1:11:59

off the bat if those numbers

1:12:01

are to be believed and even

1:12:03

if they're off by a little

1:12:06

bit in one way That essentially

1:12:08

means the poeds have already turned

1:12:10

down a market rate offer. Now

1:12:12

there's two conclusions to draw from

1:12:14

that, right? One is, well they

1:12:16

don't really want to sell the

1:12:18

team if they're turning down market

1:12:20

rate offers. Two, I guess there's

1:12:23

three. Two is what Dan and

1:12:25

Ken and Brit wrote about which

1:12:27

is they have so much debt

1:12:29

on their books, 425 million, that

1:12:31

in their mind they can't sell

1:12:33

the team for quote-unquote only 1.5

1:12:35

billion because once you pay off

1:12:38

the 400 million in debt you're

1:12:40

not walking away with enough money

1:12:42

to buy your a yacht or

1:12:44

whatever. The third conclusion, and this

1:12:46

is kind of how I'm leaning,

1:12:48

is they feel that by rejecting

1:12:50

1.5 and perhaps not shying away

1:12:52

from some of this being reported

1:12:55

on, they can just get more

1:12:57

than 1.5. I mean, that's the

1:12:59

outcomes razor. That's part of what

1:13:01

the report was, right? That they

1:13:03

knew that some teams have cleared

1:13:05

the bar. the one point five

1:13:07

billion at least one yeah some

1:13:09

some ownership interested ownership groups have

1:13:12

cleared that bar so yeah they

1:13:14

want 1.7 right for whatever reasons

1:13:16

and so I mean look at

1:13:18

I don't hold that against them

1:13:20

anybody who's selling something you know

1:13:22

I would like an extra 200

1:13:24

million dollars please yeah yeah okay

1:13:26

yeah but it's interesting within the

1:13:29

context of the Forbes number so

1:13:31

a couple of things Like we

1:13:33

always know, they bought the, they,

1:13:35

Carl Polad, their grandfather, bought the

1:13:37

twins for $44 million in 1984,

1:13:39

which is kind of incredible. Forbes

1:13:41

estimated, here was where it really

1:13:44

got interesting to me, so they

1:13:46

estimate revenue per season. So in

1:13:48

2023, when the twins won the

1:13:50

division and broke the playoff losing

1:13:52

streak, Forbes estimated that they had

1:13:54

revenue. Baseball revenue of three hundred

1:13:56

and forty two million dollars. Okay

1:13:58

Which yeah that I can do some

1:14:00

math on that because we know for instance

1:14:03

what the national TV contract pays we

1:14:05

know for instance what you know you

1:14:07

can do some back of the napkin

1:14:09

stuff on attendance and all that it

1:14:11

seems reasonable to me then also payroll is

1:14:13

right the opening day payroll is what 160-150

1:14:15

something like that right so that's roughly half

1:14:17

which is kind of how a little bit

1:14:20

below half which is kind of how they

1:14:22

do it or they did for years right

1:14:24

back when Dave St. Peter used to come

1:14:26

on the podcast somebody told me yesterday Have

1:14:28

you guys invited Dave St. Peter on the

1:14:31

podcast? We are working on it. We'll invite

1:14:33

him. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I wear a

1:14:35

helmet that day maybe or something like

1:14:37

that. I use John as a human shield.

1:14:40

That's it. Yeah, that's right. I'm not afraid

1:14:42

of being yelled at. That's fine with

1:14:44

me. And actually, after all these years

1:14:46

on radio and doing podcast, I would

1:14:48

gladly be whatever that. if it's

1:14:51

good radio. Sure. That's my life

1:14:53

at this point. Anything. You think

1:14:55

I tell these embarrassing stories about

1:14:57

myself because it makes me feel

1:14:59

good? No, I'm hoping to make

1:15:01

you guys laugh. Anyway, last year,

1:15:03

however, projected revenue, or

1:15:05

estimated revenue, excuse me, 324 million,

1:15:07

which is 18 million lower, but

1:15:09

again, that also makes sense to

1:15:11

me. The on-field product was worse.

1:15:13

Sure. Attendance was slightly down right

1:15:15

and they didn't have any playoff

1:15:17

games and the TV contract thing

1:15:19

was true less as well like

1:15:22

we didn't we don't think they

1:15:24

got anywhere near the 54 million

1:15:26

they got in 2023 and they

1:15:28

but and they didn't host four

1:15:30

playoff games like right that's the

1:15:32

year before however if that's true

1:15:34

and they made 324 million that's

1:15:36

an 18 million drop in revenue

1:15:38

and the payroll dropped more than

1:15:41

that yeah which is interesting It

1:15:43

also makes me think that given the

1:15:45

TV situation now, given what we talked

1:15:47

about with fam around attendance, which remains

1:15:49

to be seen obviously, it's going

1:15:51

to drop further than that. But that's just

1:15:54

a cycle. Like you can use that

1:15:56

as an excuse to drop payroll, but then

1:15:58

dropping payroll makes the team more... and make

1:16:00

Sam around worse, you're in a negative

1:16:02

spy right now as opposed to a

1:16:05

positive spiral. Here's the other part. Forbes

1:16:07

takes and estimates the total player related

1:16:09

expenses, which is payroll, the traditional thing

1:16:11

we think of as payroll when we

1:16:13

say they had a $135 million payroll,

1:16:16

but also there's like pension, there's you

1:16:18

know ancillary costs involved, there's all sorts

1:16:20

of other things. You know for running

1:16:22

a team for six months. So in

1:16:25

the last two years Forbes is estimated

1:16:27

their total player related costs at a

1:16:29

hundred eighty two million and a hundred

1:16:31

eighty seven million so a hundred eighty

1:16:33

five million ish. So I mean you

1:16:36

can do the math on there if

1:16:38

they're making somewhere around a hundred and

1:16:40

thirty or three hundred and forty million

1:16:42

in revenue and their total baseball costs

1:16:44

are a hundred eighty something million. And

1:16:47

they have 425 million in debt on

1:16:49

the books? I'd love to see the

1:16:51

equation that comes out to that. Do

1:16:53

you know what I mean? At least

1:16:56

over the last two years. Now they're

1:16:58

gonna argue that the COVID seasons really

1:17:00

hurt them and I'm certain that's the

1:17:02

case. Sure. But over the last two

1:17:04

seasons, and here's where Forbes tries to

1:17:07

put a number on this, they have

1:17:09

what they're figuring out the operating income,

1:17:11

which is basically, you take the revenue,

1:17:13

you... Minus the expenses sure like at

1:17:16

the end of all this What are

1:17:18

they got that they're kind of working

1:17:20

with after a season? Well in 2023?

1:17:22

They said it was 19 million Okay,

1:17:24

I hesitate to call that like profit.

1:17:27

It's not purely profit sure it's something

1:17:29

resembling profit Yeah, and then last year

1:17:31

it was 5 million Okay, both in

1:17:33

the positive So again if unless these

1:17:35

Forbes numbers are completely off, how are

1:17:38

you substantially adding to debt? over the

1:17:40

last two seasons at least to get

1:17:42

to 425 million unless all your debt

1:17:44

was accrued prior to the last two

1:17:47

seasons or all your debt is not

1:17:49

coming from baseball that is yeah put

1:17:51

that on your books which we talked

1:17:53

a lot about on the patreon side

1:17:55

and then why we think they're motivated

1:17:58

sellers correct and then here was the

1:18:00

last thing that in addition to these

1:18:02

yearly figures revenue costs operating income being

1:18:04

positive and all that Forbes also just

1:18:07

lists what they estimated the franchise at

1:18:09

each year okay one point five now

1:18:11

what was it last year so over

1:18:13

the last two years where all these

1:18:15

numbers have occurred the valuation of just

1:18:18

the franchise itself Has risen by a

1:18:20

hundred and ten million dollars. Sure. Yeah,

1:18:22

so again, I don't need to go

1:18:24

on my billionaire rant again or my

1:18:26

poll I rant again But you guys

1:18:29

are starting to see what makes a

1:18:31

person do these rants Which is when

1:18:33

you start to look at a source

1:18:35

that you at least have some trust

1:18:38

in that is attempting to estimate this

1:18:40

stuff for a league that will not

1:18:42

open their books The math just ain't

1:18:44

mathing in the way that would suggest

1:18:46

the twins are What they're putting forth

1:18:49

I guess to me at but I'm

1:18:51

an idiot So it's possible Forbes presumably

1:18:53

is not that as dumb as me.

1:18:55

All of that given given given all

1:18:58

of that they should have plenty of

1:19:00

suitors right they should have plenty of

1:19:02

suitors who are interested in by which

1:19:04

they've said which they right they seem

1:19:06

to they seem to keep implying that

1:19:09

they've got other people yeah the last

1:19:11

thing on that yeah so I'm gonna

1:19:13

guess Dan I'll have an update on

1:19:15

the sales stuff he You know, he's

1:19:17

been trying to put out an update

1:19:20

of some kind meaningful or not right

1:19:22

every couple weeks or something like that's

1:19:24

probably around that time So I'll leave

1:19:26

that to him, but Yeah, I did

1:19:29

like I said I was really thinking

1:19:31

a lot about This time next year.

1:19:33

What is my level of optimism that

1:19:35

things not better or worse? But different

1:19:37

change what you know, we've already seen

1:19:40

Dave St. Peter step down. That's a

1:19:42

huge change. Yeah, but like how optimistic

1:19:44

am I that Maybe not by the

1:19:46

trade deadline, maybe not even by the

1:19:49

beginning of the offseason. I mean, I

1:19:51

don't want to put a timeline on

1:19:53

it, but as I'm sitting in a

1:19:55

you know seat six in the press

1:19:57

box next year looking out at the

1:20:00

crowd how optimistic am I that it

1:20:02

will not be a poll ad run

1:20:04

organization and maybe I'm naive but I

1:20:06

still maybe I'm hopeful more than naive

1:20:08

but I'm not yet but I'm still

1:20:11

optimistic that that will be well and

1:20:13

I do think that's the sort of

1:20:15

thing like I don't know how much

1:20:17

of a difference it's going to make

1:20:20

overall but it definitely make a difference

1:20:22

in sort of the vibe around this

1:20:24

team right now that's I don't know

1:20:26

if it's gonna make Any difference to

1:20:28

the performance on the field or how

1:20:31

much the performance on the field is

1:20:33

going to affect that vibe? Maybe it

1:20:35

affects it even more than an ownership

1:20:37

change. But having some, a fan base

1:20:40

actually believes in the leadership of this

1:20:42

team is, would be a valuable thing.

1:20:44

Especially after watching, you know, them essentially

1:20:46

kneecap it, you know, coming off of

1:20:48

a 20-23 season that was showing real

1:20:51

promise to the thing. Yeah, I mean,

1:20:53

I don't think that like, you know.

1:20:57

Twins-hitter is like grounding into a

1:20:59

double play because in the back

1:21:01

of their minds I know the

1:21:03

pole ads own the team right

1:21:05

but I mean clear lines can

1:21:07

be drawn clear connections to be

1:21:10

can be made through from their

1:21:12

choices following 20-23 to cut 30

1:21:14

million in payroll to you know

1:21:16

handicap the front office and then

1:21:18

clear choices with the front office

1:21:20

not making moves the last two

1:21:22

off seasons and deadlines and feels

1:21:24

like things are stagnated yes a

1:21:26

top-down direction and to your point

1:21:28

I completely agree there is absolutely

1:21:30

nothing guaranteeing guaranteeing That if there

1:21:33

is a new billionaire at the

1:21:35

helm that it will be any

1:21:37

better right and in fact there's

1:21:39

some chance it could be worse

1:21:41

it can it can always be

1:21:43

worse That is erred That's my

1:21:45

that's my family quest number number

1:21:47

one rule The good family crest

1:21:49

is just a guy like Debbie

1:21:51

down or looking down at the

1:21:54

shoes and just as things can

1:21:56

always be worth but I mean

1:21:58

that is true like I think

1:22:00

we would like to think that

1:22:02

whoever comes in will be better

1:22:04

sure but all energy right And

1:22:06

I do think that's more likely

1:22:08

than not. Yeah, of course. possible

1:22:10

someone comes in and runs it

1:22:12

like a quote-unquote business and does

1:22:15

the same thing but what I

1:22:17

can guarantee is a change will

1:22:19

be a change yes there it

1:22:21

will be different and at least

1:22:23

initially that could be enough for

1:22:25

a lot of people to dip

1:22:27

their toes back in the water

1:22:29

to believe again yeah or just

1:22:31

start investing themselves right to not

1:22:33

be like trying to shield themselves

1:22:36

emotionally And I think that, as

1:22:38

I was like just sitting there

1:22:40

kind of, e-moing out, that's really

1:22:42

just what I want because you

1:22:44

can't ask for, you know, someone

1:22:46

to come in, double the payroll.

1:22:48

Yeah, everyone wants that. Sure. But

1:22:50

I've learned to keep my expectations

1:22:52

low. I just think that. And

1:22:56

I'm not a change for change

1:22:58

sake, guy, you know that better

1:23:01

than anybody. No, I know that

1:23:03

very well. But I just think

1:23:05

after 40 plus years of this,

1:23:07

it's not just change for change

1:23:09

shake. There's no mystery left in

1:23:11

how the Polads will run things.

1:23:13

We're on our third generation who

1:23:16

have essentially all ultimately gotten to

1:23:18

a point where they're running it

1:23:20

similarly. There's been stretches where they

1:23:22

show some deviation from that for

1:23:24

a year or two. Sure. But

1:23:26

ultimately, Joe Pollad did the same

1:23:28

thing that Jim Pollad did, did

1:23:31

the same thing that Carl Pollad

1:23:33

did, which is after window of

1:23:35

this or a window dressing of

1:23:37

this, they cut payroll below average

1:23:39

spending. Vives are bad. Everyone doesn't

1:23:41

like the ownership. After 40 plus

1:23:44

years of that, I'll take door

1:23:46

number two, even if door number

1:23:48

two has no guarantees behind it.

1:23:50

And I remain optimistic, if only

1:23:52

because... I feel like being

1:23:54

pessimistic on that front in addition to watching

1:23:57

how poorly the team has now played for

1:23:59

like the last 50 games. is like too

1:24:01

much to bear. Well, towards that, as a

1:24:03

reflection of that poll,

1:24:05

that philosophy here, I was

1:24:07

talking with somebody at the Great

1:24:10

Duck Deck, and then they pointed

1:24:12

out, you remember all those years

1:24:15

when the twins were not very

1:24:17

good, and the narrative around them

1:24:19

was, now is not the time

1:24:22

to spend money, because they're not

1:24:24

gonna be good anyway. Now is

1:24:26

not the time to spend the

1:24:28

money now. But when it's time to spend

1:24:31

the money, then we're going to put the

1:24:33

pedal to the metal. We're saving it up

1:24:35

right now so we can put the pedal

1:24:37

to the metal when it's really ready to

1:24:39

go. We saw that for one whole season,

1:24:42

basically. And pedal to the metal was the

1:24:44

17th highest payroll. But even that made me,

1:24:46

I mean, I was satisfied with it. Yeah,

1:24:48

I mean, isn't that hilarious? Let's all remember

1:24:51

that. five years or three maybe two years

1:24:53

from now when we're like yeah they can't

1:24:55

they should spend right now they're not gonna

1:24:57

they're not gonna be competitive anyway well and

1:25:00

what we used to joke back then you

1:25:02

know it was Jim Pollad in the ownership

1:25:04

chair back then and Terry Ryan in the GM

1:25:06

chair back then but you know that's a

1:25:08

cycle too it's like there's nothing that it's

1:25:10

not tanking in Major League Baseball is

1:25:12

not as valuable or effective as tanking

1:25:15

in other sports because even top draft

1:25:17

picks but it's more profitable right and

1:25:19

so that's what we I mean we

1:25:21

would call B.S. on that as it

1:25:24

was happening. Because if you really

1:25:26

wanted to follow through with that

1:25:28

premise as an ownership group, what

1:25:30

you would say publicly was, you

1:25:32

know, yeah, we've dropped to

1:25:35

25th in payroll when probably

1:25:37

we should be somewhere closer

1:25:39

to average, but we just

1:25:41

didn't think this team was

1:25:43

30 million dollars away from

1:25:45

being competitive. And there are

1:25:47

times when that's just going

1:25:49

to be true. what was never

1:25:51

said publicly or even hinted at

1:25:53

publicly was we'll get you on the

1:25:55

back end here we're gonna put this money

1:25:58

in you know escrow somewhere or some whatever

1:26:00

some Investment and two years from now

1:26:02

when the team starts to be

1:26:04

on the rise again Not only

1:26:06

will we will we get back

1:26:08

to the average spending But we'll

1:26:11

have three four years of this

1:26:13

extra money that that be 50

1:26:15

million dollars We can talk we

1:26:17

go sign whoever we want. Yeah,

1:26:19

well no that I mean that

1:26:21

didn't ever happen And so I

1:26:23

mean we knew that wasn't ever

1:26:25

going to happen, but that is

1:26:27

by the way one of the

1:26:29

things that extremely rich people especially

1:26:32

in 2025 That is one of

1:26:34

the clearest kind of benefit of

1:26:36

the doubt that they receive, which

1:26:38

is people assume for whatever reason,

1:26:40

that they're telling the truth, and

1:26:42

that they're effective at the things

1:26:44

they claim to be effective at.

1:26:46

There hasn't been much evidence of

1:26:48

the twins at least. And so

1:26:50

yeah, I agree with all that.

1:26:53

It is very funny to have

1:26:55

lived through sort of like two

1:26:57

or three cycles of the same

1:26:59

kind of... Yeah, that seems bad

1:27:01

now when we're not spending now,

1:27:03

but just wait. And then you

1:27:05

get to it and it's like,

1:27:07

well, actually we got a cut

1:27:09

payroll even though they just won.

1:27:12

And now you're back to, well,

1:27:14

they might not be that good

1:27:16

anymore, so maybe we'll trade away

1:27:18

guys. And then it's just like,

1:27:20

what's happened here? Like what kind

1:27:22

of shell game was going on

1:27:24

here from a fan base? We

1:27:26

want to thank some people who

1:27:28

did take care of you, kept

1:27:30

this podcast free. We'll start with

1:27:33

a factor. That's a new sponsor

1:27:35

that you can check out. And

1:27:37

also to our special thank you

1:27:39

to our presenting sponsor, that's Black

1:27:41

Stack Brewing. They're now being distributed

1:27:43

to all of Greater Minnesota, stop

1:27:45

by your favorite liquor store or

1:27:47

the Black Stack Tap Room, which

1:27:49

I'd love to grab your favorite

1:27:51

boo or to try something new,

1:27:54

Black Stack Brewing. We will be

1:27:56

back on Monday Monday with a

1:27:58

recap in the Astro series, hopefully

1:28:00

having some injury updates and maybe

1:28:02

talking about a winter too. Yeah.

1:28:04

I will be really interested to

1:28:06

see now how the middle of

1:28:08

this rotation, that's, that is now

1:28:10

a story. line in this rotation

1:28:12

between Ryan's decreased velocity, Bailey Obers

1:28:15

decreased velocity, and ineffectiveness last time

1:28:17

around, Paddock just blowing up. I

1:28:19

will be very interested, like is

1:28:21

this rotation, is this rotation, is

1:28:23

this rotation going to be what

1:28:25

we thought they were going to

1:28:27

be, or are we going to

1:28:29

have to look for changes to

1:28:31

be made in April? I think

1:28:33

we're going to find a lot

1:28:36

of that. We're going to have

1:28:38

a whole lot more evidence before

1:28:40

we talk to you on the

1:28:42

free episode again next Friday. Yes,

1:28:44

and if you want more shows

1:28:46

Monday and probably Wednesday too I

1:28:48

think we'll do a mailbag or

1:28:50

it depends if news happens. And

1:28:52

we might be doing some bonus

1:28:54

content again like you want to

1:28:57

get a full breakdown of all

1:28:59

the foods at Target Field? You

1:29:01

know what I should do for

1:29:03

bonus content? Let's just leave a

1:29:05

recorder running and let people hear

1:29:07

what they want to get. So

1:29:09

yeah, P-A-T-R-E-O-N-Patri-O-N-Patri-O-N-Patri-E-O-N-Patri-E-L-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-E-T-T-E-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-A-E-O-N-E-E-O-N-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T Well, that's fine. I

1:29:11

don't answer. I don't answer the

1:29:13

phone. I mean, that has no

1:29:15

effect on me whatsoever. You know

1:29:18

that. Hopefully we'll see you guys

1:29:20

Monday morning. Bye-bye.