Tag: Dave St. Peter

The Twins never make it easy

Derek Falvey

Now that a few days have passed since Derek Falvey and Minnesota Twins ownership “mutually agreed” to part ways it seems like a good time to share my thoughts on what happened. When the move was announced on Friday, January 30 it came as a real shock that a parting of the ways like this would take place just two weeks away for the beginning of Spring Training 2026 and just a week after the Minnesota Twins Diamond Awards and TwinsFest took place.

While I was disappointed that this move didn’t take place right after the 2025 season ended, I am still glad that it happened. I see this as the best news that I have seen coming from the Twins camp in a long time. I am no baseball expert but I just don’t think that Falvey was ever qualified for this job and should not have been hired in the first place. I wonder how much the Twins paid him to walk away quietly? It appears that Falvey and Pohlad were not only not on the same wave length, they weren’t even in the same area code.

Derek Falvey was hired by the Minnesota Twins as Executive Vice President and Chief Baseball Officer on October 3, 2016. He officially joined the organization following the conclusion of the 2016 World Series and was later promoted to President of Baseball Operations in November 2019. In 2025 He also took over the business side of the Twins operation from Dave St. Peter who decided to retire.

 

Year Year End 40?Man
2025 $130,113,745
2024 $132,543,419
2023 $166,950,772
2022 $151,057,543
2021 $125,983,176
2020 $52,627,942
2019 $125,205,980
2018 $131,186,562
2017 $111,209,586
2016 $106,840,501
2015 $108,275,245
2014 $91,071,286
2013 $76,132,483
2012 $101,165,992
2011 $115,419,106
2010 $103,039,407
  • Year End 40-man roster payrolls obtained by The Associated Press include salaries and pro-rated shares of signing bonuses, earned performance and award bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options and cash transactions. Deferrals may be discounted to reflect present-day value.

Source: Cot’s Baseball Contracts

Continue reading The Twins never make it easy

2025 Twins Turkey of the Year — Joe Pohlad: Spend to Compete or Sell the Team

The 2025 Twins Turkey of the Year is a runaway: Joe Pohlad and the Pohlad family. A year that began with the club being listed for sale, saw a mid-season bullpen purge that precipitated a 19–35 finish and attendance lows not seen since 2000, included the early-2025 retirement of longtime president Dave St. Peter, and ended with ownership disclosing roughly $500 million in debt and announcing two unnamed minority partners reportedly committing about $250 million each. The consequence: ownership credibility is shaken, the roster was hollowed out, and fans are demanding a clear plan: spend to compete or sell.

The case for the winner

  • Team listed for sale then taken off the market The Pohlad family listed the club in October 2024 and removed it from the market in August 2025. That reversal — with few public details — left supporters and local media scrambling for clarity.
  • A deadline purge that broke the bullpen and the season The front office traded most of the bullpen and roughly a third of the roster at the 2025 trade deadline. The aftermath was brutal: the club finished the last two months 19–35 and fan attendance dropped to historic lows going back to 2000.
  • Debt disclosure with scarce detail Ownership disclosed roughly $500 million in debt and announced two new minority investor groups would join the ownership structure; the groups remain unnamed and the terms undisclosed.
  • Leadership churn and power consolidation President Dave St. Peter retired early in 2025. Derek Falvey was given responsibility for both baseball and business operations, an increasingly rare and risky structure in MLB. The team fired manager Rocco Baldelli the day after the season ended and hired former Twins coach Derek Shelton, who had been passed over when Baldelli was originally hired.
  • Erosion of trust The sequence — team for sale, mass trades, delisting, large undisclosed debt, unnamed partners, and consolidated executive power — produced a credibility gap between ownership and the fanbase.

Fan sentiment — blunt and urgent

Fans aren’t asking for sympathy; they’re issuing an ultimatum: the Pohlad’s should either spend what it takes to field a competitive team or sell to someone who will. After the payroll purge, the late-season collapse, and attendance plunging to levels not seen since 2000, protests at games have become common and chants demanding a sale are no longer fringe behavior. That anger is grounded in consequences: fewer wins, emptier stands, and a long list of unanswered questions about who the new investors are and what they actually committed to do.

The present reality for the franchise

  • On-field: a depleted roster, competitive collapse down the stretch, and a new manager in Derek Shelton.
  • Front office: Derek Falvey now oversees both baseball and business operations.
  • Financial: roughly $500 million in disclosed debt, with two minority partners reportedly committing about $250 million each.
  • Fan engagement: attendance at historic lows and a fanbase sharply skeptical of ownership’s commitment to winning.
  • Communication: ownership has offered high-level statements but few specifics on partner identities, capital structure, or a time-bound plan.

Two realistic paths forward assuming the Pohlad’s remain majority owners

  1. Payroll-first
    • Core idea: trade more top payroll pieces to rapidly reduce payroll and service debt.
    • Short term: faster debt relief and lower payroll obligations.
    • Medium term: deeper competitive decline, longer rebuild, worsening fan trust and attendance.
  2. Competitive-rebuild (recommended hybrid)
    • Core idea: protect the best, controllable starters; add low-cost controllable talent; rebuild around prospects.
    • Short term: slower debt reduction, but gives fans hope and preserves on-field credibility.
    • Medium term: faster restoration of attendance and franchise value if progress is visible and steady.

Can Derek Falvey handle both baseball and business?

  • The challenge Combining baseball and business leadership concentrates authority but splits focus; MLB’s modern norm separates those roles because each demands distinct expertise.
  • Why it might work Falvey understands roster construction and can move quickly with unified authority in a crisis.
  • Why it could fail The dual role risks neglecting revenue generation or player development unless strong deputies are immediately hired.
  • Practical recommendation Falvey should remain strategic integrator but promptly appoint a seasoned business COO/CFO and a GM-level deputy for day-to-day baseball operations.

What the new minority partners could mean if they each invest ~$250M

  • Best case — real, unrestricted capital pays down debt, stabilizes the balance sheet, preserves payroll flexibility, and funds a hybrid rebuild that protects controllable starters while accelerating prospect development.
  • Worst case — conditioned capital, loans, or investor demands for cost cutting could accelerate another sell-off and prolong competitive decline.
  • Governance matters — names, ownership percentages, board seats, and governance terms will determine whether these investors are stabilizers or drivers of further austerity.

Recommended three-year plan the Pohlad’s should announce now

  1. Disclose the minority partners’ identities, commitments, ownership percentages, and governance roles within 60 days.
  2. Publish a three-year roadmap with payroll bands, prospect milestones, and a timeline for returning to a competitive window.
  3. Protect the best controllable starters this winter; trade truly expendable, high-cost veterans for multiple controllable assets.
  4. Increase budgeted investment in player development, international scouting, and analytics.
  5. Hire a COO/CFO and a GM-level deputy to support Falvey and ensure operational focus.
  6. Launch visible fan engagement initiatives to arrest attendance declines while on-field progress begins.

What fans should watch next

  • Who the unnamed minority partners are and the legal terms of their investments.
  • Whether Falvey appoints senior deputies for business and baseball operations.
  • Which players the front office markets publicly: are deals aimed at payroll relief or prospect acquisition?
  • Early hires and budget allocations for player development and scouting.
  • Any clear, date-driven milestones from ownership about payroll and competitive targets.

“We were promised stewardship; instead we got sale signals, a payroll purge—and answers that never came.”

The Twins Turkey of the Year in 2025 is Joe Pohlad. This is the first time we have had a Twins Turkey of the Year take home the honors two years in a row.

Joe Pohlad

Previous Twins Turkey of the year winners

2024 – Joe Pohlad

2023 – Byron Buxton

2022 – Max Kepler

2021 – Derek Falvey & Thad Levine

2020 – Covid-19

2019 – Dave St. Peter

2018 – Third Baseman Miguel Sano

2017 – Derek Falvey & Thad Levine

2016 – The entire 2016 Minnesota Twins team

2015 – Pitcher Ricky Nolasco

2014 – Outfielder Aaron Hicks

2013 – President Dave St. Peter

2012 – Owner Jim Pohlad

2011 – Catcher Joe Mauer

2010 – Third Baseman Brendan Harris (can’t seem to find this one)

2009 – Pitcher Glen Perkins

Twins Tickets Then and Now: A Journey from the Met to Target Field

Back in 1961, when the Twins first started playing ball in Minnesota, catching a game at Metropolitan Stadium was a straightforward affair. You had three ticket options: a “general admission” ticket for $1.50, a “reserved grandstand” ticket for $2.50, or a “box seat” for $3.00. No extra fees, no hidden costs. Just imagine it—$3.00 back then is roughly $31.67 in today’s money. Now, take a trip to Target Field today and see what kind of ticket that $31.67 will get you after all the fees and extra charges.

Those early Twins ticket prices stayed the same for seven years while the team played in Bloomington. And they had some great teams during that time, including the 1965 squad that won the American League Pennant, only to lose the World Series in a nail-biting seven games against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Fun fact: The Twins were considered to have one of the highest payrolls in baseball back then! Calvin Griffith, the owner, is often remembered as a cheapskate today, but things were quite different.

Fast forward to 1981, the last year the Twins played at Met Stadium, and they still kept things simple with just four ticket categories: general admission, unreserved grandstand, reserved grandstand, and box seats. General admission went for $3, and box seats were $7. It wasn’t until 1988, seven years into their stint at the Metrodome, that the first double-digit ticket price of $10 appeared for a lower deck reserved seat. And by 1992, after winning the World Series twice, the $3.00 general admission ticket was gone for good. Can you think of anything you can get today for the same price you could 30 years ago? It’s a tough one!

Things took a real turn in 2006 when the Twins introduced dynamic ticket pricing. It was a game-changer, literally. Now, the price you paid depended on the ticket demand for that game. The person sitting next to you might have paid more or less than you. Ticket prices could go up but rarely went down, since they couldn’t dip below what a season ticket holder paid. It was a win for the team but a bit of a kicker for fans, as ticket prices soared with increasing demand.

The screws tightened further on dynamic pricing, and by 2024, all Twins tickets were dynamically priced from the get-go, whereas before, there had been a base price for a short period. When I couldn’t figure out Twins ticket prices anymore, I reached out to Eddie Eixenberger, the Twins VP of Ticket Sales and Strategy. We had what seemed like a pleasant chat, and he promised to get back to me with some data. But he never did, and my follow-up attempts were unsuccessful. It became pretty clear that the Twins, under Dave St. Peter, had no interest in sharing information about ticket pricing or numbers.

In the past, the Twins made base season ticket numbers available to the public, and local newspapers often wrote about them. Recently, though, when I asked Dave St. Peter for this data, he made it clear that they wouldn’t provide it anymore—at least to me. What’s the big secret? Why shouldn’t the fans have access to this data? The only reason I can think of is that the Twins might be embarrassed by the numbers.

That’s why I didn’t publish Twins ticket price info for 2024 on this site. Imagine my surprise when the Twins rolled out their 2025 ticket plan. It’s a tangled web of rewards and pricing that you practically need a lawyer to navigate. Apparently, the Twins haven’t heard of the KISS principle—Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Twins ticket price history

2024 Twins Turkey of the Year

With the extraordinarily warm weather we are having in Minnesota where the grass is still green, the water in the lakes is still liquid and Thanksgiving is just around the corner it is hard to believe we are well into the fall/winter sports season. The Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota Wild and Minnesota Timberwolves all doing better than expected, pushing the Minnesota Twins off sports fans radar screens.

That is in spite of the fact that the Twins have announced that MLB will produce and distribute Twins games in 2025 but no specifics pertaining to cost were provided, the Pohlad family announced their intent to explore a sale of the Minnesota Twins, the team fired all three hitting coaches as well as its assistant bench coach, GM Thad Levine decided to pursue other interests and was replaced by Jeremy Zoll, Alex Kirilloff announced he was retiring at the age of 26, the team announced an executive leadership succession plan, to be implemented in the first quarter of 2025 whereas club President & CEO Dave St. Peter will transition to the role of Strategic Advisor; and President, Baseball Operations Derek Falvey will be elevated to President, Baseball & Business Operations. My favorite announcement so far though is the Twins also announcing in a very low-key manner a new (and I think complicated) ticket plan that includes the sale of MYTWINS Memberships and Reward Plans ranging from $600 to $7500. Just another method of of reaching into Twins fans pockets.

All of this with the Twins season ending less than a month ago and the MLB Winter Meetings (December 8-12) in Dallas still two weeks off. We have been very busy here at the home of Twinstrivia.com as we sold our home in Plymouth, MN in mid-October and are preparing to move to Corcoran, MN around Thanksgiving. When you live some place for 38+ years you tend to accumulate way too much stuff including in my case Twins memorabilia and other stuff. I first thought about skipping a Twins Turkey of the Year award this year but that just wouldn’t fair when the Minnesota Twins had an epic collapse that saw them drop from second place all the way to fourth. A 9-18 September had the Twins players calling their travel agents and making new travel plans that included more golf and no baseball. A season like the Twins just had in 2024 requires that a Twins Turkey of the Year winner be named yet again.

Continue reading 2024 Twins Turkey of the Year

Walter Johnson Had No Idea: A Life with Baseball reviewed

A dirt farmer in Southern Indiana in the year 1924 chose to name his son after a famous baseball player who would someday enter the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Little did anyone know at the time, including that famous player, just how much that decision would mean to that son and the generations to follow. That was the beginning of a love affair with baseball that would identify this family, a love that would begin with the Washington Senators and move on to Minnesota in 1961. Now five generations in, this family allegiance is still very much alive today.

This is a story of the son of that son with the famous name and his love of baseball that was handed down to him. He in turn has passed that love on to his son, who now has a daughter who will hopefully understand this love of the game. Memories are made with the game of baseball, and so many are worth sharing.

As the pages of this book are turned, the reader will begin to recognize many of these memories and hopefully be reminded of memories that are part of their lives. Hopefully, the reader will have a better understanding of how generations of a family can be connected by the threads of a baseball.

Continue reading Walter Johnson Had No Idea: A Life with Baseball reviewed

What’s up at the ballpark you say?

Taking down Luis Arraez

I made my first trip out to the Lee County Sports Complex Tuesday morning to see what is going on out there before Spring Training starts. I had hoped to get out there back in early January to take in some of the Twins Fantasy Camp games and chat with some former Twins players that serve as team managers and coaches but I had a nasty cold for about two weeks that just didn’t want to go away so I thought it best to stay away.

When I got out to the complex today it was a beehive of activity from trucks delivering office equipment, landscaping activities going on around the complex (which actually withstood Hurricane Ian back in late September fairly well), a cherry picker taking a huge Luis Arraez images down from above the ticket office, to major and minor league players working out on numerous fields.

Louie Varland

On my walk to the back fields I noticed a player heading towards me and he looked familiar but I just couldn’t place him, it turned out to be Louie Varland and I got his picture, wished him good luck and embarrassingly I forget to introduce myself. How dumb is that? I didn’t make that mistake on all the other players I met today. This time of the year no one is wearing uniforms with numbers so it is often very hard to know who is who. What surprised me I guess is how many players are already here with pitchers throwing on at least three fields. Catchers all over the place and one of those catchers was Christian Vazquez. Looks to me like Vazquez is going to be an easy player to like as today he signed autographs for a group of people and posed for a picture for me, even went to the trouble of taking off his catching gear first. He reminded us “that I am number 8 and not number 7” and everyone got a good laugh including Christian in an obvious reference to Joe Mauer.

I met a gentleman on the back fields from Indiana by the name of Robert McCammon who is a retired school teacher and now spends winters in Florida and works part-time at Hammond Stadium during Spring Training. He grew up a Washington Senators fan and is now a Twins fan and last year he published a book called Walter Johnson Had No Idea. Twins President Dave St. Peter wrote the Forward for the book. I have a copy of the book and am anxious to read it since I just wrapped up my latest Baldacci novel yesterday.

It was so nice to be at the complex on a nice sunny day with temperatures in the low 70’s and watching people catching and throwing a baseball around again. It is a fun time of the year, no one has lost a game, no one is injured yet, no pressure on anyone to make the team, no trade rumors flying around and everyone is happy and in a good mood. How can you not love baseball at this time of the year. I took a number of other pictures that I will share with you in the next few days.

Update on 2/8 – You can see the rest of the 2023 Spring Training pictures here.

2021 Twins Turkey of the Year

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

Time seems to have gotten away from me and it was only in the last few days that I realized it was that time again, time to pick another Twins Turkey of the Year. This years winner will be number 13. So far we have only had one repeat winner and that was President and CEO Dave St. Peter who took the honors in 2013 and again in 2019.

With the 2021 Minnesota Twins expected to do well and go deep in the playoffs by their fans and the so called baseball experts and then to see the team finish 73-89 and in last place in the American League Central Division you would have to think that there were more turkeys then you could shake a stick at. You would be right.

Continue reading 2021 Twins Turkey of the Year

How concerned are the Twins about the FSN/Sinclair snafu

With many of the streaming options dropping Fox Sports North of late many Minnesota Twins fans like a number of other MLB fans are left in a lurch for a way to watch their favorite teams play ball in a couple of weeks when the 2021 season opens. I am still connected to my Xfinity cable box but I can certainly sympathize with the fans that have no way to watch Twins baseball.

In a recent Star Tribune article Chip Scoggins wrote that “Multiple people familiar with the situation told me local franchises with FSN ties are looking at viewership losses of between one-quarter and one-third of their audience. That’s big, and sobering.”

In that same article Dave St. Peter said he understands frustration of fans who can’t watch the Twins because they don’t have access to FSN. “People want to be able to watch their teams,” St. Peter said. “I don’t think that is an unrealistic or unfair expectation.”

Continue reading How concerned are the Twins about the FSN/Sinclair snafu

Looking at the Twins single game ticket prices for 2020

The 2019 Twins improved by 23 games over the previous season by winning 101 games under first time manager Rocco Baldelli. Along the way the Twins set numerous team records including scoring an amazing 939 runs and hitting an MLB record 307 home runs. The Bomba Squad had Twins fans excited from game 1 through game 162 and attendance jumped back above the 2.2 million mark making it only the second time since they began play in Target Field in 2010 that attendance has gone up from the previous season. Yes, the Twins made the playoffs but were quickly dispatched in three games in the ALDS by the New York Yankees stretching the Twins losing streak in playoff games to a record breaking 16 games going back to 2004. So what impact did the 2019 season have on Twins ticket prices heading into 2020?

All I am going to say right here is that if you are going to head out to Target Field to watch the winning MInnesota Twins in 2020 you will need to pay a little bit more. If you want to see the details, you can check them on my Twins Ticket Price History page.