It might snow in the Twin Cities on Wednesday night, but the smell of baseball is in the air. That's because today is the day Minnesota Twins pitchers and catchers reported to Fort Myers, Florida for Spring Training.
The Twins are coming off their most successful season in terms of the postseason since making it to the ALCS in 2002 and expectations for the club are very high.
Twins President Dave St. Peter tells WCCO's Chad Hartman he feels confident in this group of players going into the season.
"Yeah, we think our starting pitching is still pretty good, you know, it still ranked in the upper echelon of the American League, even without Sonny Gray," says St. Peter. "Our bullpen by most measures is ranked number one or two in all of baseball going into the season. I think a lot of our success in '24 is, we need to score more runs."
Cy Young finalist Gray signed a three-year, $75 million deal in St. Louis. That's a price tag the Twins front office was not even close to matching and his loss will be felt, but the Twins are still confident the collection of young arms they have can fill Gray's innings.
"I recognize it'll be hard to replace Sonny Gray, but remember that every other player that contributed in 2023 is back," says St. Peter.
There still is a number one in Pablo Lopez. Joe Ryan had some terrific moments in '23 and is back. Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack, and new teammate Anthony DeSclafani should round out the five-man rotation with Louie Varland a solid sixth option.
That offense, on paper, should be better. Royce Lewis who is finally healthy and emerged as a potential superstar in the playoffs will be fun to watch. The team swears Byron Buxton is fully healthy and they expect him to get back on the field in center this year as well. And team leader Carlos Correa had a down 2023. He should be better this season. Those three alone, if they stay healthy, makes the Twins a better offense.
The Twins also added a new bat in veteran first baseman Carlos Santana who will likely platoon at first and DH, gives the team a solid and desperately needed right-handed hitter with power. He hit 33 doubles, 23 homers and had 86 RBI in 2023 with Milwaukee.
Add in another year of experience for Eduardo Julien and Alex Kiriloff will help. They'll still need Max Kepler to prove the second half of 2023 wasn't a fluke, and continued good at-bats from Matt Wallner, Ryan Jeffers, and bench guys like Kyle Farmer and Willi Castro.
"This is a good team, and I would argue probably a better team coming into the spring this year than it was a year ago, and last year they were pretty good," says new play-by-play radio voice Kris Atteberry. "A healthy Byron, a healthy Royce Lewis, a healthier Carlos Correa, those are great places to start. I think this is going to be a good team."
Jorge Polanco is gone (in a trade that brought them DeSclafani). Utility man Nick Gordon is gone too. That will open up new opportunities for some of the young guys in the minors to play. The Twins are very high on Austin Martin, Jair Camargo and Brooks Lee. Plus, they are hoping Jose Miranda can recover the form he showed in flashes in 2022 after struggling through a shoulder injury.
St. Peter says that despite the slow offseason and the Twins remaining relatively quiet in the free-agent market, there is still time for more roster movement too.
"I don't know that we're done yet, obviously our payroll limitations have been well-documented, but we're continuing to look at ways to make our team better, whether it be in the short term or over the longer term, i.e. going into the season, towards the trade deadline" St. Peter explained to WCCO. "If we're in a position to win I like our chances of adding additional talent."
Atteberry adds that he thinks this team can run away with the AL Central quickly thanks to their schedule.
"We know that we didn't add a lot of guys but we believe in the guys we have and just drop the hammer from the beginning" Atteberry said on the WCCO Morning News with Adam Carter Wednesday. "I'd love to see that tone set right away in Kansas City."
The Twins open with an exhibition on February 23rd against the University of Minnesota then open 2024 Grapefruit League action February 24th against Pittsburgh. Both of those games can be heard on WCCO Radio and the Audacy app.
2024 TV Deal Done But Questions Remain
It's been a bumpy road but the Twins did announce that they will be back on Bally Sports North for the 2024 season.
After a winter of looking for a streaming partnership elsewhere, bankruptcy court with Bally's owner Diamond Sports Group, proposals involving Amazon, the team ultimately ended up right back where they started.
It appears that it made more financial sense to stick with Bally Sports with St. Peter saying that he's happy to be working with familiar faces but would like to revisit streaming options in the future.
"We understand the need for that, we get it, we're incented to try and find that solution and unfortunately, in this particular agreement it's precluded," St. Peter told Hartman. "That's our focus for the future and something we're going to try to work hard on to deliver for our fans."
While financials were not disclosed for the new deal, expectations based on other Diamond Sports deals with both MLB and other sports leagues have been significantly less money than teams previously received.
St. Peter says that loss of revenue probably didn't have much of an effect on 2024 payrolls, but it is something they need to consider moving forward.
"I think it's going to be limited," says St. Peter. "It's late in the cycle, but obviously (President of Baseball Operations) Derek Falvey has demonstrated a knack of doing things late in the cycle. Local television revenue is going to be a question going forward. We don't have a deal for 2025. So, as Derek navigates that, he has to think about that, 'how does this factor into our '25 club as well'. So, there's a lot of things that go into it. We believe in our leadership. We believe in our team."