But on another note. Putting together a baseball team is a combination of homegrown talent, aging talent, and free agents. You can field an entire roster of youth (the Astros, marlins) and maybe they will gel and might be in for a surprise. Or the whole group can stagnate as some thrive and others just play. Often, when you are in a haphazard environment and EVERYONE is pushing, no one works out.

The perfect major league system means you bring in 2-4 players a year, some start as the fourth outfielder, the long relief. They take their lumps, watch the game with coaches, and end up shining. You bring in the grizzled veteran as a stopgap free agent, the 5th starter, the long-relief, the backup infielder. All capable of stepping up their game for one more chance of glory if the need arises, but there to collect to pension points and inspire teamwork.

You want to feed the guys into the team year after year. You don’t need them ALL arbitration eligible at the same time., You don’t need the also-rans becoming too expensive when their time comes to step up to the plate and take a fulltime position with the team.

Or you do what the A’s and the Rays seem to be doing, promote, play, and trade for more for the future. But then you MUST draft and trade well. And you must then play the players to show them off.

But putting fan butts in the seats? Well, Target Field WAS to make the Twins more competitive. They could splurge and overpay, you’d think, on that $7 million starter/reliever, or $52 million multi-year deal for a pitcher who can bridge the gap between now and next. The Twins have a bit more luxury in being to fail, eating that Blackburn contract, overpaying for a Japanese batting champ. They can make a mistake or two a season. They can, now. With the hope of competing. Fans want to see a good game. They don’t necessarily need to win-win-win all the time. Someone does have to lose in the grad scheme of things (besides the Astros). You just hope it is the other team that loses EQUALLY as yours.

Baseball is a fun and interesting game experience. Things can change thru the course of an at bat, an inning, a game. You are never totally out until the game ends, unless you consistently give up five runs in the opening frame and have a weak batting order. Fans like to see some strikeouts, a homerun or two by either team, some baserunning, a great fielding play or three. They want to see runners moves, runners get thrown out. They want the suspense of knowing their team has a chance for victory, and that it is accomplished at least 50% of the time in most seasons.

If you don’t spend money in the offseason, you spend it in the draft. But the Twins still do have extra money to play with. That is the frustration. Target Field gave them extra revenue. New TV contracts gave them extra revenue. But if fans don’t show, you lose that revenue. Profit today vs. profit tomorrow (or what level of profit). Somehow, though, even if the team should “lose” money, the value of the franchise ever increases.

Except in the eyes of fans.

I commented in a similar vein before, so you know how very right I think you are. My dad’s office had season tickets during the other lean decades (1970s and 1990s), so I still saw my share of games. But it stunk watching the Twins get their butts kicked regularly every season, especially so when they played in the Humphrey Warehouse and there was a hot St. Paul Saints alternative.

Even thought I agree with you, I want to point out a couple of times where I was surprised the other way:

1983 we were 70-91 and drawing 10,000 people a game to a brand new stadium. Next year Kirby Puckett happened along early in the season and all of a sudden the same-seeming team was fighting for the division title until the end. Attendance almost doubled and stayed pretty healthy until the end of the Puckett era.

2000 we were 69-93 and back down to last in attendance. The next year a pretty blown up team of punks was second in the AL Central and on its way to another decade of success.

So a fan can hope. Happy New Year.