Minnesota’s Payroll Cuts Cloud Everything Going On With the Team Right Now

When the Minnesota Twins signed Joe Mauer to an eight-year, $184 million extension during Spring Training in 2010, they celebrated it as the dawn of a new era. "We've talked for a long time about the importance of Target Field," team president Dave St. Peter said, referring to Minnesota’s new park that broke ground in 2007 and opened in 2010. "It really puts the Minnesota Twins in a position to retain the talent that we work so hard to develop in the minor leagues."

Mauer became a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but the Twins failed to build a contender around him after he signed the extension. The New York Yankees swept Minnesota for the second consecutive year in 2010, and Mauer was a first baseman by the time the Twins returned to the playoffs in 2017. Predictably, the Yankees eliminated Minnesota in the Wild Card game that year.

The Twins lost 90-plus games from 2011 to 2014 and 103 in 2016. Mauer took the brunt of the blame for Minnesota’s shortcomings, but his $23 million salary was only part of the equation. The Twins stopped developing pitching during that time, and much of their star talent left the organization shortly after the bilateral leg weakness season. Justin Morneau, Joe Nathan, and Michael Cuddyer were long gone when the Twins won 83 games and nearly made the playoffs in 2015.

However, Minnesota’s most meaningful mistake occurred before Mauer signed the extension. In 2008, they traded Johan Santana to the New York Mets, who signed him to a six-year, $137.5 million contract. It was a price the Twins were unwilling to pay, and they didn’t get a fair return for arguably the best pitcher on the planet.

At the Winter meetings this year, the Twins announced they were cutting payroll, triggering a fanbase concerned that history may be repeating itself. Extending Mauer after his MVP season in 2009 looked like a meaningful paradigm shift for the franchise. Instead, it became the high water mark until last season, when Minnesota won its first playoff game since 2004 and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since they beat the Moneyball A’s in 2002.

The parallels are difficult to ignore. Minnesota has an oft-injured homegrown superstar in Byron Buxton, and they traded José Berríos to the Toronto Blue Jays for Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson, who extended him for seven years, $131 million. Still, there are meaningful differences between this season and 2009. We don’t know how the Berríos trade will play out. Minnesota has built a more robust farm system than it had during the second half of Mauer’s career, and they have a bona fide shortstop.

Martin was prospect guru Keith Law’s top prospect from the 2020 class. He’s an exciting contact hitter who can play all over the field. Woods Richardson stepped into the rotation when Minnesota needed a fifth starter. However, the Twins wouldn’t have needed a fifth starter if they had Berríos, and Berríos’s presence would have put less pressure on them during the trade deadline.

Pablo López and Joe Ryan are Minnesota’s proven postseason starters. Given how Bailey Ober has pitched recently, he looks ready to start a playoff game. However, an injury to López, Ryan, or Ober leaves the Twins in a challenging spot. Woods Richardson is likely their next-best option, meaning they’d be relying on a 23-year-old rookie in a crucial spot. After that, it would be rookie David Festa, Louie Varland, or Triple-A starter Zebby Matthews.

Minnesota’s payroll cuts loomed over the trade deadline, creating noise that obfuscated the front office’s disciplined approach to a seller’s market. They were in on Yusei Kikuchi until the Houston Astros overpaid for him. There would have been some immediate gratification in landing a pitcher who seemed like a perfect fit. However, it would have harmed the organization long-term to overpay for a 33-year-old rental. And again, they wouldn’t have been in this position if they had retained Berríos.

The Twins likely cut payroll because they’ve been losing money for years. Season tickets and television revenue are among the most reliable sources of income for franchises because it’s money they get up front. However, season-ticket revenue is delayed a year because fans react to the previous season’s results.

Therefore, Minnesota didn’t immediately benefit from its breakout season in 2019 because of the quarantine in 2020. The Twins also couldn’t fill Target Field immediately after they won the AL Central in 2020 because of COVID restrictions. In 2021, they imploded in May despite having World Series aspirations, and injuries cost them the division title in September 2022. Then, their TV deal fell apart after they advanced to the ALDS last year.

That doesn’t entirely excuse ownership from cutting payroll, though. They chose to return to Diamond Sports, which runs Bally, instead of going direct-to-consumer. By slashing $35 million off the books the year after breaking through in the playoffs, the Twins have a bottom-third payroll ($129.3 million). That’s meaningfully lower than the Seattle Mariners ($153.7 million) and Colorado Rockies ($145.2 million), teams in similar-sized TV markets.

Ultimately, ownership’s decision to cut payroll and the Bally Sports-Comcast dispute overshadows other positive aspects of the organization. By spending $200 million to extend Correa, they landed their first legitimate shortstop since Christan Guzman left in 2004. They have a farm system producing major-league talent, including Ober, Festa, and Lee. Buxton is healthy and productive, forming a dynamic trio with Royce Lewis and Correa when they’re on the field together.

Payroll cuts are affecting the Twins at a crucial juncture for the organization. The cuts have created noise that deafens nuance, which is vital to understanding how Minnesota can avoid repeating the mistakes it made in the mid-aughts. They have a shortstop, a pitching pipeline, and star talent – three ingredients for a contending team. However, they won’t advance deeper into the playoffs unless they build upon the foundation they laid last season.