Minnesota Twins: One Lesson to learn From Each Minnesota Sports Team

Lesson from the Vikings: The Minnesota Twins should be careful with the way they structure contracts

In 2018, Kirk Cousins signed a 3 year, $84M contract with the Minnesota Vikings. While this might not sound like a crazy contract for a quarterback of his caliber, it was ALL guaranteed, a record-breaking contract for the NFL.

At the end of that contract in 2020, Cousins signed yet another deal with the Vikings, this time for 2 years and $66M. This contract was also, you guessed it, fully guaranteed. While Cousins has seen his play improve a lot this year, all of that guaranteed money is a bitter pill to swallow.

Don’t get me wrong, I love when people can achieve financial security no matter who they are, but Cousins was the real and only winner in this scenario. In his four years in Minnesota, cousins is 31-28-1 and is 1-1 in playoff games as a Viking, taking Vikings fan on an emotional roller coaster every year.

He plays just well enough to give fans hope that he can take them on a late run, but in my opinion, his play has not been work the $150 million of guaranteed money so far and he is running out of time to make it worth it.

The Minnesota Twins have done a great job of avoiding this problem, especially with the way they just structured Byron Buxton’s new contract. Buxton recently signed a 7yr/$100M contract with a boatload of incentives, including million dollar bonuses depending where he finishes in MVP voting and $500K bonuses that can stack up based on how many plate appearances he gets through the year.

The contract is both team and player friendly. If Buxton plays a lot and at a high level, he gets paid like a star and the Twins get the player they’ve always believed Buck could be. If not, he gets a reasonable base salary and the Twins aren’t hamstrung by it. They seem to have picked up this first lesson well.

Lesson from the Timberwolves: The Minnesota Twins shouldn’t be afraid to let players go, especially if they don’t fit

While the Minnesota Timberwolves may not be the best team in the Western Conference, they do have young talent that they can build around for the future. Karl Anthony-Towns is an All-Star so far and Anthony Edwards is looking like he is going to be a star in the league for years to come.

Looking at Andrew Wiggins who was drafted in 2014 and traded to the Wolves before ever playing a game, it would have been a great core to have. However, Wiggins just never really settled in to who he was supposed to be. In 6 seasons he averaged almost 20 PPG but he could never take that next step to really lead the team.

The team identified that KAT would be a better block to build around as dominant big men are much harder to come by in today’s NBA and they sent Wiggins (and some picks) to the Golden State Warriors.

The Minnesota Twins did just that when they traded starting pitcher Jose Berrios to the Toronto Blue Jays for two of the top prospect in the Toronto Blue Jays system (Austin Martin and Simeon Woods-Richardson). They seem to be picking up these lessons well.

While the Twins could have tried to work out a big extension for Berrios, they realized they were not in a position to win right away and the best move was to move on before he became a free agent and try to get some talent for the future.

Lesson from the Wild: The Minnesota Twins should have a good mix of vets and young talent

Both the Minnesota Wild and the Minnesota Twins have veteran rosters that were built for the playoffs. Hockey and baseball are slightly different, but the Wild are first in their division while the Twins didn’t finish first in anything. What happened?

A good mix of age for their star players may be the key. Kirill Kaprizov leads the team with 33 points, while the next highest is Mats Zucarello, who has 22. The difference in age between the two is 10 years!

The two best players on the Minnesota Twins are aged 28 and 36 (Buxton and Josh Donaldson), which is also a pretty wide difference, but the team doesn’t have much electric young talent. I know that baseball and hockey are two extremely different sports in terms of peak ages, when guys get called up etc. But the Twins need their young talent to come up soon.

The Twins could use a “soft rebuild” to start calling some guys up who are at least on the fringe of being ready and letting the veterans who have been in the league and on the team guide them through the big league process and get them ready to jump in and compete as soon as possible.

Lesson from Minnesota United: The Minnesota Twins must do the little things right and give it time

Minnesota United is about as textbook as it gets for a new team joining a league. In their first two years in 2017 and 2018, they finished 19th and 18th overall in the league. That’s expected for a new team playing in an established league. The two following years after that, they finished fourth in their conference and seventh and ninth in the league overall.

Steady improvement through locking down a core group of players, building around them and giving the coach a chance to see his vision through, even when things start off slow.That is exactly what the Twins must do moving forward.

They have been in and out of the cusps of the playoffs. Their last series win came in 2002, and since then they have been knocked out in the first round eight consecutive times while only winning one single game.

The Twins do not have to take it slow by any means, because the team is talented and no fan wants to wait around forever for a rebuild, but they need to do the little things right. They need to build around their core, which it seems they are starting to do after the Buxton contract.

They should let Rocco Baldelli do his thing and manage the free market and farm system in a way that allows them to compete in the near future. This does not mean strip the team down or go on a buying spree, but little by little graduate to the next steps and give the Twins fans some sort of optimism that things are on the right path.