Thread: Which Team Is The Real Twins?

I am predicting that the Twins win 80 games this year. I hope I am under. I hope that in those 80 wins come some development of Dozier, Parmelee, and Hendriks. And I hope Pavano, Liriano, Capps, Casilla, and a few prospect throw-ins like Pugh, Robertson, Watts, and Achting, on one hand, and Morales, JD Williams, and Niko Goodrum, on the other usher in some more players, at least one who is a MLB-ready starting pitcher and at least one who is a A- or above prospect, with a few more lower level prospects in addition.

The "real Twins" are nowhere to be found. Same for last year. Perhaps this is what is most frustrating about the Twins in the past two years--there seems to be legitimate 90 win potential and yet 60 win potential truthfully arises. Last year, I blame injuries. This year, I blame the starting rotation, but this is being corrected. Revere and Diamond are more seasoned and can be regular contributors, and Dozier will be fine enough this year at SS. Morneau being healthy and productive while Mauer plays 130 games+ is huge.

The Twins are on pace for about 63 wins currently. Obviously, that would be a disaster, as it's pretty much exactly on par with last year. I think the fact that Morneau and Willingham are on this team, and that Morneau has shown flashes of his former self would put them at on course for about 70 wins or so. I feel like we have a lot of interleague matchups and games against the Central coming up, whereas our early schedule was pretty brutal.

I wanted to say that having Mauer catching (even a struggling Mauer) is also a clear upgrade over Butera, but for Mauer's "injury plauged" 82-game season last year, he actually did play from June 17th to September 14th (before the pneumonia thing). I just don't believe that Mauer has that much of an impact on this lineup. He'll probably always post an .800 OPS because of his ability to walk and get singles, but I refuse to believe that ability benefits a struggling lineup the way that Miguel Cabrera does hitting a garbage pitch over the CF wall.

Mauer is not Miguel Cabrera, but he is a great batter, batting third in the lineup. Pretty impactful.