Hello, fellow humans! My name is William Malone IV. Son of William Malone III. And I come with great news! Opening Day for Major League Baseball is only a week away.

Granted, the Minnesota Twins will not be playing a week from today. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs will be opening the season in Japan. Even without the mighty Twins, it is still a most exciting time for baseball fans everywhere.

A new season comes with hope! Many of the 30 teams will be awesome! Many of the 30 teams will stink. And many of them will be in some middle ground between awesome and stink. Does anyone remember the 2019 Twins? That team was awesome, even if the playoffs brought much sadness to the Land of Many Lakes. They set the world record for big dingers hit over the fence that season. The whole thing was quite exciting to watch.

This team became known as the "Bomba Squad." But what happened to the wonderful humans who made up this record breaking offense? Let's take a look, while also ranking them by their bWAR following the 2019 campaign. Remember my friends, if you disagree with these rankings then you must take it up with Baseball Reference and their judgement of bWAR. Don't be calling your ole pal William Malone IV a big stupid dum dum in the comments because you don't like where your favorite Bomba Squad player is ranked.

1. Byron Buxton (15.0 bWAR after 2019)
Injuries continue to be the story for Buxton, who wasn't healthy enough to play alongside the Bomba Squad in the 2019 postseason. He did get some down ballot MVP votes in 2020, and was an All-Star in 2022. But there's still another level that Twins fans would love to see him reach.

2. Luis Arraez (14.4 bWAR after 2019)
There are some holes in his game. This is why Arraez seems to bounce around the league a bit. But you still can't argue with three batting titles. That's why Luis Arraez is towards the top of these rankings.

3. Jorge Polanco (11.1 bWAR after 2019)
The Twins got a lot of good baseball out of Polanco for the first few years after 2019, but injuries and a rising core of infield prospects eventually saw him traded following their 2023 division title. Polanco hit a career best 33 home runs in 2021.

4. Max Kepler (9.1 bWAR after 2019)
There have been some bad stretches for Kepler since 2019, but this has come with good runs as well. His OPS+ of 124 in 2023 actually matched his 2019 clip, although the juiced baseball beefing up everyone's number league wide in 2019 mean Kepler's raw stats were better in the Bomba Squad season. As always, Kepler has provided solid defense.

5. LaMonte Wade (6.0 bWAR after 2019)
The Twins lost Wade in a very forgettable trade. He's turned himself into a respectable player with the Giants, although maybe a bit limited. Wade has a .564 career OPS against left handed pitching, and is one of the worst defensive outfielders in baseball. He's a bit better when playing first base, but not much better. None the less, he's still a hell of a lot better than Shaun Anderson even with these limitations.

6. C.J. Cron (5.3 bWAR after 2019)
Cron was an All-Star for the Colorado Rockies in 2023, and his 2022 season was statically better. But you might be able to chalk this success up to the Coors Field effect. After a poor 2023, he didn't play professional baseball at any level last year.

7. Mitch Garver (4.4 bWAR after 2019)
There has been a lot of good and bad for Garver since 2019. His 2020 season was about as bad it could get for a player, as he became almost unplayable. But weird circumstances for the COVID season can make you look past that. Injuries have limited him to just 80 games per season since the start of 2021, and he now plays more DH than catcher.

8. Nelson Cruz (4.1 bWAR after 2019)
Cruz continued to be awesome after 2019, winning a Silver Slugger in 2020 and making the All-Star team in 2021. He was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays at the deadline in 2021, and it would appear Minnesota moved on at the exact right moment. Cruz was bad in the second half of 2021, and never found his form again after that. Father Time is undefeated.

9. Jonathan Schoop (2.7 bWAR after 2019)
He played pretty well for the Detroit Tigers in 2020 and 2021, owning a 110 OPS+ across those two seasons. This was a slight improvement over the 102 he posted during the 2019 season in Minnesota. But then he began to decline a bit in 2022 and 2023. Schoop is currently playing professionally in Mexico.

t10. Marwin Gonzalez (0.2 bWAR after 2019)
Gonzalez played three seasons after 2019, helping three different teams make the playoffs while playing his familiar utility role. The first came with the Twins in 2020. He then played for the Astros in 2021 and the Yankees in 2022. The stats don't jump off the page, but you also can't put a price on veteran leadership off the bench.

t10. Jason Castro (0.2 bWAR after 2019)
An underlying story of the Bomba Squad was that Minnesota set the record for home runs by catchers that season. While a lot of that was Silver Slugger winning Mitch Garver doing his thing, Castro still hit 13 of his own. After leaving the Twins, he bounced around a bit as a backup catcher. Castro got a World Series ring with the Astros in 2022.

t10. Ronald Torreyes (0.2 bWAR after 2019)
One memorable moment for the Twins in 2019 was Ronald Torreyes winning a game for them by drawing a walk-off hit by pitch. He was a career Quad-A guy who played 115 games for parts of two seasons with the Phillies after 2019.

t13. Miguel Sano (0.0 bWAR after 2019)
Getting Sano back to an even 0.0 bWAR since 2019 is carried by a solid 2021 season in which he hit 30 home runs with a decent walk rate. Everything around that was a display of very bad baseball for the inconsistent slugger.

t13. Ryan LaMarre (0.0 bWAR after 2019)
This was only a nine game sample with the Yankees in 2021, so it was really hard to move the WAR needle in either direction. LaMarre did hit two home runs in that short nine game stint, but those two homers were part of a 4-for-24 (.190) showing at the plate.

t13. Ian Miller (0.0 bWAR after 2019)
His sample size was even smaller than LaMarre. Miller only appeared in one game after 2019. It was a pinch running appearance for the Cubs in 2020. He did not come to bat, he did not play the field.

16. Ehire Adrianza (-0.2 bWAR after 2019)
The post-Twins highlight for Adrianza was winning the 2021 World Series as a member of the Braves. He went 1-for-10 (.100) in that postseason, and never played the field. Those were ten pinch hitting appearances. Keep in mind, this was back when the NL still had pitchers batting. That's how he got so many pinch hitting attempts over such a small sample.

17. Jake Cave (-0.9 bWAR after 2019)
For all the complaints that Jake Cave played too much, he found even more playing time after leaving the Twins. He was on the Phillies Opening Day and playoff rosters in 2023, and then played a career high 123 games for the Colorado Rockies in 2024. But his numbers still weren't any better from his time in Minnesota, and he's now playing in Korea.

18. Eddie Rosario (-1.1 bWAR after 2019)
Winning NLCS MVP in 2021 is a great accomplishment, but that was really just a flash in the pan for what has been a rapid drop off. Rosario has an 87 OPS+ and -5 defensive runs saved since 2019 concluded. He didn't even play that well in the 2021 World Series after his NLCS MVP performance, going 5-for-22 (.227) with no RBI.

19. Willians Astuillo (-1.4 bWAR after 2019)
It's honestly incredible to accumulate -1.4 bWAR over such a small sample. He only played 101 big league games after the 2019 season. The guy just wasn't good at playing baseball. At least Eddie Rosario got his negative bWAR number over a 481 game run.

DNQ. Tyler Austin (DNP in MLB after 2019)
2019 was the end of the road for Tyler Austin, in terms of his Major League career. He still plays professionally in Japan, and won a silver medal with Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics.