Twins Record Second Half

[jorgenswest]

The Twins will be closing out a dismal first half this weekend. What do you think their record will be in the second half?

 

Will they continue their same dismal pace or worse? Will they approach .500? Somewhere in between? If they improve, what signs will we see?

[Winston Smith]

To finish 81-81 they need to go   56-27 .675

to finish 71-91 they need to go   46-37 .554

to finish 61-101 they need to go 36-47 .443

to finish 51-111 they need to go 26-57 .313

So far thru the first half they are at a .316 pace, it certainly looks like they will be in the 100-110 loss range at seasons end.

They are leading the race for the first draft pick!

[spinowner]

For the sake of information:

 

Sunday, July 3 is game 81.

 

35.5-45.5 is a winning percentage of .438.

[Thrylos]

.252

 

That's the number the Twins have to be over in winning percentage.  It is the franchise's worst record (1904 Senators) and the modern era's 4th worst.
 

Their current .316 winning percentage (that translates to a 51-111 record) is the 4th worst of the franchise trailing only the aforementioned 1904 (.252), 1909 (.276), and 1903 (.314) teams.   In Minnesota it is by far the Twins' worst clip.  Second worst was that of the 1982 squad (.370, 102 losses)

[Halsey Hall]

I could be out of my mind, but I think they could go 30 and 50 the last half.  The washout will be a washout.

[jorgenswest]

I found 14 teams that won between 23-27 games in the first half. There are more to find but I couldn't figure out a quick way to get the information. It was enough to help me set the over/under number.

 

All teams won at least 30 games in the second half. Two teams played better than .500 ball. The 97 Phillies went from 23-58 to 45-36. The 2010 Orioles went from 25-56 to 41-40. The group was centered from 34-36 wins which is how I picked the over/under. There is one Twin team in the group. The 82 Twins went from 24-57 to 36-45.

 

It is unlikely that the Twins will perform abov .500 in the second half. It is very unlikely they will repeat their dismal performance of the first half. Other than regression, there are some baseball reasons that will lead to improvement.

 

Their young players particularly in the outfield will likely play better. It is unlikely that whoever closes the ball games will pitch as poorly as the closers in the first half. I think Berrios will make an impact and improve on the production on Milone/Dean. I think Duffey will be better. I am not as confident about Sano's health, but I do think he can better. They certainly can get better production from DH. Even if they trade some of the infield, Polanco has the ability to step in and perform reasonably well.

 

For this reasons I think they will be closer to a .500 team than a .325 team. Somewhere around 35 wins. Optimistically, I will go for the over.

[FormerMinnasotan]

Depends on if Ryan and Molitor are going to continue to be ignorant and trot out trash like Milone or Nolasco in the rotation, and if Bruno and the hitting coaching staff can do any good with the likes of Buxton, Sano, Rosario, and Kepler. If both things don't happen it will be ugly.

[jorgenswest]

Perceptions a month ago were overwhelmingly under. The poll has changed a little since with a few more over votes and a few deleted under votes and is now 27% (6 of 22) under 35.5 wins in the second half.

 

At the time of the post (prior to the July 2 game) the Twins were 25-54. Since the poll the Twins are 18-10 with 2 of those wins coming in games 80 and 81. To get the over they need to go 20-35 the rest of the way.

 

Which team will show up the last two months? If it is the one we saw in April they might not get there. If it is the team of the last two months they should get the over without difficulty.