Are the Twins better this year than last?

[Twodogs]

I ask this and I just want to compare, so far, what they have this year as opposed to last year.

 

C 2018 Garver Astrudillo

C 2019 Castro Garver

 

1B 2018 Mauer

1B 2019 Cron

 

2B 2018 Dozier

2B 2019 Schoop

 

3B 2018 Sano/Escobar

3B 2019 Sano

 

SS 2018 Escobar/Polanco

SS 2019 Polanco

 

LF 2018 Rosario

LF 2019 Rosario

 

CF 2018 Buxton/Cave

CF 2019 Buxton

 

RF 2018 Kepler

RF 2019 Kepler

 

Rotation

2018

(Santana)

Berrios

Gibson

Odorizzi

Lynn

(Romero, Stewart, Mejia, Gonsalves)

 

2019

Berrios

Gibson

Odorizzi

Pineda

Romero, Mejia, Perez)

 

 

In comparison are they better than last year??

[Mike Sixel]

They should win more games.....most things went wrong last year. Are the players better? Probably. Are they good enough to win the division? Probably not. Are they good enough to win their first playoff series in, over a decade? Doubtful.

 

[bighat]

You forgot the key stat!

 

2018: Molitor

2019: Rocco

 

 

[Oldgoat_MN]

I actually prefer Garver/Astudillo, and it may go that way if Castro can't really come back from his injury.

Cron had a higher bWAR and fWAR than Mauer last year.

If Schoop has a bounce back year he will be better than Brian was in 2018.

SS and 3B are difficult because Escobar was so excellent. However, we are counting on Sano to come back strong, right? And Polanco has acquitted himself well. He is also young and hopefully still improving.

I expect good things from Rosario. At least as good as 2018.

CF - see 3B. We need Buck to step up.

RF - still waiting for Kepler to have his breakout year. The good news is that if he doesn't, we have Cave instead of Grossman. Cave had a higher OPS.

 

I'll forego the rotation for now, but as far as position players it looks better to me.

[Squirrel]

On paper I’m not sure. In play they should be. I’m not sure what our BP will look like and that’s a component, too. Again, I think it should be better.

 

But will they be better isn’t the right question for me. Better is, will they win more games. Yes, I think they will. Will they win enough more. No, I don’t think they will. There was opportunity to do so, but I feel that was squandered, particularly in significantly upgrading the BP, which wouldn’t have been difficult to do. Maybe the FO feels strongly about what this team can do based on all the information they have. I think they are counting on a lot of bounce back and steps forward. If that happens then I think we can compete for the division and that’s it.

[Twodogs]

Yeah I didn't include the BP because the shear number of dudes rotated through that BP last year might have crashed my computer due to not enough memory to support that many names, ha ha. I probably should have just said last year's pen vs this year's pen and not actually put the names down. But yeah the BP definitely still needs another upgrade.

[nicksaviking]

 

You forgot the key stat!

 

2018: Molitor

2019: Rocco

 

Not to pile on Molitor, because I think he's most likely a very good man, but I think a young energetic manager can and will make a big difference. I have a good feeling that these young guys will respond to him.

 

[Twodogs]

 

Not to pile on Molitor, because I think he's most likely a very good man, but I think a young energetic manager can and will make a big difference. I have a good feeling that these young guys will respond to him.

Yeah change is probably going to be good.  However on the flip side of things you probably cant blame Molitor for Santana getting hurt, Mauer having a recurrance of his concussion symptoms, Polanco missing 80 games for PED's, Sano being overweight, and Buxton getting hurt?  Not to mention a few other things so had none of that happened he'd probably still be the manager because they probably would have had a decent season.

[yarnivek1972]

I would be curious to know how people answered that question last year.

 

In other words, did people think the 2018 roster going into ST was better than 2017? I suspect most did.

 

Oops.

[Halsey Hall]

Better? I'm not sure, but I think we will win more games. Molitor had a better year last year than the year before when he was MOY. Almost hitting .500 with all that went wrong was pretty damn good.

[Mike Sixel]

I would be curious to know how people answered that question last year.

 

In other words, did people think the 2018 roster going into ST was better than 2017? I suspect most did.

 

Oops.

It can be better, and not work. Not to mention they were incredibly lucky in seventeen.