Welp, there went the season

[denarded]

The Twins have made a couple mad dashes to win the division from behind. Still love the Detroit one. Losing 2 games at home to a crappy team this far in the hole? It's done. At least we made it to memorial day (would have preferred Flag Day [June 4th]). Done with Donaldson. Done with Sano. Done with every other player on IL or should be on IL. I can't believe I put so much time into following this and waiting for it to happen and this is what I'm left with. If this was a mediocre team going into the season I would follow it as such, and judge it as such. This is a post season team that I'm going to judge as such. Thank you for your time

[h2oface]

It was kool-aid, and FO worship. It never was a post season team. Proof is in the performance. This team really does suck. That was a quick window. Shows why you mortgage the future in the 100+ win record season and get the pitching for the playoffs. Better than the plan to use up roster spaces for guys like Dakota Chalmers and then just dfa him anyway, but let Nick Anderson go..... Identification of pitching my ass.....

[LA Vikes Fan]

I hate to say it, but I'm not far behind you.  I guess I'm still hoping that they can jettison the guys that won't be here 2 years from now, play the young guys this year and hopefully rebound the next couple of years. That would at least be worth watching. This isn't. 

[Danchat]

The season was lost before this... losing the Texas series and then getting stomped on by the White Sox and A’s should make it no surprise that they can’t consistently beat KC. This simply is not a good ball club.

[cHawk]

5 hours ago, h2oface said:

It was kool-aid, and FO worship. It never was a post season team. Proof is in the performance. This team really does suck. That was a quick window. Shows why you mortgage the future in the 100+ win record season and get the pitching for the playoffs.

They didn’t just need pitching — EVERYTHING was bad in that series against the Yankees. Even if they bolstered their rotation and got a lot of bullpen help they still wouldn’t have won.

[Vanimal46]

The Twins are doing us a solid by letting us know early this ain’t the year. No need to wait on them if you have other things you want to do this summer. 

[bighat]

8 hours ago, Danchat said:

The season was lost before this... losing the Texas series and then getting stomped on by the White Sox and A’s should make it no surprise that they can’t consistently beat KC. This simply is not a good ball club.

Good point. Yeah that Texas series was just brutal.  And I think the season was officially over the moment Luis Arraez threw that ball over Miguel Sano's head in Oakland. That was it. Donezo.

Most bad Twins teams have been bad by design. This team was built to win - and win NOW - and it's just been an embarrassment. This will certainly rank among the most epic of lost seasons for a franchise that has their fair share of failure.

Too many players and organizational pieces to blame. It's on everyone.

[Number3]

Any way they can play more than 2 more games against Baltimore? Problem is they have beaten Os 16 straight and something has to give in the next 2. Then the fun really starts against KC and Yankees. Almost every game now is make or break. Hate to say it but Berrios did look like trade bait yesterday. 8 great innings and Rogers gets the win.

[Dman]

On 5/30/2021 at 5:34 PM, h2oface said:

It was kool-aid, and FO worship. It never was a post season team. Proof is in the performance. This team really does suck. That was a quick window. Shows why you mortgage the future in the 100+ win record season and get the pitching for the playoffs. Better than the plan to use up roster spaces for guys like Dakota Chalmers and then just dfa him anyway, but let Nick Anderson go..... Identification of pitching my ass.....

Kool-aide and FO worship seems like hindsight bias IMO.  This team was fresh off of winning two division titles with essentially the same players and you honestly expected them to be one of the worst teams in baseball?  I don't think anyone saw this one coming. Plenty of us had concerns about the pen to start the year and several posters legitimately questioned how Maeda would do being used through a full season but the stats from 2020 pointed to a solid rotation and bullpen so why question the numbers? The analysts didn't.  The only question they had was whether Chicago or Minnesota would be on top at the end of the season.

Was it possible to see some regression?  Sure but did you really see essentially full system failure from poor hitting, to horrible defense, to terrible relief work, to suspect starting pitching.  Pretty much every player has had a role in major collapses along the way.  It is just uncanny how they have been losing this year.

While I can get on board with you about the FO build a pen with discarded players as looking like a failed strategy I don't think every decision they make is bad either.  In a year where I was hoping for good baseball to watch instead we get almost unwatchable baseball and that sucks, but hopefully we will have a stronger club next year,  I do , however,  disagree that it was Kool-aid and FO worship that had us thinking this was a playoff team.  It was past performance and numbers that had people believing.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I had a slim hope the Twins would make a (probably false) run at contention going into the KC series but going 1-2 (and looking pretty bad) against a - at best - mediocre team squashed there being even a little bit of fun during this season.

I wasn't even really hoping for real contention, just a little excitement of seeing the Twins climb the standings and looking respectable. I'm doubtful even that will happen now, as this team is leaky pretty much everywhere.

[In My La Z boy]

Celestino to St Paul means the Refsnyder in CF experiment is nearly over. I'll bet Gilberto starts in CF with the Twins before Byron does. Let's hope Buxton is still at maximum peak trade value this summer. Whoever we have that won't be here in '23 should get moved. I am thinking this season has wrecked next season. We'll need to be sellers.

[cHawk]

Wow. Just wow. What a disaster of a season. Bad hitting, horrible defense, horrible relief pitching, suspect starting pitching, bad in-game management. What more could you want?

What I fear is that the guys up top will pretend this was all a bad dream and not do a damn thing about it. SOMEBODY needs to pay. I just don’t know who.

 

[KFEY93]

2 hours ago, Dman said:

Kool-aide and FO worship seems like hindsight bias IMO.  This team was fresh off of winning two division titles with essentially the same players and you honestly expected them to be one of the worst teams in baseball?  I don't think anyone saw this one coming. Plenty of us had concerns about the pen to start the year and several posters legitimately questioned how Maeda would do being used through a full season but the stats from 2020 pointed to a solid rotation and bullpen so why question the numbers? The analysts didn't.  The only question they had was whether Chicago or Minnesota would be on top at the end of the season.

Was it possible to see some regression?  Sure but did you really see essentially full system failure from poor hitting, to horrible defense, to terrible relief work, to suspect starting pitching.  Pretty much every player has had a role in major collapses along the way.  It is just uncanny how they have been losing this year.

While I can get on board with you about the FO build a pen with discarded players as looking like a failed strategy I don't think every decision they make is bad either.  In a year where I was hoping for good baseball to watch instead we get almost unwatchable baseball and that sucks, but hopefully we will have a stronger club next year,  I do , however,  disagree that it was Kool-aid and FO worship that had us thinking this was a playoff team.  It was past performance and numbers that had people believing.

Throw 2020 out the window. Not a realistic comparison to an ACTUAL MLB season. So they have won 1 Division title, riding the back of a juiced baseball and an entire roster having their career years at once. Thats not repeatable, or sustainable long term. Nothing in the past indicated that 2019 was the new norm for this team. The two play off series against actual play off caliber teams was what you should be focusing on. Thats this team. That is what this team is. Its not enough. 

[cHawk]

16 minutes ago, KFEY93 said:

Throw 2020 out the window. Not a realistic comparison to an ACTUAL MLB season. So they have won 1 Division title, riding the back of a juiced baseball and an entire roster having their career years at once. Thats not repeatable, or sustainable long term. Nothing in the past indicated that 2019 was the new norm for this team. The two play off series against actual play off caliber teams was what you should be focusing on. Thats this team. That is what this team is. Its not enough. 

If we’re throwing 2020 out the window, we also throw the 2020 playoff series out the window.

[KFEY93]

10 minutes ago, cHawk said:

If we’re throwing 2020 out the window, we also throw the 2020 playoff series out the window.

Fine. Throw it out. Even though it was basically a duplication of the 2019 series. The same issues raised their ugly heads, so toss it out. My point still stands. 

[cHawk]

Just now, KFEY93 said:

Fine. Throw it out. Even though it was basically a duplication of the 2019 series. The same issues raised their ugly heads, so toss it out. My point still stands. 

There was a major difference between the two: The SP

[Otto von Ballpark]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I had a slim hope the Twins would make a (probably false) run at contention going into the KC series but going 1-2 (and looking pretty bad) against a - at best - mediocre team squashed there being even a little bit of fun during this season.

It was disappointing to lose 2 of 3 to KC for sure, but I don't know if flipping the result of one of those games would result in a meaningfully different outlook for me.

What if we had gone 3-1 vs Baltimore and 2-1 vs KC in this stretch so far? I mean, sweeps are definitely preferred at this point but that would be the same 5-2 overall record in this stretch.

They've still got 6 games vs BAL and KC here to rack up more wins or more disappointing losses.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, spycake said:

It was disappointing to lose 2 of 3 to KC for sure, but I don't know if flipping the result of one of those games would result in a meaningfully different outlook for me.

What if we had gone 3-1 vs Baltimore and 2-1 vs KC in this stretch so far? I mean, sweeps are definitely preferred at this point but that would be the same 5-2 overall record in this stretch.

They've still got 6 games vs BAL and KC here to rack up more wins or more disappointing losses.

In the grand scheme of things the win doesn’t matter that much, it was more the Twins level of play that I found disheartening. It was just more of the same kinda bad, very sloppy play that led them to the record they have. 

[Dodecahedron]

If you guys are frustrated already, yeah you may want to tune out.  The Twins should be OK this week, but next week will be brutal.  If they perform next week like we think they will, it's all over.

[Otto von Ballpark]

32 minutes ago, KFEY93 said:

Throw 2020 out the window. Not a realistic comparison to an ACTUAL MLB season. So they have won 1 Division title, riding the back of a juiced baseball and an entire roster having their career years at once. Thats not repeatable, or sustainable long term. Nothing in the past indicated that 2019 was the new norm for this team. The two play off series against actual play off caliber teams was what you should be focusing on. Thats this team. That is what this team is. Its not enough. 

2019 careers years were actually a minority of the lineup -- likely only Cruz, Polanco, Garver, and Kepler. (And Garver was a part-time player by virtue of his position, and Kepler's "career year" wasn't that far above his performance since.) And likely no meaningful "career years" among our 2019 SP -- Berrios was pretty much just as good in 2018, Odorizzi was very similar in 2014-2015 for Tampa, and Pineda has been even better since 2019 (small sample, of course).

There's some luck and good fortune in almost any 100 win season, but even at 95 wins, the 2019 Twins performance would still be far from a fluke based on our personnel.

[Otto von Ballpark]

13 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

In the grand scheme of things the win doesn’t matter that much, it was more the Twins level of play that I found disheartening. It was just more of the same kinda bad, very sloppy play that led them to the record they have. 

That's fair, although the same could be said about a few of our wins vs Baltimore too.

For me, nothing wrong with winning 5 out of 7 (or 8 of 11, going back further) even if the play is sloppy -- although yes, improvement will be needed to survive beyond BAL/KC.

[Taildragger8791]

What happened to Buxton supposedly being ready for rehab games a week ago? Then supposedly ready again this last weekend? Still not in the Saints lineup tonight either...

[Brock Beauchamp]

12 minutes ago, spycake said:

That's fair, although the same could be said about a few of our wins vs Baltimore too.

Oh, without a doubt. The Twins scraped by beating a comically bad baseball team with the same kind of play that lost them two of three against a competent Royals team. The only thing that changed was the ability of the opponent (and the Royals aren’t even a good baseball team). 

[Dman]

1 hour ago, KFEY93 said:

Throw 2020 out the window. Not a realistic comparison to an ACTUAL MLB season. So they have won 1 Division title, riding the back of a juiced baseball and an entire roster having their career years at once. Thats not repeatable, or sustainable long term. Nothing in the past indicated that 2019 was the new norm for this team. The two play off series against actual play off caliber teams was what you should be focusing on. Thats this team. That is what this team is. Its not enough. 

Sure 2020 has SSS bias written all over it but those were the only numbers we had to go on.  Tell the 2020 World Series winners that 2020 needs to be thrown out the window.  I bet they beg to differ.  2019 was one of the best seasons by a Twins team ever so I think we all expected some regression there but did you really think the regression would be to the bottom half of baseball?  If so then you are smarter than pretty much all the experts in baseball as I am not aware of anyone that had the Twins finishing last or second to last in the division given the talent assembled for that team.

My main point was that most of us weren't drinking Kool-aide or FO worshippers just people following the stats and trends that had helped the team win two division titles and had experts predicting they would fight for the title this year as well.  It is unfortunate they keep losing in the playoffs but the hitters have been pretty badly exposed in the playoffs.  The bullpen hasn't really held up well in the playoffs either.  So I agree with you that what they have has not been enough to get a playoff win but the FO is trying to develop better pitching prospects we'll see if that works out or not.  While I generally don't agree with the FO's fascination with hard hit rate above all else, they did win two division titles using that philosophy so will have to wait and see.

To be honest the guys we were banking on just haven't performed.  Sano, Kepler, Polanco, Buxton etc. haven't been the star players we needed to take us to that higher level.  While Berrios has been pretty good he hasn't been consistent enough to put the team on his back either.  We needed the potential star talent we had in the system to develop and take us to elite levels but it doesn't look like they can do it.  Looks like we will be starting over to some degree looking for more elite talent.

Baseball is a tricky game and it is often unkind to teams with great talent.  Look at the Yankee's lineup full of HR hitters and Tampa is leading the division.  Look at the Dodgers team that supposedly has no weaknesses and see that the Giant lead the division.  The A's who were swept by Houston early now lead the division. Atlanta has a ton of talent and the Mets lead their division.  The Cub's were supposed to be battling for last place and are leading their division.  The standings will change as the season moves along but strange things will happen to talented teams and teams that were never supposed to be in it.  That is the unpredictability of baseball even though we look for trends to predict it never quite work out the way we think it should.

[Danchat]

34 minutes ago, Taildragger8791 said:

What happened to Buxton supposedly being ready for rehab games a week ago? Then supposedly ready again this last weekend? Still not in the Saints lineup tonight either...

I heard a quote about Buxton a couple days back, I think from Dan Hayes, that he was behind schedule and wasn’t able to run full speed yet.

Also, on Celestino, I don’t think we see him til September. His bat still needs a lot of work before he’s MLB ready, and they’ve passed on calling him up to the big leagues several times now, which to me implies they’re going to take their time with him.

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, Danchat said:

I heard a quote about Buxton a couple days back, I think from Dan Hayes, that he was behind schedule and wasn’t able to run full speed yet.

Also, on Celestino, I don’t think we see him til September. His bat still needs a lot of work before he’s MLB ready, and they’ve passed on calling him up to the big leagues several times now, which to me implies they’re going to take their time with him.

For some reason this year, you need to be in AAA before you can be called up. Look who is in AAA now.....that said, I have no idea if he'll be up this year. If Buxton is hurt all year, he should be up, so he's more ready next year when Buxton is hurt or traded or both.

[Dodecahedron]

38 minutes ago, Dman said:

Sure 2020 has SSS bias written all over it but those were the only numbers we had to go on.  Tell the 2020 World Series winners that 2020 needs to be thrown out the window.  I bet they beg to differ.  2019 was one of the best seasons by a Twins team ever so I think we all expected some regression there but did you really think the regression would be to the bottom half of baseball?  If so then you are smarter than pretty much all the experts in baseball as I am not aware of anyone that had the Twins finishing last or second to last in the division given the talent assembled for that team.

I don't know if anyone is smarter than anyone else, but it happens a lot where baseball teams are good for a year or two, then drop back to the bottom half.  Maybe no one predicted the Twins had peaked, but no one should be shocked.

I think most of us would agree that you're not going to make it far in the MLB if you treat staffing the bullpen as an afterthought, as the Twins have done for the past few years.  Yes, this worked out for the team until now, but this is an inevitable result of that strategy.

Plus, many of the position players just aren't very good.  They are getting better, but the games so far still counted.

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, Taildragger8791 said:

What happened to Buxton supposedly being ready for rehab games a week ago? Then supposedly ready again this last weekend? Still not in the Saints lineup tonight either...

He can run but can’t decelerate. It’s been a problem for about a week now, I think. 

[Dman]

16 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

I don't know if anyone is smarter than anyone else, but it happens a lot where baseball teams are good for a year or two, then drop back to the bottom half.  Maybe no one predicted the Twins had peaked, but no one should be shocked.

I think most of us would agree that you're not going to make it far in the MLB if you treat staffing the bullpen as an afterthought, as the Twins have done for the past few years.  Yes, this worked out for the team until now, but this is an inevitable result of that strategy.

Plus, many of the position players just aren't very good.  They are getting better, but the games so far still counted.

In general I agree with you.  Lot's of teams that were good the year before falter because of injuries or slumps that just lasted to long or a leaky bullpen or poor defense.  There are lot's of things that can happen to take you first to last and last to first.  Even this season for the Twins if the bullpen would have held for 4 of those games instead of given them up we might be close enough to 500 to keep battling.  If they don't throw the game away on error's in that A's game add another win.  Little things like that add up and the season gets away from a team.

I think the majority of the board agrees the bullpen just doesn't have the kind of lights out arms they would like to see.  Still it is hard to argue against the FO when their bullpens finished in the top 5 to 10 each year.  I think their goal is to develop enough pitching that they have excess talent leak into the bullpen but that looks years away at this point.

They have been focusing on elite hitting in the draft for awhile now even taking hitters with their supplemental picks but to me it looks like their strategy is failing as all those guys seem to have the same flaws they don't have good contact rates and K too much (i.e. Rooker, Sabato, Wallner).  Maybe those guys will come around yet I don't know but they don't look like they are going to live up to the Prospects the WhiteSox have already so that is a problem IMO.  

They have done better at finding good pitchers later on in the draft (i.e. Enlow, Canterino, Sands, Winder) but none of them have made it to MLB yet so can't say for sure what that success rate might be.  

What this FO needs is for teams to bid against each other at the deadline for our players and get some prospects to fill in the gaps in the system.  They also need another really good draft as they have a supplemental 1st rounder again and need to make that pick count.  They are going to need some prospect luck to get out the rut of mediocrity they are in.  

 

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

He can run but can’t decelerate. It’s been a problem for about a week now, I think. 

Not being able to decelerate is a huge problem, as signified by the equation E=MC^2.  We don't want to atomize anybody.