Deadspin: The Twins did this to themselves

[Seth Stohs]

https://deadspin.com/the-twins-did-this-to-themselves-1847362817?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=dlvrit&utm_content=deadspin

Deadspin has an article from Sam Fels kind of bashing the Twins for several things this year. One big one is that the struggling bullpen is in large part due to their decisions at starter, but not the ones you may think: 

Quote

The Twins saw the Sox trade for Lancy Lynn in the offseason, and still thought they could manage with aging Kenta Maeda or Michael Pineda, even though Maeda had a 4.00 ERA in his last 162-game season and Pineda is now four years removed from throwing more than 150 innings.

Aging? Quick check on Baseball-reference: 

Lance Lynn - 34
Kenta Maeda - 33
Michael Pineda - 32

While the general point can certainly argued, the "aging" reference is dumb, and forgetting the performance of Maeda in 2020 probably is a miss... though we all knew it probably wasn't sustainable. 

[bean5302]

The point about not spending when they need to is the most relevant to my complaints about the Twins as an organization. The appearance the team is entirely uninterested in World Series aspirations and dedicated to a goal of "above .500" and "competitive in the division" sits poorly with me, but seems to make fine business sense if your goal is a nice, smooth cash flow and P&L.

In the last decade, the Tigers, Royals and Indians have all maxed their payrolls higher than the Twins when they had a shot. The White Sox, at $129MM, were within $2MM of the Twins' all time high opener. The Tigers, Royals(x2) and Indians have all been to the World Series in the last decade.

That's across 3 different front office heads. Something tells me it's not the front office holding the Twins back.

[Brock Beauchamp]

That's a pretty crap take, frankly. Yeah, the front office didn't do enough but Michael Pineda and Kenta Maeda are not the players who tanked this season. Their point is somewhat accurate but every single name mentioned is wrong.

[gunnarthor]

I thought during the offseason that too much faith was being put in Maeda. On the other hand, I thought Pineda was being underrated, so what do I know.

I think the biggest concern goes to the Twins pitching philosophy of essentially five inning pitchers, two time through the order, etc. It doesn't seem to work, our bullpen is crap, and the games are very uninteresting to watch.