How many wins?

[wsnydes]

Admittedly, there's some unfairness to this question, but if the lockout extends into Spring Training and starts to push the season opener back, who knows what happens with the remaining FA players and/or trades.

So, if the season were to start today, with the roster as it currently stands, how many games would you expect the Twins to win?

[wsnydes]

Personally, I'm thinking upper 60s or low 70s but voted for 60-69.  Too many holes in the rotation and I have no idea how the pieces of the current puzzle are going to fit together.  If some of the younger players come up and fill holes well, they could get into the 70s.

[USAFChief]

60-69, because I'm an optimistic homer.

[Brock Beauchamp]

19 minutes ago, wsnydes said:

Personally, I'm thinking upper 60s or low 70s but voted for 60-69.  Too many holes in the rotation and I have no idea how the pieces of the current puzzle are going to fit together.  If some of the younger players come up and fill holes well, they could get into the 70s.

I feel the same but went on the optimistic side. I think if the Twins just throw their pitching prospects into the fire, the results will be better than we expect, particularly in the second half. That still means they're a bad team - I'd guess somewhere in the 70-74 win range - but not a terrible team that is carried by a pretty strong offense and a healthier season from the likes of Buxton. Even getting just 100 games out of him is worth an extra win or two.

[wsnydes]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I feel the same but went on the optimistic side. I think if the Twins just throw their pitching prospects into the fire, the results will be better than we expect, particularly in the second half. That still means they're a bad team - I'd guess somewhere in the 70-74 win range - but not a terrible team that is carried by a pretty strong offense and a healthier season from the likes of Buxton. Even getting just 100 games out of him is worth an extra win or two.

I think there is a chance they surprise us and play pretty well.  I only went on the pessimistic side because there are so many questions.

More positivity here thus far than I expected!  Even got some from @USAFChief! 

[gunnarthor]

Right now, with this pitching staff? Bundy, Ryan, Ober, bullpen? That might be a step down from Berrios, Pineda, Maeda. I don't think people appreciate how bad last years pitching staff was. By WAR, it was worse then both the 2012 and 2013 Twins' staffs. 

I figured that they can't be that bad again, it would be nearly impossible. And we won 73 games last year, so I voted 70-79. Although it's not hard to see this getting away from us and having a complete implosion.  

[wsnydes]

5 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Right now, with this pitching staff? Bundy, Ryan, Ober, bullpen? That might be a step down from Berrios, Pineda, Maeda. I don't think people appreciate how bad last years pitching staff was. By WAR, it was worse then both the 2012 and 2013 Twins' staffs. 

I figured that they can't be that bad again, it would be nearly impossible. And we won 73 games last year, so I voted 70-79. Although it's not hard to see this getting away from us and having a complete implosion.  

That's the mental juggling I'm doing too.  The pitching staff was quite bad, but stabilized as the season wore on.  Though, now they won't have the benefit of half a season of Berrios or Maeda.  Ober and Ryan showed some promise, but can they do it all season?  I can't see the bullpen blowing as many games as they did either.  But maybe they don't have as many leads to hold?

[Unwinder]

70-79. Pitching won't be exciting but won't be a trainwreck (though a couple of ugly losing streaks will convince a lot of people that it's a trainwreck). Offense will be about as good as it was after the all-star break this year. In general the team will play a bit better than last (Edit: This) year but the division will be tougher, and these two factors will cancel each other out.

[gunnarthor]

2 minutes ago, Unwinder said:

70-79. Pitching won't be exciting but won't be a trainwreck (though a couple of ugly losing streaks will convince a lot of people that it's a trainwreck). Offense will be about as good as it was after the all-star break this year. In general the team will play a bit better than last year but the division will be tougher, and these two factors will cancel each other out.

That's a good point, the other teams in the division are making real upgrades. 

[wsnydes]

 

10 minutes ago, Unwinder said:

70-79. Pitching won't be exciting but won't be a trainwreck (though a couple of ugly losing streaks will convince a lot of people that it's a trainwreck). Offense will be about as good as it was after the all-star break this year. In general the team will play a bit better than last year but the division will be tougher, and these two factors will cancel each other out.

 

7 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

That's a good point, the other teams in the division are making real upgrades. 

That is a very good point.  Most of the rest of the division is going one way, the Twins and Indians Guardians are going the other.

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, wsnydes said:

That is a very good point.  Most of the rest of the division is going one way, the Twins and Indians are going the other.

I don't know if that's a given. The White Sox had the third best record in the AL last season. Will they actually be better than that in 2022? It's certainly possible but not a given. I call them a wash.

The Guardians are almost certain to backslide and I foresee a fire sale coming their way soon considering how ownership clutches the purse strings.

The Tigers are trending upward, no doubt.

The Royals? They certainly have a prospect pipeline coming, not sure what will happen with it in 2022. They'll improve soon, I just don't know if it's in the cards for 2022 or even how good they'll ultimately become.

The Twins? God only knows. They could go trade for a #2 or stand pat. They could see piles of injuries again or they could stay relatively healthy in a pretty normal way. They could go back to patching together good bullpen pieces or we could see -3 WPA relievers again. There are just *so many* things that went wrong in 2021 and I can't say if they were bad luck, bad decisions, or both (or what combination thereof).

I'd say the Tigers are the only team in the division clearly trending the right direction, though Chicago is obviously good (not really a fan of how they spent on the bullpen, though, considering how volatile that can be YoY). The other three teams are pretty clearly wildcards, as any of them can over- or under-perform to the extent they quickly become a terrible team and blow it all up. While the Royals probably have the most potential to improve in 2022, I'd argue the Twins have the highest floor with the likes of Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Garver, et al keeping them out of disaster 100 loss territory.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

I guess I'm the negative Nelson here. They won 73 games last year and had half a season on Maeda and Berrios. 2022 will have neither of those two at any point, and as it stands will be mostly bullpen games. It appears they'll trust the youth and the AAAA journeymen. Sure they'll score runs, but you can't expect 2 touch downs every game

[wsnydes]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I don't know if that's a given. The White Sox had the third best record in the AL last season. Will they actually be better than that in 2022? It's certainly possible but not a given. I call them a wash.

The Guardians are almost certain to backslide and I foresee a fire sale coming their way soon considering how ownership clutches the purse strings.

The Tigers are trending upward, no doubt.

The Royals? They certainly have a prospect pipeline coming, not sure what will happen with it in 2022. They'll improve soon, I just don't know if it's in the cards for 2022 or even how good they'll ultimately become.

The Twins? God only knows. They could go trade for a #2 or stand pat. They could see piles of injuries again or they could stay relatively healthy in a pretty normal way. They could go back to patching together good bullpen pieces or we could see -3 WPA relievers again. There are just *so many* things that went wrong in 2021 and I can't say if they were bad luck, bad decisions, or both (or what combination thereof).

I'd say the Tigers are the only team in the division clearly trending the right direction, though Chicago is obviously good (not really a fan of how they spent on the bullpen, though, considering how volatile that can be YoY). The other three teams are pretty clearly wildcards, as any of them can over- or under-perform to the extent they quickly become a terrible team and blow it all up. While the Royals probably have the most potential to improve in 2022, I'd argue the Twins have the highest floor with the likes of Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Garver, et al keeping them out of disaster 100 loss territory.

That's fair.  At the very least, Chicago and KC aren't trending down.  They may hold steady, but Chicago's window is open now.  There may be some fluctuation in wins, but they're clearly built to win now.  I don't think any other team in the division can say that.  Not today anyway.

Agreed on how many things went completely sideways for the Twins.  That's part of what makes this conversation interesting in my view.  The issue I do have is the carry over of the loss of Maeda and Berrios.  As yet, they haven't been replaced production-wise.  Where do those innings come from?  Despite everything, they still managed to be not quite a .500 team after mid-May.  As the roster currently sits though, in order to challenge Chicago, I think basically everything has to go as well as everything went poorly last year.  I'd agree that they probably have the highest floor, and probably the largest range of potential wins in the division if not all of baseball.  

[wsnydes]

9 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

I guess I'm the negative Nelson here. They won 73 games last year and had half a season on Maeda and Berrios. 2022 will have neither of those two at any point, and as it stands will be mostly bullpen games. It appears they'll trust the youth and the AAAA journeymen. Sure they'll score runs, but you can't expect 2 touch downs every game

Burn the negative Nelly!

There's also potential that the offense gets better too.  The lineup was cobbled together for large chunks of last season.  Injuries like that are probably unlikely to repeat themselves.  Though, they won't have Cruz for half a season.  If Kirilloff comes back and hits like he did before his wrist injury, that might offset that.  Depending on what happens at the offensive black hole that was SS, there's potential gains there too.

But you are correct.  You can't rely on scoring two TDs every day.

[Brock Beauchamp]

5 minutes ago, wsnydes said:

Agreed on how many things went completely sideways for the Twins.  That's part of what makes this conversation interesting in my view.  The issue I do have is the carry over of the loss of Maeda and Berrios.  As yet, they haven't been replaced production-wise.  Where do those innings come from?  Despite everything, they still managed to be not quite a .500 team after mid-May.  As the roster currently sits though, in order to challenge Chicago, I think basically everything has to go as well as everything went poorly last year.  I'd agree that they probably have the highest floor, and probably the largest range of potential wins in the division if not all of baseball.  

The 2021 Twins season was interesting. They were *so unlucky* early in the season and then played slightly lucky ball in the second half as they hovered around playing .500 ball. Are they a .500 team with that roster? I doubt it, as I think they gained 2-3 BaseRuns record over that stretch. But they're maybe not a terrible team, either.

I don't even consider Maeda a loss, really, at least the injured version of Maeda. He was barely above replacement level in 2021 due to his various injuries and ineffectiveness. If the Twins aren't ravaged by injury in St Paul again, they could actually improve upon that performance using only the farm.

The real key to the entire season is whether the farm is actually healthy. They have *so many* options in the upper minors that at least one or two of them should not be absolutely awful in a Twins uniform.

Which is why I'm so irritated at how the front office treated this free agency season. This team is primed to bounce back in a pretty big way but relying entirely on the farm to do it is basically throwing away a season, IMO.

[Unwinder]

1 minute ago, wsnydes said:

Burn the negative Nelly!

There's also potential that the offense gets better too.  The lineup was cobbled together for large chunks of last season.  Injuries like that are probably unlikely to repeat themselves.  Though, they won't have Cruz for half a season.  If Kirilloff comes back and hits like he did before his wrist injury, that might offset that.  Depending on what happens at the offensive black hole that was SS, there's potential gains there too.

But you are correct.  You can't rely on scoring two TDs every day.

There'll be slumps next year, but I have a hard time believing that all the offense is going to regress all at once for half a season again like this year. I want to believe that some combination of Healthy Kiriloff, Healthy Buck, Not-Slumping Garver, Not-Slumping Sano, Not-Slumping Polanco, and maybe Resurgent Arraez and Shockingly Ready for the Majors Miranda can make up for the absence of Cruz.

[wsnydes]

41 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Which is why I'm so irritated at how the front office treated this free agency season. This team is primed to bounce back in a pretty big way but relying entirely on the farm to do it is basically throwing away a season, IMO.

I'm usually pretty patient during the offseason, but that's been pretty difficult this year.  Hard to see what the plan really is.  That's made worse by the appearance, and they basically admitted it, that they got caught flat footed on the pre-lockout rush on free agency.  

[Unwinder]

5 minutes ago, wsnydes said:

I'm usually pretty patient during the offseason, but that's been pretty difficult this year.  Hard to see what the plan really is.  That's made worse by the appearance, and they basically admitted it, that they got caught flat footed on the pre-lockout rush on free agency.  

I think there probably was a plan initially, but I'm not confident that there was much of a fallback plan after getting caught flat-footed.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, wsnydes said:

Burn the negative Nelly!

There's also potential that the offense gets better too.  The lineup was cobbled together for large chunks of last season.  Injuries like that are probably unlikely to repeat themselves.  Though, they won't have Cruz for half a season.  If Kirilloff comes back and hits like he did before his wrist injury, that might offset that.  Depending on what happens at the offensive black hole that was SS, there's potential gains there too.

But you are correct.  You can't rely on scoring two TDs every day.

Rooker and Larnach should take steps forward too. Many good hitters score more runs than 1 great hitter and a bunch of bad ones. I'm not worried about hitting and even if they trot out Gordon, Martin or Lewis at SS, it can't be any worse...

They don't have the math to reach 1500 innings without churning through a whole lot of pitchers who have no business being there. 21 pitchers on the 40 man roster last year didn't combine to pitch the 1460ish innings needed for a season and there are several guys on the 40 that won't get promoted to the bigs. Even if they can sign Pineda and trade for a veteran that'll add 300 innings to this list and several pitchers see a 20%+ innings growth, they'll still trot out several Andrew Albers' just to get to 1460 innings, not even looking at the quality of innings pitched... Griffin Jax is your workhorse... let that sink in

	2021 IP
Alcala	59.2
Duffey	64
Rogers	40.1
Dobnak	50.2
Garza	19.1
Thorpe	37
Moran	75.1
Ober	108.1
Ryan	97.2
Winder	71.3
Balazovic	97
Duran	16
Cotton	30.2
Jax	122.2
Bundy	90.2
Strotman	112.1
Sands	80.1
Stashak	18
Vallimont	94
Thielbar	64
Enlow	14.2
Total	1360

[wsnydes]

2 minutes ago, Unwinder said:

I think there probably was a plan initially, but I'm not confident that there was much of a fallback plan after getting caught flat-footed.

Given how quickly everything happened, even if they had a Plan B there probably wasn't much time to implement it.  Hopefully they're able to salvage something.  Like @Brock Beauchampmentioned, it's kinda like throwing away a season.  There's enough talent there that that probably shouldn't be the approach even after last year.

[wsnydes]

2 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

Rooker and Larnach should take steps forward too. Many good hitters score more runs than 1 great hitter and a bunch of bad ones. I'm not worried about hitting and even if they trot out Gordon, Martin or Lewis at SS, it can't be any worse...

They don't have the math to reach 1500 innings without churning through a whole lot of pitchers who have no business being there. 21 pitchers on the 40 man roster last year didn't combine to pitch the 1460ish innings needed for a season and there are several guys on the 40 that won't get promoted to the bigs. Even if they can sign Pineda and trade for a veteran that'll add 300 innings to this list and several pitchers see a 20%+ innings growth, they'll still trot out several Andrew Albers' just to get to 1460 innings, not even looking at the quality of innings pitched... Griffin Jax is your workhorse... let that sink in

	2021 IP
Alcala	59.2
Duffey	64
Rogers	40.1
Dobnak	50.2
Garza	19.1
Thorpe	37
Moran	75.1
Ober	108.1
Ryan	97.2
Winder	71.3
Balazovic	97
Duran	16
Cotton	30.2
Jax	122.2
Bundy	90.2
Strotman	112.1
Sands	80.1
Stashak	18
Vallimont	94
Thielbar	64
Enlow	14.2
Total	1360

I "liked" this because it is good content...but it also made me throw up a little.

[RpR]

80-89

They will not have the early collapse high-lighted by Arraez throwing the ball into right field; plus if they have the same third , short-stop, second-base fielders their defense will be good and I am taking a chance of some top free agent signing as they did in 2019.

[Vanimal46]

I think this is a chef’s kiss description of the current state of the team. From Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS article about the Twins:

“As currently constructed, the Twins look a lot like a .500 team, but a disjointed, disappointing .500 team, one that has a wild card-worthy offense that the front office is pairing with a pitching staff that it seems little interested in upgrading.”

Which is a shame that we’re wasting the offensive talent because we are too risk averse to play in the deep end of free agency. I’d say we are closer to 100 losses than 90 wins at this point. 

[cHawk]

This is interesting. With the current roster, there are two possible scenarios. If pitching prospects get injured again or don’t produce, we’re looking <60 wins. However if that long expected pipeline explodes with pitching talent, you might be surprised and they win 70-79. I’ll be a homer and go with the latter.

[wsnydes]

30 minutes ago, cHawk said:

This is interesting. With the current roster, there are two possible scenarios. If pitching prospects get injured again or don’t produce, we’re looking <60 wins. However if that long expected pipeline explodes with pitching talent, you might be surprised and they win 70-79. I’ll be a homer and go with the latter.

Agreed.  The pitching is what will likely determine how they do.  If it's dreadful, they'll be dreadful.  If it's serviceable, they could hang around .500.  

[Richie the Rally Goat]

1 hour ago, cHawk said:

This is interesting. With the current roster, there are two possible scenarios. If pitching prospects get injured again or don’t produce, we’re looking <60 wins. However if that long expected pipeline explodes with pitching talent, you might be surprised and they win 70-79. I’ll be a homer and go with the latter.

Even in the best scenario, the pitching roster as it’s constructed now, can feasibly produce 1000 innings. 450-500 innings has to come from outside the organization. At most 300 of those might come from a Michael Pineda or better and 150 or more comes from quad A roster filler.

1000 innings at .500 ball is 56 wins which seems a stretch looking at the roster. Maybe .450? Or 50 wins.
 

Now, how do the last 450 innings come in? If it’s all quad A filler they lose almost all of them and end up less than 60 wins. If they end up with just Pineda, 55% of 150 is 9 more and they end up at 59 to 65 wins.

Do they trade for a good number 2 starter or sign Rodon and get lucky? Maybe 10 to 15 more.

how confident are you the FO pulls the trigger on a second starter and that second starter is healthy and good?

track record leans away from such a move…

I hope I’m wrong

[Brock Beauchamp]

47 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

Even in the best scenario, the pitching roster as it’s constructed now, can feasibly produce 1000 innings. 450-500 innings has to come from outside the organization. At most 300 of those might come from a Michael Pineda or better and 150 or more comes from quad A roster filler.

1000 innings at .500 ball is 56 wins which seems a stretch looking at the roster. Maybe .450? Or 50 wins.

Now, how do the last 450 innings come in? If it’s all quad A filler they lose almost all of them and end up less than 60 wins. If they end up with just Pineda, 55% of 150 is 9 more and they end up at 59 to 65 wins.

Do they trade for a good number 2 starter or sign Rodon and get lucky? Maybe 10 to 15 more.

how confident are you the FO pulls the trigger on a second starter and that second starter is healthy and good?

track record leans away from such a move…

I hope I’m wrong

You're ignoring that offense and defense also factor into this equation, and heavily (particularly offense).

A replacement level team (AAAA) is roughly 52 wins last I checked. 

Given the Twins roster sporting the likes of Polanco, Sano, Garver, Kepler, Buxton (literally could be worth nine wins by himself if healthy), Rogers, Duffey, et al, it's almost impossible to work this roster into sub-60 win territory (which is still +8-ish wins over replacement level) without hysterical doom and gloom in every aspect of basically everything.

By the way, the Twins have have won fewer than 60 games exactly once in their history. In 2016, when they were on the tail end of a pretty ugly rebuild, they won 59 games. It's hard to imagine this roster even coming close to that kind of ugliness.

[BrockPiquet]

= not less than 79

[Richie the Rally Goat]

36 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

You're ignoring that offense and defense also factor into this equation, and heavily (particularly offense).

A replacement level team (AAAA) is roughly 52 wins last I checked. 

Given the Twins roster sporting the likes of Polanco, Sano, Garver, Kepler, Buxton (literally could be worth nine wins by himself if healthy), Rogers, Duffey, et al, it's almost impossible to work this roster into sub-60 win territory (which is still +8-ish wins over replacement level) without hysterical doom and gloom in every aspect of basically everything.

By the way, the Twins have have won fewer than 60 games exactly once in their history. In 2016, when they were on the tail end of a pretty ugly rebuild, they won 59 games. It's hard to imagine this roster even coming close to that kind of ugliness.

I don’t think I am, I think you’re overestimating how good the pitching will be.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2016.shtml

2016 team OPS+ 108

2021 team OPS+ 104

they lost Nelson Cruz and have added no one. The 2021 of 104 could improve with health, but how much considering the loss of Cruz.

[Brock Beauchamp]

37 minutes ago, Sconnie said:

I don’t think I am, I think you’re overestimating how good the pitching will be.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2016.shtml

2016 team OPS+ 108

2021 team OPS+ 104

they lost Nelson Cruz and have added no one. The 2021 of 104 could improve with health, but how much considering the loss of Cruz.

But that's missing so much, Sconnie. Who went into 2016 as an arm you looked forward to seeing like Ober or Ryan? The Twins didn't have much hope past Berrios, who was absolutely terrible.

Never mind the defense of 2016. Holy Moses, the defense. If I recall correctly, Robbie Grossman's defense alone was worth -2 wins.

BTW, I'm happy to be proven wrong about any of that but I've looked it up in the past and I'm not going to double-check anything while I'm wrapping presents. Happy Holidays, y'all!