Minnesota’s Core Four: Can the Twins Win a Championship with the Current Core?

[Carnegie]

Like others here, Buxton is just not of high value to me. He isn't playing in the outfield, with his great abilities. He doesn't run the bases, with his great speed. He thinks he is a home run first hitter now, with a sub .250 BA and high strikeout rate. Just seems he's way over valued to me. Convince me otherwise. 

[gman]

I postulate instead of 4 key players for a team, you probably need 6 core everyday players and 6 pitchers. Minimum.  If 4 players, you would need them to be great nearly every month and be available for the entire season and playoffs. For a 4 core group I could not include Buxton for that reason. He's not dependable health wise, or at least never has been. This year he has not even played the field yet. We all hope he is great one of these years, but he has not started this year that way.

For the 4th player at this point, I would lean towards Gray. So far pitching has carried the team, but after the weather warms up, that may change in another month.

[Doctor Gast]

We can argue about who's the core players are. But it'll take everyone to produce to win the ALC. The offense will turn around. Kepler is starting to, sooner or later Correa & Buxton will, Polanco is back & is winning games for us. Kiriloff will be back soon, before too long Lewis will be back, with Julien & Lee not far in the minors. Will the rotation sustain their torrid start? The answer to that is yes if the BP can hold up. Best answer to the BP is long relief.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

I'm not sure whether the magic number is 4 or 6 or 12 or 26, but I'm quite certain that the Twins have taken steps to go in the right direction with the overall talent level of the club -- particularly on the pitching side of things.  Lopez, Ryan, and Duran are locked up for several years, which should guarantee the floor being a little bit higher.  On the bat side, certainly Correa and Buxton are important cogs, but as we have seen lately, it is often unsung players, like Jorge Polanco or even Kyle Farmer that are the missing ingredient sometimes.  On the hitting side of things, there are lots of options, but one or two more need to step forward and produce at a high and consistent level to be a part of any core.  The key is not necessarily to have the top two players in the league, or the Angels would have World Series wins on their resume.  It's more important to have players that are very good in all or at least most positions to really make consistency happen.

[Unwinder]

I feel like we've got a problem here with the definition of "core-4" I think Cody meant it in the sense of "the four best players who are locked down for a few years" and a lot of commenters here are taking it to mean "the only four good players on the team."

[jkcarew]

Maybe the definition of irony...

The four mentioned here as the 'core'...here are their current ranking in team bWAR...

P. Lopez: 2nd; Duran: 11th; Buxton: outside top 12; Correa: outside top 12

For Correa that will come around. If Buxton remains a DH, he is NOT a core player.

If current trends continue (and they never do)...and if I had to make the number 4...I'd go with...

P. Lopez, Ryan, Correa, TBD (someone is going to have to be a star, IMO, among Lewis, Kirilloff, Lee).

[DocBauer]

Agree 4 is a very short and arbitrary number. I take the term "core players" as being good ballplayers who have several years of team control. The 4 listed are good, core, and quality. But those 4 aren't going to bring home anything by themselves.

Barring some unexpected change, very good players such as Gray, Gallo, and Taylor all play important parts, but aren't probably here long term. The Twins have a very good Vazquez and Polanco for another 2yrs, potentially. I might call them core players as well.

The Twins are in a nice position at the moment with some very good "short term" players to help win now, and a rather vast collection of young and younger players just proving themselves, just arriving, or getting ready to arrive. This list includes...but is not limited to...Ryan, J Lopez, Jax, Miranda, Larnach, Kirilloff, Julien, Lewis, Wallner, and Lee. And I'm not even listing more than a handful of others. Nor am I looking through a longer lense for the likes of Rodriguez, Prielipp, etc, who could jump to the forefront relatively soon.

4 core? Like them a ton, but I look deeper than that. I think the Twins are opening a new window after a couple disappointing seasons that could be great fun, and very interesting, as well as rewarding. And not everyone will be great, or even turn out. But when you have a great foundation, and a large number of "possibilities" to work with, your chances to be deep and good vastly increase.

[Monkeypaws]

11 hours ago, WinTwins162 said:

While I agree this is a nice long-term core-4, as a Twins fan in San Diego, I have been watching up close what the Padres are doing with long-term commitments, and their core-6 is amazing:

Machado, Bogarts, Tatis Jr., Cronenworth, Musgrove, and Darvish. All locked up for 5-10 years. Also a good chance Soto stays long-term.

San Diego and Twin Cities are similar size markets and owners have similar financial capacity (I think Pohlads are worth more than Padres owner). So, while the Twins may have enough to win a weak AL Central, the Padres are building for multiple World Series. 

Of course, Twins vs Padres in WS is my dream. We'll see.

Machado is good money now at 17 mil for a 30 year old. But at age 34 his pay gets bumped to 39 million and will stay there until he turns 40. Ouch.

Same with Bogearts. 30 years old, 25 million per until he is 40.

Tatis will make 36 million from age 30 to 35.

Darvish will be making 15 million or so until he is in his 40s.

Musgrove and Croenworth have team friendly contracts by comparison, but are also 30ish, and will also make bank on the downside.

Soto has 2 more years of team control, and who knows.

My point is that the Padres have built their hopes on guys 30 or older supplemented by a couple young studs. Their window is now, because when 36-40 year old Boegarts and Machado are gobbling up 64 million per, and much other money has been tied into contracts like that of Darvish, and lots of good prospects have been traded away, it isn't really a model of sustainability.

If they don't win something in the next few years, they are hosed for a long time.

 

[LanceJS]

On 4/25/2023 at 7:32 AM, mikelink45 said:

I like the question, but cannot give you an answer.  I will say that Larkin was not a foundation player.  Gaetti and Knoblauch were the players to added to Puckett and Hrbek.  But also there was Frank Viola and Jack Morris. 

Can’t call either Knoblach or Gaetti the “core four” since neither were on both championship teams - same for Viola and Morris. I’d call that “core four” Puckett, Hrbek, Gladden and Gagne. 
 

as for the current “core four” - it’s wait and see. I like that there’s two pitchers to be counted on for them and this makes sense, but I won’t get too down on a slow start, especially for Correa, nor too excited about a fast start, especially for Lopez.  It has the potential, yes, but the certainty? Far from it.