The 2023 Twins Had a Near-Perfect Roster

[Ted Schwerzler]

In 2023, the Minnesota Twins broke the streak. This team swept a postseason series. They took the Houston Astros to four games in the ALDS. Looking back, the season was a resounding success, and it was a well-constructed roster that brought it all together.

 

Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports

Yes, it is I, the “Have a Freaking Offseason” guy. While the Minnesota Twins had significant uncertainty at times throughout the offseason, Derek Falvey continued to have the opportunity to declare that things weren’t done until Opening Day commenced. Carlos Correa wound up coming back. A couple of veterans were signed. Two more veterans were acquired. It seemed like the perfect storm.

Despite being looked at as the runner-up in the AL Central behind the Cleveland Guardians, there was no reason to think that Minnesota wouldn’t have a chance to compete. Rocco Baldelli was ready to lead his club back to the postseason, and there was a renewed focus on the mound that we hadn’t seen in years.

As the season went on, it wasn’t just the talent that continued to keep this team at the top, but very much the personalities that held serve. It was always going to be notable that Correa and Pablo Lopez joined the Twins organization from a production standpoint, but their leadership couldn’t have been more welcomed.

Building depth around the roster helped from a sustaining standpoint, but it was those depth players that continued to pick up their teammates. Michael A. Taylor was constantly there for Byron Buxton. Donovan Solano and Willi Castro filled in everywhere. Kyle Farmer took the reins for Jose Miranda. Each of them were constantly ready to go, and their impact was felt far beyond the field of play.

As this team won big games, accomplished feats, and dealt with adversity, they did so with a genuine appreciation for one another. The amount that this roster gelled wasn’t by mistake. It isn’t just that there wasn’t a Josh Donaldson or Lance Lynn type in the clubhouse, but the camaraderie that poured onto the field was so widely evident.

Then the youth came in and added to the story. Veterans littered the roster early, and while Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien, and Matt Wallner all took jobs, they were celebrated by teammates. The rookie class was a special one, and it was full of selfless individuals. Mature beyond their years, and producing beyond expectations, they were welcomed by a big league group that just wanted more to celebrate.

Unfortunately the season came to an end without a World Series championship. That reality is the same for 29 teams every year, but this group accomplished plenty. When Target Field watched as the Twins went down in order against Ryan Pressly in the ninth, it wasn’t an immediate somber feeling. Sure, watching Max Kepler look at the last pitch of the season wasn’t fun, and seeing the Astros head to a seventh straight American League Championship Series isn’t ideal, but this seemed more like a “see you soon” than a “goodbye.”

There will be turnover this offseason. Sonny Gray is likely going to pitch for another team, and the veterans on one-year deals won’t all be back in Minnesota. Maybe Christian Vazquez is traded, or someone on the coaching staff finds a new gig. No matter what though, the state of the franchise is in the best place it has been in quite some time. Infused with long-term answers and youth having already proven it, Minnesota baseball is again must-see action.

You can bet on Target Field hosting more than two-million fans next season, and the next wave of youth includes Marco Raya, Brooks Lee, and Walker Jenkins. The future is bright, and it’s also right now, because no one will be sleeping on this squad when spring training ends in 2024.

The front office will be tasked with finding new talent again this offseason, and as much as that will matter, it is equally important they put together an organization full of guys that genuinely like each other. We saw the ultimate Twins team come together in 2023, and watching a similar group celebrate with a ring next season would be an amazing reality to live in.

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[stringer bell]

The roster construction covered the lack of durability in the regulars. I wouldn’t say the roster was “near-perfect” however. At times the bullpen was really thin and the club lacked a right-handed bat with punch to play a corner or DH. 
 

Here’s a rough list of IL stints—Kirilloff (2), Polanco (2), Correa (1), Farmer (1), Lewis (3), Miranda (1–season ending), Kepler (2), Gallo (3), Taylor (1), Buxton (2), Larnach (1) and Castro (1). Castro and Solano played far more than anyone could have predicted. The Twins seldom had to go beyond their Opening Day roster to fill the gaps caused by the injuries and Wallner and Julien showed themselves to be major leaguers when called upon. 

[RpR]

Next year may determine if this was a flash in the pan or not.

People like to put the 2019 success on the baseball used that year, in reality most of that team was gone by 2021.

Change in team , change in results.

IF, if 90 percent of this team, especially pitching, returns next year, season results will show if this is a long term top team or just another flash in the pan.

 

[Beast]

Not even close.

The bullpen put up some good numbers.  But, let’s face it, nobody is scared of facing Thielbar, Pagan, etc.  decent bullpen, but nowhere near “perfect.”  Nobody wants Brock Stewart’s small sample size or Thielbar’s 92mph heater up there against Alvarez in a big spot.

Same with the rotation.  Get by Lopez and it’s nothing special.  Even Gray, maybe, depending on the day, but you know he’s not going beyond the 5th.  Nobody is losing any sleep over facing Ryan, Ober, Maeda, etc.  The Astros proved to have a much better rotation.

Our lineup stinks.  Look around at the other lineups in the championship series.  We aren’t even in the same planet in terms of premier hitters.  We have nobody even remotely close in terms of slugging.  Royce Lewis hit a few home runs, which was impressive.  But, otherwise, we were going station to station and coming up empty.  Some significant work needs to be done in the lineup, even if Buxton is back.  Can’t have Kirilloff, Wallner, Jeffers, Castro, etc. up there looking like deer in headlights in the playoffs.  

Im not sure why this team is being thought of as some sort of historic Twins team.  They weren’t that good.

[Rosterman]

I like the team going into 2024.

Catcher is strong, with Vasquez and Jeffers. I like Camargo in the wings (hopefully).

The Infield is set. Kirilloff, Polanco, Corea and Lewis. We have Julien who can play 2nd or 1st base. Farmer is the backup at shortstop. We have Castro on the bench. Better yet, we still have Miranda who might make a comeback and back up 3rd and 1st if an injury happens. I imagine the Twins will protect Austin Martin, Yunnier Severino, and possibly Chris WIlliams. Also hope they manage to keep Prato and Michael Heilman in the system.

The outfield could pretty much break with Kepler and Buxton and Wallner with Gordon as the 4th guy. The Twins will still have Larnach in the mix. I imagine they will resign Stevenson to a minor league contract. DaShawn Keirsey will get experience.

The biggest question is: can Buxton play the field. Even parttime would be better than nothing, but then the Twins MIGHT have to go after a centerfielder.

Yes, it would be great to get a big bat (what you wanted Gallo to be, only without the strikeouts and low average).

The rotation is Lopez, Ryan, Ober, Paddack. The Twins could use a fifth arm.

The bullpen is headed by Duran and Jax and Stewart. Thielbar and Fundeburk are the lefties, but don't count out Moran. Varland, Balazovic  Winder and Sands are in the mix for longmen. Alcala should be making a comeback.

The Twins will have Woods Richardson, Canterino, Headrick, Henriquez and will probably take another chance on Enlow, otehrwise he walks as a minors free agent.

Yes, the Twins could explore getting a stud rotation arm, and never hurts to have an experience add to the bullpen. We don't want to have Randy Dobnak as our go-to guy from the minors.

It was a weak division and the Twins stayed on top for the majority of the season. Despite sometimes fielding a very weak lineup of bats before the Kepler surge. Something ahs to be done to improve the running game, hit more for contact rather than waiting for the once pitch to...maybe...clobber. But going forward, the Twins look like they can build a solid roster of returnees for the next 3-4 seasons, suddenly having a "veteran" lineup like...the Astros.

[Karbo]

IMO they need a RH hitting 1st baseman, at least 2 quality relievers, and a RH hitting outfielder that can hit with power and hopefully be adequate in CF. That's a big shopping list for the FO to work on!

[PatG]

I agree Karbo; Trade E Joulien and either Larnach or Walner to St Louis for 1B Paul Goldschmidt........

[CRF]

Hmmn...your definition of "near perfect" is a little bit different than mine. No doubt there's some things to like, but there's some things that need to be addressed too. We'll see what happens over the winter. 

[Riverbrian]

We were hitters short of perfection. 

I never expected perfection. 

 

[Blyleven2011]

Articles like this is why we post  negativity towards our team ...

Our team stunk in the first half , got better to watch in the second half  but still was flawed ...

Starting pitching kept us in the games most of the season  , every game you thought you had a chance to win with that days starter ,

the lineup was a different story  , you didn't know if you were going to win or lose  , well sometimes you knew you were going to lose for sure ( getaway day) 

Sonny pitches a great game but lineup doesn't support him with any runs all season long ...

Rookies played good,  Kepler  turned his season around ( will he perform next year as well ) ...

No consistency  plain and simple  from the line up ...

I have loved my Twins since the beginning  , I'm negative because I want quality  baseball and another world series  win  , we need consistency from our line up ( in the 6 games in the playoffs how many runs did we score with a single , double or triple in the playoffs ) ...

[chpettit19]

Come on. This title is just begging people to come in here and trash the team. Near perfect? Near perfect rosters win more than 87 games in possibly the worst division in the history of baseball. There've been some other post-season articles about the positives of this roster. And there are positives. But "near perfect?" Was the only goal of the title to get a comment section of people complaining?

This is an extremely flawed roster. You don't set bad strikeout records as hitters with a "near perfect" roster. It turned into a fun roster as the season went on and the kids started coming up and providing a spark. The pitching was good to great all year. They seem to have built a core that should provide a solid floor moving forward for the next 4-6 years. But they're missing some significant pieces. They'll need to replace Gray's production (aka a really good #2 pitcher or better). They need to add elite bats that can match up with the top 4 on other postseason rosters. They need to cut down on the Ks (as hitters). They need a bullpen that can be counted on all year, not just propped up by starters moving to the pen at the end of September. They need to be better baserunners. They need to be more consistent.

As I said, there are positives, and the floor looks to be set nicely. While you can't trust Buxton, Kirilloff, or Lewis to be healthy all, or even most of, the year, they have shown what kind of talent they have when they are healthy. Correa is still a very good SS even if he had a down year. It's reasonable to expect a bounce back to closer to career norms for him with the bat moving forward. Julien can hit. Wallner is intriguing. Martin and Lee look ready to contribute sooner than later. Miranda is a wild card, but has shown in the past that he can hit to be worthy of a roster spot on any team. Jeffers showed why they were excited about his bat when they drafted him. That's a lot of really nice pieces. Now they need to get the great pieces to bring it all together. I don't know how they go about that, but there's room for improvement all over the 40- and 26-man rosters. They've built a core that's full of very cheap young guys. Now find the pieces to raise the ceiling and actually get close to the "near perfect" roster.

[ashbury]

Who writes the headlines anyway?  Replace "near-perfect" with "cohesive" and you capture the sentiment of the article IMO.

 

 

/ I am not an editor

[jkcarew]

It was a high-floor, low ceiling club from the start. I think they came pretty close to their ceiling…so a successful year for sure.

They figured to have trouble scoring…and that came to fruition…despite a fairly decent run in the second half.

With Rocco, it may be tough for our best players to be left-handed bats…they just don’t figure to play as much. Lee’s a switch-hitter, as is Severino. Lewis and Martin are righties. There are reasons for optimism…especially Lewis. If he can stay healthy, it’s his team.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

“Best Twins team in 30 years”  be better, TD

I would put the 2017 and 2019 teams as better or more cohesive, having a better chance at a long postseason run (yeah I know those teams did not advance, don’t bother)

So, I think this was more like the 3rd best team in this front office’s 7-year tenure. 

One thing this 2023 team had was a 1-2 punch in the starting rotation. I will give them that. Lopez won me over in the end. As far as the everyday lineup, I cannot rate the 2023 team in the top ten of the last 30 years. I would rate most of the lineups of the 2000s decade as better. I liked the Eddie Rosario lineups of 2017 and 2019. The 2015 team was young and exciting. The early 90s lineups were still halfway competitive for a few years after ‘91. 

The 2023 team was more like the 10th to 15th best team of the past 30 years, in my opinion. The one thing the 2023 team did was rekindle those winning feelings in the postseason, which does count for something. 

[JD-TWINS]

I don’t think the Team nor the season were anywhere near perfect. However, we had a real chance to win Game 4 in the ALDS & certainly had better than a punchers chance, with Pablo throwing along with the recently reconstructed bullpen, in a Game 5.

Can we agree on that?

If so, we would meet the Rangers, who we won 5 of 7 games from in the last 30 days along with home field advantage. Obviously, we can compete with that club!

So we weren’t near perfect but advancing in the playoffs is all about winning one more game than your opponent.

With a fair share of games lost to injury spread across some key (line-up core) roster guys, we managed to stay competitive through most of the year.

The wish list for an RBI guy - power guys - #1 or #2 starter - couple solid bullpen guys - etc. etc. - it’s not fantasy baseball! One writer thinks we only score station to station - we tied for league lead in homers - come on!!

Our pen got weak through the year, Gallo was a failed experiment, Varland wasn’t ready to step in the 5th starter role………I’m sure, outside of the injuries to core guys in the line-up, there were other negatives.

In the end we gave away the 162nd game of the year and were 8 games from 95 wins, which will win any Division 8 times out of 10 seasons.

We can’t have a line-up that leads the league in K’s and expect we have the plate discipline to win tight games against good pitching. Per “MLB Network Experts” we need 4 impact players to compete in World Series and we have 2 (CC & Lewis)……..if Kirilloff is healthy he has this potential. If Buxton is healthy (long shot) he has the potential to be that. Hopefully, Lee has this potential. Julien is young but has enough bat to ball skills & pop & OBP to potentially get to be an impact guy.

Wallner - Kepler - Jeffers - Castro - Farmer - Solano are all contributors but not guys that can be leaned on hard. Bottom line is there are no perfect teams & we need a couple changes in our line-up to beat the other big boys. We may have one or two answers that can come from internal options?

Mahle - Maeda - Polanco - Gray - Gallo salaries add up to $50M plus so we should be able to get a starter for Staff depth & a supplemental bat, if we choose. We got a start this year with youth & some guys that are around for another handful of years - seems like a good culture & a cohesive group.

[TL]

The pieces are all there for the lineup to take another step forward. 

Center Field - Probably can't rely on Buxton out there, but Lewis would look awfully good. Maybe best we can hope is Buxton as a 4th outfielder and DH, but that's fine with me.

Third Base - if Lewis moves to CF, does Brooks Lee break spring training with the big club?  I say yes. 

Corner outfield - Is Kepler back? Possibly but could also be a trade candidate again and this time may fetch something worthwhile. That opens up RF for Wallner and LF for Martin. 

Kiriloff/Julien - Injury history and defensive issues to be overcome but both bats are legit. Need to have contingency plans in place (Solano, Castro). 

Larnach/Miranda - Wait and see. Don't want to sell low, especially on Miranda who may as well just move to 1st base permanently and put himself in line as a contingency for Kiriloff. 

Correa - Good odds he is much improved from this year's regular season.

All of that may make Polanco expendable but would not mind him back too as a bench bat. 

[HoskenPowell]

Total failures were Gallo ,  Miranda , Buxton and for 1/2 the year Kepler. Correa only hit for half a season as well.

Buxton cannot be counted on PERIOD. He only DH'd and only for half a season.  Him hitting .220 and striking out over and over had very little value. And why the hell didn't he have that knee surgery a month ago???  He heels up slower than a Norwegian reaches for his wallet. Whatever fantasy time line they think he will recover you know you can double that.

I would not bring Kepler back.   Stares at pipe shot fastballs with games on the line.   Plus i hate that dirty , dirty catepiller he has on his lip.   Every year it takes til all star break for him to wake up and play. He played good in 2nd half , but the season starts in late March/April.

Grays probably gone so now you need to get a top of rotation arm and get a power LH arm in the pen at the very least.

[jmlease1]

It was an intelligently constructed roster overall, and addressed the biggest weaknesses from the 2022 Twins: depth and starting pitching. It wasn't near perfect: Gallo was a real miss (one great month doesn't make the next 4 worth it), they didn't shore up the bullpen early enough, and the Buxton DH experiment was problematic as the season went on. They also carried a 13th pitcher too often that didn't get used and limited their own options.

But overall it was a good job of roster construction. They clearly prioritized depth and flexibility, and it is interesting that it was a cohesive team that seemed to like each other and the manager and didn't have any of those conflicts and blowups. YMMV on how much that matters, but it does seem to impact a team in baseball with the really long grind of the season.

A couple of depth moves they made really worked out that seemed a bit questionable at the time: Solano & Castro. It wasn't clear they needed Solano and it did keep Julien from being on the roster from the jump, but Solano had a solid season and his presence meant that when the injuries were piling up (again) they had a quality veteran bat who could make consistent contact stepping in. Castro was a revelation; his positional flexibility was outstanding and while he's not a plus hitter, he's good enough (ended the season slightly above average) and his baserunning is a real plus. He also turned out to be average to above average defensively at pretty much every position he played.

They're also pretty well positioned for 2024, which is a plus mark for this season's roster construction as well: even with the potential losses of several players through free agency, we're not looking at gaping holes anywhere, and sustainable success was also a stated goal of this front office.