The Downside of a Lineup Full of J.D. Drews

[Hans Birkeland]

The Twins' collapse was shocking, but it shouldn't have been. Their passivity and lack of energy was contagious throughout the lineup, which brought to mind a certain former St. Paul Saint.

Image courtesy of © Kim Klement-Imagn Images

There once was a player drafted second overall, who produced roughly to expectations over a 14 year career that included MVP votes, an All-Star appearance, and a World Series. His career OPS was .873, and he was a serviceable defender in right field. His career on-base percentage was a robust .384, just a hair under Joe Mauer’s .388. That player was J.D. Drew.

Drew was an odd case. He did have just the one All-Star appearance, but twice, he produced an OPS north of 1.000. In fact, in his best season, 2004, he hit 31 home runs in 645 plate appearances and slashed .305/.436/.569. While he finished sixth for the MVP vote that year, he did not make the All-Star team, despite better numbers in the first half. What gives?

The reasons and excuses why Drew did not receive the recognition a player of his skill level deserves are abundant, and kind of sad. The first is that he was stoic. He didn’t show a lot of emotion when he played, and was liable to strikeout looking and walk back to the dugout like he was next in line at the DMV. Fans don’t like that; they want players to take every negative outcome as a personal affront. Other players can feel this way, too, and in Drew’s case, even his manager, Tony La Russa, was publicly frustrated with a perceived “lack of passion.”

The second issue people had with Drew is that he always seemed to have a nagging injury and wasn’t going to fight his front office on being placed on the injured list. He wanted to play closer to 100%, because anything significantly less than that would hurt his team. He played 104 games in his rookie season, 109 in his third, 100 in his fifth, 72 in his seventh, and 109 in his 10th. He wasn’t exactly Byron Buxton, but he did consistently miss quite a bit of time, in an era where that would get you called 'soft'. Stars of the day would always sprinkle in some outlier seasons marred by an injury they didn’t admit to until the season was over. Drew didn’t, and for that he became the poster boy for the prima donna hitter who made a lot of money and couldn’t post.

That leads us to the third thing that made J.D. Drew an underappreciated star: He was a draft holdout and a Scott Boras client, back before Boras was a household name. He demanded $10 million to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies as the second overall pick, and they offered about a quarter of that, leading Drew to play the 1997 season with our very own St. Paul Saints.

After signing with the Cardinals the next year, Drew quickly made his way to the majors, but sat out against the Phillies, the team he spurned, with a dubious hand injury. He then got the team’s bullpen catcher to wear his jersey to ward off the battery-throwing masses in Philly, only to be found out and heckled mercilessly. In a way, the heckling never stopped.

As Drew got older, his baserunning (which had made him a 30-30 guy in college) became very station-to-station, with him not wanting to risk an injury that he would get mocked and called soft for. He took fewer risks in the outfield, becoming a below-average defender in his later years. He just stood in the batter's box, made good swing decisions, looked tired, and went home when the game was over.

As I contemplated the career of J.D. Drew, I started to wonder: What would happen if a baseball team had a lineup composed of nine J.D. Drews?

From a sabermetric perspective, the results would be unstoppable. A team with an .873 collective OPS, with each hitter averaging 25 home runs per 162 games while getting on base at a .384 clip would be astounding. Plug those numbers into a ZIPS or PECOTA projection, and surely that team would dominate, with even an average pitching staff.

Except that just ain’t the way baseball works. If you want to know the downside of a team full of J.D. Drews, witness the collapse of the 2024 Minnesota Twins. Player after player, leaning into their back leg and waiting for a mistake, going station to station on the bases, being passive not just in their approach but in their overall mentality as competitors, consistently out-executed by opponents that would appear less talented.

Sure, that's a lot of conjecture, but I've watched enough Cleveland Guardians games to know the difference. Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, I would have dismissed this as complete and utter nonsense, but you need sparkplugs to win baseball games over a long season. Just having a bunch of good hitters isn’t enough, not for 162 games. Something needs to light the fire, because odd things happen in baseball. Squibbers ruin good pitching outings and rockets find gloves. You need a hair-on-fire, manic, obnoxious nightmare of a human being who plays crazy over-the-top baseball--whose will to beat the other team exceeds his actual talent level. You might need a couple of those guys.

It might help to define what I’m talking about here. I think “Energy guy” might be the best descriptor using established baseball terminology. Energy guys are usually fast (Jarren Duran), but not always (Josh Naylor). They are demonstrative and do not wait for the game to come to them. In other words, their plan at the plate is, “If this pitcher does this, then I am doing this first pitch,” rather than “I hope I get ahead in the count and he throws me a fastball belt-high.”

The Twins have one energy guy, in Buxton, and he (ahem) isn't always available. Sure, some guys have tried to fit the mold, but it hasn’t worked. Matt Wallner had some heinous bat flips, stole some crucial bases, and beat out a couple of sure double plays that really got the boys goin’. But as talented as he is, he’s too big, too bland, and too dependent on a pitcher putting a pitch somewhere he can hit it. He’s also a tinkerer, a guy constantly making minor changes to his swing to get it just right.

Brooks Lee is similar, constantly fine-tuning his swings from both sides of the plate, and being quite honest about which was working at any point. He does have some passion to his game that we saw in September a few times, but those instances were few and far between.

Like Wallner and Lee, Carlos Correa is a technician, not a sparkplug. So is Ryan Jeffers, at a lower level of performance. Same for Trevor Larnach, who had a great year, and tried to act as an energy guy at times, but that isn’t his personality. He drives the ball and takes walks; he isn’t the type to lean out over the plate and flip a down-and-away slider over the third baseman when that kind of result would just kill the opponent.

José Miranda can be a clutch bad-ball hitter, but he needs to be healthy to do so, and that just hasn’t happened for any length of time thus far in his career.

In 2023, Edouard Julien, Royce Lewis and Willi Castro sparked the team out of its first-half doldrums, but Julien is the definition of passive at the plate; Lewis never got his legs under him in the second half of 2024 (and was kind of whiny about it); and Castro perpetually looked like he needed to sit down for a minute following his All-Star selection, due to back troubles.

The departing Max Kepler is J.D. Drew reincarnated, but with less talent.

Christian Vázquez and Kyle Farmer were the team’s primary energy guys for various stretches, but they just aren’t good enough hitters for that to matter, nor do they possess anything resembling speed.

The fact is, baseball is not played in a vacuum. It’s played between the ears, and certain guys provide value from a mental standpoint that others just don’t. The Mets are in the NLCS because they were sparked by minor league free agent José Iglesias. Keith Law doesn’t think he’s the reason, but every Mets player thinks he is, and that counts (Having Francisco Lindor doesn’t hurt, either. That's an energy guy, too.) The Yankees' whole dynamic changed with the addition of Jazz Chisholm. The Padres had Jackson Merrill, Luis Arraez and Manny Machado, and it seems as though the Guardians entirely consist of energy guys.

Maybe momentum isn’t really a thing, but confidence is. If I’m in the on-deck circle down a run, and I see a player who doubles as the team’s mascot bloop a single over the second baseman and go crazy at first base, my mentality is completely shifted. There is blood in the water. The crowd is into it, the dugout is screaming, the opposing manager is pacing and the pitcher is liable to make a mistake. That’s what the Twins didn’t have this year. You can’t quantify upsetting a pitcher’s rhythm or shaking their confidence, but that’s a huge part of baseball. When a pitcher gets rattled, that’s when selective, talented, stationary hitters like Drew do their best work. As the 2023 Guardians showed, you need both types.

Now for the Twins, Nick Gordon, Jorge Polanco and Arraez are gone and the pipeline for energy guys is questionable at best. Emmanuel Rodriguez will make his debut next year, but his approach at the plate is ultra-patient and doubters worry he may be too passive. Top ten global prospect Walker Jenkins is a pure hitter who works counts and drives the ball, and J.D. Drew might be a good comp for him if things break right.

Given payroll limitations, DaShawn Keirsey Jr. might have a larger role next year regardless of whether the team wants to double down on a lineup full of even-keeled mistake hunters who are skeptical there is such a thing as a “double steal.” Keirsey is fast, aggressive and has tons of tattoos. He’s the closest thing this team has to what they lack.

My hope is that the team leaves its pitching alone, especially the top three starters. The big move needs to come from the core (or future core) of its lineup. Lewis, Julien, Jeffers, Wallner and Larnach should all be on the table, as well as Rodriguez and maybe even Jenkins. It’s not that any of those players have a bad future ahead of them, but this team needs to diversify its lineup with speed, athleticism, and most importantly, energy. Otherwise, they are going to continue with months-long hitting slumps and job-insecure hitting coaches, and we'll continue wondering why it doesn't quite work.

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[Fred]

Check out Payton Eeles. The kid reminds me of "Charley Hustle".

[In My La Z boy]

This article reminds me of how dangerous we would be w/Buxton playing 160 games a year batting lead-off. It also reminded me of when we acquired Danny Gladden in '87, and it reminds me of the early 2000's Piranha's teams. I do miss having an identity. We are like a person with an identity crisis. Who are we, and who do we want to be? I'd like to be the Piranha's again with a hint of Bomba squad mixed in. New ownership will definitely infuse some hope....I hope. No doubt some new owner Billionaire will want to have some fun and try and win with his new toy....I hope. 

[chpettit19]

27 minutes ago, Fred said:

Check out Payton Eeles. The kid reminds me of "Charley Hustle".

Mr Eeles was the first name that came to my mind as well.

[JD-TWINS]

Really think with SWR & Festa maturing and refining, there is a chance the 5 guys that would be initial rotation are solid.

Duran - Jax - Topa - Stewart - Sands - Alcala - Paddack - Varland can be the headliners for the Pen that can be Top level. Moran - Headrick - Funderburk - Henriquez - Winder - Blewett.

Per your comments….the core, Correa - Buxton - Wallner - Larnach - Lewis, are the guys I don’t see the FO moving off. Vazquez is a fixed asset. Castro is probable due to flexibility. Everyone else that’s on the offensive side can be expendable or replaceable. Should be interesting to see who’s around in late March.

[NYCTK]

Sparkplugs are important, but I think it boils down to the Twins hitters just not being good enough. JD Drew was just a much better hitter than almost every single member of the Twins. In his peak he averaged a 132 OPS+ over 485 PAs.

The Twins only had two players with at least 485 PAs and their OPSs were just over league average. 

Jose Iglesias was absolutely a catalyst for the Mets this year, but he's likely going to get benched in the playoffs now. Not because his fire isn't welcome, but because he stopped hitting and that's more important. 

[nicksaviking]

I think the fiery sparkplug type is just more apparent on a winning team. Was Lewis not a fiery sparkplug last year?

I think the issue is that the Twins are a team full of Max Keplers, but not in the way you describe Drew. Outside of Correa, they all seem to be ungodly unpredictable and streaky. Not just month-to-month but year-to-year. They could deal with the injuries if they had enough reliable players. This team would probably be better severed if they had more players who might only top out at an OPS of .800 but you can count on them to put up at least .700.

Instead they have a bunch of guys who might put up an OPS north of .900, but the odds are the same that they'll head south to .600. That's unsustainable. They need more consistent hitters, or someone who can show these guys how to be consistent. It seems odd that this is the only kind of player this team has, which makes me think it's coaching and development and not some random case of accidentally getting a dozen of them.

[bean5302]

I think this article is just a camouflaged hit job on J.D. Drew that somebody has always wanted to write.

Premise: the Twins needed an energy guy to inspire the lineup or something.
All Twins fans realize Royce Lewis is the personification of "energy guy," but he doesn't count because he wasn't playing well.
Buxton isn't an "energy guy" because he gets hurt.
Matt Wallner isn't an "energy guy" because he tinkers with his swing.

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

Sparkplugs are important, but I think it boils down to the Twins hitters just not being good enough. JD Drew was just a much better hitter than almost every single member of the Twins. In his peak he averaged a 132 OPS+ over 485 PAs.

The Twins only had two players with at least 485 PAs and their OPSs were just over league average. 

Jose Iglesias was absolutely a catalyst for the Mets this year, but he's likely going to get benched in the playoffs now. Not because his fire isn't welcome, but because he stopped hitting and that's more important. 

This. JD Drew had a career OPS+ of 125. Only 3 Twins exceeded that this season. If more guys had hit like JD, this team would have done much better.

the problem with Ed Julien this season was he hit .199 and slugged .323, not that he wasn't animated enough. When he swung the bat, he didn't make enough contact, and when he made contact it wasn't solid enough.

People love the scrappy little energizers when things are going well for them and they're getting on base, swiping bags, beating out swinging bunts and slow rollers, etc. And they're just as awful as anyone else when they're not hitting. Scrappiness didn't make Nick Punto a good player in 2007, when he got 150 games in and had an OPS+ of 53.

Having a lineup that's got a more varied and balanced approach might help a team avoid lengthy slumps...but then again it might not. Because at the end of the day it's about whether or not the players can hit. And having someone "scrappy" hitting in front of them won't make them any better than having a guy work a walk in front of them. 

[Jham]

Winning fixes almost all club house issues. But leadership and chemistry definitely matter. Baseball players are people. Fun equals energy. Energy equals effort. Effort equals performance. There's hundreds of studies on workplace moral and burnout on productivity. 

The team gave up a little when we didn't bring back our stopper and rotation leader. They gave up even more when they running out of gas and added nothing at the deadline. 

Our moldy old summer sausage eventually got... old and moldy.

[TheLeviathan]

I think I agree with the premise....the Twins are too "same-y" in their lineup.  They don't press other teams on the bases or ruffle their concentration.  There were times when we played Cleveland this year that the speed they put on the basepaths made everything seem infinitely more likely to work out for them.

Meanwhile, we either tattoo the ball where they ain't or we have nothing to show for it.  

I don't want us to remove the element of power from our lineup.  Homeruns are just statistically a better bet.  However, there's no reason we can't have more multi-dimensional athletes in our lineup that can stress the other team in ways we currently do not.  We need to prioritize LF as a spot where we get someone who can score a grimey run or two.

[Patzky]

9 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I think I agree with the premise....the Twins are too "same-y" in their lineup.  They don't press other teams on the bases or ruffle their concentration.  There were times when we played Cleveland this year that the speed they put on the basepaths made everything seem infinitely more likely to work out for them.

Meanwhile, we either tattoo the ball where they ain't or we have nothing to show for it.  

I don't want us to remove the element of power from our lineup.  Homeruns are just statistically a better bet.  However, there's no reason we can't have more multi-dimensional athletes in our lineup that can stress the other team in ways we currently do not.  We need to prioritize LF as a spot where we get someone who can score a grimey run or two.

I want to see a grimey run scored every game. 

[LastOnePicked]

Excellent article. There are certain "intangibles" in baseball that, when a team doesn't have them, the effects are certainly tangible. It's great to see a TD writer try to wrap some commentary around these aspects. The Twins have a clear energy deficit, I agree. 

[lukeduke1980]

Loved this - see 2009 as game 163 was just written about.  Orlando Cabrera made that team go. 

[RpR]

"As I contemplated the career of J.D. Drew, I started to wonder: What would happen if a baseball team had a lineup composed of nine J.D. Drews?

From a sabermetric perspective, the results would be unstoppable. A team with an .873 collective OPS, with each hitter averaging 25 home runs per 162 games while getting on base at a .384 clip would be astounding. Plug those numbers into a ZIPS or PECOTA projection, and surely that team would dominate, with even an average pitching staff.

Except that just ain’t the way baseball works. If you want to know the downside of a team full of J.D. Drews, witness the collapse of the 2024 Minnesota Twins. Player after player, leaning into their back leg and waiting for a mistake, going station to station on the bases, being passive not just in their approach but in their overall mentality as competitors, consistently out-executed by opponents that would appear less talented.

Sure, that's a lot of conjecture, but I've watched enough Cleveland Guardians games to know the difference. Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, I would have dismissed this as complete and utter nonsense, but you need sparkplugs to win baseball games over a long season. Just having a bunch of good hitters isn’t enough, not for 162 games. Something needs to light the fire, because odd things happen in baseball. Squibbers ruin good pitching outings and rockets find gloves. You need a hair-on-fire, manic, obnoxious nightmare of a human being who plays crazy over-the-top baseball--whose will to beat the other team exceeds his actual talent level. You might need a couple of those guys."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is just your opinion but a winning team does not need players to act like a snot faced punk who if he does not get his way , will the ball and go home.

You seem to be making an excuse for the Twins lack of rookie talent not living up to the wishful thinking level so many hold them at.

The Twins taking an early lead in so many games, over the past few years, and then getting their butts hand to them is more likely one psychological reason they seemed to lose heart; it could also be being coached in a losing manner by Baldelli and the FO.

Or are you saying the Twins need another Billy Martin to crack skulls when they do not have a snit fit after striking out J.D. did?

[Jocko87]

The Shannon Stewart erasure will not be tolerated. 

There is something to this.  JD Drew was a very valuable player but not everyone can play every role.  I don’t recall watching him enough to know how he conducted his at bats but he certainly produced enough to have the right mindset most of the time.

All I want is an offense that attacks.  You know, that’s why it’s called offense.  Just attack. Dictate the terms, whatever the strategy might be.  

Attack. Then do it again. 

[Twins63]

I'm gonna lean on the Billy Martin mention..

As a manager he was worth almost 7.5 more wins per year...why would that be?

It's because of his aggressive style of play. His mantra was to make less mistakes than your opponent. It doesn't just mean waiting for the pitcher to make a mistake. It means confusing your opponent. Bunting, stealing, extra bases. There are 8 other people on the diamond very capable of making a mistake at any time. That is the crux to me of what is missing in baseball these days...

 

 

 

 

 

[Hans Birkeland]

47 minutes ago, RpR said:

"As I contemplated the career of J.D. Drew, I started to wonder: What would happen if a baseball team had a lineup composed of nine J.D. Drews?

From a sabermetric perspective, the results would be unstoppable. A team with an .873 collective OPS, with each hitter averaging 25 home runs per 162 games while getting on base at a .384 clip would be astounding. Plug those numbers into a ZIPS or PECOTA projection, and surely that team would dominate, with even an average pitching staff.

Except that just ain’t the way baseball works. If you want to know the downside of a team full of J.D. Drews, witness the collapse of the 2024 Minnesota Twins. Player after player, leaning into their back leg and waiting for a mistake, going station to station on the bases, being passive not just in their approach but in their overall mentality as competitors, consistently out-executed by opponents that would appear less talented.

Sure, that's a lot of conjecture, but I've watched enough Cleveland Guardians games to know the difference. Twenty years ago, even 10 years ago, I would have dismissed this as complete and utter nonsense, but you need sparkplugs to win baseball games over a long season. Just having a bunch of good hitters isn’t enough, not for 162 games. Something needs to light the fire, because odd things happen in baseball. Squibbers ruin good pitching outings and rockets find gloves. You need a hair-on-fire, manic, obnoxious nightmare of a human being who plays crazy over-the-top baseball--whose will to beat the other team exceeds his actual talent level. You might need a couple of those guys."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is just your opinion but a winning team does not need players to act like a snot faced punk who if he does not get his way , will the ball and go home.

You seem to be making an excuse for the Twins lack of rookie talent not living up to the wishful thinking level so many hold them at.

The Twins taking an early lead in so many games, over the past few years, and then getting their butts hand to them is more likely one psychological reason they seemed to lose heart; it could also be being coached in a losing manner by Baldelli and the FO.

Or are you saying the Twins need another Billy Martin to crack skulls when they do not have a snit fit after striking out J.D. did?

How bout Doug Mientkiewicz?

[sftwinsfan]

I think where they need to improve as someone noted is consistency as well as approach. The lineup is filled with guys who can be red-hot for a few games then borderline unplayable for weeks. Approach-wise they've got a bunch of guys swinging from their heals like 30-40 HR hitters that hit about 15 HR. If they just need to get in a guy from 3rd or need a 3-run HR, the approach seems to be the same. They're bad at baserunning, bad at defense, bad at situational baseball. It doesn't cost you extra payroll to do the little things right, but organizationally they don't seem to feel it's important. As a result, they seem to be less than the sum of all their parts. 

[stringer bell]

47 minutes ago, sftwinsfan said:

I think where they need to improve as someone noted is consistency as well as approach. The lineup is filled with guys who can be red-hot for a few games then borderline unplayable for weeks. Approach-wise they've got a bunch of guys swinging from their heals like 30-40 HR hitters that hit about 15 HR. If they just need to get in a guy from 3rd or need a 3-run HR, the approach seems to be the same. They're bad at baserunning, bad at defense, bad at situational baseball. It doesn't cost you extra payroll to do the little things right, but organizationally they don't seem to feel it's important. As a result, they seem to be less than the sum of all their parts. 

While I don’t disagree with any of the criticisms in the post I quoted, I would guess that 25 of the 29 teams that don’t win the World Series will have the same complaints. Despite the Twins reducing their strikeouts dramatically, they were less effective at scoring runs. Did they swing less “from their heels” or did they have different personnel?

I think that they have a type of player they value and speed and athleticism aren’t as high as generating exit velocity. Good pitching masked some of their weaknesses and a poor last quarter of the season at the plate exposed the weak spots. 

[Richie the Rally Goat]

Agreed with Levi on the OP topic of homogeneity in the lineup. It’s a problem that the OP kinda covers.

i agree with the posters who mainly point to a talent deficit, definitely injuries impacted performance, but there were too many guys crapping the bed at the same time for talent being a big factor there.

where I get a little lost is the spark plug rah rah stuff. I prefer to watch that style of baseball. Old school ball is way more fun to watch than the modern game. There isn’t evidence that it actually works, meaning scores more runs. Not in the way that the OP attributes the outcomes, anyways. As others pointed out, Lewis, Correa, Buxton… if a guy that is 5th all time in Twins Grand Slams in his second year not a spark plug, I’m not sure what is.

[Hans Birkeland]

5 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Agreed with Levi on the OP topic of homogeneity in the lineup. It’s a problem that the OP kinda covers.

i agree with the posters who mainly point to a talent deficit, definitely injuries impacted performance, but there were too many guys crapping the bed at the same time for talent being a big factor there.

where I get a little lost is the spark plug rah rah stuff. I prefer to watch that style of baseball. Old school ball is way more fun to watch than the modern game. There isn’t evidence that it actually works, meaning scores more runs. Not in the way that the OP attributes the outcomes, anyways. As others pointed out, Lewis, Correa, Buxton… if a guy that is 5th all time in Twins Grand Slams in his second year not a spark plug, I’m not sure what is.

100% agree, they better hope Lewis returns to that version of himself

[Coach]

2 hours ago, Twins63 said:

I'm gonna lean on the Billy Martin mention..

As a manager he was worth almost 7.5 more wins per year...why would that be?

It's because of his aggressive style of play. His mantra was to make less mistakes than your opponent. It doesn't just mean waiting for the pitcher to make a mistake. It means confusing your opponent. Bunting, stealing, extra bases. There are 8 other people on the diamond very capable of making a mistake at any time. That is the crux to me of what ithese days...

It starts at the top.  Martin inspired (or threatened), Baldelli pampers.

 

 

 

 

 

[old nurse]

So are you supposed to throw a tantrum, fling bats and helmets and the like when you have a negative outcome in baseball.  Just a “dammit” under your breath and moving on is a negative. 

[umterp23]

So, we have had 4 or 5 trade so and so articles to now an energy article.  Next up: Twins appear to have great clubhouse guys, but do they?

Off-season at its finest thus far.

[jmlease1]

13 hours ago, Twins63 said:

I'm gonna lean on the Billy Martin mention..

As a manager he was worth almost 7.5 more wins per year...why would that be?

It's because of his aggressive style of play. His mantra was to make less mistakes than your opponent. It doesn't just mean waiting for the pitcher to make a mistake. It means confusing your opponent. Bunting, stealing, extra bases. There are 8 other people on the diamond very capable of making a mistake at any time. That is the crux to me of what is missing in baseball these days...

 

Billy Martin was a brilliant manager and an alcoholic maniac. A genius baseball man and a vile, broken human being. One of the greatest turnaround artists in baseball history and one of the most self-destructive people in baseball history (and there's a long list of incredibly self-destructive people in baseball's very long history, and Billy is still top 5). I'm not sure he's the solution, LOL.

There's no real evidence that having "too many" guys who play a JD Drew-style of baseball is harmful, in part because it's much more about the total talent, not the style. If you have enough guys that play to JD's level, then you're going to be good. If you don't, you're not. If the twins had 6 guys in the lineup all season with an OPS+ of 125 or better that played station to station baseball, drew walks, didn't steal bases, and had more doubles off the wall than infield hits...they'd have won the division going away.

The problem isn't a JD Drew style, it's that not enough guys actually hit at that level. Could they have manufactured a few more runs, especially when everyone was slumping at the plate, by playing a more contact-oriented game, with a hit & run style, stealing bases, etc? Maybe. but it takes a lot more things going right to string singles into runs consistently.

Luis Arraez won another batting title this year, and was fun to watch. But was he actually good? 80% of his hits were singles. Matt Wallner might have been frustrating to watch K, but he was substantially better than Arraez this season, even if he was a station to station player with a lot of HRs, and a lot of K's. Wallner wasn't just better at getting on base than Arraez, he was significantly better at it, and his hits were more often more impactful.

A walk's as good as a hit. Pretty sure I've heard that somewhere.

[Whitey333]

I agree with many of the posters regarding the team.  The Twins are very boring and don't play anything resembling sound baseball.  They don't have an identity.  Their identity is that they don't have an identity.  They are undisciplined, unsound fundamentally, and play with very little passion.  I've followed the Twins for 60 years and the past several years have been so boring.  Even some of the worst Twins teams in past years showed some passion and at times made it look like they knew how to play baseball.  This group of players the past few years shows no life very much like their manager.  

[tarheeltwinsfan]

The above article convinced me that the Twins should sign Trevor Bauer and trade our Minnesota nice players (like Pablo Lopez) for Manny Machado or Bryce Harper? That would be a lot of energy. Then fire Rocco and bring Ozzie Guillen to manage the team. Fire Cory P. and hire Hawk Harrelson for the new play by play tv guy.  And the new owner could be .... whoops, we should avoid politicians in this website. 

[Hans Birkeland]

8 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

The above article convinced me that the Twins should sign Trevor Bauer and trade our Minnesota nice players (like Pablo Lopez) for Manny Machado or Bryce Harper? That would be a lot of energy. Then fire Rocco and bring Ozzie Guillen to manage the team. Fire Cory P. and hire Hawk Harrelson for the new play by play tv guy.  And the new owner could be .... whoops, we should avoid politicians in this website. 

That's a fair point, because as we saw, Josh Donaldson didn't do anything to fire up this team. There is a fine line between energy guy and jackass.