Does the Minnesota Twins' Pattern of Losing Spring Seasons Matter Once the Regular Campaign Begins?

[Peter Labuza]

Not ready to rest on the laurels of a cold-weather October curse, it turned out the Twins are also under a hex in the Sunshine State each spring.

Image courtesy of © Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

Everyone knows: Spring training games do not matter. When all is said and done, spring training is for training.

So why are the Twins so bad at it? This year, the Twins wound up with a losing record for the Grapefruit League. They're the only team to post a losing spring record in Florida each year of this decade. The Pirates haven't had a winning one, but they have at least had a couple of seasons at exactly .500. Over in the Cactus League, only one other team has matched the Twins' run of ineptitude: the Cleveland Guardians. Both teams had their last winning preseason in 2019.

We all know these games do not matter. As study after study has demonstrated, there is no correlation between these records and those posted in the regular season. Some studies have gone further, to suggest even some advanced stats do not help us predict league performance in games that count.

Yet, there's more than random chance happening here. Randomly, the chances of six straight losing Grapefruit League slots are around 1%. The Cleveland example seems important; they have been the Twins’ central rival for the last half-decade. They're continually over-performing projections, often through a hitting style that befuddles Twins pitchers by wearing them down. What lessons could we draw from that? I was curious: where was the bad production from the Twins coming from? Was it some sloppy work in the final innings by lower-minors prospects? Or was there something else afoot?

I took all results from both Cactus and Grapefruit League from 2020 to 2024 (the 2020 Grapefruit season was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but a fair number of games were played first). I grouped innings together: 1st to 3rd, 4th to 6th, 7th to 9th. Usually, starting pitchers will only go two or three innings until the last week, and most starting lineup batters will take their three swings into the 4th or 5th inning before leaving. That likely means that these divisions generally demonstrated the transition between certified major leaguers and newly minted prospects coming in for a few innings. My idea was to simply look at run differential: which group of players scored more or allowed more runs?

To make the chart easier to read, I only focused on Grapefruit League teams:

It’s not hard to miss the Twins here. They are, notably, doing their worst work early in games—worse than any other team in Grapefruit League baseball (though if you included the Cactus League, Cleveland would perform the worst). So what does it look like if we only look at the Twins, inning by inning?

Again, this suggests that the problems with Twins’ Grapefruit League records have much more to do with their starters. Specifically, the problem seems to be pitching. If we convert runs to “Runs+,” where 100 would be the league average, Twins hitters have a 98 Runs+ in the first though third frames. Meanwhile, the pitchers have allowed a 111 Runs+. For comparison, the Dodgers seemingly bring eight or nine top-line starters to camp before losing them to injury, and have an 81.5 Runs+. 

There's a chance that Grapefruit League struggles have carried the seeds of regular-season trouble, then. However, there's also a chance that the problem we're seeing has already been solved. If the so-called Falvey pitching pipeline is really reaching its peak productivity, it makes sense that the starters have struggled at camp, while the minor leaguers have succeeded. Twins pitchers have allowed an 89 Runs+ in the 7th through the 9th innings. If widespread reporting is correct, the Twins (perhaps more so than other teams) seem to have let players use the exhibition season to experiment with new pitches.

But we will still have questions. In all these seasons, the Twins have posted a losing record in April—until last year, which was saved by a 12-game winning streak that began after starting 7-13. Carlos Correa tells us that his spring does not matter, but it’s hard to look at a .337 OPS and not have some concern, especially when it was the third-worst performance for a spring training hitter in all of baseball with over 40 plate appearances. Should we be worried about Jhoan Durán’s lack of swings and misses? Rocco Baldelli has spoken all spring about the changes they made this camp, and many of us have been wondering about the efficacy of that. Maybe there was a greater need for those changes than we realized, though. 

Those questions will be answered in a matter of weeks. The Twins probably won’t wear this spring training monkey on their back, but if we come to the end of the season with some of the same befuddlement as last year, maybe we should start looking at this awkward losing streak more closely. It might be capturing a failure of process we can't quite articulate, but which is still real and telling.

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[FlyingFinn]

If I'm looking up the right stats, the Twins have had a winning record (by at least 3 more wins than losses) at the end of April the past 3 years (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Thus, no, spring training records aren't worth anything and it doesn't matter.

[RpR]

1 hour ago, FlyingFinn said:

If I'm looking up the right stats, the Twins have had a winning record (by at least 3 more wins than losses) at the end of April the past 3 years (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Thus, no, spring training records aren't worth anything and it doesn't matter.

You should look futher down the road.  Now this article is from 2019 so six years of records are missing but it still says lot.

https://www.twinkietown.com/2019/5/2/18522882/the-mlb-minnesota-twins-made-franchise-history-in-april

Was this the best April in Twins history?

We’re living in the middle of Twins history. Enjoy it.

By Ben Beecken May 2, 2019, 11:00am EDT

"Perhaps this won’t be a major surprise, but in the context of Minnesota Twins franchise history, we’re living in the midst of an absolute dream.

In the 59 years in which the Twins have called Minnesota home, the team has managed to have a winning record through the month of April exactly 21 times. If you’re scoring at home, that’s just 35.6 percent of the time.

It’s obviously a terrible mark, and even knowing full-well about the Twins’ roller coaster history in terms of competitiveness, managing a winning record in the opening month of the season just north of a third of the time in franchise history is still...not good....."

[silverslugger]

The only thing you've proven to me is that we must play the Yankees a lot in April...and...October 🤣

[DocBauer]

After 50 years of following the Twins and MLB, I've learned a couple of things. One is that ST records...while it's fun to see your team win...don't matter. 

Just today, the Twins beat the Rockies, who have a better ST record. Does anyone believe the Rockies are a better team?

Lopez, with all his talent, has often started that ST is just working on stuff and sometimes playing with and trying stuff. 

Spring training IS important for the more fringe players, and that's NOT a knock against them. Two years ago, Castro proved his worth. Julien is trying to prove his worth after a bad year. And guys like Gasper and Keirsey are also trying to prove they are legitimate ML players.

ST records just don't matter for most. But you get the Castro fliers on your team because of opportunity. Due to injury and opportunity, you get a Gasper and Keirsey to make the opening day roster...FWIW...and then it's a whatever happens opportunity to see what you can do. 

The bitch and the beauty of the opening day roster is there are always a couple surprises. What happens next is TBD.

[Whitey333]

Very nice article.  Well done.  Whereas it's true spring training is spring training., this season more than most the Twins need a good start. With 13of their first 16 games on the road it could be tough.  With the disastrous end to 2024 the Twins can I'll afford a poor April if they intend to compete and keep fans interested.

[Lasorda_This_Out]

George Will in "Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball" made the argument (and likely shared by all MLB organizations), that the ideal Spring Training record is .500.

Totally agree.

[knothole61]

4 hours ago, RpR said:

You should look futher down the road.  Now this article is from 2019 so six years of records are missing but it still says lot.

https://www.twinkietown.com/2019/5/2/18522882/the-mlb-minnesota-twins-made-franchise-history-in-april

Was this the best April in Twins history?

We’re living in the middle of Twins history. Enjoy it.

By Ben Beecken May 2, 2019, 11:00am EDT

"Perhaps this won’t be a major surprise, but in the context of Minnesota Twins franchise history, we’re living in the midst of an absolute dream.

In the 59 years in which the Twins have called Minnesota home, the team has managed to have a winning record through the month of April exactly 21 times. If you’re scoring at home, that’s just 35.6 percent of the time.

It’s obviously a terrible mark, and even knowing full-well about the Twins’ roller coaster history in terms of competitiveness, managing a winning record in the opening month of the season just north of a third of the time in franchise history is still...not good....."

I haven't checked very far back, but part of our April malaise may be the fact that we most always open with two series on the road, and losing early may create a funk that takes a while to shake off. What I have seen is that for the past ten Twins' seasons (not counting the regrettable 2020) Minnesota has started seven of them with back-to-back road series, usually of six total games, and are winning those games at about a .440 clip. I'm sure that MLB is trying to avoid blizzard-related postponements, but it does create a bit of a disadvantage, I think. 

[Parfigliano]

7 minutes ago, knothole61 said:

I haven't checked very far back, but part of our April malaise may be the fact that we most always open with two series on the road, and losing early may create a funk that takes a while to shake off. What I have seen is that for the past ten Twins' seasons (not counting the regrettable 2020) Minnesota has started seven of them with back-to-back road series, usually of six total games, and are winning those games at about a .440 clip. I'm sure that MLB is trying to avoid blizzard-related postponements, but it does create a bit of a disadvantage, I think. 

On the bright an early string of road games evens out with more home games late in the season.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

[old nurse]

The spring games do not necessarily have a teams regular starting lineup so even the first three innings may not even be representative of the team. Their AAA prospects other factor would be are pitchers working on a pitch so they might not be always throwing a better pitch. If they have for example been working on a cutter, they may throw that a few more times to find out if it doesn’t work on a batter 

[Fire Dan Gladden]

Two years ago Miguel Vargas for the Dodgers played a large chunk of ST in the lineup when he was ordered by the Dodgers not to swing the bat.

Players are regularly mic'ed up in the field during games.  Tie games happen regularly.

QB Russell Wilson got an at-bat a few years ago.  Will Ferrell played for 10 teams on one day in 2015.  Dodgers batboy Chico Herrera played OF for them for some televised ST games in 2020.

Any discussion of the importance of wins and losses in ST is a nonstarter.

[knothole61]

23 hours ago, Parfigliano said:

On the bright an early string of road games evens out with more home games late in the season.

True, true...but I'm a big fan of the hot start! 

Go Twins '25!