The Twins Are Giving Their All, But It's Not Enough

[Nick Nelson]

Image courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

In a season like this, where contention felt so viably within reach, it's easy to look back and play the "what if" game. The Twins have essentially fallen out of the postseason race by going 20-26 since the All-Star break, but they've been on the fringe of the playoff mix all year, and as recently as August 20th their postseason odds were in the 40% range. 

You wonder how differently things might have gone with a few different variables in place — some in the team's control, some not.

What if Pablo López didn't go down with a season-ending injury on the first day of spring training? What if high-octane arms like Mick Abel or David Festa were healthy enough to contribute at all? What if the Twins didn't trade Louis Varland at the deadline last year, and were anchoring their shaky bullpen with the best reliever in the league? What if they made any kind of serious investment in the roster last offseason, rather than waffling over ownership uncertainty?

What if, what if. It does little good to lament over it now. What I will say is that, given the in-season circumstances and cards currently in their hand, the Twins are giving it their all. It's proving to not be enough. But I will say that I appreciate it, and it gives me a sense of optimism for what lies ahead.

Look around and you can see the signs of a team, manager and front office that are trying their best to push all chips into the middle of the table. It started, of course, with the trade deadline, which was one of Minnesota's most aggressive in memory. They traded away a bundle of prospects, including one of their best young arms, for immediate pitching help. 

Has it paid off? Not really, the Twins are 23rd in relief pitching ERA since the deadline. But the effort matters.

Then you turn your attention to roster moves and player usage decisions. A few things stick out to me:

• Impact prospects joining the fight. Some people might argue that it took too long for Kaelen Culpepper and especially Waker Jenkins to get the call. Well, Minnesota's best two MLB-ready prospects have arrived and they are playing every day — including Jenkins who is the youngest player to don a Twins uniform since a rookie Byron Buxton in 2015. Whatever concerns the front office harbored about starting service clocks or losing development time to a lockout were cast aside in the name of urgency.
• Speaking of Buxton, he has repeatedly pushed himself to play through a hip injury that is clearly rather serious. Even now, as he acknowledges that offseason surgery is in the cards, Buxton is attempting to get back on the field. Meanwhile, Joe Ryan is set to return to the mound today in Detroit, and while I wouldn't say he was necessarily rushed, it's clear he was making haste to come back, logging only one three-inning rehab outing. He should be able to get in four more starts, knowing each one counts.
• Ryan Jeffers, despite missing almost two months with a fractured hamate, leads all Twins in fWAR. He has been their best player and Derek Shelton is leaning on him hard here in the home stretch. Sunday's game marked Jeffers' seventh consecutive start behind the plate. Previously he had never started more than three in a row all year. 

All of these things point to a team going all-out to try and make hay with a clear opportunity in what was a wide-open American League. Unfortunately, it just hasn't been enough. Culpepper's been good but Jenkins has struggled initially, which is unsurprising for a 21-year-old getting his first taste of the majors. Buxton and Ryan, for all their efforts to overcome injuries, have nonetheless been absent and/or ineffective in the second half. And while Jeffers has delivered abundantly in his sudden full-time role, ripping four homers and driving in 11 over seven games, the Twins have remained stuck in neutral. 

The result has been the same as the last two years: a postseason pursuit that seemed plausible at midseason turning into a pipe dream by September following a second-half collapse. But what struck me as most frustrating about 2024 and 2025 is how the team seemed to simply give up. 

 

Trevor Richards was a laughable sole addition at the deadline two years ago for a team that appeared playoff-bound. Last year's decision to sell was understandable, but the historic firesale was a white flag of epic proportions. In both instances, the team was sending strong signals of apathy, which bled over into stagnant offseasons, and it left the fanbase feeling sour. 

I'm getting no signals of apathy this year. Will it translate to bolder team-building moves this offseason and a better outcome in 2027? Nothing is guaranteed, but I've seen enough to feel more confident in Twins leadership moving forward than I have in some time.

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[ashbury]

3.4% playoff odds means that 34 times in 1000 tries, the team will Shock The World.  LFG!!!!

[StiltedGopher]

How does having Alex Jackson on the roster support giving it all? Injuries clearly have hampered the Twins’ season. However, the personnel management has been slow to respond to performance results.   

[1985Fan]

I agree with this. The players effort has been there all year and they haven’t quit. Let’s see how they respond today after last night’s lopsided loss. I’ve been impressed by the never say die attitude. Thats all you can ask for as a fan and it makes you want to root for the team. 
 

[dberthia]

They have some fight, but they just don't have the talent. Top-line guys can't stay on the field, and there's not nearly enough depth to make up for it. We also consistently have guys who are injured trying to play through it but end up hurting the team because of it. If I haven't made it clear, injuries have decimated the team, and it's the same every year. Seemingly the bullpen has been less affected by injuries, but they've just run out of gas. There's also no way to explain away the idiocy of the Varland trade. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we'd have at least half a dozen more wins had we simply not made that move. The icing on the cake is we had him under ream control until 2030. We're probably not in the "total system failure" stage, but we're always sniffing around it.

[PuckettPond]

It could be worse,  JJ McCarthy could be on the roster.

[Twins GFP]

I agree on the effort. They have not given up. Guys trying to play through injury or comeback to help the team matters.

It's not the offense or the fielding...
Lopez, Abel, Festa, Ryan, Sands, Banda, Paredes.... the list goes on. Pitching injuries decimated this team. Tack on the woeful offseason approach to the bullpen and no dominant teams in the AL, this truly feels like a lost season.

[LastOnePicked]

No.

"Giving it your all" means a full, clear-eyed assessment of your organization, building your resources and striking when the opportunity arises.

What did this year's "aggressiveness" lead to? Absolutely nothing. In fact, a worse future with weaker draft position and fewer elite prospects.

I'm glad you're happy, Nick. This season left me feeling even less hopeful about this team's future. They have no intelligent leadership and no plan to win whatsoever.

[RpR]

48 minutes ago, 1985Fan said:

I agree with this. The players effort has been there all year and they haven’t quit. Let’s see how they respond today after last night’s lopsided loss. I’ve been impressed by the never say die attitude. Thats all you can ask for as a fan and it makes you want to root for the team. 
 

BRAVO!

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Great article which speaks for me. I absolutely love the hustle and the effort and the "NO QUIT"! attitude  from top to bottom. This team respects the game. 

[MeleMouth]

I used to work with a guy who played for Jacques Lemaire, the Hall of Famer who was the first coach of the Wild.

Lemaire emphasized the importance that his players "work hard" AND "work smart." Just working hard on its own doesn't mean much, but apparently we are supposed to be enthused by it, even though we have seen little evidence of "work smart" from the Twins. Instead, nearly all moves seem to be based on a strategic window that looks at most two weeks into the past and one week into the future. Working hard without working smart is just thrashing without a plan, which rarely leads to success.

The sum total of all of the evidence of "working hard" contained in this article appears to be a year in which the Twins chose to work hard to *achieve* a record projected to be 77-85, while also sacrificing opportunities for future teams to succeed. 

Yet, despite the fact that this year was mediocre and raised the chances that future years also will be mediocre, we continue to get blue sky spin about how great everything is just about to become.

(Just to note: since Falvey took over, the Twins have one of the worst playoff records in MLB, even though they benefit from playing in the AL Central, which makes it easier to make the playoffs. Their record is even worse if you go back to the opening of Target Field in 2010 or the resumption of baseball after the last work stoppage in 1994.) 

Personally, I'd rather see the team give a clear plan that includes plenty of losing, instead of seeing a team without a clear plan that repeatedly claims that success is just over the next hill, as long as we stay optimistic about a frequently changing handful of anecdotal dreams.

[Andy MacPhail]

Hopefully there will be a somewhat full & normal offseason so we can see what Zoll & Shelton can do on their own. The team did give their all & came up short. Can management learn from what was done wrong & put us in a better position to compete? I'm optimistic that they can, but we'll see.

[HarmonK03]

3 minutes ago, Andy MacPhail said:

Hopefully there will be a somewhat full & normal offseason so we can see what Zoll & Shelton can do on their own. The team did give their all & came up short. Can management learn from what was done wrong & put us in a better position to compete? I'm optimistic that they can, but we'll see.

Zoll has not earned the opportunity to lead this team going forward, he is just Falvey 2.0  He needs to be gone the day the Twins are officially eliminated.  Shelton is probably best as a bench coach, he has done some good things, but is not a strong manager.

[Wedman13]

Neat article.  You did slip Varland in also.  What us diehards know is MLB needs to fix itself.  It's not Pohlad, . Zoll, , was not Falvey, wasn't sano, Rosario,the fans or Wally the beer man.. MlB is messed up with no cap.  Until then its a zero sum game and we are the zero

[HarmonK03]

27 minutes ago, Wedman13 said:

Neat article.  You did slip Varland in also.  What us diehards know is MLB needs to fix itself.  It's not Pohlad, . Zoll, , was not Falvey, wasn't sano, Rosario,the fans or Wally the beer man.. MlB is messed up with no cap.  Until then its a zero sum game and we are the zero

Falvey would not work with the resources he was given, he wanted to act like a large market which we are not.  Other teams have been able to work within the operating parameters of baseball and construct contending teams.  Yes baseball has things to be fixed but to try and say Falvey had no blame for this mess is laughable.

[bean5302]

Why do TD writers make stuff up?

There was no second half collapse. The Twins had a .495 winning percentage at the half. They own a .476 winning percentage now. They went 20-26 (.435), which isn't a collapse, but substantially off their previous (non-competitive pace).

In order to be in a position of BARELY hanging on to a final wild card spot right now, the Twins would have needed to play 25-21 after the half (.543). Major improvement. That would put them at 73-70 or .510.

[TheLeviathan]

The only thing that this team is consistently going "all out" for is the franchise valuation in a sale.  Everything they do is driven by optics and balance sheets and not by smart baseball people making smart baseball decisions.

I don't understand why we want to keep handing out participation trophies and warm hugs for this leadership group slapping two relievers on a team that couldn't play .500 ball and had every alarm blinking "code red" about their likely regression.

Our desperation is showing when we keep emphasizing our feels in place of emphasizing sound planning and systems.

[Coach]

I am a Buxton fan, but "what if" he just sat down and said my season is over. From the first diagnosis there was no way he was coming back at full strength.  That is the only Byron we needed.

[Peter]

Effort is there but results aren’t-team is playing hard everyday not quitting or giving up-just not ready for prime time yet. This is great learning experience which will make them better in future seasons!!! 

[Coach]

2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Great article which speaks for me. I absolutely love the hustle and the effort and the "NO QUIT"! attitude  from top to bottom. This team respects the game. 

I will double down on this.  It was almost never over, until it was over.  Minnesota (Grinders) Twins!

[Coach]

3 hours ago, dberthia said:

They have some fight, but they just don't have the talent. Top-line guys can't stay on the field, and there's not nearly enough depth to make up for it. We also consistently have guys who are injured trying to play through it but end up hurting the team because of it. If I haven't made it clear, injuries have decimated the team, and it's the same every year. Seemingly the bullpen has been less affected by injuries, but they've just run out of gas. There's also no way to explain away the idiocy of the Varland trade. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we'd have at least half a dozen more wins had we simply not made that move. The icing on the cake is we had him under ream control until 2030. We're probably not in the "total system failure" stage, but we're always sniffing around it.

The Varland trade will haunt us for eternity.  What the H**l were they thinking???

[Wedman13]

56 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

Falvey would not work with the resources he was given, he wanted to act like a large market which we are not.  Other teams have been able to work within the operating parameters of baseball and construct contending teams.  Yes baseball has things to be fixed but to try and say Falvey had no blame for this mess is laughable.

I generally agree with you but he wins the AL verbal and produced the (19?) bomba squad

[Wedman13]

2 minutes ago, Coach said:

The Varland trade will haunt us for eternity.  What the H**l were they thinking???

Actually, it won't.  Sleep well

[HarmonK03]

1 minute ago, Wedman13 said:

I generally agree with you but he wins the AL verbal and produced the (19?) bomba squad

That was his major accomplishment after 10 years in charge, not much of a resume builder.

[Andy MacPhail]

1 hour ago, HarmonK03 said:

Zoll has not earned the opportunity to lead this team going forward, he is just Falvey 2.0  He needs to be gone the day the Twins are officially eliminated.  Shelton is probably best as a bench coach, he has done some good things, but is not a strong manager.

It's very true that Zoll has been mentored by Falvey, which is a big negative. But Zoll came from LAD & did some pretty good stuff like the hiring of Tanner Swanson & Wes Johnson when he arrived. I'm not sure if he's the best option at GM, but I'd like to keep him in the system with hope he can return to his LAD ways.

[HarmonK03]

1 minute ago, Andy MacPhail said:

It's very true that Zoll has been mentored by Falvey, which is a big negative. But Zoll came from LAD & did some pretty good stuff like the hiring of Tanner Swanson & Wes Johnson when he arrived. I'm not sure if he's the best option at GM, but I'd like to keep him in the system with hope he can return to his LAD ways.

He has been here for 10 years and if he stays he needs to adopt the direction of the new leader whether it is how the Dodgers do it or not.

[Andy MacPhail]

6 minutes ago, Coach said:

The Varland trade will haunt us for eternity.  What the H**l were they thinking???

I was completely against Falvey in charge of the sell off. 

[Coach]

I'm just putting this out there. What if we released BB... and moved on.