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

[HarmonK03]

20 minutes ago, AKTwinsFan said:

Honestly, when we were at our best was when Buck and Jeffers were sidelined with injuries. Vic and Kriedler helped us win games. As soon as Buck and Jeffers came back we started losing. Ultimately by keeping Jeffers, Ryan and Larnach on the team we lost out on hauls of prospects in return. Instead our gamble of keeping them has flopped. 

Caratini had a career month in June and is very unlikely to repeat that.  He has had a sub .500 OPS since then.  Kreidler never filled in for Buxton when he was on the IL.  And his stats dropped when he started playing every day and was exposed.  So I am not sure how crucial they were to winning games.  And I wouldn't want to count on them to consistently win games.

[LastOnePicked]

5 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

But don't blame the "team" for not trying.

Help me out here. Isn't "trying" the absolute bare minimum qualification for playing MLB? Do we really need participation ribbons and a trip to the Dairy Queen for a professional baseball team?

Look, ownership is absolutely to blame for this mess, I agree. But I don't really see the roster doing anything special on the mound, the plate or the field, either.

 

 

[TheLeviathan]

19 hours ago, Saxophone Joe said:

I'm 43, was a hardcore Twins fan from '90 through around 2010. I've read several books on the team's history, didn't follow too closely from around 2012-2022 but was on board again for 2023, the epic collapse in '24, etc.

So maybe this is my recency bias showing, but can any of you longtime fans recall a Twins team that has struggled more than this one in winning/finishing close games? The 9-65 record after the 6th inning is eye-popping. And it's not just failures in clutch hitting but all aspects. It was a problem of course in the early parts of the season, but for about six weeks from early June to the All-Star Break, we had done a much, much better job of closing games, especially the bullpen.

But this part of the 2026 season has been so hard to watch lately. This season has gone from fun and rewarding to uber frustrating over the last six weeks or so. We truly had a shot at legitimate shot at the playoffs. I draw a line at the Mariners series when it started to go south, bad. 

I appreciate the hope you had....but it was a false hope.  Staring at the wild-card standings so you don't have to look at all the problems with the team confused a lot of people, including ownership.  That confusion cost us real long-term value that might be the difference in 2 to 5 years if this next young core is legit.

You can't run tight margins AND make asinine decisions about value on a consistent basis and expect to get it right.

[Woof Bronzer]

1 hour ago, LastOnePicked said:

Help me out here. Isn't "trying" the absolute bare minimum qualification for playing MLB? Do we really need participation ribbons and a trip Dairy Queen for a professional baseball team?

I for one think the team should be commended for how well they've tied their shoes this year.  I can't think of a single example of a guy tripping over his own shoelaces!   These aren't the most talented players but that doesn't stop them from tying their shoes day in, day out.  Heroes, really!

[LastOnePicked]

35 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

That confusion cost us real long-term value that might be the difference in 2 to 5 years if this next young core is legit.

This is the part that I don't think has sunk in yet. 

In two years, Jenkins might be good. Culpepper might be good. Lackey might even be good. Who's going to pitch? The pipeline of pitching prospects never materialized here. Even the most promising arms - Abel and Bradley - are from outside the organization. And both of them are still question marks.

The Twins absolutely needed to restock their system with high-upside value and they absolutely needed a year to parse through their players on the fringes on the majors. They did neither. In fact, they made both situations worse.

Free agents have a role to play, but there's still a costly hit-or-miss aspect to signing top free agents. The misses are costly on a low-payroll team, and even if there's a salary floor in the future there will still be low-payroll teams and the Twins will certainly be one of them.

There is a pathway to win in 2027, but it requires a ton of good luck and a sizeable payroll boost. In other words, two things the Twins never seem to get. And if they don't make it in '27, they'll be forced to begin a rebuild during the prime years of their young stars.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[MikeNC]

22 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

And eat over $30m in salary, that will never happen.  Accept the fact that he is here for another two years unless he changes his mind.

Yep.  That's why we need Jenkins, even if he's only hitting a buck 50 for awhile.

[MikeNC]

2 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

Help me out here. Isn't "trying" the absolute bare minimum qualification for playing MLB? Do we really need participation ribbons and a trip to the Dairy Queen for a professional baseball team?

Look, ownership is absolutely to blame for this mess, I agree. But I don't really see the roster doing anything special on the mound, the plate or the field, either.

 

 

Totally agree.  The standard for MLB is 100% effort, every day.  This is Professional grade, and the fans are paying real money and deserve some entertainment for their $$.  At $780,000 to $21.75MM I think they all s/b trying real real hard.  Or go back to bartending. Next!  

[MikeNC]

29 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

This is the part that I don't think has sunk in yet. 

In two years, Jenkins might be good. Culpepper might be good. Lackey might even be good. Who's going to pitch? The pipeline of pitching prospects never materialized here. Even the most promising arms - Abel and Bradley - are from outside the organization. And both of them are still question marks.

The Twins absolutely needed to restock their system with high-upside value and they absolutely needed a year to parse through their players on the fringes on the majors. They did neither. In fact, they made both situations worse.

Free agents have a role to play, but there's still a costly hit-or-miss aspect to signing top free agents. The misses are costly on a low-payroll team, and even if there's a salary floor in the future there will still be low-payroll teams and the Twins will certainly be one of them.

There is a pathway to win in 2027, but it requires a ton of good luck and a sizeable payroll boost. In other words, two things the Twins never seem to get. And if they don't make it in '27, they'll be forced to begin a rebuild during the prime years of their young stars.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So you're saying there's a chance!

[TheLeviathan]

2 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

This is the part that I don't think has sunk in yet. 

In two years, Jenkins might be good. Culpepper might be good. Lackey might even be good. Who's going to pitch? The pipeline of pitching prospects never materialized here. Even the most promising arms - Abel and Bradley - are from outside the organization. And both of them are still question marks.

The Twins absolutely needed to restock their system with high-upside value and they absolutely needed a year to parse through their players on the fringes on the majors. They did neither. In fact, they made both situations worse.

Free agents have a role to play, but there's still a costly hit-or-miss aspect to signing top free agents. The misses are costly on a low-payroll team, and even if there's a salary floor in the future there will still be low-payroll teams and the Twins will certainly be one of them.

There is a pathway to win in 2027, but it requires a ton of good luck and a sizeable payroll boost. In other words, two things the Twins never seem to get. And if they don't make it in '27, they'll be forced to begin a rebuild during the prime years of their young stars.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Yup, I could give two craps about the prospects we moved to buy at the deadline.  I care MUCH more about the wasted opportunity to add with players we won't have on the roster in the very near future.  

We've done this before with Kepler, Polanco, and a host of others.  One thing that was good about last year's deadline was that we were actually assertive in selling off pieces at peak value during a wasted season.  (Other than Varland)  Then we turn around this year and watch value wither on the vine in the name of the third wild card for a team that can't even play .500 ball.

It was so obviously dumb.  No hindsight needed.

[TNtwins85]

10 hours ago, Woof Bronzer said:

What's the definition of "giving their all"?  Is there data to support this?  Which MLB teams are not giving their all and how do the Twins compare?

I'm getting no signals of apathy this year.

They've been worse post-deadline this year than last year.  Were they giving more of their all last year?  Also, how does a $110m payroll signal anything except apathy?

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

This frankly is a loser attitude.  Performance doesn't matter, we just have to try.  

Isn't "effort" and "giving their all" the baseline expectation for every single professional athlete?  

It started, of course, with the trade deadline, which was one of Minnesota's most aggressive in memory.

I'm convinced the TD staff witnessed a different deadline than the rest of us.  This deadline wasn't as aggressive as last years.  Go back all to 2022 for a more aggressive deadline.  I just do not understand a world in which 2 middling relievers and a #6 starter is "aggressive".  Why are TD writers so invested in lathering praise on this latest exercise in non-committed nibbling?

They made exactly the right moves for this team at that time. It was “aggressive” compared to most years in terms of acquiring talent compared to recent memory for a Twins team. 

As far as “giving it their all”, I believe that term can be lumped in with the term “tanking.” As in any team that doesn’t spend in the top 10 of the league is essentially “tanking” to all the semi-experts around here. Same can be said for “giving it their all” when a team that wasn’t expected to compete kinda does in which case they’re  “giving it their all.” This confuses me as I’m not sure which term to believe. Are they “tanking” or “giving it their all?” Followed closely by, “they traded like 25% of the roster last year.” 
“They traded 30% of their roster at the fire sale!”

”They traded roughly 40% of their roster at last years fire sale!”

”They traded almost half the roster at last years fire sale!”

[Riverbrian]

23 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

What paid the bills was a preposterous performance with runners in scoring position that even the '27 Yankees wasn't going to maintain.  

That, coupled with a bad AL, convinced us to pull the rip chord on a rebuild that really just needed one more offseason (deal Ryan and Lopez) and one more deadline (deal Larnach and Jeffers) to put us in the best position possible with the next young core.  Then we see if they have the right stuff to contend over the next few years.

Instead....we believed in a lie.  It's not a random dip or a roller coaster, it was a perfectly predictable slide back to reality.

I'm hesitant to be that predictive.

Twins RISP batting average was .280 and ranked #1 from opening day to July 31. 

Since August 1. RISP batting average is .240 and ranked 21st. 

Yes we have a significant drop in our success with runners in scoring position among other things. 

Meanwhile... the Tampa Rays have avoided this sort of RISP shenanigans. 

The Rays are ranked #1 in RISP batting average since August 1 with a .308 batting average. 

The Rays were #2 to the Twins #1 with a .278 up to July 31. 

The Twins have had 336 PA's with RISP since August 1. 69 Hits. 108 Runs. 34 games. 

The Rays have had 302 PA's with RISP since August 1. 93 Hits. 129 Runs. 34 games. 

Individually is a little more sample size challenged. Of those 69 hits since August 1 with runners in scoring position. 59 of them came from 6 players. Royce Lewis has had the most RISP opportunity since August 1 with 42 PA"s. He's done alright with 12 Hits for a .324 Average. Ryan Jeffers is 2nd with 38 and he's hit the RISP tank with a .190 BA and 6 hits. 

Kody Clemens has been the best RISP performer since August 1. He has a .429 batting average with Runners in scoring position only 28 opportunities. He also leads in RBI's since August.

Kody Clemens had a .259 RISP BA prior to August 1. Ryan Jeffers had a .370 prior to August 1 and Royce Lewis was a .188 prior to August 1. These are all reversals or regression either positive or negative. Surprisingly. Lewis was not our worst RISP performer up to July 31. Byron Buxton was our worst RISP performer with a .171. Well... the worst if you toss out Wallner and Outman. 

I remain hesitant to predict. Especially when you have each individual player all riding what look like individual roller coasters to me. 

To me... the Twins needed a strong stretch run and they did not deliver. This has occurred while Shelton has basically locked in his starting lineup. Collectively the offense took a significant small sample size step down with the 9 player stability. 

 

[Woof Bronzer]

13 hours ago, TNtwins85 said:

They made exactly the right moves for this team at that time. It was “aggressive” compared to most years in terms of acquiring talent compared to recent memory for a Twins team. 

The moves they made actually decreased their playoff odds coming out of the deadline, and they've been worse post-deadline this year than they were last year off the sell off.  So if the goal was making the playoffs, they were the wrong moves.  If the goal was increasing the organizational talent pool, they were the wrong moves.  Basically if the goal was anything except a 75 win season the moves were exactly the wrong moves.  They hurt the team in 2026 and they didn't get better for 2027.  

The Twins "acquired" more talent in the 2022 deadline.  A whole 4 deadlines ago.   Is that "recent memory"?  I swear fans around here have the memory of an elephant.  I guess I get it, I'd just as soon forget that deadline as well...

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

I'm hesitant to be that predictive.

Twins RISP batting average was .280 and ranked #1 from opening day to July 31. 

Since August 1. RISP batting average is .240 and ranked 21st. 

Yes we have a significant drop in our success with runners in scoring position among other things. 

Meanwhile... the Tampa Rays have avoided this sort of RISP shenanigans. 

The Rays are ranked #1 in RISP batting average since August 1 with a .308 batting average. 

The Rays were #2 to the Twins #1 with a .278 up to July 31. 

The Twins have had 336 PA's with RISP since August 1. 69 Hits. 108 Runs. 34 games. 

The Rays have had 302 PA's with RISP since August 1. 93 Hits. 129 Runs. 34 games. 

Individually is a little more sample size challenged. Of those 69 hits since August 1 with runners in scoring position. 59 of them came from 6 players. Royce Lewis has had the most RISP opportunity since August 1 with 42 PA"s. He's done alright with 12 Hits for a .324 Average. Ryan Jeffers is 2nd with 38 and he's hit the RISP tank with a .190 BA and 6 hits. 

Kody Clemens has been the best RISP performer since August 1. He has a .429 batting average with Runners in scoring position only 28 opportunities. He also leads in RBI's since August.

Kody Clemens had a .259 RISP BA prior to August 1. Ryan Jeffers had a .370 prior to August 1 and Royce Lewis was a .188 prior to August 1. These are all reversals or regression either positive or negative. Surprisingly. Lewis was not our worst RISP performer up to July 31. Byron Buxton was our worst RISP performer with a .171. Well... the worst if you toss out Wallner and Outman. 

I remain hesitant to predict. Especially when you have each individual player all riding what look like individual roller coasters to me. 

To me... the Twins needed a strong stretch run and they did not deliver. This has occurred while Shelton has basically locked in his starting lineup. Collectively the offense took a significant small sample size step down with the 9 player stability. 

 

The Rays should also be on the lookout for regression.  However, it should be pointed out that the players leading the Rays with RISP are Aranda (hitting .280), Diaz (hitting .306), Chandler (hitting .307), and their fifth best is Junior Camerino.

In other words....their best players are leading that charge.  They're out-hitting their averages and should be on alert for regression, but these are good, established players with high batting averages in general.  They don't have general regression to look out for in addition to their specific regression with RISP.

Put simply: Kody Clemens, Tristan Gray, Victor Caratini, and Trevor Larnach they are not.  (Guys who were driving the early RISP)  Not all regression is baked the same way, though the Rays should be on alert for it.

Also, widening the picture out, the Twins have still scored more runs than the Rays despite a lower OPS, batting average, OBP, 60 less stolen bases, and only a slight (.407 to .405) advantage in slugging.  Which means it's not only the RISP number it's also just really good luck with sequencing as well. (which I've mentioned other places)  The RISP gets the biggest finger point because this group of players just had no chance of maintaining that number.

[Brandon]

As Buxton goes ...so goes our offense.  We were 1 in the league in offense at the time of his injury, but the offense has had more ups and downs since his injury.  

A 14-3 or 13-4 finish to the season would fet us in the playoff mix to close out the season.  Not sure if 81-81 gets us a one game playoff to get the final wild card seat or not.  That's a 12-5 finish.  If the 87 Tigers can gain 3 games in 7 days.  So can we.