Looking backward: 1987 was never going to happen

[MeleMouth]

As the Twins were hanging around .500 earlier this year, a narrative developed that was basically, "they won it all in 1987 with just above a .500 record, they could do it again this year." This was hopium, with about as much chance of happening as Lloyd getting Lauren Holly to be his girlfriend. But, like a lot of brain-altering substances, it caused unrealistic expectations and enabled organizational actions that were not in the team's long-term best interest.

1. 1987 Was Rare

The 1987 team's winning percentage, after losing their last two games of the year, was about .525. Each year, close to half of the teams have a winning percentage equal to or greater than .525. That means, in the 56 years of league playoffs between and including 1969 and 2025 (no playoffs in 1994), roughly 850 teams may be estimated to have had a record of at least .525. Of those, only the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals have won the World Series with a worse winning percentage than the 1987 Twins. (Yes, I know that two out of 850 is a lot more than one in a million.) Those Cardinals were a unique bunch with Albert Pujols, an inner circle Hall of Famer in his prime, Scott Rolen, another Hall of Famer in his prime, plus David Eckstein, an All-Star shortstop who must have sold his soul to the devil, because he had one of the greatest playoff series in history, winning the MVP trifecta in the division series, the NLCS, and the World Series.

2. Playoffs in 1987 Were Easier

In 1987, it required a total of 8 wins for the Twins to win the World Series. Last year, by contrast, the Dodgers needed 13 total wins to win the World Series. Not only do the extra wins required to win greatly reduce the element of luck, but they also cause a much different management of a team's pitching staff. In 1987, Twins pitchers threw a total of 104 innings. Of those, 98.1 (94.5%) were thrown by just six pitchers - Viola, Blyleven, Straker, Berenguer, Reardon, and Schatzeder. In 2025, by contrast, the top six pitchers for the Dodgers threw a little under 80% of their 165 playoff innings. It doesn't seem like much, but some really good pitchers barely pitched in the playoffs for the Dodgers last year. Plus, they were anchored by two aces, Yamamoto and Snell, and their third and fourth starters were Glasnow and Ohtani. Joe Ryan is a nice pitcher overall, but he's no Frank Viola, much less any of the Dodgers' top four starters in 2025. 

3. The Twins Don't Play in the Dome Anymore

People may forget this or even be unaware, but the 1987 Twins went 6-0 at home, including 4-0 in the World Series, in the year when the AL team was home for four games and the NL teams was home for three. The Dome was a tough place for visiting teams. The Twins' records that year were 56-25 at home and 29-52 on the road. It was a weird atmosphere for visiting teams, with balls playing off the tall baggy in right field differently than in any other park and visiting team often needing a few games to get used to seeing flyballs in the ceiling. (This was before interleague play, so the World Series would be the first time an NL team would play in the Dome. The Twins' win in the first game of the 1991 series was aided by David Justice basically giving up on a pop fly.) A perhaps apocryphal legend is that field management turned on the fans when the Twins were batting and turned them off when their opponents were up. Needless to say, the Twins don't play in the Dome anymore and have nowhere near the same kind of home field advantage. In 2026, they went 42-39 at home, producing a .519 winning percentage that is lower than the 1987 Twins' overall record. Also, it is possible that playing outdoors at Target Field in October and November could even work against them, under the theory that cold weather aids high velocity pitchers, which wasn't a strength of this year's team.

4. The Twins Had Better Players in 1987

This could be the biggest reason. Despite their mediocre record in 1987 and their much worse records in previous years, the 1987 Twins were filled with players who had already been to several All-Star games, won several Gold Gloves, and done well in MVP and Cy Young votes, despite their still being relatively young. Notable among these are Hrbek, Gagne, Gaetti, Puckett, Brunansky, Viola, and Reardon. Among the 2026 Twins, the only players with similar accolades are Buxton and Ryan, but, no criticism of those players intended, they are not as good as either Puckett or Viola were. The rest of the roster pales greatly. For example, the #2 reliever in 1987, the veteran Juan Berenguer, threw 112 innings that year and was a 2.0 bWAR and 2.3 fWAR pitcher. In contrast, Andrew Morris had a nice first year this year, but there's no comparison to 1987 Juan Berenguer. You can do your own in-depth comparison, but overall, there is no comparison in the quality of players.

Put it all together - the great luck of 1987, the increased challenge of playoffs today, not having a large home field advantage today, and the much better players on the 1987 team - and it was more than unreasonable to compare the 2026 Twins to the 1987 version to talk ourselves into thinking this team had a chance.