A Bad Year Starts a Promising Decade

However, Nick points out that lost in a 69-93 record was a fair amount of promise. Future cornerstones AJ Pierzysnki and Cristian Guzman established themselves as promising regulars, and Johan Santana was on the team all year, albeit without his deadly changeup. Yet.

The prospects got a lot of playing time because the payroll level was truly abysmal. Nick give some context for just how ugly by comparing the whole team to just one of the Twins' current homegrown prospects.

In retrospect, 2000 was the year that the Twins bottomed out and began their climb to the summit of the AL Central. But at the time, it just felt like another year in the basement. Still, it was not without players that stood out, or special moments. We’ll cover both of those in Parts 2 and 3 later this week.

We’re following up on last year’s “Twins in 2000s” series with videos where Nick, John and others discuss the Twins' teams of the 21st century. Just play the video for the discussion. You can also:

• read the original story about the 2000 Twins,
• come back in a couple of days to hear parts 2 and 3 of their discussion, or
• share your memories or thoughts on the 2000 team below.