Despite the Pohlads Best Efforts, This Team Might Be Better Off

My first reaction to last Thursday was denial. Surely there were other prospects thrown into the Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart trades. Then came anger—because there weren’t. I even wrote a screed blasting the whole thing as a conspiracy to sell the team to a private equity conglomerate of ghouls who’d move the franchise to Nashville. Thankfully, the good editors at Twins Daily politely declined to publish it.

Then came coping: “If Pablo López comes back and Connor Prielipp shoves out of the bullpen, we’re really only seven games back of the Wild Card…” Nope. That was bargaining.

Any series in Cleveland is depressing, but this one gave me some clarity—or at least enough to revisit my own theory: this team has been maddeningly inconsistent because it’s full of J.D. Drews. Drew was a tinkerer. Talented, but not exactly a spark plug. That, to me, has been the Twins' hitting identity for a while now.

We didn’t expect this offense to be dominant coming into the year—not even with Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, Matt Wallner, Royce Lewis, Trevor Larnach, Willi Castro, Ryan Jeffers, and more waiting in the wings. We figured that if the team succeeded, it’d be on the back of the pitching staff. Other fanbases might look at that same group and see a potentially strong lineup. We knew better.

We knew the lineup would be less than the sum of its parts—and I’d argue that’s been a defining feature of the Correa era.

I’m not saying the team will be better now that he’s gone, but I do think the offense might be. Correa was never the type to just roll out of bed and go 3-for-4. He needed the right conditions: good health, a hitting coach he vibed with, a long ramp-up period, warm weather, and some BABIP luck. Like J.D. Drew, he’d be great on a team where he wasn’t the guy. But as the centerpiece? It doesn’t work. And you don’t really want younger players modeling themselves after that.

How many times have we heard guys like Brooks Lee, Wallner, and Jeffers say their swing “sucks,” or that they’re making some minor tweak, or trying a different bat? That’s the culture Correa brought in, intentionally or not.

During his peak in Houston, Correa wasn’t the alpha. The tone-setters were José Altuve and Yuli Gurriel—guys who saw the ball, hit the ball, and adjusted on the fly. Correa complemented that. After pitchers were worn down by Altuve and Gurriel slapping hits on balls a foot outside the zone, Correa would punish the mistake. He often did his best work lower in the lineup.

It’s like a golfer who plays "golf swing" instead of playing golf. A team can survive having one or two of those guys. Some teams have so many resources that they can field a whole lineup of swing technicians and still win—like the Yankees. But even they caught backlash in 2024 for leaning too hard into metrics, swing mechanics, and defensive WAR, instead of just… playing the game. They were even exposed in a minor scandal for rewarding minor leaguers based on batted-ball data instead of actual results.

That’s not inherently a bad thing. If you have a lineup full of guys who smash the ball, great. I get that. There’s just a spectrum here. On one end, you’ve got the Yankees and Correa. On the other, you’ve got guys like Doug Mientkiewicz preaching baseball instincts. You can’t skew too far in either direction. Can we at least agree on that?

Too many Twins hitters are playing against themselves, focused on process while smart teams are focused on results. Anecdotally, I think Austin Martin and José Miranda have been hurt by this philosophy. Miranda in particular was Correa’s protégé. Their natural strengths—reacting and putting the ball in play—got pushed aside in favor of swing optimization and decision trees.

Which is why I’m okay with Correa leaving. It already feels like the hitters are freed up.

Martin got caught stealing third the other night, and yeah—it looked bad. But the team was ahead, and he was trying to force the issue. (Maybe just don’t run on Jake Rogers next time.) On Sunday, Kody Clemens dropped down a bunt to drive in the winning run. Not because bunting is part of his offensive profile or the numbers said to do it, but because he recognized the moment. That’s playing the game.

And wouldn’t you know it—the team’s leader again is Byron Buxton, the ultimate see-ball-hit-ball guy. I like the idea of Emmanuel Rodríguez and Walker Jenkins coming up and learning from him. If they need to make technical tweaks, that’s what the coaches are for.

I’m not saying the Twins are going to win this year or next. And I’m not naïve enough to think the technocratic Correa philosophy will vanish overnight. Correa is a proven winner, a champion, and he made some critical high-IQ plays that helped break the team’s playoff curse. But his presence shaped the team’s approach in a way that didn’t work for everyone—especially for younger players like Miranda and Lee. Without him, those guys now have the option to go back to being who they were. Whether that’s a hair-on-fire type like Luke Keaschall, or a passive mistake-hitter like Rodríguez.

Everything now hinges on the next ownership group. The roster still has talent, and it’s suddenly cheap. We could get bought by Scrooge Capital, trade away Joe Ryan and López, and become the Cayman Island Twins. Or we could get an owner who invests—say, $10 million in bullpen help, signs a real first baseman, and locks up a couple of core guys.

If we get that owner—or even just get the payroll to $120 million—I’ll be jazzed about next year. The curse is still broken. The Pohlads are gone. Sign me up.