Dreaming Of 200 Home Runs

I'll start by saying that, obviously, a lot of things would need to go right for the Twins to reach such a number. Almost every starter in the lineup would need to stay mostly healthy and perform. But if we set fairly reasonable – though in some cases slightly optimistic – home run totals for each projected regular, we can get pretty dang close. Observe:

Miguel Sano: 35

Not much of a stretch here. He hit 35 during his last full season in the minors (2013) and launched 33 last year in 146 games between Double-A and the majors.

Byung Ho Park: 30

He's coming off back-to-back 50-homer campaigns in Korea, and ZiPS projects him to hit 27 as a rookie. We'll say he catches on quickly and manages to surpass that by a little.

Brian Dozier: 25

He has hit 51 over the last two seasons and will be 29.

Trevor Plouffe: 20

His 150-game average in four years since becoming a full-time big-leaguer is just a tick above 20, so this is exactly what you'd expect if he stays on the field.

Eduardo Escobar: 15

This is the first one that feels like a bit of a reach. There's not much in his long-term track record that would suggest this is realistic (he hit only 19 total in the minors) but Escobar went deep 12 times in 127 games last year and his power is clearly trending upward at age 27.

Eddie Rosario: 15

As a rookie he homered 13 times in 122 games while also racking up 15 doubles and 13 triples. It's easy to envision Rosario muscling up a bit at age 24 and pushing a few more over the wall.

Byron Buxton: 15

Buxton's power is hard to peg, because almost every scout opines that we really haven't seen what he's capable of, and he's just finally starting to fill out his frame a little bit. Last year he totaled nine homers in 118 games between the minors and majors.

Joe Mauer: 10

He hit 10 last year, 11 in 2013 and 10 in 2012.

Kurt Suzuki: 5

This is pretty consistently where he has been at in recent years.

Between these nine starters alone, we already have 170 home runs. That's not accounting for the contributions from backups, fill-ins and call-ups, who figure to produce somewhere around 15-20 and maybe more if someone like Oswaldo Arcia, Kennys Vargas or Daniel Palka plays a more prominent role than expected.

Admittedly, 200 might be setting the bar too high. But the story is that we can reasonably project two players for 30-plus homers (that has happened twice in the last three decades) and a team total that may very well rank among the top five in franchise history.

Here's what it would take to break into that rarified category:

1. 1963: 225 HR

2. 1964: 221 HR

3. 1987: 196 HR

4. 1986: 196 HR

5. 2004: 191 HR

6. 1962: 185 HR

7. 2009: 162 HR

8. 2002: 167 HR

9. 1961: 167 HR

10. 2001: 164 HR

Even by conservative estimates, this year's offense should end up being the second-most powerful that the Twins have fielded since '87, and it's not tough to imagine this group surpassing that '04 club fueled by the likes of Corey Koskie, Jacque Jones, Torii Hunter and Justin Morneau.

The 2009, 2004 and 2002 teams were all division-winners, and in the case of '09 they did it without a particularly strong pitching staff, so you can certainly make the argument that this is a sensible approach for a team with question marks at the front of the rotation and in the bullpen.

How many long balls do you predict the Twins will hit this year?