How the Twins Can Maximize Their Playoff Chances in the Second Half Before Adding Anything

The Twins officially optioned Royce Lewis to Triple-A St. Paul on May 18. That very day, they lost Ryan Jeffers to a broken hamate bone. At that point, they were already a sub-.500 team, and the trend arrows were all pointing in the wrong direction. Many assumed, reasonably, that the team was about to collapse. It nearly did, too. After hanging tough for about a week, Minnesota lost 10 of 13 and fell all the way to 30-38, fading even in an extremely forgiving AL Wild Card race. They were on the brink.

Since then, however, they've turned things around admirably. Lewis returned from the minors on June 1, and is hitting .269/.328/.500 since. Jeffers just returned for the final series before the All-Star break, and even while he was gone, hard-working fallback plan Alex Jackson kept the team afloat. They're 18-11 since hitting their nadir in mid-June. They're right back in the thick of the race, with guys they'd hoped to count on but been forced to live without (Lewis, Jeffers, Bailey Ober) back in the mix, to boot. That invites a new question: How can they keep this going?

The pace at which the team has played for the last month is impressive, but they have to sustain it for a while to climb into a safe position in the jostle for playoff berths. That should be easier, in theory, because they're a stronger roster coming out of the break than they were until just before it—and certainly than they were in May and the first part of June. They've reorganized the team defensively, fixed Lewis's bat, and reinstated Jeffers and Ober from the injured list. Alas, regression will tug on their capes as they endeavor to take flight. To be as good a team as they've been of late, they have to improve their roster—or at least the deployment of their current one—to stave off the pull toward average (or worse) that will afflict several members of the team.

Here are three ways the Twins can proactively swat at the gnats of regression during this summer heat wave, to keep enjoying that heat without being bitten or pestered into irrelevance.

Make Royce Lewis a Platoon Bat
The very first suggestion—first because I feel it has the greatest potential to help the team sustain its overachievement—comes with some friction. Lewis is an ebullient teammate, but he's not without ego, and this would come as a blow to that. It could sour some of the clubhouse sweetness that has given the team such positive energy the last several weeks. However, with Jeffers returning to the roster, it has to be a real consideration.

The coincidence of Lewis being optioned and Jeffers being hurt means that we've yet to see how the lineup best works when they have the revived Lewis (but no longer as a third baseman, with Brooks Lee having taken up that post) and Jeffers each available. With Jeffers back in the fold, Victor Caratini is free to contribute at first base again—especially since the club is carrying three catchers at the moment.

When a right-handed hurler starts for the opponents, the best version of this lineup doesn't contain Lewis. Even since he returned to the majors, much of his value has come from crushing left-handed pitching. Here are the key stat lines for Twins hitters against righty pitchers since June 1:

• Lewis: .258/.311/.464, 7.5% walk rate, 26.4% strikeout rate, .308 BABIP
• Caratini: .313/.420/.567, 13.6%, 12.3%, .315
• Josh Bell: .293/.346/.596, 7.5%, 19.6%, .319
• Kody Clemens: .288/.321/.644, 5.4%, 17.9%, .263

Jeffers will remain the regular catcher, unless the team trades him before the August 3 trade deadline—which is unlikely, according to multiple league sources. That makes sense, but it means that Caratini is likely to find some playing time elsewhere, and that has knock-on effects. Lewis can't make a strong case to play over Bell (with Caratini as the DH), Clemens (at second) or Caratini. Yes, some of the players listed here have been hitting better than they're likely to hit the rest of the way against righties, but then again, how confident are you that Lewis won't regress a bit, himself?

Against righties, the everyday lineup should look like this:

1. Trevor Larnach - LF
2. Byron Buxton - CF
3. Kody Clemens - 2B
4. Ryan Jeffers - C
5. Josh Bell - DH
6. Victor Caratini - 1B
7. Brooks Lee - 3B
8. Ryan Kreidler - SS
9. Luke Keaschall - RF

If Buxton doesn't return from the injured list immediately, the team could resume the project it rapidly abandoned last month and try Lewis out at second for a while, with Clemens sliding back out to center field. Even in that case, though, playing Lewis wouldn't be the optimal deployment of their talent. Alan Roden is batting .269/.402/.471 against righties between Triple-A St. Paul and the majors this year. The sample is small, but the promise is real, and an alignment in which Roden plays center and Clemens is at second is stronger defensively than one with Lewis at second, anyway.

This whole conversation highlights the fact that Lewis's hot streak since rejoining the team might only play him out of town. We don't have to tackle that notion in full right now. Suffice it to say that if Lewis is around, he should be in a roving, lefty-mashing role at least while the team is at this level of health and availability. He's their best option against southpaws. You can't say the same on the big side of the platoon.

Shift Mike Paredes to the Bullpen, and End the Woo-Suk Go Experiment
Because more pitching injuries seem to jump out at this team every time they turn the corner, the temptation to send Mike Paredes back to St. Paul to stay stretched out will be strong. The team will reinstate Cole Sands from the injured list soon, barring a setback in his rehab assignment, and Connor Prielipp could be close on Sands's heels. Optioning Paredes would allow him to stay available for bulk appearances and keep an extra arm in the organization; Go can't be optioned to the minors.

Paredes is the better pitcher, though. If you put all the pitches each hurler throws into a shared ranking, Paredes's sweeper and changeup would be first and second, ahead of anything Go throws. If the team hopes to compete into September or even reach October, they need a further infusion of pitching depth, anyway. They shouldn't prioritize preserving shaky depth over optimizing the skills of the players they have. Making Paredes a full-time reliever would give them a genuinely useful right-handed relief boost and leave flexibility for them to piggyback starts with Ober and/or Prielipp. It's the best short-term management plan for that roster spot, once Prielipp is healthy enough to resume his role as the fifth starter.

Start Ryan Kreidler at Shortstop Every Day
Until Kaelen Culpepper gets healthy again and has his nagging butt issue figured out (it's a glute muscle injury, but 'butt issue' is funnier, right?), the Twins should give Ryan Kreidler all the playing time at shortstop. There's no need to keep auditioning Tristan Gray there; there's no need to so much as keep Gray on the roster. When Buxton is activated (whether that comes immediately or in a week or so), Gray should be the rsoter casualty. Keeping Alex Jackson around until the trade deadline plan is fully solidified is a must. Roden and Austin Martin have clear utility for the team, even if it's limited to specific roles and their playing time will be a bit sparse. Gray, whose approach has collapsed and whose glove at shortstop has been unimpressive, has no such defense for being farmed out. 

By contrast, there are concrete reasons to play Kreidler more often, including against righties. For one thing, he's not hitting lefties at all. He's actually been much better against right-handed pitchers this year. He didn't hit well at all in the final stretch before the break, but neither did Gray. Offensively and defensively, Kreidler has been the superior player for weeks, now. He's also more versatile, and thus more worthy of keeping around whenever Culpepper does get the call. 

In the meantime, though, Kreidler should play every day. Lee can be the backup plan, for a little while. Each of these recommendations are about roster decision points. This one will come down to the Twins having the guts to jettison Gray when they reinstate Buxton, keeping three catchers and a bunch of guys they don't particularly like at various infield spots. Keaschall is an outfielder now; so is Martin. Clemens has slid as far up the defensive spectrum as is at all possible for him. Lee and Lewis are already playing different spots from the ones at which they began the campaign, and the new roles are demotions. 

Across the board, this is a team with flaws. They're 48-49 for a reason. With some momentum and improving health, however, they have a chance to make the playoffs, anyway. They ought to seize it, and that means making some changes that precede and even replace traditional "buyer"-coded trades.