The Twins Are Giving Their All, But It's Not Enough

How does having Alex Jackson on the roster support giving it all? Injuries clearly have hampered the Twins’ season. However, the personnel management has been slow to respond to performance results.   

I agree with this. The players effort has been there all year and they haven’t quit. Let’s see how they respond today after last night’s lopsided loss. I’ve been impressed by the never say die attitude. Thats all you can ask for as a fan and it makes you want to root for the team. 
 

They have some fight, but they just don't have the talent. Top-line guys can't stay on the field, and there's not nearly enough depth to make up for it. We also consistently have guys who are injured trying to play through it but end up hurting the team because of it. If I haven't made it clear, injuries have decimated the team, and it's the same every year. Seemingly the bullpen has been less affected by injuries, but they've just run out of gas. There's also no way to explain away the idiocy of the Varland trade. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we'd have at least half a dozen more wins had we simply not made that move. The icing on the cake is we had him under ream control until 2030. We're probably not in the "total system failure" stage, but we're always sniffing around it.

It could be worse,  JJ McCarthy could be on the roster.

I agree on the effort. They have not given up. Guys trying to play through injury or comeback to help the team matters.

It's not the offense or the fielding...
Lopez, Abel, Festa, Ryan, Sands, Banda, Paredes.... the list goes on. Pitching injuries decimated this team. Tack on the woeful offseason approach to the bullpen and no dominant teams in the AL, this truly feels like a lost season.

48 minutes ago, 1985Fan said:

I agree with this. The players effort has been there all year and they haven’t quit. Let’s see how they respond today after last night’s lopsided loss. I’ve been impressed by the never say die attitude. Thats all you can ask for as a fan and it makes you want to root for the team. 
 

BRAVO!

I used to work with a guy who played for Jacques Lemaire, the Hall of Famer who was the first coach of the Wild.

Lemaire emphasized the importance that his players "work hard" AND "work smart." Just working hard on its own doesn't mean much, but apparently we are supposed to be enthused by it, even though we have seen little evidence of "work smart" from the Twins. Instead, nearly all moves seem to be based on a strategic window that looks at most two weeks into the past and one week into the future. Working hard without working smart is just thrashing without a plan, which rarely leads to success.

The sum total of all of the evidence of "working hard" contained in this article appears to be a year in which the Twins chose to work hard to *achieve* a record projected to be 77-85, while also sacrificing opportunities for future teams to succeed. 

Yet, despite the fact that this year was mediocre and raised the chances that future years also will be mediocre, we continue to get blue sky spin about how great everything is just about to become.

(Just to note: since Falvey took over, the Twins have one of the worst playoff records in MLB, even though they benefit from playing in the AL Central, which makes it easier to make the playoffs. Their record is even worse if you go back to the opening of Target Field in 2010 or the resumption of baseball after the last work stoppage in 1994.) 

Personally, I'd rather see the team give a clear plan that includes plenty of losing, instead of seeing a team without a clear plan that repeatedly claims that success is just over the next hill, as long as we stay optimistic about a frequently changing handful of anecdotal dreams.

Hopefully there will be a somewhat full & normal offseason so we can see what Zoll & Shelton can do on their own. The team did give their all & came up short. Can management learn from what was done wrong & put us in a better position to compete? I'm optimistic that they can, but we'll see.

3 minutes ago, Andy MacPhail said:

Hopefully there will be a somewhat full & normal offseason so we can see what Zoll & Shelton can do on their own. The team did give their all & came up short. Can management learn from what was done wrong & put us in a better position to compete? I'm optimistic that they can, but we'll see.

Zoll has not earned the opportunity to lead this team going forward, he is just Falvey 2.0  He needs to be gone the day the Twins are officially eliminated.  Shelton is probably best as a bench coach, he has done some good things, but is not a strong manager.

Neat article.  You did slip Varland in also.  What us diehards know is MLB needs to fix itself.  It's not Pohlad, . Zoll, , was not Falvey, wasn't sano, Rosario,the fans or Wally the beer man.. MlB is messed up with no cap.  Until then its a zero sum game and we are the zero

27 minutes ago, Wedman13 said:

Neat article.  You did slip Varland in also.  What us diehards know is MLB needs to fix itself.  It's not Pohlad, . Zoll, , was not Falvey, wasn't sano, Rosario,the fans or Wally the beer man.. MlB is messed up with no cap.  Until then its a zero sum game and we are the zero

Falvey would not work with the resources he was given, he wanted to act like a large market which we are not.  Other teams have been able to work within the operating parameters of baseball and construct contending teams.  Yes baseball has things to be fixed but to try and say Falvey had no blame for this mess is laughable.