Twins 2016 Season Preview: Rising Power

The most important thing that shouldn't be missed is that this is the best roster the Twins have put together in a very long time. I don't think anyone can debate this.

The lineup is full, top to bottom, with quality or better. (Maybe not at catcher, but my fingers are crossed regarding Murphy) These guys are going to put runs on the board. A requirement to win games.

The starting pitchers are ok. Not great, but better than we have seen in quite some time. Nolasco was going to be given one last shot, we all knew it. It's hard to fault the FO for this. But this time we can tell the leash is going to be short... They darn near gave Duffey the rotation spot before ST started. If he falls flat again this year, they will pay him very well to mop up ugly games or pay him to stay away.

I understand the frustration with May in the pen. He offers more upside than Milone because... he throws harder? But for now, we NEED May to win games from the pen. He has shown that it is something that he is good at and comfortable with. Berrios and Duffey will get called up at some point, and hopefully provide another dynamic that this team hasn't seen since J. Santana. Until then we need Milone to provide some quality innings at the end of the rotation.

There is a lot to be excited about this year. Please don't let a couple of hand-cuffed FO decisions stand in the way of that. This season will be the first real look into the future of Twins baseball. And the future looks bright. And thank God for that, because it hasn't always been easy being a fan of this club.

Go Twins!!!

You could argue that the three most talented starters in the organization at the moment aren't in the rotation (Berrios/Duffey in Roch., May in the BP), and it's not because they aren't ready to pitch in the big leagues. In their place, ntheyre going to run out Tommy Milone and Ricky freaking Nolasco. Nolasco is done. Has been for years now. Milone is a ticking time bomb with his flat 78 mph fastball. This has to be some Twilight-zone like dream. Any minute now I'll wake up to a Twins team with a competent front office.

Gibson may be up there ahead of Duffey and May, but I think the point is conveyed. How does this relate the article? It took them a decade to catch up to the rest of league in terms of high velocity arms, and they move them to pen and let them rot in the minors. Pretty brilliant.

You're way to focused on opening day. Berrios is in the minors due to service time and it's exactly the right thing to do. 33 starts in his prime versus four right now. Easy call.

Duffey looked bad this spring. If he pitches well this spring and nolasco predictably falls flat, the twins won't hesitate to call him up. Again, with Duffey struggling it makes sense to see if you can make nolasco tradable.

May is not as ideal but as long as this isn't permanent and he's competing for a spot next year, may makes the most sense as a back of the pen arm. I can live with it for a year.

It's going to be interesting and fun. And will leave a plethora of topics to discuss. Off the top of my feeble head are two. We have finally entered the offensive, damn the SO's, full speed ahead era. Which sadly ended about the time drug testing became pervasive. When batting average, bullpens and Piranahs were cheap we had the market cornered. Power was expensive, we had little. Now the exact opposite. Power arms, and defense are expensive, and HR's (see Plouffe) are cheap, and we are the '27 Yankees. Coincidence? Holmes did not believe in them, and neither do I. I do agree with Nick, the pieces are mostly in house. Will the FO be flexible and proactive and move more of the blocking mediocrity out of the way, or will money and security rule. There is a difference between being a General Manager, and a General Accumulator!

That last part will be interesting. Plouffe is a nice insurance policy for a lot of the unknowns (man we have a lot of unknowns this year!) but if most of them work out (Buxton stays in the majors, Rosario doesn't slump, Arcia/Park is a capable DH, Kepler is ready) then the Twins are going to be forced to move him at some point, likely this year. Hopefully a market will open up and we'll get something back? A nice bullpen piece or a prospect?

The rotation is harder and likely doesn't totally clear up until next year. Milone is likely not going to be worth $7 mill in arbitration next year and you have to think that Nolasco will be traded/bought out by the upcoming offseason. That opens two spots in the rotation but you're also likely to have May back in the rotation next year when the Twins (hopefully) don't have the bullpen needs they do this year.  Hard to see Hughes/Gibson/Santana moving on so you'll still have two spots for Duffey/May/Berrios. That rotation going forward will be very interesting.

Remember a few years ago when we were all saying, "wait until 2016."  Here we are, and they are all still young, but we're gonna see em.  Should be a fun, exciting, and frustrating year.  I love the youth on the offensive side, we're gonna score some runs I'm guessing.  We still don't have the pitching to get us over the hump.  I'm sure Berrios is going to be good, but I'd like to see a true horse of an ACE show up soon. Go Twins!

I'm not as sure that the narrative about the Twins pitching holding them back this year is so true. Look at the Royals last year. They won the World Series without dominant pitching - Edison Volquez was their ace with a FIP of 3.82 and Yordana Ventura was maddeningly inconsistent (same with Johnny Cueto in his end of the regular season campaign). If you look at the Royals last year and the Twins staff this year, there's not that much of a difference - lack of an ace, veteran arms with #2 upside and some unknown but promising young guys.

Last year's Royals made it on a strong bullpen and a strong lineup. Their lineup was good (league average OBP, SLG and OPS) but it's not crazy to see the Twins having a pretty good lineup themselves (albeit with way less OBP/BA and a lot more power). And the back end of the pen looks strong to start the season and the farm system has plenty of impact arms to inject as the season goes along.

The Twins rotation certainly isn't a strength and we're going to need some guys to step up and have good years but I don't think the rotation prevents the Twins from making the playoffs. The key is going to be getting out to a fast start and then betting on improvement in young guys like Buxton, Kepler, Berrios and Duffey to bolster the team in the second half.

Let's be optimistic today!

The Royals pen made a huge difference though and the Twins pen is miles away from that team.  They were 2nd in pen ERA (and top heavy so they could really close out games).  The Twins were 23rd and really didn't address it this offseason.

 

I equate the "you can win the WS without a good rotation" to "you can win the SB with Trent Dilfer as your QB".  While both have been proven true, they need further analysis.  The Royals were slightly above average with the bats but really excelled everywhere else (pen, bases, and defense).   Just like the Trent Dilfer needs to be qualifed with, so long as you have one of the best all time defenses.

I was surprised looking at the stats on that - the Royals BA was third best in the AL but their OPS was just about exactly average. That media narrative that they got on base all the time just wasn't true. Interesting.

Yeah, clearly the Twins aren't a World Series team or a favorite in their division. But they have the pieces to have a good back end of the pen and the young developing arms to weather injury/ineffectiveness. It's not crazy to say that the Twins pen could take a solid jump to be an asset.

Defense will hurt the Twins though, at least until they can get Kepler into the OF and move Sano to 3B/DH/1B. At that point though, they'll have three CFs in the OF and a relatively average to slightly above average infield. Catcher remains an issue of course.