Twins Video
Expressing unequivocal confidence in the general manager who has already dropped four of the 25 players that were on his Opening Day roster, or the second-year manager whose team has looked remarkably unprepared to compete most nights, in the face of an 8-23 start is not a great look. However, it is understandable to an extent.
As Dan Wade astutely pointed out here on Friday, the Twins aren’t really well served by putting anyone on the hot seat publicly right now. And really, trying to heap mountains of blame on either Terry Ryan or Paul Molitor misses the point.
While there have been plenty of questionable decisions, this WAS a talent-laden roster. This WAS a team on the rise. This WAS unanimously viewed as one of the best prospect pipelines in the game.
If even half the players on this club were playing up to their established ability level, things would not be nearly so dire. This is especially frustrating with the veterans, who were asked to fill a leadership void that emerged with Torii Hunter’s retirement. Instead they have helped set the tone for this miserable stretch of baseball with repeated gaffes and failures.
Let’s take a look, position by position, at the contagious underperforming that has plagued this Twins roster.
Catcher: The Twins have made their own bed here by continuously miscasting Kurt Suzuki as a starting player, but he’s playing drastically below this standard. The veteran has a .679 career OPS, and a .670 OPS in two years with the Twins. His current mark is .560, and he's hitting .176 with runners in scoring position. Of course, there’s no need to even remark on the subpar production from John Ryan Murphy prior to his demotion.
First Base: The lone bright spot. Joe Mauer has had a sensational season and of course it’s going largely unnoticed because the team has been so crummy. The same goes for Byung Ho Park, although his novelty as a foreign star and rookie has enabled him to enjoy some nice attention.
Second Base: Brian Dozier has picked up where he left off, and that's not a good thing. His current .220/.309/.385 slash line bears disconcerting resemblance to his .210/.280/.359 after the break last year. Fortunately, he has been showing signs of heating up lately.
Shortstop: Eduardo Escobar landed on the disabled list after suffering a groin strain on Friday, and maybe that's just as well. He could use a reset after a first month that saw him fail at the key things that made him an effective player over the last two years. Specifically, I'm talking about hitting for power and playing reliable defense. His .289 slugging percentage is down 150 points from 2015 and he has already committed five errors at shortstop after totaling four last year.
Third Base: Although Trevor Plouffe has been hitting for decent power when he's been on the field, his plate approach has deteriorated. The 29-year-old has drawn only two walks in 65 plate appearances, resulting in a hideous .277 on-base percentage. He's hardly stepping up in the way you'd hope as one of the roster's cornerstone vets.
Left Field: A demotion can't be far off for Eddie Rosario, who is batting .196 with a .534 OPS. He's swinging at a whopping 40 percent of pitches outside the zone, and despite his reputation as a "bad ball hitter" he's not doing anything with the garbage he's hacking at, as illustrated by a .222 BABIP and only five extra-base hits in 98 trips.
Center Field: What is there to be said about Byron Buxton? It was tough to set expectations for him coming into this year given his lack of experience, but no one could have anticipated a sub-.500 OPS with strikeouts in half of his plate appearances. Even accounting for the expected sophomore slumps and rookie learning curves, what we've seen from Rosario and Buxton at the plate has been disheartening.
Right Field: Miguel Sano's .707 OPS is down more than 200 points from the mark he posted as a rookie. Oddly he hasn't been hitting for power even though he leads baseball in line drive percentage. I fully expect him to come around and get hot at some point soon but there's no doubt that he has let the team down thus far.
Rotation: You've got Ervin Santana and Phil Hughes, two veterans who signed long-term contracts to be foundations in the rotation, failing to complete even four innings in their latest starts, at a time where the team is desperately in need of a spark. Tommy Milone was about as bad as he's ever been before his demotion. Kyle Gibson, a guy who was trending up in every way, pitched horrendously before going on the shelf.
Bullpen: Glen Perkins has been unavailable. Kevin Jepsen has been ineffective. That 1-2 punch was the source of whatever confidence this unit could have justified. Multiple relievers (Casey Fien, Ryan O'Rourke, J.R. Graham) pitched poorly enough in one of month of the season to essentially erase themselves from the team's plans.
Each year, invariably, some players step it up and excel to the max of their ability while others come up short. Right now the scale is tipped so far in the wrong direction for the Twins that they barely look like a competitive team most nights.
While it's a cliche to point out that the manager can't go out and swing the bat or throw pitches from the mound, it's true. It might be tidier to pin these horrible results on the skipper, or the hitting/pitching coach, but the messy truth is that it's the players who are wearing this and only they can stem the tide.
These guys know how to play ball. It's about damn time they started.
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