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It’s like Groundhog Day (1993), only instead of waking up over and over to another day of bad weather, it’s another season of bad baseball. At the end of last season, all eyes were on the White Sox, but it’s the Twins who are battling a 19-39 record since last August. Some things have changed, but some things (and people) have stayed the same. Let’s dive in.
By the Numbers
Despite talking a big game about changing the core of the team in October, the Twins front office made minimal changes in that regard. The players they did bring in—Danny Coloumbe (again), Harrison Bader and Ty France—happen to be three of the better producers of this young season.
Bader and France, on paper, are doing more for the team than players like Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa. France has a stat line of .265/.324/.397, while Correa has batted .164/.227/.246. If we are looking at what has changed and what has stayed the same, the evidence suggests that change has been good. Maybe there should have been more of it. The fans were promised a solution to the problems that plagued the team last year; one was not provided.
The Trio
Last season, the Twins had no Buxton or Correa and a struggling Royce Lewis during that nightmarish final stretch. This season, there is no Lewis, and a struggling Correa and Buxton. This was supposed to be the trio that would carry the team each year, but they can’t even be on the same field for more than five games together.
Do they all three have to be together to make something happen? Does this trio only work when they are together on the field and in the lineup? And doesn’t it feel, going even further back than 2024, like we’re going through the same cycles of losing them, in turns, over and over?
Is there a problem with developing healthy cornerstone players here? Is it something the front office is doing wrong? Are they accepting too much injury risk when they evaluate potential draft picks, invest in players via extensions, or sign top-tier free agents?
Realizing there are a lot of unanswered questions, we must then turn to the one thing that is a constant, the manager.
Lost Faith in a Manager
The team did hire a new hitting coach, but the lineup continues to struggle. Is it possible that the problem is with the manager?
There have been louder-than-average whispers, the past three seasons, that manager Rocco Baldelli may be a portion of the problem. With all the same players being the cornerstone of the club, there is room to discuss the possibility that the players have lost faith in their manager, or that Baldelli's famously (and, generally, positively) consistent messaging has gone stale by having to be rehearsed to the same audience so often. This is a chicken-and-egg problem, which means it has no definitive answer, but throughout baseball history, when a group of players consistently underachieves, it usually winds up landing in the lap of the manager.
There are believers in Baldelli, but there are also many who wonder why he's unable to get consistency from his players on the field. Last season, there were health issues, but there was also never a consistent “who’s playing” lineup, and the team could never get into a swing—pun intended. Keeping everyone involved has value, but so does assuring several players that they'll play every day, so they can prepare the same way for each game.
The problem is, there's no one person to whom you can necessarily pin blame for errors, but as failures mount, someone will have to be held accountable. The collaboration between the front office and the manager and his staff is so seamless that they'll have a hard time pointing fingers at one another, but if the problems are things like playing too many matchups, pulling starting pitchers too soon, or doing too much roster churn, then little will change if the executive group fires Baldelli. Many of those things are their call, even more than his.
Firing the players was an option, in a sense, last fall. Now, they've missed that shot, so a shakeup to leadership might be their only option. When players lose confidence in a manager's strategic choices—regardless of personal respect—it can lead to a breakdown in psychological cohesion and on-field execution. This disconnect may manifest subconsciously through decreased focus, hesitation in situational play, or reduced adaptability under pressure. Internalized stressors such as performance anxiety, role uncertainty, or dissatisfaction with team direction can compound these effects. The result is often a marginal decline in individual performance metrics and overall team efficiency, even if the effort level appears unchanged.
Firing Baldelli isn't the answer, but it would be an answer. Not having the answers leaves the fans with more questions. Right now, it sure feels maddeningly, drive-off-a-cliff-in-a-stolen-van-with-your-favorite-celebrity-varmint possible that Groundhog Day will continue until the Pohlads finally sell the team and give everyone some relief.
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