frightwig

Of course the 2006 Twins, who played .680 ball over their last 100 games, is the best-case scenario. This year the team probably will have to play almost as well to catch Cleveland or Seattle; a .620 pace would get them to 90 wins. Trouble is, only three teams in Twins history have played better than .600 ball after Game 62 (the '65 and '69 Twins were the other two). Last year, even with the August surge, they were a .520 team over their last 100 games. Winning pct. after Game 62 by Twins teams that made the playoffs or won 90 games: 2017 .520 2010 .580 2009 .564 2006 .680 2004 .580 2003 .550 2002 .586 1992 .570 1991 .580 1988 .570 1987 .500 1970 .570 1969 .630 1967 .596 1965 .640 1963 .586 1962 .550 If they finish at a .570-.580 pace like the 2010, 1991-92, 1988, 1970, and 1963 teams--some of the best teams in Twins history--they'll wind up with 85-86 wins; and that would be more enjoyable to watch, of course, but most likely would fall short of the playoffs. A .600 pace and 88 wins might come close, but I really think they'll need more than 90 wins. And that means matching the hottest finishes of the Killebrew era--the '65 team with Killebrew, Oliva, Versaille, Allison, Hall, Battey, and a loaded starting rotation that won 102 games and the AL pennant, and the '69 team with Killebrew, Oliva, Carew, Allison, Tovar, Reese, and two 20-game winners in the rotation that won 97 games--or that 2006 miracle run. Honestly, I don't expect to see the likes of that 2006 finish from a Twins team ever again.

Pablo Sandoval also got a lot of "Panda is skinny! Best shape of his life!" publicity before last season because he'd lost a lot of weight. At age 30, he seemed poised for a comeback, but instead he posted 65 OPS+ in 79 games. So maybe his decline is more complicated than "Panda was fat." We really don't know much of anything about Sano's health, conditioning, or rehab. When was he able to put any weight on his leg? Did he follow a diet that, for whatever reason, hasn't been right for him? Was he depressed or stress-eating? We don't even really know if he's out of shape or if the Twins are unhappy with his conditioning. On February 9, RotoBaller.com reported, "Minnesota Twins third baseman Miguel Sano (leg) appears to be getting into game-ready form, as Twins chief baseball officer Derek Falvey said in an interview on Treasure Island Baseball Network this week that the team is 'very happy' with how Sano's rehab has gone." On February 19, "Minnesota Twins third baseman Miguel Sano (shin) dealt with shin surgery this offseason but is looking very strong at spring training. Many Twins beat writers have commented on his power in batting practice, with Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star Tribune pointing out that he has been hitting balls particularly far." Now, that sounds pretty encouraging, doesn't it? Almost makes you think that people are gossiping about rumors, stretching them all out of proportion, even if they don't know what they're talking about.

The Twins had a 81-81 BaseRuns record last year; I would use that as a baseline. And keep in mind that Dozier probably isn't going to be a 5-win player again, Santana almost certainly would be bound to regress even if he didn't have to miss a month+ recovering from finger surgery, and Sano probably is going to serve a long suspension, too. I know that a lot of fans are counting on big improvements from the young players to offset problems like those, but the projection models aren't anticipating that, either. If the Twins are going to get back to the WC game, they'll need a lot of nice surprises--Odorizzi solving his HR problem, a good year from Gibson and/or Hughes, a couple of youngsters becoming All-Stars, another big year from Dozier, a sustained Mauer comeback, and some nice cluster-luck. Otherwise it's probably a .500-ish team.

Yes, I expect that the April rotation will be Berrios-Odorizzi-Gibson-Hughes + Sanchez or Mejia in the #5 spot. (Rhett Bollinger reports that Hughes is "at full health," so he'll definitely be in line for a job, with 2 years left on his contract.) Maybe they'll send Mejia to AAA to start the season--I think he has an option year left. While Santana is out, Sanchez/Hughes/Mejia will have a chance to show that they should get to stick around. In June, Trevor May is expected to return. They say that they'd like to give him another chance in the rotation, but I'd guess that depends on how the team looks when he gets back. Finally, we may see Romero and/or Gonsalves in the summer if they look great in AAA and there's an opening. If they sign anybody else like Lynn or Cobb, they'd just be adding to a crowded field of back-end starters--and I'm not convinced that Lynn or Cobb would improve the situation. And I think adding either would mean giving up a draft pick and cutting someone from the 40-man, no? Anyway, yeah, Odorizzi strikes me as a better version of Sanchez. He could be a fine mid-rotation starter if the Twins have the magic solution to cut down on his HR rates. Otherwise, Steamer projects a 4.74 ERA, 4.83 FIP, 4.94 xFIP and 0.9 fWAR in 24 starts (137 IP). And that's even with a decrease in his HR/9 from 1.88 to 1.59 HR/9. Obviously that's not going to push the Twins back towards another WC game. The Twins coaches have their work cut out for them. I'm not super psyched about this trade, but we'll see.

Btw, this is how Darvish's contract is structured, per Cot's: 2018 $25M 2019 $20M 2020 $22M 2021 $22M 2022 $19M 2023 $18M *may opt out after 2019 *$2M for Cy Young, $1M for 2nd-5th place in vote This is such a nice deal for the Cubs, it's crazy. If the Twins were serious, is there anyone who thinks that was way beyond their means? Even if he opts out, you have Yu Darvish for $45M over 2 years. And if he doesn't? Fine, you have him for 4 more years at a reasonable salary, well within the Twins' means to pay him, and within the AAV range that they were apparently prepared to pay him. Why didn't they try to compete with that? Did anyone EVER expect that $100M/5 was going to be the winning bid? So, why bother? Like I've said, it's not a surprise to me that the Twins didn't get Darvish. But I really expected them to offer something like $140/6, or some kind of $25M/yr deal, and then Darvish would sign elsewhere for a little more or maybe something way beyond the Twins' means. To see Darvish actually sign such a bargain deal, and the Twins didn't even really try to match or top it, is just... irritating and disappointing. And I wish people wouldn't try to spin it like they did as much as we could expect. Let's be honest. They did not.

Going into the offseason, everybody expected that it would take at least $150/6 to get Darvish. As it turned out, because of a slow market (or collusion), his price came down to $126/6. If you're a team like the Twins, this is a perfect opportunity to get a top FA who normally wouldn't be available to them. All they have to do, the least they could do, is put something interesting on the table to give Darvish something to think about. Try $140/6. It's less than the expected minimum, and a good deal more than the Cubs offer. Or try $126M for 5 years and see what he says. At the very least, they could make the Cubs pay the expected freight. No, instead the Twins float an offer (and make sure the media report on it) that nobody would ever expect Darvish to take, unless the Cubs and Dodgers dropped out of the bidding entirely. They let the Cubs get a steal. And some people insist that the Twins should get props for this. "But they've never bid $100M on anyone before!" Yeah, it's a $100M deal that they knew Darvish was never going to sign. So what was the point? It wasn't a serious offer. Let's be straight about this. It was just a pantomime. A joke. They take us for fools.

Steamer projections: Lynn 4.48 ERA, 4.52 FIP, 4.69 xFIP, 1.5 fWAR Cobb 4.41 ERA, 4.43 FIP, 4.41 xFIP, 1.5 fWAR Garcia 4.53 ERA, 4.66 FIP, 4.37 xFIP, 2.0 fWAR The projection model expects them to be essentially the same, with Garcia having an extra half-win from making the most starts. And Garcia would've been the most attractive, IMO, because he came on a relatively inexpensive, short-term deal with a club option. I'd be fine with Lynn or Cobb at $10M for one year + an option, but what are the chances that either signs for less than 3-4 years, or at a similar pay?

The $100/5 offer to Darvish, leaked to reporters, is indicative of a front office that either wants to put on a smoke show ("well, we tried to go big, see?") or really is hoping that a great bargain just falls into their laps. Because there just isn't any point in making that offer if they meant to put up a competitive bid against the Cubs. And Garcia's deal with the Jays really is a nice bargain. Strange that a team in the Twins' position wasn't interesting in topping that with an extra million or two guaranteed years. We're left hoping that they can pull off a nice trade for someone like Archer--but that particular deal seems like a longshot, too. I mean, the Rays have no great motivation to move him, unless the Twins basically empty the farm. So that would hurt some, too. I really hope that they don't get Lance Lynn for 4 years (of course that's the most likely outcome, then).

The nice thing from the Cubs' point of view is that the AAV is so much lower than expected, they're essentially getting at least one year for free. Maybe even two, if they wouldn't have minded paying $126M/4yrs to get him, anyway. Unless his arm blows up in Year One, there isn't much risk for the club. I didn't really expect the Twins to get Darvish. It's just a little disappointing that they didn't make a serious offer. Everybody figured that they would need to offer 6 years to stand a chance, and they just didn't do it. Luckily, none of the fallback options are off the table, yet. Then again, there isn't really another starting pitcher on the FA market who is likely to move the needle as much as Darvish. We'll probably see the Twins give 4 years to some #3-4 starter. Is that going to push them back to the postseason? Eh.

I don't really expect the Twins to come that close to Cleveland this year. If they don't sign Darvish or Cobb, they probably won't even grab a WC spot again. Right now, I see them as middle of the pack in the league. But, absolutely, this is the time when the front office should start pushing towards the postseason--particularly by improving the rotation. They're not as good as the Astros, Indians, Red Sox, or Yankees; and maybe not as good as the Angels and a few other WC contenders. But if they pick up a good SP, and the veterans can maintain their performance levels of last year, and Gonsalves or Romero has a breakout rookie year, while some other young players take another step up... who knows. They might get lucky. The front office needs to put the team in position to take advantage, if it happens.

Dozier is riding high, coming off his peak years. Signing him to an extension now means paying a premium to lock into a deal that he'd probably like to carry through age 35-36. A year from free agency, he has no great motive to sign unless the Twins do offer top dollar for at least 5 years. And the Twins are smart not to be getting into that with him. Let him play out the final year of his contract. If he's off to a hot start, but the team is struggling, they can explore trade possibilities this summer. If he has another big year and the team is a contender, great--they're set to give him a qualifying offer and collect the draft picks when he signs with the Dodgers. If he has a down year, OK, maybe they can keep him at a discount. But giving him a longterm deal this spring is the last thing they should want to do.

Puckett received quite a few sympathy votes, no doubt, although he probably didn't have more than one or two good years left in him. He had a good year at 35, but what are the chances that a chubby guy who had played his whole career on the fuzzy concrete still would have been going strong at 37-38? Not really good. Anyway, his WAR/JAWS and WAR7 peak put him on the level of Fred Lynn and Bernie Williams, but he had the sympathy vote on his side, and he was the face of two World Series champs. (Poor Bernie, just one of the Very Good players on the Yankees dynasty.) Johan's WAR7 peak puts him right between Dave Stieb and Don Drysdale, not far below Koufax, and just a bit ahead of Luis Tiant, Mike Mussina, Tom Glavine, David Cone, and Justin Verlander. So there is a case that he was about as good as Koufax and Drysdale, although his WAR7 is only tied with Stieb for 62nd all-time, far short of elite level. Was he on the level of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, and Greg Maddux? WAR7 says no. And since Johan doesn't have the legendary World Series performances on his resume, I suppose that he'll go down like Dave Stieb--who also was done in by an injury in his early 30's.

This is just 113 PA over 3 months, but Vargas hit .278/.381/.474 from July-October. Maybe he won't be the next David Ortiz, but I'd like to see what he could do with regular at-bats in his age 27 season.

I'm glad that Nick wrote this, really. Because I'd been thinking about it during the season, while everyone was talking like "nothing but raindrops" is just who Buxton is, and what we can expect him to be for the next 10 years. He probably won't sustain that level of defense for too long, though. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a notable drop-off even next year. I mean, Torii Hunter in 2001 might've been even better than Buxton last season; his 22.2 Def WAR was almost double what Buxton posted in 2017. He came close to that just one more time (2003) in his career. I expect Buxton to be pretty good next year, still, but "nothing but raindrops" may be just a memory, soon.

I don't think that a guy with a 4.46 FIP, 4.77 xFIP, really was the best pitcher on the team. His BABIP was 37 points lower than his career average, 40 points lower than the previous couple of years. For the first month or two, it was something crazy like .200. I'd say this was mostly good luck and outfield defense. He was lucky with his LOB%, too--the highest rate of his career, and in the rotation, at 79.5%. Berrios was the best pitcher in the rotation. Hildenberger has a case if we want to consider relievers.

This, along with the fact that he had a concussion in 2014, also really concerns me.

Yeah, "playing the game with reckless abandon" is usually why Buxton gets hurt. This last time in New York, I'm not even sure why he jumped into the wall--did he misjudge the ball, did he expect that jumping into the wall would be the easiest way to stop, or was he just showboating a bit? The jump looked cool; I'm not convinced it was necessary. It looked like he was under the ball, anyway. If he keeps playing that way through the 162-game grind, year after year, he's going to keep hurting himself. I've had this feeling since I first saw that clip of him crashing into a teammate in the minors, that he might be an accident waiting to happen if he didn't learn better fundamentals and awareness of situations when he's trying to make a play. I hope he learns to dial it back a bit, even if it means that he can't make so many 4-star catches. It would serve him well when his legs start to lose a step, anyway. And it really would be a shame if he's another one of those guys who didn't reach his potential because of that one fateful day when he went all-out into disaster.

Fine analysis by Nick. Buxton was a force on defense, and his peripherals the last couple months are encouraging. But I couldn't call him the "Most Improved Player" with a 90 wRC+, just 4 points better than last season. Eddie Rosario was a marginal bat with no plate discipline, and even in the early part of this season he seemed in danger of washing out. Then suddenly he stopped chasing pitches, drew walks, and he started to crush the ball. His 116 wRC+ is 30 points better than last season. On the other hand, his defense slipped (-6 DRS this year) and 116 wRC+ still is just OK for LF. Jose Berrios, as we all know, was just awful in 2016: a 5.50 BB/9, 1.85 HR/9, 16.2 HR%. He's still a flyball pitcher who may be at the mercy of HR% fluctuation in the future, and his 4.51 xFIP this year indicates possible regression in 2018. But this year he did solve his control problem and knocked down his homer rates to 0.93 HR/9 and 9.1 HR%. His FIP dropped from 6.20 to 3.84 and his fWAR increased by 3+ wins. Berrios would be my pick for "Most Improved" on the Twins this year.

Note that KC only had to go 30-28 after the deadline to finish with 85 wins. So the plan to "go for it" needed to not only foresee that the Twins would catch fire after a 10-15 July, but a recent champion that had been 33-19 in June-July would completely collapse, and then every other WC2 contender that was ahead of, or just about even with, the Twins would also collapse or float around .500 down the stretch. Would it be wise for the GM of a 50-53 team with a -72 run differential to bet on all of that falling into place? There were reasons why their WC chances at the deadline were less than 5%. And it wasn't just "runs scored in April," or the lineup's 94 wRC+ in the first half and 96 wRC+ in July, or the improbability of every other WC2 contender sucking, or the -72 run differential on July 31, or BaseRuns record (which stands at 79-79 today). I mean, all of that counted, but the pitching also has been below-average all season, except for the one month after the trade deadline, when the staff FIP jumped to 5th in the AL. Looking back now, outside of that outlier month, their record is 63-65. Against the other AL playoff teams, their record is 12-25 with a 122-223 run differential. The Twins have an emerging group of young talent, and they caught some breaks this season. If they happen to beat the Yankees on Tuesday, or even advance past the ALDS, great! Is that likely? Are the Twins really on the level of the elite teams, yet? If the club goes into next season with essentially the same roster, but counts on Romero/Gonsalves to shore up the rotation holes, because "we've arrived," I expect that fans are going to be disappointed with the 2018 results. I think it's actually encouraging that Falvine didn't think, "Here's our chance!" at the July deadline, or even at the end of the hot August. We'll see whether they know how to take the club to the next level, but for now it seems that they have a realistic idea of where the team stands.

They haven't done much, but they haven't really done any significant harm, either. It will be interesting to see what they do with Dozier. Trade him next summer if the team is muddling along? Let him walk as a FA? Give him a new 5-year deal? And also what they might do about the pitching--whether they make some deals or just rely on Ryan's farm to produce more talent in the near future.

It's possible that Former Indians Executive Derek Falvey would like to sign Carlos Santana this winter; or, maybe the brain trust is already thinking about moving Sano to 1B in a couple years.

Joe Mauer, Top 15 1st Baseman. Get some! Really, I'm glad that he's apparently seeing the ball better. 2 WAR at 1B isn't a star player, but it's solid value. Whether there will be a great FA market for a John Olerud type at age 36... eh, I guess it all depends on whether he's better than 115 wRC+, 2 WAR next year.

I don't see much sign that the team is on the verge of starting a new winning cycle, even next year. Not unless Buxton, Rosario, and Kepler all step up in a big way, and Berrios becomes a #1-2 level starter, and Romero and Gonsalves settle in without an issue, and Santana gets his HR rates back down, and maybe Mauer and Dozier play a little better, and maybe Sano is more consistent, and the bullpen somehow comes together. There are a lot of holes, and the club is counting on a lot of young, developing players to fill them. I would guess that Falvine have their eyes on a post-Dozier/Mauer future, already, and we'll see Dozier and Santana traded for prospects this winter--even if it's too late to sell high on either of them, anymore.

On the season, the Twins have four hitters with a wRC+ above 100: Sano 127 Rosario 109 Grossman 108 Mauer 104 That's it. (Dozier and Escobar are at 99 wRC+.) Rosario seems to be progressing at the plate--he's even drawing walks at a respectable rate lately--but regressing in the field; a 109 wRC+ without great defense in LF doesn't move the needle much. We know that Grossman does one thing really well--but he gives back a lot of his value in the field and from lack of power. Mauer, on the other hand, is an acceptable 1B because he plays such good defense, but he's not an essential part of the team's future. Sano is really the one GOOD bat at his position, and even he tends to be streaky--he has an 89 wRC+ in the past 30 days, and had a 93 wRC+ in June. His defense is a bit of a drag on his value, too. I agree that they should be patient with the young players--but, man, do they really need those kids to step it up soon, especially in the outfield. Until their corner outfielders are hitting better than 120 wRC+, and Buxton can become at least a league-average bat, I don't see the Twins having an above-average offense. And even then, the problem of replacing Dozier and getting a 1B/DH with some pop in the next couple years still remains.

Twins monthly wRC+ split April 90 May 107 June 85 July 97 In the last month, most of the hitters have been good-to-OK; Polanco, Granite, and Gimenez are the only ones who have played poorly. But Buxton was the only one who hit like a Star (166 wRC+), and he only played 10 games (35 PA). Vargas seemed to be heating up with a 134 wRC+ in 9 games (38 PA), but they sent him down on 7/17. In May, the month when the offense looked pretty good, they had several guys going then, as well, and Mauer was the one really tearing it up. Of course it helped that he wasn't hurt or demoted in mid-month. Right now, the Twins lineup seems to have several regulars who are fine, respectable, average-ish players, and Sano may be better than that (his 2.3 fWAR is tied for 10th-MLB at 3B; the difference between that and 15th is just 0.3 fWAR), but nobody who can sustain an elite level of play for very long. Maybe another year or two of development will change that, but I dunno. After next year, they'll probably need replacements for Dozier and/or Mauer, right? And I'm not sure that anyone in the org is a lock to improve on either of them (yes, even Mauer). Maybe Falvine will have to spend some money or make a clever trade to get a legit star on this team.