EKSTROM: Five Tips To Avoid Another 90-Loss Season

Written by Sam Ekstrom

Winning divisions in baseball is hard. Playing 162 games that really mean something, especially in August and September, is physically and emotionally taxing. Contrarily, losing in baseball seems all too easy. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. It’s also easier to relax when you are mediocre. It’s simpler to let the contenders overpower you during the pennant race, to lose focus in the middle innings when the 15,000 fans in the stands are starting to get restless. This might explain why the Twins have lost two of every three games during the last four Augusts and Septembers.

Monday night, the Twins clinched their fourth consecutive 90-loss season, and unfortunately, it didn’t seem too hard for them. Let’s face it: This was another lousy team that deservedly will finish last place in the A.L. Central.

Next season will mark the sixth year of Target Field, and four of the five seasons played there have been abysmal. If the Twins want to avoid a fifth consecutive season of 90 or more losses, some things will have to change because, clearly, things can’t stay the same.

The unabridged list of solutions is long and would take too many words for this space. But here is a truncated version with five “musts” for next season.

1. Ricky Nolasco must pitch to his pay grade.

The Twins made a monumental splash in free agency by committing $49 million to Nolasco, the biggest free agent signing in team history. Nolasco returned the favor by posting the worst ERA in all of baseball. That puts the Twins in a bind. What do you do when your second-highest paid player is a pitcher that can’t get anybody out?

With Nolasco’s price tag, the Twins essentially have no choice but to give him another go in 2015. At minimum, the veteran right hander has to be an average pitcher and keep the team in games.

2. Joe Mauer must be Joe Mauer.

Mauer is going to finish with the lowest batting average of his career, somewhere between .270 and .280. This down year also coincides with his move from catcher to first base. Some analysts have projected that Mauer no longer sees the ball as well at the plate because he’s not watching pitches each inning from his catcher’s spot. Some think he is distracted caring for his newborn twin girls. Some just think he’s lost his swing.

Whatever the case, Mauer – the $23 million man – needs to rediscover himself. The Twins need him hitting .300 or better, swatting 10-15 home runs and contributing 75 RBIs. At least.

3. The statues must be removed from the outfield.

Gone are the days of Torii Hunter, Denard Span and Ben Revere blazing trails across the outfield grass. The hefty likes of Josh Willingham, Oswaldo Arcia, Chris Colabello, Jason Kubel and Chris Parmelee played over 2,000 combined innings in the outfield this season, making the Twins’ outfield one of the slowest in baseball. Willingham and Kubel have already departed, and Colabello and Parmelee probably don’t have a future with the team. That leaves Arcia, whose powerful bat makes him valuable in the lineup, meaning he’ll probably continue playing right field.

The Twins need to get the puzzling youngster Aaron Hicks squared away and inserted as an everyday outfielder – preferably in left field – and call up promising prospect Byron Buxton to play center. That would make the outfield speedy and respectable once again.

4. Pitchers must strike somebody – anybody! – out.

The Twins were the last team in baseball to reach 1,000 strikeouts for the season; it took them a whopping 157 games. Remarkably, this was a positive milestone for Minnesota. It was the first time they’d reached 1,000 strikeouts since 2010. Each of the previous three years, the Twins were the only team in baseball that failed to reach the thousand-strikeout mark.

At some point, there has to be blame placed on the coaching philosophy. Pitching coach Rick Anderson has been employed in Minnesota for ages, but he has to take some heat for this. The Twins can’t keep over-working their defense with so many balls put in play. As mentioned, the defense, particularly in the outfield, isn’t that strong.

5. Prospects must stay healthy.

The main source of optimism entering 2014 was the probable emergence of slugger Miguel Sano and budding superstar Byron Buxton from the minor leagues. Sano’s season ended before it started when he underwent Tommy John surgery, and Buxton missed the majority of the year with several injuries, including a scary concussion suffered in an outfield collision. The timetable on Sano and Buxton was pushed back a year, moving their ETA to sometime during the 2015 season. If these two don’t pan out, then it could be back to the drawing board for the Twins’ entire rebuilding plan.