Written By Chris Schad
Baseball is a sport that relies heavily on optimism. For every team like the Kansas City Royals, years of suffering are sometimes rewarded with one great October run. Meanwhile, a team that can have its eyes set on a World Series championship can be thrown into a mid-season fire sale that would make the Florida Marlins proud.
However, optimism is nowhere to be found in “Twins Territory.” Coming off their fourth straight season with 90 or more losses, the fans in Minnesota seem to be upset that the team can’t pull off a deal to net Clayton Kershaw for two random prospects.
A simple search of the Twins’ Facebook feed won’t go that far, but the comments aren’t kind toward the local nine. One referred to the gold trim on the new uniforms as “a way to not reinvest in a quality staff.” Another denounced a hoodie giveaway for Opening Day as “bribing fans to sit in the cold and watch the same team that didn’t win last year.”
As TwinsFest rolls into town for it’s second chilly season at Target Field, the excitement for April doesn’t seem to be there. While it’s hard to blame anybody for having little faith in the Twins, the team finally made moves that could be considered steps in the right direction including promoting Paul Molitor from third base coach to manager and signing Ervin Santana to reinvest in a quality pitching staff. All of this is nice, but there’s one question that should be on everybody’s mind:
Have the Minnesota Twins bottomed out?
To find the answer to these questions, you have to look at what created the mess that the franchise finds itself in. While some of them can’t be corrected in the near future (such as Mauer’s lucrative contract), the Twins can control the deficiencies that cost them many games over the past four seasons.
For example, the starting rotation might be the strongest it’s been since the Twins’ last division championship in 2010. That rotation didn’t have superstar starters during that time, but it was solid enough to keep the team in games (which has been a key struggle in recent years).
While the fifth rotation spot is a battle royale reserved for spring training, the rest of the rotation appears to be on par with the good (but not great) rotation that paced the Twins five years ago.
Fans may groan about the lack of strikeouts (Starters ranked 20th in Ks in 2010 & 29th in 2014), but the key will be innings pitched. Even if the rotation doesn’t set the world on fire, their goal should be an easy one: Make a start that lasts more than five innings not worth a standing ovation at Target Field.
The Twins will also need an injection of new blood in order to make the climb back to relevance. Part of that process started a season ago with Brian Dozier and Oswaldo Arcia having solid seasons while prospects Kennys Vargas and Danny Santana got their feet wet.
It led to the team putting together a solid offensive season (7th in MLB with 715 runs scored) that was washed out by the ineffectiveness of the pitching staff (2nd in runs allowed with 777). Mix in the possibility of other top prospects joining the fray (including two by the names of Buxton and Sano), and there’s a good chance the Twins could improve by default.
Of course there are other factors that could make this irrelevant. Molitor is managing a club for the first time at any level and could have a steep learning curve ahead of him. The rest of the division hasn’t done favors for him either, as it seems Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Kansas City have all taken steps forward in a division on the rise.
But seriously, could the Twins get any worse? There’s talent on the way and the new voices in the clubhouse can’t be a bad thing for a team that seemed to have gotten complacent. It might take another year or two to really see the progress, but it’s possible that this storm has run out of rain.