Twins Report

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[fusion_text]It’s still early in the season, so perhaps it is not surprising that this year’s Twins are still searching for an identity. No pitcher has emerged as a stopper; no hitter has stepped up as clutch. They have won many more games than I feared they would after their disastrous opening series against the Tigers, but without any pattern. Each win has had a different hero.

The biggest hole so far seems to be the lack of a power hitter. Kennys Vargas showed strength and potential as a late call-up last year but has been too cold to even play everyday. Oswaldo Arcia has been similarly erratic, and neither of them is an asset defensively. Worse, the big hope for the future, Miguel Sano, missed last year with injury and is doing nothing in the minors this year. Every team needs a cleanup hitter, which the Twins just don’t have.

The offense, therefore, depends on Suzuki here, Santana there and the occasional pop from Plouffe. Mauer will hit .300, but many of those will be harmless singles and when he goes for power he just reaches the warning track. A lot of the other averages are closer to .200 than .300, which should correct itself; but I suspect that .250 will be enough to keep you in the Twins lineup this year. All this is enough to win some games but, depending on pitching, won’t get you above .500.

Aah, the pitching. Phil Hughes, the putative stopper, has yet to win, but has pitched okay. Kyle Gibson continues to be tough at home, worthless on the road. Then there are Ricky Nolasco and Mike Pelfrey, previous busts who may or may not regain form from a couple years ago. Since I started writing this report, the fifth starter, Tommy Milone, has been sent to the minors and replaced by Trevor May. In other words, the starting rotation is still in flux, and the relief corps even more so. Their only All-Star in the past is closer Glen Perkins, and while he is racking up saves, he isn’t blowing hitters away like he has. The rest of the bunch is pretty anonymous.

So, we will see. We can’t count on anything yet – not the pitching, nor the hitting, nor the defense and certainly not the baserunning. Yet after sweeping a home series against the White Sox, the Twins are looking better, surprisingly, than two of their four division foes. They are competitive. Whether they will be anything more is an open question. The Byron Buxton watch continues.[/fusion_text]

Instant Replay Redux

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[fusion_text]On consecutive nights, Jordan Schafer of the Twins 1) hit a soft liner to center that the outfielder dove for and appeared to catch, but when the play was challenged it was obvious that the ball had squirted out of the glove and rolled on the ground before being picked up again; and 2) made a diving catch to save a run that was ruled a trap until the replay showed that the ball never touched the ground. The same week, two runners that were called safe at first were shown, when challenged, to have reached the bag just after the ball. There was no manager running out of the dugout, kicking dirt, no complaints by either side, no discussions among umpires. How did baseball get along, one wondered, without replay challenges?

One reservation: when a White Sox base stealer was called out at second he hopped up, immediately asking his manager to challenge the call. It appeared to the Twins announcers (and me) that the call was incorrect, but after a review of the replay, the umpires confirmed their call. There simply wasn’t a camera angle that clearly showed when the tag was made. And thus, the Sox lost their challenge for the game.

Of all the sports that have adopted an instant replay challenge system, tennis is the cleanest. The camera technology always shows whether the ball is in or out, down to a millimeter. Plus, the replay is visible to spectators, so it becomes part of the entertainment.

Football probably has the longest history with replays – and the most problems. The principal one is that there are 22 big bodies around the ball, and sometimes there is no clear view of the play. Second, there is no clear line dividing when a player has control of the ball; thus, the question, did his knee touch the ground before the ball came loose is often debatable. The lack of clarity is evident when the TV announcers predict the review result and are wrong, which occurs regularly. The other problem in football is that the replay challenge, even when there is a clear result, can’t always undo the damage of a bad call. If the referee thinks the runner is down before he fumbles and, consequently, blows his whistle, and the fumble is recovered by the opposing team and run in for an apparent touchdown, the ball will be brought back to the spot of the fumble and the touchdown nullified, even if the replay shows the whistle should not have been blown.

In all, it is rather impressive how far and how fast instant replay challenges have infiltrated sports that have been around for years. The big question: how long until baseball allows the radar to call balls and strikes?[/fusion_text]

Trade Deadline

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It’s almost humorous to read that the Twins players are worried that the front office will break the team up as the trade deadline approaches, looking for future prospects at the expense of fielding a winning team this year. The necessary implication of this concern is that there is somebody on the current Twins roster whom a contending team would be interested in! Maybe Josh Willingham, a below-average outfielder who is hitting .212? How about the many players who have been cut, or traded away, by better teams in the not-too-distant past: Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar, Eduardo Nunez, even Phil Hughes? Or a third baseman hitting .240 who has had three years to improve, in vain? Kurt Suzuki would be a useful addition to a number of teams, but as the team’s best hitter and everyday catcher he is more valuable in Minnesota than he would be anywhere else. Glen Perkins is a valuable chip, but he has so identified with Minnesota that a trade would be a major betrayal, which the Twins can’t afford. No, the only player I see as possible trade bait is 8th-inning setup man Casey Fien. But what would the Twins realistically get in return? Given the Twins’ traditional reticence to make trades, I’m not holding my breath.

Midseason Twins

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Amid a third consecutive floundering season by the Minnesota Twins I can sum up the main cause of my disappointment in two words: Joe Mauer. The rest is pretty much as expected: a free-agent flop at the top of the rotation – this year it’s Ricky Nolasco instead of Mike Pelfrey or Vance Worley. Then there are the various journeymen who show flashes of competence, even excitement, but eventually revert to norm: Chris Parmelee, Sam Fuld, Eduardo Escobar. Brian Dozier is being hailed as the answer at second base, and while he leads the AL in runs scored and adds dimension in base-stealing and defense, he is hitting only .234. Trevor Plouffe has also taken a step forward at third. Conversely, Oswaldo Arcia has regressed from the immense potential he briefly displayed last fall. The bullpen is above average, despite their excessive usage; even though Burton and Perkins aren’t quite the lockdown they were in 2013, Fien and Thielbar have shown they are more than flukes. Swarzak, Duensing and Guerrier can be very good or not, but every team will have weaknesses in relievers 5-7. Phil Hughes is the most professional of the starters, maybe because he was a Yankee for so long, and Kyle Gibson gives indications of being only one year away from the next Brad Radke. There are rumored arms down on the farm, and I should include the unseen Yohan Pino in this group, who should make Correia, Deduno and Nolasco expendable. And speaking of the farm, everyone is still counting on Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano, even though both have been hurt all year. So, as I said, it’s pretty much business as usual – beat up on the White Sox, fall flat before the Yankees – with one glaring exception. We all assumed another season of hitting .330 from Mauer – or perhaps more, and with fewer injuries because of his move to first base. Instead, despite a recent surge, he’s been hitting 60 points below his average most of the year, with a troubling jump in strikeouts. He’s never been known as a clutch hitter or a power hitter, and those numbers are also at all-time lows. When he comes up with two men on base and grounds meekly to second it’s dispiriting to us fans, and I wonder if it doesn’t have some effect on his teammates, as well. Adding insult to injury (which Mauer currently has), Justin Morneau, whom Mauer replaced at first,  is having an All-Star caliber season for the Rockies.

The Twins will have plenty of time to experiment the rest of this year. Among the questions to be answered: Is Danny Santana the shortstop the Twins have been looking for since Greg Gagne? Is Eduardo Nunez more than the journeyman he’s been for other teams, or is that enough? Can Arcia be taught better defense and will he grow as a hitter? Can Deduno be more consistent, and in what role, or does he have trade value? And where do they get help for Kurt Suzuki, both in the batting order and behind the plate? There is almost enough to care about going forward, but not quite enough to avoid saying, Wait for Next Year.

Twins Preview – 2014

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I can’t think of  a baseball season in which I was less excited about the prospects of “my” team, in this case still the Minnesota Twins. It’s not just that they are universally picked to finish last in their division – with projected losses between 90 and 100 – it’s that there’s no individual player whom I eager to follow. The starters are all players I watched last year without much enthusiasm; perhaps they will be better, but that would just raise their batting averages from .225 to .250. Their only consistent hitter, Joe Mauer, hits a quiet .320, with as often as not a meaningless single resulting in a 1-for-3 box score.

The touted upgrade comes in the pitching rotation, where the Twins added two free-agent starters, Ricky Nolasco and Phil Hughes, to their two free agents from last year, Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey. Both can generously be described as journeymen with their potential behind them. Hughes, it is said, pitched particularly well at Target Field for the Yankees last year, but let’s remember whom he was pitching against. I said last year that Glen Perkins was the only Twin not named Mauer (at that time a catcher) who could play for any team in the Majors, and his season justified my view. I was pleasantly surprised by other relievers – Jared Burton, Casey Fien and Caleb Thielbar in particular – but there’s not much they can do if the starters give up five runs and the offense can only muster two.

Are we already putting too much pressure on Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Alex Meyer to resurrect the Twins before they play a game?

Morneau Must Go

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At the end of last season, I warned the Twins that I wouldn’t take them seriously this year if they brought back Tsuyoshi Nishioka, which they didn’t. As the 2012 season winds down, I must tell them I feel the same way about Justin Morneau. As valuable as Morneau was in the past – and for several years I proclaimed that the Twins would go only so far as Morneau could carry them – he has turned into a millstone dragging them down, as they live on the memories of what he once was and the hope that he will revive his career. As a result, they bat him fourth or fifth, where kills rally after rally, and further, he impedes the progress of Chris Parmelee, who is already a better hitter and cannot develop as the Twins’ first baseman while Morneau still casts his shadow. Maybe it’s just lack of confidence, but Morneau doesn’t even take very good swings. Half his hits are flares, lacking all authority. With two strikes, he is putty in the pitcher’s hand, totally helpless against a low, outside slider. Knowing he is dead meat once the count gets that far, he often makes up his mind to swing at the first pitch, which he will then do, regardless of its speed or location. If I have figured all this out, what must opposing scouts know, in addition? If Miguel Cabrera beats out Joe Mauer for this year’s batting title, think of the advantage he has, with Prince Fielder hitting behind him, while Mauer, now with Josh Willingham hurt, has only Morneau for protection.
I was glad to see in today’s paper that Morneau is aware that the Twins might trade him. (The problem is, who would want him, especially with his salary and concussion history.) The other rumored trade bait is Denard Span – a deal that I would oppose. Span and Ben Revere are a formidable top of the order, able to work the count, fast when they get on base, and afraid of no one. Mauer and Willingham fill the next two spots comfortably. It’s at that point that things get a little shaky. Ryan Doumit has been solid and would be even more impressive if he could bat a little lower in the order. Trevor Plouffe has shown more potential than actual Major League ability, both at bat and in the field. If he is truly a work-in-progress and can improve as much in the next two years as he has this year, he will be a keeper. He is just not good enough now to be an asset. Shortstop and second base remain holes to be filled. Given their lack of power, especially in the #3 spot, the Twins can’t afford two more players, however slick on defense, who hit .230.
As for pitching, the Twins amazingly have an effective rotation of five rookies, none of whom was with the team at the start of the year: Scott Diamond, P.J. Walter, Liam Hendricks, Samuel Deduno and Cole DeVries. This could be the start of something good – or it could mean years of mediocrity to come. Given how far each has come this year, I like to be hopeful. Jared Burton and Glen Perkins are solid anchors for the bullpen. I said at the start that Perkins was the best pitcher on the Twins, and I like him as the closer for the foreseeable future. There will be a role, too, for Brian Duensing. As for Alex Burnett, Casey Fien, Anthony Swarzak and others, I hope we can do better.

Twins in Misery

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Today (May 27) the Tigers finished sweeping the Twins, and the three losses each highlighted one of the Twins’ deficiencies: Friday, in a game we attended, their starting pitchers – Swarzak and Liriano – were terrible; Saturday, in a game I skipped, their hitters struck out 16 times; and today, in a game I watched on TV, they nursed a lead until their suspect closer – Capps – gave up a two-run homer on an 0-2 pitch. They have already ransacked their farm system, and with no help in sight are a lock to do worse than their 99-loss season of 2011.
Sometimes with a bad team there are young players whose potential can provide a measure of interest, but except for Brian Dozier, who may turn into a steady if unspectacular shortstop, the Twins are also lacking here. Last week SI had an article about the young players that teams have locked into long-term contracts, as well as a half-dozen newcomers with possible big paydays in the offing. Tellingly, there were no Twins on either list. The only bright spot so far this season came when rookie call-ups Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters provided five wins in their first six starts. Neither has obviously great stuff, and whether either or both will be winning pitchers long-term is still very much in doubt. I don’t have the same gut feeling for them I did when Baker, Blackburn, Slowey and Garza, not to mention the old Liriano, were embarking on their Twins’ careers. Speaking of pitchers, Kyle Lohse and R.A.Dickey, two that the Twins discarded, are off to great starts this year and would be the staff ace if still around.
One measure of the Twins’ desperate situation is their insistence on getting Trevor Plouffe, a .135 hitter, into the lineup, whether at second or third base, left or rightfield. Behind him on the bench have been outfielders named Mastroianni and Komatsu, wonderful for geographic diversity but a far cry from the never-better-than-average duo of Dustin Mohr and Bobby Kielty. Basically, where the Twins are is where they have been, in my opinion, for awhile: in a position to go only as far as Justin Morneau can take them. When he is on a streak, everyone perks up and the Twins can play with anyone. When he is slumping or, as has been the case more often, hurt, they just can’t do any damage. Joe Mauer is an endlessly debatable subject, but the bottom line is, if you’re down a run in the ninth, there are about 20 players in the American League you’d rather have at the plate, yet he’s getting paid more than all but one or two of them. Not only is he not a leader, but his presence makes it hard for any other leader to emerge. When it comes to well-struck, meaningless singles and the occasional double, though, he’s your man.
Which brings me to the question: why watch a team this bad? If the game’s on TV, I enjoy Dick Bremer’s announcing and the commentary of Messrs. Blyleven, Smalley and Coomer. On the other hand, as much as I didn’t like John Gordon, I am even less enamored of this year’s new radio voice, Cory Probis. Still, a baseball game is good background noise and there’s plenty to do – gardening, reading the paper – while they play. Going to the game, however, is a different story. I have been graced with great seats at both outings this year, but great seats don’t guarantee good company around you. At the first game, a quartet of young men behind us kept up a loud running commentary that I couldn’t escape and got continually more annoying. Friday was a similar experience, only this time it was a group of kids interested mainly in coming up with loud, unison cheers – “Mauer Power” – for each batter. The general noise level of Target Field, with the perpetually large crowd and the overactive scoreboard, is so high that, in fairness, these individuals almost had to yell to hear each other. I know that I could converse with my seatmate only by leaning close to his ear. Then there is the general ambience of Target Field, where there is always a multitude strolling the concourse and lining up for every drink and delicacy on hand. The Twins seem committed to making the ballgame an “evening-out experience.” It is very far from the old days when you went to the ballpark to watch a game – and could even hear yourself think. It’s not as bad as the NFL or, certainly, the NBA, where the in-person viewing experience requires a couple aspirin. Maybe, like my experience at rock’n’roll clubs, it’s more a matter of my growing old, but going to the ballpark has lost much of its allure. Combine that with the state of the Twins, and my rabidity level is way down. I wonder how long, if ever, it will take the rest of Minnesota to feel this way.

First Impression – ugh!

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It’s hard to look worse in your first four games than have the Twins, and although the first week of a baseball season is an unreliable indicator I fear the prospects for Minnesota this year are pretty clear, and pretty grim. I have only witnessed one game myself – yesterday’s home opener against the Angels – but I suspect my initial conclusions will hold up. I would love to be wrong.
The Angels are one of the more loaded teams in the American League, but there are at least five others at their level, on paper, so it is not farfetched to compare their lineup to the Twins. Other than possibly Denard Span in center, there isn’t a single position where the Angels don’t have superior talent. Joe Mauer is the Twins’ best player, but he played first base yesterday, where the Angels have Albert Pujols. (Not that Mauer looked particularly good yesterday, making one error and striking out twice.) Danny Valencia at third and Alexi Casilla at second are both on “cross-your-fingers” status, players the Twins brass are hoping, without much justification, will have break-out years. It’s more likely that this will be the year their “promise” is snuffed out. At shortstop, 38-year-old Jamey Carroll is a stopgap, someone to hold the fort while minor leaguers develop. He got fist-bumps and pats on the back yesterday for hitting a short fly to left.
The only two players who impressed at all yesterday were Josh Willingham, a defensive liability in left but a professional hitter, and in all an upgrade over Delmon Young of last year, and Glen Perkins, who is the real deal as a lefty reliever. Saddest of all is the duo of Mauer and Morneau, both shells of their former MVP selves. They will make contact along the way, but may not hit 25 homers between them. They form one of the least fearsome lineup middles in the league (cf. Cabrera and Fielder in Detroit). Then there is Trevor Plouffe, a good AAA hitter but not ready for prime time.
After knocking the Twins position players, it is worth noting that they are not considered the weakness of this team: that would be the pitching staff. Francisco Liriano is a head case. Carl Pavano and Nick Blackburn are competent and can usually hold the opposition to four runs, which is three more than the Twins have so far been able to score. I like Scott Baker, but it appears he will not be healthy at all this year. If the Twins were to ever be in the lead in the ninth, Matt Capps is unlikely to make it hold up. He throws straight fastballs that opposing hitters invariably square up on.
Finally, there is the intangible of team chemistry. Much has been made, as it should be, of the fact that Mauer and Morneau, the team leaders, are quiet individuals who don’t do much leading. With 14 new players on the roster, many others are unsure of their own status and unlikely to rally others. Valencia is unliked, Casilla’s head is in the clouds, Parmelee, Plouffe and Revere are basically rookies, Doumit, Willingham and Carroll are newcomers with modest credentials. That leaves Denard Span, who is mostly in the Mauer-Morneau mold and fighting his own concussion history. When the Twins come to bat, you sense nine individuals simply doing their job, not a united, aggressive bunch eager to attack the pitcher.
Which raises the question, what do you do with Ron Gardenhire? Traditionally, a manager who presides over back-to-back 99-loss seasons would be history. The Twins, almost unique in pro sports, have shown great loyalty to managers, and it’s hard to blame Gardy for the mediocre players he’s been given. Still, if this season goes as I expect it to, I would applaud shaking things up by bringing in a new manager, sooner than later. The Twins need an edge, which is something Gardenhire can’t provide. And a new manager would spare us Gardy’s postgame bromides – the opposing pitcher who was throwing the heck out of the ball, the way our boys kept battling back, etc. – or at least provide some new ones.

Dog Days of August

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The trading deadline has passed, the season is two-thirds over, and the Twins remain in fourth place, eight games below .500. Their chances of making the playoffs, even if the Tigers weren’t a far superior team, are nil; and even if they had that chance, the Red Sox or Yankees would blow them out of the water. So it is time to look further ahead, to 2012 and beyond. What have we learned, whom should we keep, and where do we go from here?
The first, most obvious step was taken last night, when Denard Span returned to centerfield and Ben Revere was shifted to left. This took the pressure of batting leadoff off Revere and, more important, shifted him to a defensive spot where his weak arm is not the liability it was in center. Revere was routinely giving up two or three extra bases a game. In left, he is a significant upgrade over Delmon Young, who was shifted to DH, his only viable position. As for rightfield, Michael Cuddyer has a great arm but is otherwise merely competent; but if Justin Morneau can return at a high level, the outfield will be set for the foreseeable future.
Jason Kubel has shown he is a professional hitter with power and could form a potent left-right DH platoon with Young. The sooner Jim Thome gets his 600th home run and retires, the better for everyone. His home runs are exciting, but he strikes out too much and his slowness afoot is another problem.
If the outfield sorts itself out rather neatly, the same cannot be said for the infield, the Twins’ biggest weakness. Let’s pencil in Morneau at first, although his inability to play an entire season unhurt is troubling. Danny Valencia has a strong arm and pop in his bat, but his average has regressed from his rookie season and his aim is not always steady. Nor does he seem terribly popular among his teammates. One hopes that added maturity can rectify these issues and he can give the Twins a Koskie-level stability on the corner. We will know more next season.
I’m afraid the verdict can already be given for the Tsuyoshi Nishimure experiment, however. He simply does not play at the major league level. He is the weakest hitter and worst shortstop I can remember seeing in the big leagues. He is still starting because the Twins invested a lot of money in him, and they have no one to replace him, but finding a shortstop somewhere has to be the Twins’ biggest priority for the future. Obviously, there is no one currently in the farm system who is ready, as we have seen Trevor Plouffe, Matt Tolbert and Luke Hughes this summer without being impressed.
Alexi Casilla, who at least can hit .250 with occasional power, could be moved to short without hurting, or helping, much. That would leave second base for Plouffe-Tolbert-Hughes. All of them are competent and could be carried, without embarrassment, in a lineup with eight solid hitters. The trouble is, with Valencia-Casilla-Plouffe in your infield, you have a bunch that needs to be carried. It’s like giving away three innings of offense.
Mauer is good, if not great, behind the plate, and the same can be said for his offense. He doesn’t have enough power or get enough clutch hits to justify his salary, but most days he’s a solid contributor. Given his inability to play every day, or get through a season unhurt, however, the Twins need a backup catcher who can hit more than .200. A winning team needs production up and down the lineup, as the saying goes, and when you get the likes of Hughes, Nishioka and Butera hitting together, that’s too big a hole for the rest of the Twins to regularly overcome.
Unless, of course, you had great pitching. Here, as Dick Bremer mentioned last night, every pitcher on the roster except Anthony Swarzak and Glen Perkins has regressed this summer. Carl Pavano probably doesn’t have much left and should be gone after this year. Francisco Liriano can be unhittable, but is far too erratic. If the Twins could get a shortstop in return, I would trade Liriano in a minute. Nick Blackburn should give way to Swarzak now in the rotation. He still could turn it around, as he did last year, but for now he’s a number five starter, at best. Scott Baker is their ace, and Brian Duensing can be an innings-eater; so those two are solid, but they would rank three and four on a good staff. Where can the Twins find a number one and number two guy? That’s a big problem, as their touted minor leaguers are either injured or having bad years themselves.
Lastly, I love Glen Perkins this year, and would be glad to give him the closer role next year, unless Joe Nathan take a paycut. I would trade or give away Matt Capps, and the same for Jose Mijares, whom I tabbed as a potential closer two years ago but who, since then, has exploded into a headcase with no control.
In sum, I see a lean four or five years ahead for the Twins. Almost every other major league team has been bouyed by fresh blood, on the mound or at the plate. The Angels, to take today’s opponent as an example, have a rookie first baseman named Trumbo, who has replaced their injured regular and hit 20 homer with 58 rbis, more than any Twin. With one of the thinnest farm systems going at the moment, the Twins will simply have a hard time keeping up.

Twins at the Quarter Pole

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How could I have been so wrong in my predictions for the Twins’ 2011 season? 45 games into the year, they have the worst record in the majors and show no sign of getting much better. In hindsight, the thinness of the Twins’ roster should have been obvious, but who takes future injuries into account when doing a preview? Of course, every team has players on the disabled list, some as valuable as the Twins’, but for other teams, the replacements have been competent. The fact that every Twins minor league team finished last in its respective league last year, or close to it, should have been a tip-off that the well was running dry. Now we are at the point where there is no confidence on the team. So much of sports is mental, and if you think you’re going to lose, you probably will.
Now for the more individual causes: Joe Mauer’s breakdown is problem #1. Most obviously, you’re trading a .350 hitter for a .125 hitter, since the Twins last year traded away the two best-hitting catchers in their system, Wilson Ramos and Jose Morales. Just as important, Mauer has always been a winner, and his unflappable confidence anchored the team’s personality.
The second biggest problem is the morphing of the middle infield from a question mark to a disaster area. I had high hopes for Tsuyoshi Nishioka at second and guarded optimism for Alexi Cassila at short. Nishi, instead, broke his leg, and Casilla has remained as erratic in the field, on the bases and at the plate, as he was the first two times he was sent down to the minors. This has opened the door for Matt Tolbert and Luke Hughes, neither of whom could bat .200, and Trevor Plouffe, a default shortstop if there ever was one. He hits like an aspiring Michael Cuddyer – not a number two hitter, where Gardy is using him – while in the field his feet are slow and his throws are wild. Instead of being strong up the middle, the goal of every team, the Twins feature a black hole.
On the corners Justin Morneau and Danny Valencia, in contrast, look like legitimate Major Leaguers, but Major Leaguers having bad years. Morneau is clearly not recovered from his concussion-imposed layoff; he gets hits, but how many teams are using a cleanup hitter with only two home runs? That’s one more than Delmon Young has, and at least Morneau can field his position. Young can give up more runs in leftfield than he produces at the plate, and frequently does.
Jason Kubel is playing fine, all the more remarkable given how little help he is getting. Cuddyer is Cuddyer – a home run and double one game, three groundouts to short the next. He can be a piece of the puzzle, little more. Jim Thome has been hurt much of the year, but what can you expect from someone with his age and body? There’s a reason no other team wanted to sign him. His experience with the Twins is very similar to Brett Favre’s with the Vikings, and the sooner they cut the cord, the better off they will be.
As for the pitching, the starters have not been bad, except that they seem to be effective for six innings only, and the Twins have no one to pitch the seventh. All of them have had bad outings, but they have all had more good outings than bad, and remember that any team only need win 57% of its games to make the playoffs. It’s the relievers who have been the disappointment. Joe Nathan was rushed back to the closer spot prematurely, and we’re still trying to see where he will fit in. Jose Mijares can’t find the strike zone and is nowhere near the pitcher he looked to be two years ago. Matt Capps may have the bulldog personality of a closer, but he doesn’t have a strikeout pitch and is strictly average. Given how few times the Twins have taken a lead into the ninth, it has been especially deflating when he lets the game get away. Glen Perkins for the defense has been the equal of Jason Kubel for the offense. The other relievers are simply minor leaguers on loan.
Where does this leave the Twins? Unfortunately, like the Vikings last season, this was supposed to be year where all the pieces came together. The team was built for the present, not the future. As a result, perhaps, the future doesn’t have much to show for itself. There are no hotshots in the minors, just waiting for their chance. We’ve seen Ben Revere and Luke Hughes, and we’re worried. Can the Twins rebuild through a trade? It’s hard to see anyone on their roster whom another team would want. Someone like Denard Span is a good complementary player, but he’s not going to make an impact elsewhere, and most teams have a centerfielder. I could be wrong – and I’ve been wrong before – but all I see is a multi-year slog through mediocrity until a new generation of Mauers and Morneaus comes along. If it does.