Twins Preview

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The Minnesota Twins are coming off one of their best-ever regular seasons and a pretty darn good offseason, too. They added Josh Donaldson, their highest-paid free agent ever, with his 3rd-base defense and 36 homers, to their offense, which set a Major League record for home runs; and three veteran starting pitchers to their somewhat suspect rotation. What’s not to like?

Applying some typical Minnesota sports negativity, let me count the ways: Luis Arraez could have a sophomore slump instead of hitting .400. Mitch Garver could wear down from having to catch more than last year with Jason Castro gone. Eddie Rosario could repeat the second half of last year instead of the first, when he momentarily led the league in homers. Miguel Sano, after his late start and faced with a short season, might never find his timing. Byron Buxton could get hurt (this is a near certainty). Nelson Cruz could start to show his age (40). Josh Donaldson could have a year like 2018 instead of 2019 (there’s a reason he qualified, after all, as Comeback Player of the Year). Jorge Polanco could fail another drug test. The three new starters – Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda and Homer Bailey (an unfortunate name for a pitcher) – are all on the wrong side of 30, and there’s probably a reason their former teams let them go. The bullpen is the Twins’ unacknowledged strength, but everyone knows that relief mastery can disappear without warning (see, e.g., Trevor Hildenberger last year) or arise from nowhere (see, e.g., Ryan Pressley from last year); so my confidence in Taylor Rogers, Tyler Duffey, Trevor May and Sergio Romo may be misplaced.

A full baseball season is one of sport’s great unpredictables. Whether a 60-game season will admit of as many twists, turns and rookie sensations is anyone’s guess. But one certainty in every sport is the impact of injuries, which should be many times magnified in 2020. Not only have the players had a shorter time to get their bodies ready for the season – a threat to pitchers’ arms and baserunners’ legs – but the compressed schedule (the Twins have only two days off all summer) could accentuate that problem. And oh, have you heard about Covid-19? Talk about unpredictability: not only could the pandemic sideline a star on game day, it could jeopardize an entire team, not to mention the whole enterprise.

With all that being said, I am looking forward to once again following the soap opera of a baseball season. It would be nice if the Twins built on their success of last year. It would be even nicer if they found a way to beat the Yankees, in the regular season or the postseason. But come what may, I’ll be watching.