Minnesota Twins: In-Depth Analysis

The last real team I profiled in this feature, the Philadelphia Phillies, was one that many were surprised to find in last place, even with the glut of injuries that has ravaged their roster.  This week's team, the Minnesota Twins, are a different story.  Although Sports Illustrated picked them to finish fourth in front of the White Sox, the Twinkies are currently 10 games back of the Southsiders, who nobody suspected to see atop their division in June, or in any month.  The Twins on the other hand, have managed to fall short of even the modest expectations that were set for them.

The originally-proposed name of "Twin Cities Twins"
was rejected, but the logo is still in use.

The Twins started their professional existence as the Washington Senators, one of the eight original members of the American League.  (The club actually spent a few years as the Kansas City Blues in the 19th century, but we're not concerned with prehistoric times here.)  They won their only World Series in the nation's capitol in 1924 behind the stellar pitching of Hall of Famer Walter Johnson.  When baseball wanted to expand in 1960, rather than set up a new team in Minnesota, the Senators moved to the Twin Cities (to fill the void left by the Lakers' re-location to Los Angeles in the same year) and were replaced by a new Washington Senators franchise.  (The new Senators would later move to Texas and become the Rangers.)

Despite bringing the people of Minnesota two World Championships (1987 and 1991) and Hall of Famers Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Kirby Puckett, and Bert Blyleven, the team was threatened with contraction in 2001.  The Twin Cities fought back, and in a momentous decision, fraught with moral and legal implications, the Minnesota appellate court ruled that the Twins were "obligated" to continue to play baseball.  The issue initially centered on the taxpayer dollars that went into subsidizing the extremely team-friendly lease the Twins signed to play in the Metrodome, but quickly morphed into something much deeper, as Minnesota Superior Court Judge Harry Seymour Crump deemed the Twins an "intangible community asset" and claimed that the Twin Cities area would suffer irreparable harm if the team were not allowed to play.  Score one for baseball's significance in our society... but I doubt if many current Twins fans would share Judge Crump's view based on the team's performance so far in 2012...

One notable aspect of the Twins 25-man roster is that it includes 13 pitchers and 12 batters, the opposite of how most teams are constructed.  Manager Ron Gardenhire says this is a necessity to avoid overworking a bullpen that has to constantly pick up the slack for an abysmal starting staff that has a chronic inability to go deep in games.  The Twins only have two players currently on the Disabled List, but they're both big parts of the starting rotation: Scott Baker, arguably their best pitcher, went in for surgery to repair scar tissue on his flexor pronator tendon, but ended up getting Tommy John surgery (on his ulnar collateral ligament, a much more serious deal) instead!  Nick Blackburn went on the DL with a quad strain in mid-May, but as he was pitching to a whopping 8.37 ERA before the injury, he's not the answer even when healthy.  UPDATE: Just today, Blackburn swapped places on the DL with Opening Day Starter Carl Pavano, who has an ERA of 6.00, despite leading the league with the fewest BB/9 IP.

But more than injuries, this staff has suffered from a general case of just plain bad pitching.  Two years after a seeming re-breakout season, Francisco Liriano was demoted to the bullpen after 6 starts, and new acquisition Jason Marquis was released last week.  That covers the entire projected starting rotation, and while they've had some help from stopgaps P.J. Walters (remember him from the Edwin Jackson/Colby Rasmus trade last summer?), Scott Diamond, and rookie Cole De Vries, this is not exactly the makings of a playoff-bound rotation.

The lineup has its share of troubles and question marks as well.  Joe Mauer, the lone player on the Twins roster ranked in MLB.com's Top 100 fantasy players prior to the season, has had no trouble  getting on base (.405 OBP), but in the 2+ years since signing his 8-year $184mm extension (the fourth-largest contract in MLB history at the time), he's hit just over half the home runs he hit in his AL MVP 2009 season alone.  The biggest bopper in the lineup is Josh Willingham (below), who has jumped out to a 716-point start.  But with Justin Morneau still dealing with injury troubles (the latest is a sore left wrist), absolutely no other even potential offensive threats in this lineup, and no help on the way (no roster players on MLB.com's list of Top 100 Prospects - however Joe Benson is 99 on Baseball America's list) this looks to be a long summer for the Twins.

Other than Willingham, new acquisitions didn't exactly light up the hot stove.  Ryan Doumit got a one-year deal to prove he can be a suitable backup catcher after being plagued by injuries his last couple years in Pittsburgh.  Veteran infielder Jamey Carroll just recently lost his starting SS job to rookie Brian Dozier, but he'll see plenty of time all around the diamond with a year and an option left on his contract.  And raise your hand if you've ever heard of Darin Mastroianni, Jeff Gray, or Jared Burton before this post.

The good news for the Twins is that they come relatively cheap: with the exception of their two former AL MVPs Joe Mauer ($23mm) and Justin Morneau ($14mm), no Twin makes more than $9mm in 2012.  Pavano, Liriano, and Baker do make a combined $20.5mm this year, but they'll all likely be free agents next year.  Willingham's $7mm salary seems very reasonable for the power numbers he's putting up.  The $65mm they've committed to the 2013 club doesn't look so bad, even if attendance continues to drop at Target Field.

In the nine years following the Twins' epic victory against the menace of contraction, the team won their division six times.  Since then they've gotten a new ballpark and a uniform redesign, but somehow their team and their farm system has fallen into disarray.  But at least Twins fans will know that however long they'll have to wait for the team to return to contention, Joe Mauer will still be playing in Minnesota... making $23mm per year.