by Erik Ritland



Check out Part I: On the Twins New Approach here.

Part Two: It’s Going to be Bad, Unless...
 
There are few reasons to be excited about the 2017 Twins. Aside from an offensively inept pitch-framing catcher, this is the same team that lost 103 games last year. Nothing was done to improve the worst starting pitching staff in baseball, the bullpen looks like it’ll be the same mediocrity with a few different names, and their lineup is still above average but inconsistent. While I don’t begrudge the team for not aggressively filling these holes so early in a rebuild, that they didn’t address any of their problems in the off-season means that there’s no reason to think they’ll be any better this year.
 
That is, unless a lot of things go right.
 
As far as position players, several young Twins Opening Day starters could have break out seasons. Buxton, Sano, Polanco, Rosario, and Kepler are talented and have shown varying degrees of potential. If each of them begin to reach it – and that’s a huge if – they could be the foundation of a successful team.
 
That’s not all that needs to go right, though. This just in: Joe Mauer is no longer an MVP caliber talent. But he could make a positive impact if he hits .280, drives in 80 or so runs (depending on how much he plays…) and strikes out a little less than he did in 2016.

Brian Dozier, although the Twins premier talent, still needs to be more consistent. Many forget that he started out last year very cold before taking off. He’s not good enough to sustain how good he played at his best, and he isn’t as bad as his worst slumps, so it’d be best if he could even out and be consistently somewhere in the middle.
 
It’s hard to put a positive spin on the Twins terrible pitching situation, but I’ll give it a shot. Team “ace” Ervin Santana is talented and has his moments, but he would be an average two or decent three on any other team. Santiago and Gibson are decent back of the rotation guys, Mejia has potential but probably wouldn’t break camp with most teams, and Hughes still hasn’t shown that he’s fully recovered from his myriad of recent injuries (I wouldn’t be surprised if Duffy takes his spot in the rotation early in the season).

If Santana harnesses his best stuff, Gibson and Mejia break out, and Santiago and Hughes dig deep and find what made them above average starters in the past, the Twins could do a lot better than expected. Again, that is five huge ifs that all need to happen, which seems unrealistic. Especially considering all the things that need to go right on the offensive side as well.
 
The 2017 bullpen is narrowly better than 2016, which is barely a compliment. Instead of terrible arms like Buddy Boshers, Pat Greene, and JR Graham, they have adequate ones like an aging Craig Breslow and something called Matt Belisle (okay, so he has a decent MLB pedigree, but still). The odds of their success may be even less than that of the starting pitchers or lineup.
 
And yet…stranger things have happened. There were several years from 2000-2010 that the Twins went into seasons with a less-than-stellar team on paper but outperformed all the negative predictions. And all the question marks – young players that could break out, veterans that have had success, some new faces and a new approach – are better than simply having a bunch of players that are just bad and have no potential.
 
Still, there are too many things that need to go right for the Twins to have success in 2017. I predict 70 wins, maybe less if they start selling at the trade deadline.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.

by Erik Ritland
 


Part One: On the Twins New Approach
The answer to apathy is opening the windows
 
Frankly, nobody cares about the 2017 Twins.
 
While a slight overstatement, it is truly only slight. After six years of monumental floundering, capped off by a team record for most losses in a season in 2016, apathy has set in. The fan base, such as it is, has rarely if ever been so disengaged.
 
There is reason for hope, however, one just has to take the longview. The Twins' new front office, led by the intelligent and savvy team of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, has a new plan for the team.
 
Yes, you read that right: the Twins are doing something new, something different.
 
After years of being shackled to the shudder-inducing “Twins way,” the organization finally decided to become more progressive, hiring two men who use the outside-the-box thinking that has propelled teams like the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians (who both, by the way, were in the World Series last year; Derek Falvey spent the last nine seasons cultivating the latter). Although they have been dealt a bad hand with the current team, their new philosophy is already infiltrating the organization from the ground up.
 
The changes will come slowly and subtly, but building a contender from what they’ve been given can only be built that way. Which is why anyone complaining that the Twins didn’t make enough off-season moves doesn’t understand the process. Even the team doesn’t have any delusions that they’re going to be a contender this year, so throwing money or prospects away for superstars would have made no sense.
 
2017 is the first year of a definite rebuild, if not with players then definitely with philosophy. They’re transitioning from a static, old school way of thinking to a newer, more statistics based approach. While the rabid emphasis on the minutia of statistics is draining the blood from baseball, it only makes sense to pay attention to and implement the smartest ways to approach the game. New ways of measuring players can do that, they just shouldn’t become the only emphasis. The eye test, tradition, and feel still should play an important role. Falvey and Levine lean towards the newer philosophy, and that breath of fresh air for the organization is good and necessary, but they’ll only be successful if they look further than cold, isolated statistics.

Because they had success building up the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers, it’s easy to be optimistic that they’ll be smart enough to do the same for the Twins. The abysmal recent past aside, the organization already has some of the best young talent in baseball, which can’t be said of many rebuilding teams. Several of their current players are young and poised to break out, and major baseball media outlets put their minor league system in their top 10 as well.
 
The question is, of course, whether the Pohlads will spend money on the team once they get further in the rebuilding process. History shows that the organization, despite having the richest owners in baseball, doesn’t spend any more money than the team brings in. Although worth over three billion dollars from various endeavors, no outside money is used on the team, which gives the message that they only care about the Twins inasmuch as they make money from them. It might make sense from a business perspective, but that stinginess isn’t lost on a fan base that is currently paying for a large portion of Target Field. Most owners see their baseball team as a passion, which puts them in the same space as the fans; to see it as simply a business is greedy and backwards.
 
That’s not to say, of course, that they should just throw money around unthinkingly. But being competitive means spending money, especially on pitching, and the Twins have never done this. Sure, a Johan Santana will inevitably rise to the top from inside the organization every ten years, but depending on that in the long term is foolish. In 2017 a team needs to spend $20+ million a year on an elite pitcher – or two. A couple power hitters are necessary, and they don’t usually come cheap either, but both offense and defense are more a game of balance and depth that doesn’t necessarily have to cost as much to build (see, again, the Cubs and Indians). But no team excels without throwing massive amounts of money at pitchers; that’s just the way it is.
 
If Falvey and Levine build the Twins to respectability, and the organization still isn’t willing to spend money on some big name players to fill the gaps, it’ll all be for nothing.
 
For now, though, fans need to be patient and take a long term approach. I know, they’ve been told that for years, but things are finally actually changing. Nobody, especially the organization that got the team into this current mess, can begrudge fans for checking out. But a rebuild is currently in the hands of a new team with a forward-thinking approach, and they have a lot of talent to cultivate, so there is reason to be optimistic.
 
Even 2017 might not be that bad. But a lot of things have to go right.

To find out what has to go right for the Twins to be successful in 2017, check out Part II here.

Erik Ritland is a writer and musician from St. Paul, Minnesota. His blog and podcast Rambling On features commentary on music, sports, culture, and more. He was also Lead Staff Writer for Minnesota culture blog Curious North. Support Erik's music via his Patreon account, reach him via email, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.