The Twins are in trouble

The Twins have now played 20 games in a season full of expectations. And they sit at 7-13, which puts them as the 2nd worst team in all of baseball. 

Excuses abound from the team, and many fans. Sure, you can't completely dismiss that a handful of postponements, and some COVID issues have played a part in this rather pitiful start. 

But if you actually watch these games, and have a memory of what the last couple years were, you can see that this is not just a fluke. This team has some real problems.

Rocco Baldelli stepped in to a golden situation in 2019. He inherited a team loaded with talent, and ownership far more open to spending than any previous manager  got to experience. The dirty little secret is that a whole lot of managers would have won close to 100 games with that 2019 roster hitting bombs at a record clip. Last year the Twins again snuck out a division title, but the team was noticeably worse, and would they have prevailed over a full 162? Now this. Baldelli has had an easy ride so far. That initial regular season success has insulated him for a long time to come. And it gave Baldelli a sense that he knows it all, that he is somehow smarter than everybody else. His analytics driven style is always right.

But what of the playoff failures, born out of horrific first guess mistakes with pitching decisions? 2021 has been full of these same blunders so far. Starters are either pulled too early or too late. Relievers are pulled at the wrong time. Or used at the wrong time. Or Alex Colume pitches at all. Rocco just has no feel for how to handle these decisions in tight games.

The margin for error has evaporated, because this lineup has gone from being a record smashing strength to a serious liability. 

The Twins cannot score runs. We knew that 2019 was unsustainable, but this whole franchise has never bothered to develop a plan B for scoring runs with any kind of consistency. Add to that MLB deadening the baseball to an undisclosed degree, and this is what you get.

After Sunday, the Twins have in 10 of their last 11 games scored a combined 18 runs (including being shut out in both halves of a doubleheader for the first time since 1961). Sure that 12 run outlier (in a game lost due to Rocco and Colume) was nice, but even that was fool's gold. 

The Twins lineup has been bad, even with Byron Buxton hitting at an MVP level, even with Nelson Cruz mashing, even with Luis Arraez being an OBP machine, and even with Josh Donaldson hitting well since getting back. This lineup is comically top heavy. Those top 3 or 4 guys usually produce, but after that you have had a mess of putrid hitting. Kepler, Polanco, Garver, Cave, and worst of all Sano are just flat out bad. Excluding Cave, a backup who shouldn't even be playing, you have 4 players who all had career years in 2019 and have more or less looked lost since. These aren't just guys though who had big years.  This franchise was really counting on them being major pieces for years beyond 2019. In some cases they made those plans clear with contract extensions. And all have cratered mostly, worst of all Garver and Sano, who are each borderline unplayable. They even put Sano on the IL just so they could not play him for a while.

The Twins fashion themselves as having a deep farm system, but so far neither Kiriloff or Rooker look at all capable.of filling that Rosario hole. Other call ups have done little. At least Willians Astudillo has hit a little (and pitched like a stud), but when your 3rd catcher/utility guy is a top highlight you're in trouble.

To have 4 key cogs just implode like this is not a development you can survive. But all 4 stunk in 2020 too. Every excuse imaginable was used to pretend like their 2020s did not happen, but all have carried over. So now the Twins have no chance to score runs if the top half of their lineup isn't having a good day. And as good as Buxton and Cruz are, they aren't going to get 4 hits and a bomb or 2 every game.

The Twins do not have the pitching staff to carry an anemic lineup like this. Even there things have taken a step back, albeit a much smaller one.

Maeda probably overachieved last year, but he has been shaky (his last start in Oakland was awful). Berrios and Pineda similar. Happ flirted with a no hitter but also has struggled. Shoemaker has been mediocre at best.

The bullpen has been hit and miss. Taylor Rogers looks much better than 2020. Duffey has been ok. Robles had one clunker but has been ok. Everyone else has been meh. And then there is the disaster that is Colume, who already looks like one of the worst free agent signings in Twins history. Their supposed closer has already been responsible for blowing 3 games, and in that Oakland disaster blew TWO leads. 

The front office chose to do quite a bit of bullpen overhaul this offseason. And so far it has been a flop. 

That's a whole lot of things wrong with this team. Now yes, it is April. No team can be buried in April. Most can't be buried in May. And the AL Central shouldn't take 95 wins.

But for the Twins to pull out of this early season plummet and get where they need to be, they need SO much stuff to improve SO much that it's hard not to feel like this is heading towards a lost season.