What in god's name happened to the Twins?

I've seen some shit in my many years as a Minnesota sports fan. Some ups, a lot of downs. Some surprises, a lot of disappointments.

But I don't know that I have ever seen anything so unexpectedly, inexplicably awful as the 2021 Minnesota Twins. 

How did this happen? I detached myself emotionally from this franchise after last season's playoff humiliation. But I still had no doubt that the Twins would be in contention for a 3rd straight division title. I thought most of their offseason moves were sound. They returned a seemingly good roster on top of that. 

So what the everlasting fuck happened? As of the moment I hit publish on this post, the Twins sit at 14-27. Last place. Tied with Colorado for the worst win % in all of baseball. A ghastly 9-25 since that 5-2 start. One series win since early April. Only a couple timely Sano homeruns from being on a 10 game losing streak. 

It defies all logic and reason.

All aspects of the franchise take blame.

Remember the Bomba Squad? They are a corpse. They don't hit homeruns any more. The deadened baseball, combined with a lot of players simply not being able to even approach the career years they had in 2019, have proven deadly. And the plan of adding Josh Donaldson to that record setting lineup has been a huge bust. 

Sadly there is no plan B. I don't quite understand why this franchise has made no apparent effort to gameplan to score runs through any other means than the long ball. But it is clear game after game that if balls are not flying over the fence in bunches, any hopes of scoring runs are gone. You especially have seen this in late inning and extra inning spots. The concept of manufacturing runs completely eludes them. 

This isn't new to 2021. During the 60 games of 2020 the Twins homerun pace dipped severely, and they routinely had the same issue of scoring through non-bomba means. Basically since James Rowson left this lineup has never been the same. I'm not sure exactly how you quantify what a hitting coach specifically brings to a team, but clearly Rowson meant more than we thought. And this team is lost without him.

Nelson Cruz, Luis Arraez, Josh Donaldson (when healthy), and Byron Buxton (when healthy) are the only guys who feel like they can consistently deliver good at bats. Everyone else has been either a bust or just disappointing. Okay, Miguel Sano hit a few out recently, but he spent 6 weeks as one of the worst hitters in baseball and those games counted too. Max Kepler and Mitch Garver have just imploded since 2019. Jorge Polanco has stepped it up a little but is far from an impact hitter. Willians Astudillo is the butt of a lot of jokes, but he's one of the only guys on this team that bothers to maximize his ability. 

Nobody can hit consistently. Nobody can stay on the field. Nobody can do simple things like drive a runner in from 2nd with 2 outs.

The pitching plans have imploded too. The bullpen makeover has been an unmitigated disaster. Alex Colome has rebounded with a handful of decent outings in largely meaningless spots, but his historically awful start set the tone for all our issues.

Taylor Rogers has been okay but even he blew a couple). Hansel Robles has been okay (but even HE blew a couple). That's it. Tyler Duffey looks nothing like he did the last couple years. Jorge Alcala was supposed to be a blue chip guy but looks awful. And then you have the Thielbars and Stashaks and the revolving door of AAA call ups, who have all been bad. How has this FO been unable to identify even ONE reliable arm? Every other franchise can have these bullpen beasts and here we are, stuck trying to make Brandon Waddell and Derek Law work. So a bullpen that had been somewhat a strength the last 2 years is now one of MLB's absolute worst.

If only we had starting pitchers that could carry the load. But Rocco's quick hook often doesn't give them the chance. 

Kenta Maeda was probably never going to be as good as he was in 2020, but a couple dud starts aside he's fine. Berrios is fine. Pineda (also now hurt) has been fine. But the starting staff has not been upgraded. Happ almost threw a no-hitter in one start, but has now fallen apart and got obliterated twice by Chicago. Shoemaker has been barely mediocre and probably shouldn't even remain in the rotation. But where are the other options? Dobnak again? Thorpe again? Nobody seems the least bit ready at AAA to fill any spots. This franchise has spent literally decades failing to develop impact starting pitching (since 2000 there is Santana, Berrios, arguably Scott Baker, and briefly Liriano). The plan of filling out the rotation with cheap vets has mostly bombed.

You can tell this team has no leadership. Rocco stepped in to an all time golden opportunity in 2019, with a roster that a trained monkey could have probably got to 90 wins. Sure they won the division in 2020 too, but if that was 162 and not 60, do they? Now adversity hits and Rocco is clueless about what to do to either stop the bleeding or change course.

Chicago has blown right past the Twins. They are the new kings of the division, and you just KNOW that the Sox are going to make way more out of their new contention window than we ever did. They'll probably at least win a pennant in the coming years, while these bums will sit here with their 18 game postseason losing streak, stuck going through another rebuild that will end up in the same place as this one has.

And yes, this is the beginning of another down period. The late 2010s core has failed. It's over. Their chance was 2019 and they got embarrassed in a playoff sweep. And the philosophy that built that team has failed, even as the franchise clings to hopes that they can recapture what they had. The worst thing they can do is pretend like the disaster that is the 2021 season is some flukey combo of injuries and luck. It's not. Something is very wrong when a whole roster implodes like this.

This should be a summer of departures. Do the right thing and trade Nelson Cruz somewhere he has a chance to win. Any player who is unlikely to be a piece of the team in 5 years has to go. Problem of course is that most of these guys have minimal value. But this team needs to be blown up, the sooner the better.