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Finding Hope At 0-8


Tom Froemming

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There isn't a whole lot you can look back at and be positive about from the Twins 0-8 start this season, but here comes the sun (do do do do). There's a string of 70-degree temperatures coming up, and things can only go up from here for the Twins.

 

Yes, it's lame to write about the weather, but you can't be a Minnesotan and not talk about the weather, especially when it's good. Just like you can't say here comes the sun and not add in the do do do do part.

 

Anyway, the biggest bright spot for the Twins is there are 154 games left. Let that really sink in. I don't think even lifelong, hardcore baseball fans are good at truly wrapping their minds around how ridiculously long the season is. You wouldn't make a conclusion about a football team after the first 3 quarters of their opening game, right? That's roughly the equivalent of where the Twins are in their season.

 

Things look bad, but I promise it's not time to hit the panic button yet. You'll surely hear all sorts of depressing stats about the history of teams who started 0-8. But you know what? The history of those teams has absolutely nothing to do with how the 2016 Minnesota Twins are going to play over their next 154 games.

 

An 0-8 team has never done this, an 0-8 team has never done that ... who cares? While they didn't start 0-8, there are examples of teams that ended up with good seasons after getting off on the wrong foot. The 2011 Tampa Bay Rays started the year 1-8 and ended up making the playoffs with 91 wins. Last season, the Texas Rangers got off to a 7-15 start and were eventually the AL West champions.

 

If you want to stick with Twins history, the 1991 team got off to a 2-9 start. Anybody remember how that team ended up? Of course you do, but I'm going to remind you anyway because in times like these we need to remember baseball can be fun.

 

That team got things straightened out, but it took time. Even at the end of May their record was only 23-25. From there on, they went 72-42, taking the AL West and eventually becoming World Series Champions. It's true. The Twins were really good once upon a time. Like, the best in the World. Seems hard to believe right now, I know, but you can Google it if you don't want to take my word for it.

 

Looking for something more recent? Well, I would argue that the 2015 Twins actually had a worse first eight games than this season's team. Sure, they at least won two games over that span, but the 2015 Twins were outscored 46-19. This year's club has a slightly more palatable 33-13 deficit in the runs scored column.

 

And I know you remember what happened to that team. Those guys, who look a heck of a lot like this year's guys, won 83 games. No, there is no ring ceremony for finishing over .500, but it was a really fun season.

 

Time is still on the Twins' side. I, like I'm sure many of you, was expecting to see the Twins win a Wild Card this season. After the slow start, what do they have to do to get there?

 

Well, it took 86 wins to get into the postseason last year. So if you were expecting the Twins to hit that mark, through eight games you would have projected them to have, what, four maybe five wins. So basically all they have to do is win one extra game each month than you would have originally expected.

 

Doesn't seem crazy when you break it down like that right?

 

Of course all this is ignoring the myriad problems from the first eight games and assuming this has just been a series of games played by the bizarro Twins, and the real team we expected for 2016 will show up at any moment. But, when you're sitting at 0-8 it's a heck of a lot more fun to look forward in hope than it is to look back in disgust.

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The 1991 Twins did indeed start 2-9. The problem with that comparison is that at 0-8, the current Twins would have to go 2-1 over their next three games, which seems unlikely :)

 

The problem with the football analogy is that the logic is starting to break down more with every loss. If the Twins lost their first 20 games or started something like 3-18, we wouldn't say that it's like a football team starting 0-2. What ashburyjohn said on another thread seemed pretty insightful. Another TD poster suggested that last years blowout games at the start were more of a wake up call than the close games we are playing this year, where we are in every game but just missing. Whatever the case. Starting a season so poorly is a bad sign.

 

Perhaps in years to come we will look back on this and laugh, but at the moment it hardly seems possible.

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It's been kind of fun watching the poor staff at the Twin's official site try to put a positive spin on the news when so much is so sour.

 

That said, I'm confident that we're viewing an unrealistic picture of this offense in particular. No one will reasonably expect that Mauer and Escobar will maintain .393 and .367 batting averages respectively, and no one should reasonably expect the rest of the regulars to maintain their current averages which range from Suzuki's .105 on the low end, all the way up to Plouffe's .185 which is literally 3rd highest among regulars.

 

This will "regress" in a positive direction without any personnel adjustments.

 

On the bright side, the pitching staff has been about as "okay" as we should have expected. If they continue as they are, the team as a whole should function well.

 

It has been funny to me that there has been such a "sky is falling" response to the bullpen's failings, when the offense has so clearly been the actual problem. I think the pitching has been performing at about B- level (3.69 team ERA which is exactly middle of AL rankings) but the offense has been a resounding F. 

 

The extreme failure of the offense shouldn't make the bullpen any more or less of a problem in my opinion.

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On the bright side, the Twins starting pitching looks really good, so when other teams' starting pitching starts to break down, the Twins should be able to take advantage. 

 

The 2010-2014 Twins teams would have killed for this rotation. They're not a top 10 rotation or anything that special, but they're going to give the Twins chances to catch up.

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