It has been up to Sano and Buxton for four years.  What is the next plan.  The WAR and projections are in my blogs.  I am looking for neutral observers and what I see is not good enough.  I am excited by Graterol, Kiriloff, and Lewis, but do we want to just wait?  The players we have are on one year contracts and we will be clearing a lot of roster for 2020, but it means another year of mediocre play.  I can buy that one of the players has a big year, but Sano, Buxton, Schoop, Cron is asking for a lot. 

This kind of analysis really helps illuminate my thoughts about this current team. They are in a position that they will likely miss the playoffs EVEN IF Buxton and Sano both break out next year. The top playoff teams in the AL in 2018 all had 50+ WAR. Even if Buxton and Sano combine for 10+ WAR next season, they are still going to be 7-10 WAR short of the competition.

I actually find this post and those numbers encouraging. And not because simple math puts them close to the stated magic number of 40. It's because I could see some of the listed numbers easily climb from projections.

Are there questions? You bet. And there is always injury and the such. And maybe it's just the little boy baseball optimist in me, but I just have this "feel good gut instinct" about Sano and Buxton, Kepler and Polanco, and a few of the pitchers taking a step forward.

Every time I reflect on how frustrating, disappointing, completely weird last season was, I remember something like 26 1 run losses. Just a few key hits, a couple less bad plays, a better bullpen, could we have split that number in half?

 

It has been up to Sano and Buxton for four years.  What is the next plan.  The WAR and projections are in my blogs.  I am looking for neutral observers and what I see is not good enough.  I am excited by Graterol, Kiriloff, and Lewis, but do we want to just wait?  The players we have are on one year contracts and we will be clearing a lot of roster for 2020, but it means another year of mediocre play.  I can buy that one of the players has a big year, but Sano, Buxton, Schoop, Cron is asking for a lot. 

https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11299-%7B%3F%7D/

https://twinsdaily.com/blogs/entry/11300-%7B%3F%7D/

 

Why has it been up to Sano and Buxton for four years?  Four years ago at this time they hadn't even debuted in the major leagues. 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by neutral observers. I used Fangraphs projected WAR for 2019 (with some minor adjustments on my part). The four players you mention are projected at 8.3 WAR on Fangraphs, I estimated a little higher at 8.9. I don't have any of them having "big" years. Most of my estimates are within a decimal point or two of Fangraphs, usually I am higher if they have a track record of better or are still young enough to expect improvement. I read your post and using last year's numbers aren't realistic in my opinion. For example, it's easy to project Polanco at 2.5 when he earned 1.3 last year in half a season. 

I guess the purpose of my original post was to bring some positivity to what the Twins have done, even if it isn't what I had hoped they would. If you chose not to see it that way, that is your choice. I think there are reasons to think with a little bit of positive luck this year, as opposed to what happened last year, the Twins could be in the hunt for the playoffs. If that is the case, then I would hope next year's offseason could look significantly different. I would even argue that it might lead to a deadline deal for a Verlander type deal that the Astros pulled off two seasons ago. I don't blame the FO for not "going for it" when they have significant questions that need to be answered.