My Uncle Don always told us he would never feed those round bales to his cattle.   He preferred that his livestock have a square meal.  That being said, it's exciting to have the boys back, and hard not to be optomistic.

Berrios: 14-8 with a 3.60 ERA and 200 strikeouts. All-Star.

Odorizzi: 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA and 180 strikeouts. All-Star.

Both of those lines would be clear frontline ace numbers for at least 70% of the teams in the league.

Remember Zack Wheeler, that pitcher we talked about all winter? The "ace" we needed to add? His stats: 11-8, 3.96 ERA, 200 strikeouts. Berrios won more games, pitched more innings, and had a better ERA than him.

Remember when the Twins used to go into the year with guys like Kevin Correia as their #1 starter? Gee whiz. I know it doesn't hurt to hope for improvement, but let's give Berrios and Odo a little credit here.

I'll counter point these:

1) we added Josh Donaldson to this infield defense and that should trickle down meaning that Polonco should be better with a better 3B next to him and Sano's metrics should improve at 1B.

2) this narrative is simply wrong. Both players placed in the top 30 MLB pitchers in bWAR and fWAR. Both also placed among the top 10 AL starting pitchers in both metrics. Sure neither are Cole or Verlander but they are hardly "#3s"

3) Nothing in that article you posted states that he's hurt or delayed, it's mostly positive on his recovery

4) as for Garver he may come back to earth a bit however he was very good in the minors and he credited his 2019 break out to a change in swing. This kind of thing can happen to players and there's plenty of evidence for sustainability with changes in swing or approach. As for the rest of the offense it's not like anyone other than Garver were experiencing way above their average output. Cruz was a bit higher but he's always been a great player. Adding someone like Donaldson and having Sano healthy for a whole year could do a whole lot. Honestly even if there's some regression we will still have a top 5-10 offense, that's just how good this group is.

5) Injuries happen, literally every player outside of Cal Ripken Jr has experienced injuries and every team in history has had to deal with them, this is nothing new. This is also the first year in a long time that I feel like we have the depth practically across the board to deal with injuries anywhere. This part doesn't concern me outside of a freak string of injuries at every position. We'll be good

Berrios: 14-8 with a 3.60 ERA and 200 strikeouts. All-Star.

 

Odorizzi: 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA and 180 strikeouts. All-Star.

 

Both of those lines would be clear frontline ace numbers for at least 70% of the teams in the league.

 

Remember Zack Wheeler, that pitcher we talked about all winter? The "ace" we needed to add? His stats: 11-8, 3.96 ERA, 200 strikeouts. Berrios won more games, pitched more innings, and had a better ERA than him.

 

Remember when the Twins used to go into the year with guys like Kevin Correia as their #1 starter? Gee whiz. I know it doesn't hurt to hope for improvement, but let's give Berrios and Odo a little credit here.

Yeah, Berrios and Odorizzi also have a very similar WAR to Wheeler as well and they both had better WARs than Syndergaard no matter how you calculate the metric

I'll put it this way--how many players had their best season last year? For sure, Garver, Kepler, Berríos, Odorizzi, Polanco, May, Duffey and Rogers. Can we expect a number of these mostly young veterans to continue to get better? I don't think so, as a matter of fact, it might be a career year for a number of those guys. Among the players who were here last year,there aren't many who we can expect to be measurably better and there are a number of regression candidates.

I think the Twins will continue to be good because they brought in more talent. They have a deep starting rotation, deep bullpen and a very good starting lineup. I doubt they'll win 100 again, but I think they should be favorites to win the division and perhaps get deeper into October. Nothing is guaranteed. They need to play with a chip on their shoulders.

Berrios & Odorizzi are the bright spots of our rotation! We expect a very good year from both of them

6) The ball. We saw in the playoffs what the Twins offense did with a different ball than what was used in the 2019 regular season. A lot of hits that would have been homeruns in the regular season were caught on the track by the Yankees (and two I can remember specifically in Game 3 by Judge in right.) Yes, every team hit the same ball last season, and the Twins hit it amongst the best. Twins hitters will have to contend with not just hitting "bombas" in 2020 to score their runs if the ball goes back to the less-aerodynamic version pre-2019.

I'll counter point these:

1) we added Josh Donaldson to this infield defense and that should trickle down meaning that Polonco should be better with a better 3B next to him and Sano's metrics should improve at 1B.

 

2) this narrative is simply wrong. Both players placed in the top 30 MLB pitchers in bWAR and fWAR. Both also placed among the top 10 AL starting pitchers in both metrics. Sure neither are Cole or Verlander but they are hardly "#3s"

 

3) Nothing in that article you posted states that he's hurt or delayed, it's mostly positive on his recovery

 

4) as for Garver he may come back to earth a bit however he was very good in the minors and he credited his 2019 break out to a change in swing. This kind of thing can happen to players and there's plenty of evidence for sustainability with changes in swing or approach. As for the rest of the offense it's not like anyone other than Garver were experiencing way above their average output. Cruz was a bit higher but he's always been a great player. Adding someone like Donaldson and having Sano healthy for a whole year could do a whole lot. Honestly even if there's some regression we will still have a top 5-10 offense, that's just how good this group is.

 

5) Injuries happen, literally every player outside of Cal Ripken Jr has experienced injuries and every team in history has had to deal with them, this is nothing new. This is also the first year in a long time that I feel like we have the depth practically across the board to deal with injuries anywhere. This part doesn't concern me outside of a freak string of injuries at every position. We'll be good

I like your optimism, let's see how all this plays out. If everyone plays true to past numbers than yes, "put the hay in the barn".

However the article is titled reasons for caution, not doomed for failure. I hope I'm wrong on all of these

On Gleeman and the Geek's Sunday podcast, they talked about who was the hardest to replace if injured of position  players. I would agree with them that Buxton, Garver, and Polanco are the hardest to replace. CF has big dropoff when Buxton not playing, Kepler serviceable but then weaker in CF and RF. Who is the next true CF in system, Lewis, Celestino? We have C prospects, but rely on Astudillo until they are ready? Who is next SS, Lewis, Gordon? Who is next after Lewis? I like Adrianza but maybe not everyday player. There are some negative injury scenarios, hopefully they don't happen

This reminds me of a story in my picture book when I was a little boy. It was about a lady who was afraid to walk down the basement stairs because an axe was hanging beside the stairs on the wall. She was worried "What if the axe falls." Injuries happen. For the most part they are unpredictable. One of the many things I like about this Twins organization is that there are capable replacements at every position.

5 reasons will be the following

1. starting pitching

2. starting pitching

3. starting pitching

4. starting pitching

5. defense