In a miserable season destined for 100 losses, Twins fans can be sure that their team is a mess. But as the Sept. 18 episode of Gleeman and the Geek points out, most of that mess is as a result of just one side of the ball: pitching and defense. Aaron and John noted that the Twins are actually fairly decent when it comes to hitting, and raised an interesting question. How does the Twins run production stack up against the American League, if we ignore the games the league has played against the Twins?

The Twins, despite their dreadful record, are almost exactly league average when it comes to offensive production. Collectively, Minnesota owns an OPS+ of 101, meaning they sport an OPS that is 1% better than average. They rank eighth in OPS (.745), ninth in home runs (186), third in doubles (272), and lead the league in triples (33). Perhaps most importantly, the Twins are tied for seventh in the American League in runs scored.

Runs per game of AL teams through 9/19/16

So the Twins offense is decidedly middle-of-the-road. In fact, if their pitching and defense were simply bad, and not horrendous, the Twins would likely be hovering near .500. Instead, the Twins have allowed 827 runs this season, a full 114 more than the next worst team (Oakland). To put that into perspective, the gap between all other AL teams is 113 runs.

If run prevention were a marathon, the other 14 teams would be bunched near the finish line, and the Twins would be at mile 15.

The Twins pitching and defense is so bad, that it puts into question the team’s offensive rankings. Every other team on that list has had the opportunity to play against the Twins. They’ve all gotten fat by racking up runs against an outlier of a team. It's time to correct for that outlier.

Using Baseball Reference’s Head-to-Head feature, it was fairly easy to look up runs scored and games played, then to subtract the totals from games played against the Twins. To further balance the playing field, I decided to also remove interleague games (which I also did for the Twins).

Runs per game for AL teams and R/G adjusted to remove Twins games and interleague play. Good through 9/19/16.

The Twins move up a slot, and claim sixth place, narrowly edging out the Blue Jays. While the Twins’ score went down slightly (the Twins scored slightly more often against National League teams), most teams saw their score drop by more. Only three teams actually improved their scores, most notably the Rangers, who never got going against the Twins, and who jump into second place offensively. The Red Sox are still in their own realm, but the gap has narrowed.

Interesting to note that the three division leaders still retain the top three spots, and the last five teams are still the bottom five, just in a different order. The biggest loser was Toronto, which fell from fourth to seventh, due to a gaudy 50 runs scored against the Twins in just seven games. All-in-all, Twins fans can take solace in the fact that, by this crude measure, the Twins offense is solidly above average.

But we can dig deeper.

This approach still doesn’t take into account the wildly unbalanced schedule even within the same league. Some teams play each other just six times, while others play 19 times. And the Twins aren’t the only ones with particularly bad (or particularly good) pitching staffs.

I decided to do the same exercise, only to average the R/G in each individual match-up to simulate a league in which every team played every other team the same number of games. Because the point of reference was the Twins, and the Twins can’t play themselves, I still decided to exclude the games against the Twins for all other teams. By also ignoring interleague games, the result was a league in which the other 14 teams each had 13 opponents, with their R/G of each match-up worth 1/13th of their over all score. The Twins had 14 opponents, so each match-up counts for 1/14th of their overall score.

Remember, the goal here is to compare the Twins’ run production against the rest of the league, both by eliminating games played against the Twins, and by averaging out the the scores from all the teams to reflect their schedules. Let’s see how the Twins stack up:

Runs per game, adjusted to remove Twins and inter-league games, and weighted for a balanced schedule. Good through 9/19/16.

Top five! The Twins’ score stays the same (just a coincidence), but Seattle drops from fifth to seventh, making room for the Twins in the top five. Also note that the Indians fall down to fourth, with their lowest score yet. I’d be interested to see this same exercise done excluding games against Cleveland. After all, the Indians are the only team in the league that doesn’t have to face the stellar Cleveland pitching staff.

Now I know this was a silly exercise, but it underscores three things:

1. The Twins have been reasonably proficient at scoring runs. If offense was all that mattered, it’s conceivable that the Twins are a wildcard team.
   
2. The Twins are really bad at preventing runs, and most teams have taken advantage of that.
   
3. Scoring lots of runs isn’t enough, unless you can also find a way to prevent your opponent from doing the same. Because while the Twins are sitting in fifth place in these standings, they’re dead last in the ones that count.