Article: Twins Being Overwhelmed By Underperformance

[Nick Nelson]

The quotes provided by Twins owner Jim Pohlad in a much-discussed Chip Scoggins column that appeared in the Star Tribune last week included some controversial and heavily scrutinized comments.

 

In my mind, the general sense of bewilderment and cluelessness conveyed by the team owner in his answers was utterly uninspiring, and representative of leadership that is largely ambivalent to the product on the field.

 

But to be fair, the core points Pohlad was making were not wrong.Expressing unequivocal confidence in the general manager who has already dropped four of the 25 players that were on his Opening Day roster, or the second-year manager whose team has looked remarkably unprepared to compete most nights, in the face of an 8-23 start is not a great look. However, it is understandable to an extent.

 

As Dan Wade astutely pointed out here on Friday, the Twins aren’t really well served by putting anyone on the hot seat publicly right now. And really, trying to heap mountains of blame on either Terry Ryan or Paul Molitor misses the point.

 

While there have been plenty of questionable decisions, this WAS a talent-laden roster. This WAS a team on the rise. This WAS unanimously viewed as one of the best prospect pipelines in the game.

 

If even half the players on this club were playing up to their established ability level, things would not be nearly so dire. This is especially frustrating with the veterans, who were asked to fill a leadership void that emerged with Torii Hunter’s retirement. Instead they have helped set the tone for this miserable stretch of baseball with repeated gaffes and failures.

 

Let’s take a look, position by position, at the contagious underperforming that has plagued this Twins roster.

 

Catcher: The Twins have made their own bed here by continuously miscasting Kurt Suzuki as a starting player, but he’s playing drastically below this standard. The veteran has a .679 career OPS, and a .670 OPS in two years with the Twins. His current mark is .560, and he's hitting .176 with runners in scoring position. Of course, there’s no need to even remark on the subpar production from John Ryan Murphy prior to his demotion.

 

First Base: The lone bright spot. Joe Mauer has had a sensational season and of course it’s going largely unnoticed because the team has been so crummy. The same goes for Byung Ho Park, although his novelty as a foreign star and rookie has enabled him to enjoy some nice attention.

 

Second Base: Brian Dozier has picked up where he left off, and that's not a good thing. His current .220/.309/.385 slash line bears disconcerting resemblance to his .210/.280/.359 after the break last year. Fortunately, he has been showing signs of heating up lately.

 

Shortstop: Eduardo Escobar landed on the disabled list after suffering a groin strain on Friday, and maybe that's just as well. He could use a reset after a first month that saw him fail at the key things that made him an effective player over the last two years. Specifically, I'm talking about hitting for power and playing reliable defense. His .289 slugging percentage is down 150 points from 2015 and he has already committed five errors at shortstop after totaling four last year.

 

Third Base: Although Trevor Plouffe has been hitting for decent power when he's been on the field, his plate approach has deteriorated. The 29-year-old has drawn only two walks in 65 plate appearances, resulting in a hideous .277 on-base percentage. He's hardly stepping up in the way you'd hope as one of the roster's cornerstone vets.

 

Left Field: A demotion can't be far off for Eddie Rosario, who is batting .196 with a .534 OPS. He's swinging at a whopping 40 percent of pitches outside the zone, and despite his reputation as a "bad ball hitter" he's not doing anything with the garbage he's hacking at, as illustrated by a .222 BABIP and only five extra-base hits in 98 trips.

 

Center Field: What is there to be said about Byron Buxton? It was tough to set expectations for him coming into this year given his lack of experience, but no one could have anticipated a sub-.500 OPS with strikeouts in half of his plate appearances. Even accounting for the expected sophomore slumps and rookie learning curves, what we've seen from Rosario and Buxton at the plate has been disheartening.

 

Right Field: Miguel Sano's .707 OPS is down more than 200 points from the mark he posted as a rookie. Oddly he hasn't been hitting for power even though he leads baseball in line drive percentage. I fully expect him to come around and get hot at some point soon but there's no doubt that he has let the team down thus far.

 

Rotation: You've got Ervin Santana and Phil Hughes, two veterans who signed long-term contracts to be foundations in the rotation, failing to complete even four innings in their latest starts, at a time where the team is desperately in need of a spark. Tommy Milone was about as bad as he's ever been before his demotion. Kyle Gibson, a guy who was trending up in every way, pitched horrendously before going on the shelf.

 

Bullpen: Glen Perkins has been unavailable. Kevin Jepsen has been ineffective. That 1-2 punch was the source of whatever confidence this unit could have justified. Multiple relievers (Casey Fien, Ryan O'Rourke, J.R. Graham) pitched poorly enough in one of month of the season to essentially erase themselves from the team's plans.

 

Each year, invariably, some players step it up and excel to the max of their ability while others come up short. Right now the scale is tipped so far in the wrong direction for the Twins that they barely look like a competitive team most nights.

 

While it's a cliche to point out that the manager can't go out and swing the bat or throw pitches from the mound, it's true. It might be tidier to pin these horrible results on the skipper, or the hitting/pitching coach, but the messy truth is that it's the players who are wearing this and only they can stem the tide.

 

These guys know how to play ball. It's about damn time they started.

 

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[beckmt]

True,  but you can't fire 25 players.  Not Paul's fault totally but usually the manager takes the fall for this much underperformance.  Another week of losing might be the end for Paul. 

Look up, he can't be enjoying this.

[Oxtung]

 

...

And really, trying to heap mountains of blame on either Terry Ryan or Paul Molitor misses the point.

While there have been plenty of questionable decisions, this WAS a talent-laden roster. This WAS a team on the rise. This WAS unanimously viewed as one of the best prospect pipelines in the game.

...

 

1) Players are bad

2) Ryan signed/Drafted these players

3) Ryan is responsible

 

Seems like some pretty straight forward logic to me. 

 

I do understand Pohlad not firing him at this point in the season but if we end with a terrible record there better be some serious shakeup happening within the organization at season end.

[jokin]

 

True,  but you can't fire 25 players.  Not Paul's fault totally but usually the manager takes the fall for this much underperformance.  Another week of losing might be the end for Paul. 

Look up, he can't be enjoying this.

 

Don't see Paulie getting booted out of the country club just yet, just not Terry Ryan's MO.... although Molitor was looking pretty forlorn this weekend. A lot tends to be forgiven or forgotten if you win a few series in front of your hometown fans.

[Twigg]

Thing is of course Pohlad is gonna say that and for these reasons. Ryan pretty much has a lifetime contract. He retired and Smith turned this team into a mess. Ryan cqmr back and he has drafted well despite set back after set back. Only way I see Molitor getting fired is if Pohlad tells Ryan it's either you or him. The Twins just don't fire mid season. And what's it gonna do. This season is already a lost cause. Was 9 games into the season so now just ride it out more or less.

[USAFChief]

I'm not sure it's fair to describe the Twins team that left spring training as "talent laden."

 

To be sure, there's been underperformance. Some injury issues as well. But the roster is built mostly on proven mediocrity and high hopes for what young players might become. There is no "there" there. Many predicted Rosario would struggle. Buxton the same. Suzuki had a hot first half in 2014, but he's not a .670 OPS player, nor is he someone playing for his defense. Lets be honest...Mauer is a mediocrity at first base and as a three hitter, incapable of carrying a team for a week like genuine middle order hitters are. Sano seems legit, but he's young and probably out of position. Dozier and Plouffe are nice players, but not front line talent. Would anybody describe the pitching as "talent laden?"

 

Half a decade after his return, the GM has assembled a roster that needed massive overhaul a month into the season. That's not a reason to pat him on the back, and it's not an indication this is simply a good team he's assembled that's playing bad.

 

Which isnt to say they're not playing bad. i dont expect poor or mediocre players to play great day in snd day out. But i do think its fair to ask why this team is so poor at basic execution. You can't watch this team for more than a game or two without seeing a laughably bad baserunning mistake. A missed cutoff, a mental lapse, inattention to opposing base runners...the list goes on. Why is it unfair to ask if some of that falls on the manager and/or coaches?

 

Just my opinion, but while things are probably worse than they had to be...part of the "worse" isn't simply on the players. It's on the GM and manager, too. And I'd go so far as to say that's the core issue.

[Mr. Brooks]

Sorry Nick, the odds of this many players on the same team "slumping" being unrelated are astronomical.

 

It leaves only two possibilities.

Either these guys were never actually that talented, or there is something in the water, so to speak.

 

Personally, I think it's a little of both.

 

I think the Twins vastly over estimated JR Murphy's talent level.

There were questions about babip and his Yankee Stadium numbers.

Also, and admittedly it's a SSS, but I hope he had some nerves on defense, caused by his hitting slump, because his defense was awful.

 

Eddie Rosario is not a major league hitter, and likely never will be. You can't swing at everything and succeed long term in mlb. Fangraphs projections knew this, many of us knew it, somehow the Twins did not.

By the way, Fangraphs also predicted a severe defensive decline, which was criticized here but has been spot on.

 

Eduardo Escobar is another guy Fangraphs also correctly pegged for serious regression.

I'll admit, I was skeptical of Fangraphs on this one, but I will say that he's such a butcher in the field that any offensive slump at all is going to cause him to be a severe detriment.

 

I also think the Twins underestimated how uncomfortable Sano would be in RF.

It's clearly affecting his hitting, IMO.

 

On the pitching side, it amazes me that such supposedly smart baseball people could look at Phil Hughes' 2014 season, and not see it as clearly an outlier compared to his career.

 

Kyle Gibson should have been considered an obvious regression candidate with that awful k rate.

It's extremely rare that anyone can succeed long term without missing any bats.

 

This club decided to roll into the season with arguably their three best starting pitchers either in AAA or the bullpen (May, Berrios, and Duffey).

Duffey earned a spot last year, in actual games. For him to lose that spot for what he did in pretend games was a joke.

 

When will this team realize spring training numbers mean absolutely nothing? I suppose if they don't after this year, they never will.

 

Then you have the bullpen.

They admit it's the top priority, then do nothing.

They say because they are counting on young prospects to step up.

Ok, I'm fine with that, but only because I'm in favor of a complete rebuild. To pretend they could compete with "hope" as their bullpen plan is laughable.

 

And while yes, Dozier and Plouffe are slumping, that's evened out by Mauer and Park far exceeding expectations.

 

All of this is also not helped by bizarre on the field decisions like constantly having guys who can't get on base in the leadoff spot. Or bunting early in games. Or wasting May in blowouts. Or refusing to pinch hit for your sub .100 catcher.

 

I'd say there has been some bad luck. They won't lose at this clip all year.

But mostly they are reaping what they've sewn with decisions that were completely predicted to be mistakes.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

In my opinion it is the veterans who are underperforming. I don't know what makes Molitor tick. A couple times last week he batted Murphy 8th, and Eduardo Nunez 9th. Nunez has been our best, most consistent hitter. He was hitting last. Nunez's batting average was literally .300 points higher than Murphy's average yet Murphy was hitting above him.

 

I am perfectly willing to watch the prospects make a few mistakes and learn the game. These guys are in their early 20s. Dumb base running mistakes is part of the process, as long as the coaching is sound and the players learn from it. The game is faster in MLB. Sano is not letting me down. He hit a pop up almost to the center field warning track in the 8th today. A couple millimeters down the bat barrel and it's a long home run and tie game. As you said, he is making good contact, and those will even out. 

[beckmt]

 

In my opinion it is the veterans who are underperforming. I don't know what makes Molitor tick. A couple times last week he batted Murphy 8th, and Eduardo Nunez 9th. Nunez has been our best, most consistent hitter. He was hitting last. Nunez's batting average was literally .300 points higher than Murphy's average yet Murphy was hitting above him.

 

I am perfectly willing to watch the prospects make a few mistakes and learn the game. These guys are in their early 20s. Dumb base running mistakes is part of the process, as long as the coaching is sound and the players learn from it. The game is faster in MLB. Sano is not letting me down. He hit a pop up almost to the center field warning track in the 8th today. A couple millimeters down the bat barrel and it's a long home run and tie game. As you said, he is making good contact, and those will even out. 

The last couple of weeks, Molitor looked like he was over his head.  Some of it is a bad bullpen, some of it is not removing pitchers early enough. 

It is time to bring up the kids and let them struggle.  For sure Buxton and Kepler need some more time in AAA, but using about 5 AAA types will not work, unless you feel the talent is just not ready.

If Twins have another bad week at home, you have to change the manager, maybe Dougie style will work for a while.  At least players will be benched for bonehead plays.

[Shane Wahl]

The days of continued defense of Terry Ryan surely have to be over around here, eventually, right?

[Shane Wahl]

Or maybe never . . .

[Purple Reign CKJAX]

Kudos on the clever headline.

[Kwak]

The Twins believed their own smoke and sunshine--and when the results were undeniably bad--they were forced to publicly acknowledge the fact.  Then, they deflected the blame "downhill" (you know ...).  This time no timetable was even mentioned or even suggested.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Kwak

[Tommygun921]

ABW with FOUR walks!? Good to see his added patience. I also agree on Polanco. Guy deserves an actual shot. Dozier hasn't done much, Escobar to DL, and Plouffe is 1-12 so far in his return. Should be more than enough chances to get him a few starts a week.

[Tommygun921]

Oops...there's my comment from the other day that I copied before adding as it tends to fail all the time when sending from my phone. Guess I pasted that one over my new vs copying. Oh well...

[Geneb]

Why do you let a guy like Chris Herrmann go. He hit two home runs yesterday and has 4 in 42 at bats. He can also play the outfield. And yes I know Palko is tearing up AAA. We have a bottomless hole at catcher. No one have ever said Stuart a Turner will eventually hit major league pitching but the guys we have now can't either.

[Platoon]

If your philosophy revolves around everyone having to have a good year to succeed, you will fail. To me there are only two surprises on the team that went north. Park who is a pleasant surprise. And Sano who is not. I will give Sano a partial pass for the RF fiasco, but he loses some of his points for his winter prep. I might also add Arcia, who seems to have worked his ass off since last summer. I am not surprised by Mauer, the third year after a concussion seems the charm. But while I love Mauers overall play, he is not and never has been a "carry the team" 3 stick, as Chief has alluded to. Molitor looks wiped out. I know losing will do that, but he looks completely lost. His pitching changes seem out of a hat, and for whatever reason the players don't make an effort to clean up their act. The mental mistakes have gotten to Bad New Bears level. A good manager cannot make bad players win, but a bad manager can make good players lose. The Twins are loaded with average players. They do not have an elite player at any one position. But the players are ML caliber and should be functional. As should their record. 14-17? That's only six games, but a world away.

[clutterheart]

 

While it's a cliche to point out that the manager can't go out and swing the bat or throw pitches from the mound, it's true.

 

Unless of course the GM has built a team that forces the manger to play a lot of guys out of position making this team one of the worst Defensive teams I have ever seen and built a horrible bullpen While the manager puts a guy with a .267 OBP at leadoff and has a team that is making multiple baserunning mistakes and hasn't proven able to right this ship.  

 

But yeah...its the players fault.  Lets give Molly and Ryan a pass.

[TheLeviathan]

Give the Twins of the 2000s credit for this - defense doesn't slump.  

 

The fundamental problem with this team has been a rejection of defense in lieu of offense.  If you field a competent defense you can generally avoid being god awful but this team has insisted on the notion that you can just move guys around any which way you want and still field a fly ball pitching staff and things will be fine.

 

The "Twins Way" has lots of problems, but an emphasis on good defense was not among them.

[MPBoisvert]

 

Sorry Nick, the odds of this many players on the same team "slumping" being unrelated are astronomical.

It leaves only two possibilities.
Either these guys were never actually that talented, or there is something in the water, so to speak.

Personally, I think it's a little of both.

I think the Twins vastly over estimated JR Murphy's talent level.
There were questions about babip and his Yankee Stadium numbers.
Also, and admittedly it's a SSS, but I hope he had some nerves on defense, caused by his hitting slump, because his defense was awful.

Eddie Rosario is not a major league hitter, and likely never will be. You can't swing at everything and succeed long term in mlb. Fangraphs projections knew this, many of us knew it, somehow the Twins did not.
By the way, Fangraphs also predicted a severe defensive decline, which was criticized here but has been spot on.

Eduardo Escobar is another guy Fangraphs also correctly pegged for serious regression.
I'll admit, I was skeptical of Fangraphs on this one, but I will say that he's such a butcher in the field that any offensive slump at all is going to cause him to be a severe detriment.

I also think the Twins underestimated how uncomfortable Sano would be in RF.
It's clearly affecting his hitting, IMO.

On the pitching side, it amazes me that such supposedly smart baseball people could look at Phil Hughes' 2014 season, and not see it as clearly an outlier compared to his career.

Kyle Gibson should have been considered an obvious regression candidate with that awful k rate.
It's extremely rare that anyone can succeed long term without missing any bats.

This club decided to roll into the season with arguably their three best starting pitchers either in AAA or the bullpen (May, Berrios, and Duffey).
Duffey earned a spot last year, in actual games. For him to lose that spot for what he did in pretend games was a joke.

When will this team realize spring training numbers mean absolutely nothing? I suppose if they don't after this year, they never will.

Then you have the bullpen.
They admit it's the top priority, then do nothing.
They say because they are counting on young prospects to step up.
Ok, I'm fine with that, but only because I'm in favor of a complete rebuild. To pretend they could compete with "hope" as their bullpen plan is laughable.

And while yes, Dozier and Plouffe are slumping, that's evened out by Mauer and Park far exceeding expectations.

All of this is also not helped by bizarre on the field decisions like constantly having guys who can't get on base in the leadoff spot. Or bunting early in games. Or wasting May in blowouts. Or refusing to pinch hit for your sub .100 catcher.

I'd say there has been some bad luck. They won't lose at this clip all year.
But mostly they are reaping what they've sewn with decisions that were completely predicted to be mistakes.

I mean, most pre-season predictions put the Twins in last place the AL Central, because so many of these results (presented here by Brooks) were very predictable (e.g. no help for a bullpen anchored by a closer with questionable health).

 

Those that did put the Twins finishing elsewhere by years end, did so with the caveat that *if everything clicks* this team could be good. It kinda seems like the front office crossed their fingers in hopes that everything would click. If it doesn't? "Gee it just didnt work out for our guys." 

[TheLeviathan]

Perhaps all these "slumps" and "under performances" only look that way to an inflated set of hope-fueled expectations rather than reality?

[alarp33]

Would anyone be surprised if Brunansky lost his job in the next week or two?  I don't have a strong feeling on him one way or the other, but that seems like the easiest scapegoat for a team unwilling to change management.  

[70charger]

 

Why do you let a guy like Chris Herrmann go. He hit two home runs yesterday and has 4 in 42 at bats. He can also play the outfield. And yes I know Palko is tearing up AAA. We have a bottomless hole at catcher. No one have ever said Stuart a Turner will eventually hit major league pitching but the guys we have now can't either.

 

Literally the first time I've heard anyone lament the loss of Herrmann. Just goes to show you, we will never agree on anything when it comes to our baseball team.

[70charger]

 

While it's a cliche to point out that the manager can't go out and swing the bat or throw pitches from the mound, it's true.

Unless of course the GM has built a team that forces the manger to play a lot of guys out of position making this team one of the worst Defensive teams I have ever seen and built a horrible bullpen 

 

Nope. Still not even then.

 

[70charger]

But yeah...its the players fault.  Lets give Molly and Ryan a pass.

 

So not the point of the article.

Edited May 9, 2016 by 70charger

[alarp33]

 

Perhaps all these "slumps" and "under performances" only look that way to an inflated set of hope-fueled expectations rather than reality?

 

Ding ding ding

 

C- Hitting like a back-up catcher that he should be, only slightly off from 2015 numbers. 32 years old with a lot of games caught likely catching up to someone who wasn't all that good in the 1st place

 

2B - Dozier struggled for 3 solid months to end last season, I for one am not surprised at all with his numbers thus far.  I think they will improve, but I don't think this can be counted as a shock

 

SS - Escobar has never been a full time starter, the lack of extra base hits is hurting... but maybe there was a reason he had never been a starter?

 

3B - I said multiple times they should trade Plouffe not just to fit Sano in at 3B, but because it could be a better lineup w/o Plouffe. Get whatever you can.  Low obp, ok power

 

LF - Rosario is a 4th OFer, why are people surprised that someone with his lack of plate discipline, who had a .290obp last season is worse this year?  

 

CF - Buxton is going to be fine, but who's really surprised he couldn't hit the 1st 3 weeks of April? Was given ~15 games to prove himself.  

 

 

[Thrylos]

 

 the Twins aren’t really well served by putting anyone on the hot seat publicly right now. And really, trying to heap mountains of blame on either Terry Ryan or Paul Molitor misses the point.

These guys know how to play ball. It's about damn time they started.
 

 

Actually, the point might be that if the Twins are not starting blaming their GM and manager for the debacle this season has been, would looks as bad as rehiring the manager they fired after 99+96+96+92 losses...   (Oh wait...)

 

No accountability shows no credibility.  For both the front office and the owners.  I am not saying fire them all right now, but Pohlad could do one single thing without firing anyone right now:

 

He can actually hire a baseball person who has never been associated with a Terry Ryan Front Office and has a record of building wining teams, give him the title of President of Baseball Operations and have Ryan report to him.  This person, with the help of any outside the organization advisers he needs, can assess the situation and the staff in the front office, on the field and in the minors for the next 4 months and come the off-season he would have a carte blanche to build the Twins baseball operations including the front office the way he wants to.   Also, he would have enough time to assess the personnel to lead the work on deadline trades and the draft.

 

There you have it.  For the first time for me for a while:  The Twins should not fire Ryan and Molitor. Yet.  They should just hire someone else above them.

 

As for the last point, I am not sure that all those guys can play at this level; matter of fact pretty sure that some (Mastro, Suzuki, Tonkin et al) cannot. 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2016 by Thrylos

[Mike Sixel]

Ya, I'm not buying anything other than:

 

1. They refused to commit to a plan, win, or rebuild, and this is the result of 4 years of denial. The short start by May last year was so bad, it is unreal. They don't have a clear plan, nor do they seem to have a plan for how to deal with adversity.

 

2. Ryan isn't good at figuring out what to do with FAs, maybe him not buying them in the past was a good idea, because he's bad at it (according to the people on various sports sits, that uses to work in FOs, FAs signing is one of the things the GM actually owns). The Suzuki signing is one of the worst cheap signings in MLB history.

 

3. Molitor is in way over his head. The early sacrifices, batting Mastro lead off, the "use" of his bench, not PHing for Suzuki late in games.....the list is too  long to type. I won't even go into how he handled Meyer.

 

4. They refuse to promote the young RPs, yet are perfectly williing to promote the young hitters (see above, where the plan is unknown).

 

5. I'm not sure, but the Twins' minor league system might need an over haual again. The team is lacking in fundamentals, they haven't (despite the awesome farm system) developed 1 hitter other than Sano since Dozier/Plouffe. Not. One.

 

6. They aim low. The Hicks for Murphy trade was an aim low fix to catcher. Since Suzuki signed, something like half the starting catchers have switched teams, and nearly all are better than Suzuki......aim low, score low.

 

I have zero confidence in this leadership team at all.

[Thrylos]

 

 

5. I'm not sure, but the Twins' minor league system might need an over haual again. The team is lacking in fundamentals, they haven't (despite the awesome farm system) developed 1 hitter other than Sano since Dozier/Plouffe. Not. One.

 

 

I'd add Polanco to the list, but totally agree with this.   Funny enough, their best MiLB hitter is a guy they just got from Arizona (Daniel Palka.)

 

The problem with the Twins' MiLB operations, is the same with the FO operations, is the same with the Field Management Operations:   They hire from within. This is an inbred organization with no new fresh outside voices.  Case in point the Twins' latest hire.   Seems that all but Pohlad know that inbreeding leeds to extinction, at that might be just around the corner.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Thrylos

[Pardon My Dinger]

 

Why do you let a guy like Chris Herrmann go. He hit two home runs yesterday and has 4 in 42 at bats. He can also play the outfield. And yes I know Palko is tearing up AAA. We have a bottomless hole at catcher. No one have ever said Stuart a Turner will eventually hit major league pitching but the guys we have now can't either.

Are you trying to get yourself killed?