Article: DOA At The Deadline

[Nick Nelson]

They were never supposed to be here to begin with.

 

I find it important to remind myself of this as I absorb the massive gut punch delivered by Minnesota's rapid fall from contention in the American League Central. This team, fresh off a 103-loss season, gave us all a hell of a ride by hanging around the top of the division for the better part of four months, and even spending six weeks in first place.

 

This summer has been infinitely more fun than the last for baseball fans. I appreciate that. Still, watching it all come crashing down in spectacular fashion, it's hard not to feel a sense of familiar dread.To go from a half-game out of first place to six games out within the span of eight days is actually quite astounding, made possible by a couple of lousy series against Detroit and Los Angeles while the Indians and Royals have both taken off. At crunch time, these teams are all showing their mettle.

 

I'm not going to take the hack columnist route and call the Twins gutless, or frauds. They've battled in these games, and overperformed like hell to get to this point. But if the front office decides to start flipping core players like Brandon Kintzler, Ervin Santana or even Brian Dozier within the next few days, the players will have no one to blame but themselves.

 

They got a vote of confidence from GM Thad Levine, who went out and acquired one of the best rental starters available, and they immediately flatlined. In three straight games against the (admittedly phenomenal) Dodgers, the Twins took leads and let them slip away. Two of the losses came with their best relievers (Kintzler and Taylor Rogers) on the mound. Repeatedly the offense failed to capitalize on big scoring chances. (The bases-loaded ineptitude has been particularly agonizing.)

 

And, well, that kind of failure is all too recognizable. The Twins have developed a reputation for coming up short in recent years, and after a solid start this season they've fallen right back into that pit. Since moving seven games above .500 by completing a sweep of the Orioles on May 24th, they are 24-33, good for a .421 winning percentage that matches their overall mark from the past six years exactly.

 

Sure, the Twins are now steering for clearer waters after running through a post-break gauntlet, with series against the Athletics, Padres, Rangers and slumping Brewers ahead, but there's not really anything to suggest they'll take advantage in a significant way. The breakout players that powered their early ascent have dropped off almost without exception.

 

Ervin Santana has a 5.46 ERA and and .908 OPS allowed since the beginning of June. Jose Berrios has a 5.79 ERA and (incidentally identical) .908 OPS allowed in July. Miguel Sano is hitting .238/.319/.397 with a 26-to-5 K/BB ratio since the Fourth of July. Max Kepler is at .222/.286/.302 over the same span. Joe Mauer hasn't hit the ball with any kind of authority since returning from a back strain earlier this month; he's managed one extra-base hit (a double) in 38 plate appearances.

 

The blueprint for this team to stay in the postseason mix involved all of these players turning it on in the second half, not turning into pumpkins. Alas, here we are.

 

The Twins have stunned us time and time again with their resilience this summer, and perhaps their biggest surprise is yet to come, but watching them over the course of the past week, it sure feels like they've run out of whatever juice propelled them through the first half.

 

So now Levine and Derek Falvey, taking a big picture view, must concentrate on squeezing whatever juice they can from this roster. It might mean making some hard decisions this weekend, though the team's play over the past week has made them a little easier.

 

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[Rosterman]

And soon we will be harping about the manager and the coaching as the Twins fade into oblivion as the summer wanes.

[frightwig]

The Twins have surprised us, certainly, but as in 2015 we should acknowledge that it's just because of cluster luck. Today the team is 49-51, but their BaseRuns & Pythag is 43-57, just under the .430 mark. Surprise, surprise. The club that made few changes in the offseason is running out the same quality of team that we've been watching for several years, now.

 

It's a blessing that they've fallen flat as the trade deadline approaches, really, as long as Falvine take it as cover to sell off some assets. Hopefully they get some quality young talent back this week, and then get to work on reshaping the team & organization next winter.

[mikelink45]

It has been a really fun year and I hate to throw in the towel on the year at this point.  They have given us quite a story line and maybe they will find some more magic to keep the second half worth following, but they never had a chance to be elite, just fun.  

 

Flipping players has worked for the White Sox because they had Sale and Quintana, if we had had them we would not have been in a position where we needed to trade them.

 

The return on players in trades is really pathetic and should have happened much earlier if we were going to get value.  When all your trade chips are down so are the trade offers.

 

I am all in for trading for value, but more interested in getting minor league players to the bigs.  My only concern is that when we have players ready in the minors we do not translate that success to the majors.  What can be done about that?  

 

I am looking around the league at teams that have brought up minor league stars who turned in to major league stars - more than I have ever seen in such a few years, yet our players come up and at best show potential to be good.  Is there something wrong in our approach to promotions and development?

 

[Doomtints]

 

Today the team is 49-51, but their BaseRuns & Pythag is 43-57, just under the .430 mark. 

 

One can't trust either of those systems with the Twins, who have been unusual in the way they have lost games in blowouts, causing a run differential that does not match their W-L record. Neither system has the capacity to understand or predict what a team like the Twins will do. The number of blowout losses suffered by the Twins is unusual and the logical conclusion is that they will fall in number in the second half. This means the team should improve, not get worse.

 

Note that both system are correct -- as in within ~5 games of a team's actual W-L record -- only around 1/3 of the time, particularly as the season is still going on. And when these systems are off, they can be WAY OFF. If anything is outside of the standard deviation -- an extreme W-L record or an extreme run differential -- the systems collapse. 

 

But we don't need either system. The sniff test can tell us this:

 

- Heck no, this is not a .430 team. Almost none of us predicted 69 wins for this team to start the season, and the team has never shown us this on the field!

- The team has a small chance of making the playoffs, but likely best case is them falling a bit short. Realistic case is they land around .500. If they sell, then we're back in the 70-80 wins range.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Doomtints

[Dman]

Hoping they can sell on Kintzler, Garcia and Dozier.  I am torn on Santana.  Will he bring a big enough return back to make it worth trading him?  If not then just hang onto him until we have more competent starters in place.

[Darius]

"They never we're supposed to be here to bring with" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

They could've easily put together a pitching staff competently enough to where they would be in this thing. But, like always, it comes down to the FO being unwilling to take a chance in the offseason and spend a few million. It didn't take Ms. Cleo to see Hughes, Santiago, and the bullpen was going to blow up in their face. A numbers or casual amateurs on this site said it for months leading up to the season,

 

Just another lost season for the fans and taxpayers who pour hard-earned money into the Pohlad mothballed coffers. Very disappointing.

[mazeville]

 

"They never we're supposed to be here to bring with" is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

They could've easily put together a pitching staff competently enough to where they would be in this thing. But, like always, it comes down to the FO being unwilling to take a chance in the offseason and spend a few million. It didn't take Ms. Cleo to see Hughes, Santiago, and the bullpen was going to blow up in their face. A numbers or casual amateurs on this site said it for months leading up to the season,

Just another lost season for the fans and taxpayers who pour hard-earned money into the Pohlad mothballed coffers. Very disappointing.

 

This sentiment drives me nuts.

 

The Twins lost 103 games last year. They were awful. No front office in their right mind would blow their wad on free agency in an offseason in which they are trying to recover from that kind of disaster. The Twins' ownership has been awful and is a big -- probably the biggest -- reason for these past few years. 

 

But it's simplistic to simply say that the Pohlads won't spend the money. They signed free agents Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco in misguided bids to contend via free agent spending. That's not the problem.

 

The problem with this team has always been its failure to take aggressive measures when they need to take them. When they had the chance to trade for guys like Alfonso Soriano during competitive years, they balked. When they could have signed a big-name free agent to get them over the hump in 2010, they balked.

 

When they fell to earth in 2011, they didn't do the complete teardown they needed to make to effectively rebuild the club, and then they made poor drafting and trade decisions. 

 

The Pohlads have plenty of blood on their hands when it comes to this team, because they watched the front office mess the whole thing up. But it has nothing to do with their refusal to spend money. 

[twinfan]

I predicted 73 wins for the Twins because I figured they weren't nearly as bad as last year. They have not been very good since mid-June but I wonder about their lineup. They have several .240-260 hitters with limited power and yet have a power hitter (Vargas) going back and forth to the minors. Also, Granite comes up and they bat him second for awhile- not where you want to put a rookie. The relievers are again overworked but, when they do pitch a scoreless inning, they immediately get taken out. I don't know much about what is coming up but there is a big difference between the minors and majors. I guess we'll hope to continue to improve.  

[Mike Sixel]

I'm going with mostly dead, not dead. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

They could've easily put together a pitching staff competently enough to where they would be in this thing. But, like always, it comes down to the FO being unwilling to take a chance in the offseason and spend a few million. It didn't take Ms. Cleo to see Hughes, Santiago, and the bullpen was going to blow up in their face. A numbers or casual amateurs on this site said it for months leading up to the season,

Could they, though? I agree the bullpen could/should have been addressed in a more significant way but the rotation was basically a crapshoot from day one and there was little to be done about it.

 

Also remember that one of the key pieces of the rotation - May - was lost just days before the season began. That stung. It's possible, maybe even likely, the Twins are 3-4 games better right now solely by replacing a terrible starter with a mediocre May (which is a reasonable expectation, as his ceiling is probably more in the "decent starter" range).

 

Never mind that it's a leap to assume Santiago was going to be a tire fire because he lost velocity.

 

The bullpen should be better than it is today but I simply don't see a way the Twins could have significantly improved the rotation.

 

Of course, we can't assume all starters will be healthy for a full season but even a partial season with a rotation of Santana, Berrios, May, Santiago, and Mejia would be miles better than what we've seen in recent weeks.*

 

*With all of that said, call up Gonsalves already. Crikey.

[nicksaviking]

For what it's worth, if the Twins do sell I really don't think it will have a huge impact on the W/L record. Heck, it's possible the young guys will loosen up feeling less pressure to win now.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

For what it's worth, if the Twins do sell I really don't think it will have a huge impact on the W/L record. Heck, it's possible the young guys will loosen up feeling less pressure to win now.

I feel the same way. I think they likely lose a couple of games with a Santana trade but how much that impacts them really depends on who replaces him. If it's Gonsalves, the difference could be -3 games or it could be 0 games. Hard to say.

[howieramone2]

 

This sentiment drives me nuts.

 

The Twins lost 103 games last year. They were awful. No front office in their right mind would blow their wad on free agency in an offseason in which they are trying to recover from that kind of disaster. The Twins' ownership has been awful and is a big -- probably the biggest -- reason for these past few years. 

 

But it's simplistic to simply say that the Pohlads won't spend the money. They signed free agents Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco in misguided bids to contend via free agent spending. That's not the problem.

 

The problem with this team has always been its failure to take aggressive measures when they need to take them. When they had the chance to trade for guys like Alfonso Soriano during competitive years, they balked. When they could have signed a big-name free agent to get them over the hump in 2010, they balked.

 

When they fell to earth in 2011, they didn't do the complete teardown they needed to make to effectively rebuild the club, and then they made poor drafting and trade decisions. 

 

The Pohlads have plenty of blood on their hands when it comes to this team, because they watched the front office mess the whole thing up. But it has nothing to do with their refusal to spend money. 

They did as complete a teardown as they could when they traded for Meyer and May. Drafting since 2012 has been very good.

[Danchat]

 

This sentiment drives me nuts.

 

The Twins lost 103 games last year. They were awful. No front office in their right mind would blow their wad on free agency in an offseason in which they are trying to recover from that kind of disaster. The Twins' ownership has been awful and is a big -- probably the biggest -- reason for these past few years. 

 

But it's simplistic to simply say that the Pohlads won't spend the money. They signed free agents Phil Hughes, Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco in misguided bids to contend via free agent spending. That's not the problem.

 

The problem with this team has always been its failure to take aggressive measures when they need to take them. When they had the chance to trade for guys like Alfonso Soriano during competitive years, they balked. When they could have signed a big-name free agent to get them over the hump in 2010, they balked.

 

When they fell to earth in 2011, they didn't do the complete teardown they needed to make to effectively rebuild the club, and then they made poor drafting and trade decisions. 

 

The Pohlads have plenty of blood on their hands when it comes to this team, because they watched the front office mess the whole thing up. But it has nothing to do with their refusal to spend money. 

Thank you for this, I love this post. It bugs me so much when people say "the Pohlads are so cheap!" when realistically the problems were 1. terrible front office (that the Pohlads gave too much rope), 2. failing to be aggressive when they were approaching the playoffs, and 3. failing to blow things up and rebuild after 2011, instead continuing to pretend to contend.

[Brock Beauchamp]

Drafting since 2012 has been very good acceptable.

I don't believe their drafting can be classified as "very good" when they've swung and missed at two pitchers drafted in the top six picks.

[bluechipper]

Can you believe it was just 9 days ago that Cleveland finished a 2 series sequence where they were swept by Oakland and lost 2 of 3 to the Giants? That looks like a wake up call now.

[frightwig]

 

One can't trust either of those systems with the Twins, who have been unusual in the way they have lost games in blowouts, causing a run differential that does not match their W-L record. Neither system has the capacity to understand or predict what a team like the Twins will do...

 

But we don't need either system. The sniff test can tell us this:

 

- Heck no, this is not a .430 team. Almost none of us predicted 69 wins for this team to start the season, and the team has never shown us this on the field!

- The team has a small chance of making the playoffs, but likely best case is them falling a bit short. Realistic case is they land around .500. If they sell, then we're back in the 70-80 wins range.

 

It's debatable whether a lot of blowouts really makes Pythag useless; one might point out that a team that gets blown out all that often probably isn't really a good team. Likewise, great teams do tend to win a lot of laughers. But BaseRuns goes beyond that and looks at how many runs a team is expected to score or allow--this is where the 2015 Twins really got lucky, and where the 2016 Twins, though they were genuinely bad, were also awfully unlucky. By that measure, too, this year's team has been in way over their heads, mainly in April/May. As Nick pointed out, since the high-water mark in late May, the team's record has regressed back to its average level since 2011. And, hey, it so happens that this matches their BaseRuns and Pythag on the season, as well. I think we have some fair indicators of what we can expect to see in the rest of the season.

 

Honestly, the offense looked pretty good in May when Mauer was on a tear and 5-6 other guys were grooving at the same time. But so far that is the only month when the offense was above-average. In July, their second-best month of the season, the wRC+ is 96--and that's despite Buxton and Rosario having a big month, while Dozier, Sano, Mauer, and Kepler having been swinging good bats, too. The lineup has potential, for sure, but right now it's just missing something necessary to be really GOOD.

 

Meanwhile, the pitching--we know that it's bad, right? Although Mejia has shown some apparent progress of late, Berrios and Santana have regressed badly, Garcia is a back-end rental, and the #5 spot is still a mess. Kintzler and Rogers have done well in holding leads, Belisle has improved the last couple months, and I like Hildenberger. But it's a shallow pen, and lately we may be seeing the start of what can happen when you depend too much on a pair of low-K/GB relievers to hold the line on every late lead. In all, it's a poor staff that probably isn't going to be getting better down the stretch.

 

The most realistic outcome is 75-79 wins, even if the front office stands pat at the deadline. Who cares if selling puts them below 75 wins this season? It's a development year, either way. What really matters is whatever Falvine do now to build toward the window when the young core is hitting its prime.

[Thrylos]

 

And soon we will be harping about the manager and the coaching as the Twins fade into oblivion as the summer wanes.

 

And not without cause.  It is their job to light some fire under the players.  Like his predecessor,  Molitor has failed to do that...

[Doomtints]

BaseRuns and Pythagorean are both based on run differentials. The latter is straight up run differential, the former is someone's approximation of run differential derived from how many runs they believe will be produced by certain hitting/baserunning events. You may run into the word "sequencing" when reading about BaseRuns, which isn't quite what it's doing but it's the best way to describe it as it includes all offense except for outs.

 

I have studied both systems extensively as I designed a third system which does something similar but includes historical league information to predict the future based on how similar teams performed in the past. My system is more accurate. If I can blow both of these systems away I'm sure anyone around here could do the same thing with a bit of work. After spending a lot of time looking at how these two systems work, it's easy to predict when they will break and how much they will be off.

Edited July 29, 2017 by Doomtints

[Broker]

Regardless it's been more fun this year than last.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

BaseRuns and Pythagorean are both based on run differentials. The latter is straight up run differential, the former is someone's approximation of run differential derived from how many runs they believe will be produced by certain hitting/baserunning events. You may run into the word "sequencing" when reading about BaseRuns, which isn't quite what it's doing but it's the best way to describe it as it includes all offense except for outs.

 

I have studied both systems extensively as I designed a third system which does something similar but includes historical league information to predict the future based on how similar teams performed in the past. My system is more accurate. If I can blow both of these systems away I'm sure anyone around here could do the same thing with a bit of work. After spending a lot of time looking at how these two systems work, it's easy to predict when they will break and how much they will be off.

Please share your work. I'm skeptical but not trying to bait you. I'm honestly curious about your methodology.

[mazeville]

 

They did as complete a teardown as they could when they traded for Meyer and May. Drafting since 2012 has been very good.

 

Um ... no. It hasn't. It's been OK, at best. 

 

Also, they did not do "as complete a teardown as they could." Not by a long shot. They could have traded players like Josh Willingham, Phil Hughes and Glen Perkins at deadlines when they were at their peak value and they failed. They did not such thing. 

[gman]

 

I'm going with mostly dead, not dead. 

Maybe we can hire Miracle Max to help with the pitching.

[Kwak]

 

Um ... no. It hasn't. It's been OK, at best. 

 

Also, they did not do "as complete a teardown as they could." Not by a long shot. They could have traded players like Josh Willingham, Phil Hughes and Glen Perkins at deadlines when they were at their peak value and they failed. They did not such thing. 

Trading Hughes only looks viable because of hindsight.  Would Hughes duplicate "his year"?  Certainly not every season, but injury wasn't predictable and being 90% of his "his year" was definitely a reasonable assumption.  To trade every player who has a "peak year" guarantees there will never be long term success.

[jimmer]

Trading Hughes only looks viable because of hindsight. Would Hughes duplicate "his year"? Certainly not every season, but injury wasn't predictable and being 90% of his "his year" was definitely a reasonable assumption. To trade every player who has a "peak year" guarantees there will never be long term success.

a ton of people said not the extend Hughes before he was and said it was a bad move to extend him. Nothing to do with hindsight, plenty of foresight to see that first season with us was a mirage.

[Kwak]

 

a ton of people said not the extend Hughes before he was and said it was a bad move to extend him. Nothing to do with hindsight, plenty of foresight to see that first season with us was a mirage.

Except hindsight is the basis of their position.  Hughes at 90% of his "peak year" would have been a very good player to have.

[jimmer]

 

Except hindsight is the basis of their position.  Hughes at 90% of his "peak year" would have been a very good player to have.

But like I said, many people had the position BEFORE he crashed and burned. It was a peak season WAY out of his normal production.

[ahart10]

Except hindsight is the basis of their position. Hughes at 90% of his "peak year" would have been a very good player to have.

It would be similar to giving Dozier an extension after last season. Which few have called for but most have balked at.

[Otto von Ballpark]

Hughes on his original contract was a great asset. Low risk, plenty of room for value either in performance or trade, and from anywhere in the rotation or pen.

 

Hughes after the extension pretty much only had one path to value, and that was staying in Minnesota near the top of the rotation for several years. It wasn't a particularly good deal for us even if you thought he had a decent chance to be "90%" of his peak year.