1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Very nice in every way.  Don't look at the record - it is improving, but do look at the opposition before making too many judgments.  We may have felt like our team was weak until you look at the rotation and the lineup that the Orioles put out.  We move up a notch now with KC.  They are not a good team, but they are much better than Baltimore and should give us a real chance to measure our team improvement.

Good observation and yes I think everyone should temper their expectations with the Royals this weekend.

KC is not Baltimore. In fact, Kansas City has looked like a much better team than the Twins this season, top to bottom. I'd be thrilled if the Twins take 2-of-3 in this series. Unfortunately it could easily break the other way. Salvador Perez, Whit Merrifield and Jorge Soler take no prisoners and I wouldn't be surprised if they mash Twins pitching.

The key to winning this series will be to put up big offensive numbers, I fear with scoring only 3 yesterday against the worst pitcher on the worst team, the Twins are still struggling mightily with the bats. Spells trouble.

1 hour ago, bighat said:

In fact, Kansas City has looked like a much better team than the Twins this season, top to bottom.

Have they, though?

KC is ahead of the Twins in the standings but their pythag record is worse (21-26 vs 23-26) and the BaseRuns gap is even larger (21-26 vs 24-25). The Twins have been woeful in very specific ways but the Royals haven't been good, either, they've just been more lucky.

Ranks in AL:
Bullpen ERA: KC 9th, MN 13th
Rotation ERA: MN 10th, KC 11th
Offense OPS: MN 5th, KC 12th

KC can't even crack the top half of the AL in any of those categories and rank in the bottom third in two of them.

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Have they, though?

KC is ahead of the Twins in the standings but their pythag record is worse (21-26 vs 23-26) and the BaseRuns gap is even larger (21-26 vs 24-25). The Twins have been woeful in very specific ways but the Royals haven't been good, either, they've just been more lucky.

Ranks in AL:
Bullpen ERA: KC 9th, MN 13th
Rotation ERA: MN 10th, KC 11th
Offense OPS: MN 5th, KC 12th

KC can't even crack the top half of the AL in any of those categories and rank in the bottom third in two of them.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=&enddate=  Fangraph pitching WAR - KC 4.6 13th, MN 1.7 30th.  BABIP - KC is number 3 and MN is #16.  Most important Wins - KC is 19th, MN is is 26.   The big question is - which team is more excited about this series?  And yes, I hope the Twins sweep them, but this is not the Orioles. 

22 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=pit&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=&enddate=  Fangraph pitching WAR - KC 4.6 13th, MN 1.7 30th.  BABIP - KC is number 3 and MN is #16.  Most important Wins - KC is 19th, MN is is 26.   The big question is - which team is more excited about this series?  And yes, I hope the Twins sweep them, but this is not the Orioles. 

I'm not really sure why you included BABIP in that comment, as it's not generally regarded as something that can be controlled by the pitching/defense, at least not to a large degree.

But toggle that page over to offense and basically the exact opposite is true (except even moreso). Offensive WAR:

Minnesota: 5th, 8.3 WAR
Kansas City: 26th, 2.4 WAR

That's actually a much larger gap than pitching WAR. And besides, does this tell us a significantly different story than the stats I listed above? Both stat groups tell us the Royals have a pitching advantage and the Twins have a significant hitting advantage so far this season.

And my post was originally a rebuttal to "Kansas City has looked like a much better team than the Twins this season" and your stats don't suggest that's any more true than my original stats.

An interesting thing I just noticed, though, and I definitely didn't see it coming.

FanGraphs has the Twins as the seventh best defense in MLB.

The Royals are below average, in the negative numbers overall, at 18th in MLB.

That's just more evidence the Royals haven't been a better team this season, though, or at least not a noticeably better team anyway.

Also note that KC's leading performer by both bWAR and fWAR has been pitcher Danny Duffy, who is currently sidelined indefinitely. The Twins may also miss their #2 pitcher by fWAR (Brady Singer) the next two weekends.

Lets for a moment put all the analytics aside and pretend its the 1970's and 1980's again...when baseball itself was fun to watch without all the distractions.

What we all know is no matter who you play, winning begets winning. And they all count as one 'W' each time. These recent games have given the Twins the opportunity to see how it feels again to win games. And while Sano has definitely heated up (thankfully), a lot of this awakening has happened when the 'B' team arrived. Kirilloff, larmach, Garlick and Refsnyder have added a lot of zip to the lineup. All have contributed. I don't believe, as many of you do also, that we will get much out of Buxton. If he gets back by the All-Star game, the Twins will have moved along without him. And he would be just one more injury away from another month off. I love the guy...but he just can't play at the level he needs to play without getting hurt. And Twins may be well to get along without him. He's a luxury. And its all a darned shame.

Can Twins crawl back to respectability? Perhaps. The talent is there. And now, the sweet smell of victory has returned, so who knows? They need to keep the train rolling against KC.

Twins Pythag: 23-26 (BaseRuns 24-25)

KC Pythag: 21-26 (BaseRuns same)

Baltimore Pythag: 19-30 (BaseRuns 20-29)

Yes, we're missing Buxton now, but KC is missing Duffy as noted above. We've also dropped our worst 4 offensive performers of the season so far (Cave, Jeffers, Rortvedt, and Rooker, all wRC+ at 43 or below) and replaced them with 98-112 wRC+ performers (not even counting Refsynder).

4 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'm not really sure why you included BABIP in that comment, as it's not generally regarded as something that can be controlled by the pitching/defense, at least not to a large degree.

But toggle that page over to offense and basically the exact opposite is true (except even moreso). Offensive WAR:

Minnesota: 5th, 8.3 WAR
Kansas City: 26th, 2.4 WAR

That's actually a much larger gap than pitching WAR. And besides, does this tell us a significantly different story than the stats I listed above? Both stat groups tell us the Royals have a pitching advantage and the Twins have a significant hitting advantage so far this season.

And my post was originally a rebuttal to "Kansas City has looked like a much better team than the Twins this season" and your stats don't suggest that's any more true than my original stats.

An interesting thing I just noticed, though, and I definitely didn't see it coming.

FanGraphs has the Twins as the seventh best defense in MLB.

The Royals are below average, in the negative numbers overall, at 18th in MLB.

That's just more evidence the Royals haven't been a better team this season, though, or at least not a noticeably better team anyway.

I was just looking for some numbers to tweak your post.  We should not be in the same league with KC, but we are and that is really the issue - no matter which numbers we choose.

1 minute ago, mikelink45 said:

I was just looking for some numbers to tweak your post.  We should not be in the same league with KC, but we are and that is really the issue - no matter which numbers we choose.

Fair enough. I agree the Twins should be playing much better than they are while KC is performing close to where I expected. Any comparison between them is at least mildly damning to the Twins season.