75% of the season is complete, how do the Twins finish?

[Brock Beauchamp]

We're at the 121 game mark, which means we have 41 left to play in the 2021 season.

The Twins currently stand at 54-67 for a .446 winning percentage.

They're currently 10-6 in the month of August, though through some smoke and mirrors. They've allowed three more runs than they've scored.

Obviously, the Twins are not a .600+ winning percentage team going forward but how good will they be? They're only about halfway through their current brutal stretch. Next up, in order, are the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Brewers. Most of September is pretty soft, with most teams being under .500... the sole exception being seven games against the Jays in the second half of September, when it's likely Toronto will be playing for their postseason lives.

So where do you land on this? Will the Twins continue to crawl toward .500 or will they fade away down the stretch?

[Major League Ready]

22-19

[wsnydes]

I think they carry the .500 trend through the rest, plus or minus a couple of games.  

I do think they'll have some positive trends to close out though.  We're seeing some of those now.

[Dman]

They are playing pretty well right now but they have a lot of tough teams to play yet.  I can't believe I am saying this but I think they do end up finishing second in the division when it is all said and done with just under a 500 record.  We'll see there is a lot that can happen yet but if the young pitching holds and the pen is actually somewhat decent this kind of looks like who they are.  What a strange year.

[Brock Beauchamp]

If they can get through these next ten games at 5-5, I think they have a decent shot to close out the season closer to the 25-16 record than a .500 record. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

When all is said and done, I wonder how closely this season will remind us of 2018.

2018 team splits:

Split	W	L	RS	RA	W-L%
March	1	1	8	5	.500
April	8	14	90	129	.364
May	13	15	120	106	.464
June	13	14	115	126	.481
July	14	13	142	133	.519
August	14	14	121	139	.500
September	15	13	142	137	.536

[Nine of twelve]

Keep in mind we will be getting our best player by far off the IL soon. If Buck can play at top form for most of the rest of the season that's worth a handful of wins on its own.

[Monkeypaws]

If they continue to play .700 ball, as of 8-18, they would finish 82-80.

Otherwise, I'm guessing 75 some wins or so.

[Brandon]

I would say the Twins go 27-14 to finish 81-81 or 28-13 to have a winning season.  Won on the last game of the season to complete an improbable comeback from 18 games below .500.

[big dog]

Without bothering to check comparative schedules, because who really cares at this point, I think the Twins have a decent shot at ending up in second place in the division. Maybe 20+ games back, but second place.

[LVTwinsfan]

13 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

We're at the 121 game mark, which means we have 41 left to play in the 2021 season.

The Twins currently stand at 54-67 for a .446 winning percentage.

They're currently 10-6 in the month of August, though through some smoke and mirrors. They've allowed three more runs than they've scored.

Obviously, the Twins are not a .600+ winning percentage team going forward but how good will they be? They're only about halfway through their current brutal stretch. Next up, in order, are the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the Brewers. Most of September is pretty soft, with most teams being under .500... the sole exception being seven games against the Jays in the second half of September, when it's likely Toronto will be playing for their postseason lives.

So where do you land on this? Will the Twins continue to crawl toward .500 or will they fade away down the stretch?

I would like to see them reach 2nd place in the division by seasons end. They are currently 5 games out of second.

[ToddlerHarmon]

I voted 15-26, not with any conviction, but just because too many pleasant surprises are happening, and too little is on the line. Rookie pitchers will make a second trip through the division rivals, injuries will not be played through, and the lineup will be opened up for tryouts, and to protect the health of the veterans.

[TheLeviathan]

High enough for a frustrating draft position after all this putrid baseball we've endured.

[Number3]

They have now won 4 straight series. Yankees have just come off of a sweep of the Red Sox and have to feeling pretty confident. Without looking any further ahead than the next 4 games, I just hope they give the Yankees fits and at least split the series. Then go on from there.

[Brock Beauchamp]

11 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

High enough for a frustrating draft position after all this putrid baseball we've endured.

Their draft position isn't going to move that much, though. In the AL, they're 3.5 behind Detroit and 5.0 behind Cleveland. They have a chance to catch either or both but mostly only because they play head-to-head again. But the Twins are 6.5 behind the Angels so that's not happening.

In the NL, they might catch Colorado, as it appears they're two games back, but after that it's the Mets and they're 6.5 back of them, too.

Even if the Twins play well and go over .500 down the stretch, it's unlikely they pass more than two, maybe three teams. In the end, we're only talking about the difference between picking around eighth or around eleventh.

[TheLeviathan]

6 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Their draft position isn't going to move that much, though. In the AL, they're 3.5 behind Detroit and 5.0 behind Cleveland. They have a chance to catch either or both but mostly only because they play head-to-head again. But the Twins are 6.5 behind the Angels so that's not happening.

In the NL, they might catch Colorado, as it appears they're two games back, but after that it's the Mets and they're 6.5 back of them, too.

Even if the Twins play well and go over .500 down the stretch, it's unlikely they pass more than two, maybe three teams. In the end, we're only talking about the difference between picking around eighth or around eleventh.

Yes...but our current streak took us from 5/6 to 9.  The gap from 5 to 11 IS significant.

Literally the last 10 games alone dropped us 3-4 spots.  Less room to drop now but the damage may already be done.

[Brock Beauchamp]

7 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Yes...but our current streak took us from 5/6 to 9.  The gap from 5 to 11 IS significant.

Literally the last 10 games alone dropped us 3-4 spots.  Less room to drop now but the damage may already be done.

I mean, sure, but they're winning using cost-controlled and long-term players. It's pretty hard to complain about that. If they were winning on the backs of a bunch of expiring veterans, that'd be different.

[TheLeviathan]

2 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I mean, sure, but they're winning using cost-controlled and long-term players. It's pretty hard to complain about that. If they were winning on the backs of a bunch of expiring veterans, that'd be different.

I'm not complaining about their strategy (sans Gordon)....more lamenting that a baseball season this awful lands a disappointingly low pick.  Worst of both worlds IMO.

[Brock Beauchamp]

5 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I'm not complaining about their strategy (sans Gordon)....more lamenting that a baseball season this awful lands a disappointingly low pick.  Worst of both worlds IMO.

Yeah, from a spectator perspective it's not great, which is why I brought up 2018. The cycles of the season appear to be similar, though this season includes slightly worse play.

[Dodecahedron]

The Twins are going to do what Cleveland did a few years ago, and go on a 30 game winning streak and slide into the playoffs.

[Dodecahedron]

1 hour ago, Dodecahedron said:

The Twins are going to do what Cleveland did a few years ago, and go on a 30 game winning streak and slide into the playoffs.

Also, this will cause many of us to forget what a miserable year this was, because fans will pull up the W-L record and say this management team is great, how can we say 2021 was a failure, etc.

Then we can have all the same conversations again next year when history repeats itself.

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

High enough for a frustrating draft position after all this putrid baseball we've endured.

This. 

[bean5302]

15 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

Keep in mind we will be getting our best player by far off the IL soon. If Buck can play at top form for most of the rest of the season that's worth a handful of wins on its own.

If Byron Buxton was producing at 50 WAR, I'd agree with you.

[Nine of twelve]

On 8/19/2021 at 8:54 AM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Their draft position isn't going to move that much, though. In the AL, they're 3.5 behind Detroit and 5.0 behind Cleveland. They have a chance to catch either or both but mostly only because they play head-to-head again. But the Twins are 6.5 behind the Angels so that's not happening.

In the NL, they might catch Colorado, as it appears they're two games back, but after that it's the Mets and they're 6.5 back of them, too.

Even if the Twins play well and go over .500 down the stretch, it's unlikely they pass more than two, maybe three teams. In the end, we're only talking about the difference between picking around eighth or around eleventh.

What you left out is that a difference of 3 positions in the MLB draft is essentially meaningless.

[beckmt]

I voted 15 - 26, with the loss of Maeda today, maybe for the year and the FO not willing to bring up the talented starters in the minors, the last stretch will be brutal.  It could be worse.

[Brock Beauchamp]

14 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

What you left out is that a difference of 3 positions in the MLB draft is essentially meaningless.

Yeah, I figured that was implied. I can make an argument that 5-7 positions become significant but not 2-3.

[gunnarthor]

On 8/18/2021 at 6:50 PM, Brock Beauchamp said:

When all is said and done, I wonder how closely this season will remind us of 2018.

2018 team splits:

Split	W	L	RS	RA	W-L%
March	1	1	8	5	.500
April	8	14	90	129	.364
May	13	15	120	106	.464
June	13	14	115	126	.481
July	14	13	142	133	.519
August	14	14	121	139	.500
September	15	13	142	137	.536

That's what I'm worried about. People already forget how much 2018 was a "total system failure" because we finished on that 6 game win streak. I have no interest in people forgiving the FO for 2021 down the line.

[Brock Beauchamp]

21 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

That's what I'm worried about. People already forget how much 2018 was a "total system failure" because we finished on that 6 game win streak. I have no interest in people forgiving the FO for 2021 down the line.

I find it a stretch to call 2018 a total system failure, though. They had a bad April and never played great after that point but weren't bad, either. At the end of the season, they were ~6 games below their 2017 record, which is definitely a disappointment but hardly the implosion we saw this season, where they were expected to compete for the division and were literally the worst team in baseball for six weeks or so.

A total system failure is when a team wins 15+ games fewer than expected, not when they win five fewer than expected. That’s just a disappointing season.

The 2021 Twins are going to have to play pretty well to not finish 15 or so below their over/under and 20 games is a real possibility, especially if they keep doing things like losing three in a row to New York. 

[insagt1]

On 8/19/2021 at 9:44 AM, TheLeviathan said:

High enough for a frustrating draft position after all this putrid baseball we've endured.

I don't worry one bit about draft position in baseball. The talent pool is huge. Prospects are hit or miss all over the landscape. You can just as well get the ace with the 70th pick as not. Twins need to play hard to win every game.

[insagt1]

There is justice in the world. We didn't have to play today and I would just as soon see this game cancelled rather than postponed. I'm sick of the Yankees. And have been for decades.

I see the Twins finishing out .500, maybe a game or two better. So their final record won't be too good. But I want to see good baseball, especially from the players who figure to be around in 2022. I want to see Buxton actually play for a complete month...nearly everyday.