Ten Years of TD: The Top 5 Twins Daily Articles from 2015

[Nick Nelson]

On February 19th, Twins Daily will be celebrating its 10-year anniversary. To honor this upcoming milestone, we're looking back at the most-read articles from each year since our site launched. 

Today, we dive into the 2015 season, in which the Twins welcomed a new manager, debuted their two most prized prospects, and returned (briefly) to relevance.

Coming out of the 2014 season, the Twins franchise was mired in a devastating funk. They'd lost 90+ games in four consecutive seasons, haunted by a perpetual inability to address their pitching woes. The luster of their beautiful new stadium had pretty much worn off entirely. Fans needed a boost.

The 2015 season brought some welcome change and initiative. Ron Gardenhire had been dismissed as manager, replaced by Hall of Famer and Minnesota baseball legend Paul Molitor. Terry Ryan made his biggest free agent splash ever, handing Ervin Santana a $55 million deal. Franchise icon Torii Hunter returned on a one-year deal. It was evident to all that Byron Buxton and Miguel Sanó, two of the best Twins prospects to come along in some time, were on the verge of reaching the majors.

Rejuvenated interest in the major-league product was reflected in the most-read articles of the year at Twins Daily. Whereas every top article from 2014 was focused on prospects, or even college players, the top stories of 2015 were all about the emergent big-league Twins and how they could keep getting better.

5. Will Twins Address Their Most Glaring Weakness?

By Nick Nelson

From my view, the organization's "most glaring weakness" at this point was at the catcher position. Joe Mauer was now a first baseman. Journeyman Kurt Suzuki had reverted to sub-mediocrity following his random All-Star appearance in 2014. The two other players to receive starts at catcher for the Twins in 2015 were Chris Herrmann and Eric Fryer. Mitch Garver had not yet emerged as any kind of legitimate prospect.

In this piece, I suggested Jonathan Lucroy, Derek Norris, and Andrew Susac as deadline targets. Instead, the Twins waited until the offseason, where they traded Aaron Hicks to the Yankees for John Ryan Murphy. A disastrous decision. 

4. Twins Add Seven To Their 40 Man Roster, Lose Achter, Pinto

By Seth Stohs

Roster moves that earn only a passing mention in mainstream press often become hot topics within our community. We wouldn't have it any other way. Here Seth covered the Twins' postseason 40-man roster shakeup. Of the seven players added at this time, only one (Taylor Rogers) would go on to find significant major-league success. Catcher Josmil Pinto and reliever A.J. Achter were lost on waivers, but neither came back to bite the team.

3. Twins Trade Chips

By Seth Stohs

Trades are always a popular subject of discussion, but that was especially true around this time. As the deadline arrived in 2015, the Twins were five games above .500 and in second place, a competitive team for the first time in five years. 

In this article, Seth took stock of the team's tradable assets. As he accurately pointed out at the time, "Everyone is looking for pitching." 

This included the Twins, who ended up moving to acquire reliever Kevin Jepsen from the Rays. And they needed to give up pitching to get him, in the form of prospect Chih-Wei Hu, who ended up getting a cup of coffee in Tampa but nothing more.

2. A Look At The Latest Twins Signings

By Nick Nelson

Sometimes, in the dead of winter, fans will gravitate toward whatever scraps of "news" they can find. That was likely the case with this mid-December story on four minor-league signings, although as it turned out, the group of new additions would prove consequential. Three of them – Darin Mastroinanni, Buddy Boshers, and Brandon Kintzler – went on to play for the Twins, and Kintzler even became an All-Star!

1. Twins, Rockies Talk Tulowitzki

By Jeremy Nygaard

Have I mentioned trade talks were a trendy topic around this time? In this piece, Jeremy (who's had some connections in the organization over the years) spoke of rumblings he'd heard about early trade talks between the Twins and Rockies, centered on star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki. 

Jeremy emphasized that these talks were not advanced, and that all kinds of conversations happen before the deadline, but the idea of a splashy move of this magnitude obviously sparked major intrigue. Ultimately, it was Toronto that stepped up and acquired Tulo a week later.

There is a parallel to current day here. The Twins were bereft of long-term vision at shortstop (their top candidates at the time were Danny Santana and Eduardo Escobar, with Nick Gordon freshly drafted out of high school). They weighed the idea of investing to acquire a former Colorado Rockies power-hitting stud, whose ability to maintain elite performance outside of Coors Field while aging into his 30s was in question.

Fast forward to Trevor Story.

The Twins wouldn't be trading for him this offseason, but the 29-year-old is one of the last remaining big names in free agency within their plausible scope. He'd require a huge monetary investment and the loss of a draft pick. Is he worth it?

To the extent it's instructive, Tulowitzi fizzled out very quickly in Toronto.

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[Dman]

That Jepsen trade proved pretty instrumental in how things worked out for the Twins as he was an absolute stud with a 1.61 ERA and sub 1 WHIP.  He was just what doctored ordered. Unfortunately that was his last good year.

Kintzler was big piece as well as he performed far above expectations.  Just goes to show when a few things go your way any team can be dangerous.

[PDX Twin]

This is a wonderful, nostalgic series! 

I have just one humble suggestion to improve it: Could you put the date of the story in the top lines? Sometimes it takes me half of the paragraph to figure out the point in the season (or off-season) to which the article pertains.

[Doctor Gast]

I was thinking about Hicks and the Twins CF dilema. How he had a great minor league history that provoked the Twins to not only trade one but both our MLB CFers (Span & Revere), The Twins  had a rich heritage of mentoring CFers Puckett to Hunter to Span to Revere.

All that ended, together with the team's importance of CF depth when they traded Span and Revere. Hicks started by tearing up spring training but when regular season came around, he fell into a funk that he never really recovered from as a Twin. Hicks never got that mentoring that his predecessors  had and he floundered. IMO back then the coaching left it up to the players to self educate on how to read and research pitchers and Hicks did not have that gift.

As you stated Nick we traded away Hicks for a nobody and Hicks developed into a very good CF (I believe NYY was able to provide him w/ the info he needed to become that great hitter). So it made me sad to think of Hicks not developing and staying w/ the Twins, so Buxton didn't have be rushed up and provide that much needed depth for many years. We went from rich in depth at CF (which is a good thing) in 2012 to starving in depth for a decade that we are still facing.

[Nick Nelson]

3 hours ago, PDX Twin said:

This is a wonderful, nostalgic series! 

I have just one humble suggestion to improve it: Could you put the date of the story in the top lines? Sometimes it takes me half of the paragraph to figure out the point in the season (or off-season) to which the article pertains.

Good ask, will do! 

[Battle ur tail off]

1 hour ago, Doctor Gast said:

I was thinking about Hicks and the Twins CF dilema. How he had a great minor league history that provoked the Twins to not only trade one but both our MLB CFers (Span & Revere), The Twins  had a rich heritage of mentoring CFers Puckett to Hunter to Span to Revere.

All that ended, together with the team's importance of CF depth when they traded Span and Revere. Hicks started by tearing up spring training but when regular season came around, he fell into a funk that he never really recovered from as a Twin. Hicks never got that mentoring that his predecessors  had and he floundered. IMO back then the coaching left it up to the players to self educate on how to read and research pitchers and Hicks did not have that gift.

As you stated Nick we traded away Hicks for a nobody and Hicks developed into a very good CF (I believe NYY was able to provide him w/ the info he needed to become that great hitter). So it made me sad to think of Hicks not developing and staying w/ the Twins, so Buxton didn't have be rushed up and provide that much needed depth for many years. We went from rich in depth at CF (which is a good thing) in 2012 to starving in depth for a decade that we are still facing.

Hicks is hurt alot too. He had 2 good years in NY. 

The only thing I am sad about when it comes to Hicks is that the Twins didn't trade him when he was a prospect and his value was high and instead traded him for a poor catcher after his value was in the tank.

But I agree, the whole scenario surrounding him was disappointing as it pertains to the Twins.