2022 PECOTA Standings: The 2022 Twins can be Great

[Jamie Cameron]

It's hard to erase the mess that was the 2021 Minnesota Twins from our collective memories. It was bad. The 2022 Minnesota Twins have a chance to be great. In this piece, we lay out some pathways for the Twins to finish their roster construction ahead of a new season and the outcomes they might produce. 

The availability heuristic is humanities’ tendency to use information that comes to mind quickly when making decisions, inferences, or predictions. Also known as recency bias, the concept is pervasive in sports. Try, for example, convincing yourself that the Vikings could do anything except sign a defensive tackle the minute free agency opens, it’s almost impossible.

Baseball is no different than other sports in this regard. Consider the Twins' win-loss record over the last decade and it's easy to see why fans take a ‘what have you done for me lately’ approach to the team.

This applies in numerous ways to Minnesota. It’s easy to assume that the White Sox will run away with a poor AL Central in 2022 after the Twins collapse in 2021, and they might. Take a peek under the hood, however, and the Twins are poised to compete. Let’s dig in.

Baseball Prospectus dropped its initial PECOTA standings on Tuesday. If you’re not familiar, PECOTA is Baseball Prospectus’ projection system, that is used to simulate end-of-season records for all 30 teams. As of March 15th, PECOTA has the Twins finishing second in the Central at 84-78, not so terribly far behind the 91-71 White Sox.

First of all, wow. I am deep in the weeds on Twins Twitter. It’s been understandably sour this offseason. Let’s ground ourselves in the fact that this team, as currently constructed, is a .500 team. Even though a large part of this stems from the Twins getting to play a lot of games against pretty bad teams, it still feels pretty hard to accept, given the Twins have just traded their best two right-handed hitters in Josh Donaldson and Mitch Garver. Garver was a fan favorite and will be sorely missed. Donaldson was divisive and is probably undergoing mediation with Gerritt Cole in the parking lot of the Yankees spring training complex in Tampa. Jokes aside, we know the Twins still have plenty of work to do this offseason. I wrote this winter about the Twins' pursuit of a 40-WAR team in 2022, so let’s look at some possible remaining paths and what outcomes they might result in.

The Twins currently sit in 16th with a cumulative fWAR of 36.3 (although this is changing by minute).

Let’s examine some possible next steps for the Twins and how they might us towards that magical 40 fWAR mark. For the purposes of these pathways, I’m ignoring the bullpen for a couple of reasons; relief pitching doesn’t lend itself well to fWAR, and I ain’t got time for that. So, here goes.

Pathway 1: Acquire an Elite Shortstop and an Elite Starting Pitcher

Twins sign SS Trevor Story: 4.5 fWAR
Twins trade for SP Frankie Montas: 3.2 fWAR

This would net the Twins around 7 additional fWAR and bring them to around a 43 fWAR projection. That’s well within playoff range, but also still a distance from the White Sox mark of 47 fWAR. This is a team ready to challenge for the division and certainly compete for a wild card spot.

Pathway 2: Acquire an Elite Starting Pitcher and Mediocre Shortstop

Twins trade for SP Frankie Montas: 3.2 fWAR
Twins trade for SS Elvis Andrus: 0.9 fWAR

In this package trade, the Twins acquire Montas and Andrus together, Andrus as a salary dump for Oakland. This would bring the Twins to a 40.5 fWAR and they likely compete for a wild card spot.

Pathway 3: Acquire a Mediocre Starting Pitcher and Elite Shortstop

The Twins sign SP Michael Pineda: 1.8 fWAR
The Twins sign SS Trevor Story: 4.5 fWAR

This is where we see the value of potentially adding Story for the Twins. This path would bring the Twins to a projection of 42.6 fWAR before any additional outfield, right-handed bat, and bullpen enhancements. In short, Trevor Story is by far the highest leverage player the Twins have a realistic chance of adding.

Pathway 4: Mediocre Everything

The Twins sign SP Michael Pineda: 1.8 fWAR
The Twins trade for SS Elvis Andrus: 0.9 fWAR

I’m not suggesting the Twins would or should do this, I’m merely using it as an example as Andrus offers very little for 2022. In the ‘bare minimum’ pathway, the Twins get to 39.0 fWAR. After the tumult of trading Garver, flipping Kiner-Falefa to the Yankees, and trading away Donaldson, combined with the acquisition of Gray, this would be a brutal disappointment. Again, it’s just an example to underscore the divergence of the paths ahead for the Twins.

The Twins are in a much better spot for 2022 than we are conditioned to think. How much they are willing to risk moving forwards will determine if this years’ team is likely to be average, or has a chance to be great.

 

View full article

[gunnarthor]

I'm not overly surprised. The standings have them 7th in the AL, which isn't an insane prediction by any means. We also benefit from playing the worst division again. The offense has the potential to be pretty good and an outside shot at really, really good, which I think is the reason so many of us are dumbfounded by decisions made by the FO. The pitching could easily sink the team again. 

I was a bit surprised the Tigers were so bad, I think they might be .500 this year but perhaps I'm wrong. 

 

[tborg]

Who does Pecota project as playing SS to give us 3.3 fWAR?  Presumably most of that gets lost if we sign Story, so the gain isn't quite as big as you are making it out to be.

[LastOnePicked]

Thoughtful pathways here. Good stuff. We'll see if any of these options are taken.

Personally, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a pathetic 73-89 team can:

a) lose it's two top starters

b) lose it's three top sluggers

c) become defensively weaker in the IF

d) sign not a single impact FA pitcher

e) face improved competition in its division

and still be projected for an 11-win improvement. Now that's fun with numbers! Let the games begin and these projections can be put to the test.

[Jamie Cameron]

13 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Thoughtful pathways here. Good stuff. We'll see if any of these options are taken.

Personally, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a pathetic 73-89 team can:

a) lose it's two top starters

b) lose it's three top sluggers

c) become defensively weaker in the IF

d) sign not a single impact FA pitcher

e) face improved competition in its division

and still be projected for an 11-win improvement. Now that's fun with numbers! Let the games begin and these projections can be put to the test.

That got me too. It's an insanely narrow path, though.

[Jamie Cameron]

18 minutes ago, tborg said:

Who does Pecota project as playing SS to give us 3.3 fWAR?  Presumably most of that gets lost if we sign Story, so the gain isn't quite as big as you are making it out to be.

That was Fangraphs, but for sure good question. Not exactly sure when Andrew pulled that, so could be some combo of IKF, Polanco, Urshela etc. depending on the time stamp

[21bdp21]

11 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Thoughtful pathways here. Good stuff. We'll see if any of these options are taken.

Personally, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a pathetic 73-89 team can:

a) lose it's two top starters

b) lose it's three top sluggers

c) become defensively weaker in the IF

d) sign not a single impact FA pitcher

e) face improved competition in its division

and still be projected for an 11-win improvement. Now that's fun with numbers! Let the games begin and these projections can be put to the test.

Probably because 11 games is only 6.7% of a season so say you get 5% less out of a team than expected that would be a hair over 8 games worse. So even with worse pitching and some downgrades I would expect what happened is last year was a lot worse than expected so you have some reversion to mean performance and last years team did a lot worse than expected and we lost Berios and Cruz at the trade deadline so it isn't as if we had the whole team the entire year.

 

[Mike Sixel]

Huh, I was told Fangrapahs was too optimistic with 79! And that this team was closer to 60 wins than 80?

[Mike Sixel]

26 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

Thoughtful pathways here. Good stuff. We'll see if any of these options are taken.

Personally, I can't wrap my head around the idea that a pathetic 73-89 team can:

a) lose it's two top starters

b) lose it's three top sluggers

c) become defensively weaker in the IF

d) sign not a single impact FA pitcher

e) face improved competition in its division

and still be projected for an 11-win improvement. Now that's fun with numbers! Let the games begin and these projections can be put to the test.

Berrios was here for about 60% of the year, their new pitcher should be here all year.

Ryan is 1000x better than what they rolled out most of the year, Pineda was gone too....

Projection systems think Buxton will play more than a handful of games.

It isn't really hard to understand that they might win more games, given the injuries and trading off their whole pitching staff. 

[Bradfoot]

For me it is about how good the American League is looking this year.  It's possible that the East produces four 90 win teams again.

Houston should be solid again, Seattle, LAA, and maybe texas could be interesting.

The Twins better do really well against central teams.

[Richmond Dude]

It's important to remember that last year's Twins team was better in the second half than the first half, particularly once Colome was removed from the closer role, and that Colome alone seriously undermined this team in the first two months of the season, demoralizing them for the rest of the season. I think we're better out of the gate just by him being gone. It's addition by subtraction.

[LastOnePicked]

30 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Ryan is 1000x better than what they rolled out most of the year

I miss this kind of optimism.

"1000x better" for a guy in just his second year - a guy with a low 90's homer-prone fastball doesn't scream "1000x better" to me. And I like Joe Ryan.

I'm just saying that if 84 wins is the consensus for this club as currently constructed, the "under" seems like a safe place to invest my money.

[tony&rodney]

It's getting late early. If the Reds are really taking both Mahle and Castillo off the market, the prices for both Montas and Manaea just went up and pretty much every team is talking with the A's. Pecota and all of the projection systems aren't worth anything without pitching and defense. The lineup for tomorrow's Spring Training game might be the roster with a couple tweaks (Kirilloff, Palacios) unless the phones start working.

[Mike Sixel]

1 minute ago, LastOnePicked said:

I miss this kind of optimism.

"1000x better" for a guy in just his second year - a guy with a low 90's homer-prone fastball doesn't scream "1000x better" to me. And I like Joe Ryan.

I'm just saying that if 84 wins is the consensus for this club as currently constructed, the "under" seems like a safe place to invest my money.

Ryan or what Shoemaker and Happ did here last year? Not how good they are, but how they did here last year......It isn't even close, imo. 

that said, I'd bet under 84 also. The point is that it isn't hard to see how the team could win more games than last year, at least that's what I thought I typed. I could be wrong about that.

[Kal Lis]

8 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

It's getting late early. If the Reds are really taking both Mahle and Castillo off the market, the prices for both Montas and Manaea just went up and pretty much every team is talking with the A's.

MLB Trade rumors is reporting that the Royals signed Greinke and that the Tigers are interested in Pineda.

Any bets on who fills the Happ and Shoemaker roles this season?

[Otto von Ballpark]

1 hour ago, tborg said:

Who does Pecota project as playing SS to give us 3.3 fWAR?  Presumably most of that gets lost if we sign Story, so the gain isn't quite as big as you are making it out to be.

That's a good point. Those were Fangraphs projections, and you can check out their current Twins depth chart and WAR projections here:

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=8

Presumably if we signed Story, some of the PAs for Gordon and Lewis dry up, but the largest net effect could be fewer PAs for Urshela.

Urshela is projected for 2.0 WAR in 539 PA, and Story at 4.5 in 644 PA, so depending on how they apportion the playing time, it could net us +2 WAR?

 

[Mike Sixel]

44 minutes ago, Kal Lis said:

MLB Trade rumors is reporting that the Royals signed Greinke and that the Tigers are interested in Pineda.

Any bets on who fills the Happ and Shoemaker roles this season?

Bundy and some combo of the guys on the 40 man.

Gray, Ryan, Ober, Bundy, guys......and Dobnak.

[RJA]

If we take the Cincy FO at their word that they will not trade Mahle or Castillo, this leaves Montas and Manaea as the only available top line pitchers which is going to drastically increase the cost of their acquisition since Minnesota, New York, Chicago and others are in on the hunt.  I heard that on a radio show out of Denver that one of the Colorado Rockies insiders who knows Story says that he has told the Twins that he won't sign unless he perceives they will be competitive as he is sick of losing.  That will put additional pressure on the Twins if that is the case.  IF they get Montas, I think it will cost Martin, Lewis or Kirilloff, plus one of the Twins top minor league arms, plus one or more in the top 30.  That would beg the question:  why in the world did they sit on their thumbs last fall when so many great pitchers were available?  Just asking.

[mikelink45]

Kris Bryant is gone, Greinke is a Royal again and we have Sanchez and Urshela.  Why the optimism?  Is it because we haven't played anyone.  Quit the dreaming.  Lets play some games and see what we have.  I am so confused by the Twins this spring that I do not want to see any projections - what day did they make them?   Did we have Donaldson, Kiner Falefa, Gray?  We don't even know who is on the team.  We don't know who pitches, catches, bats, plays 3B, SS, LF, DH, 1B.  It is all conjecture.  I am going crazy. 

[LastOnePicked]

2 hours ago, RJA said:

why in the world did they sit on their thumbs last fall when so many great pitchers were available?

That's why so many of us were - and are - completely fed up with this FO. They have painted themselves into a corner, and have given their potential trading partners all the leverage going into the season. And they made the 2022 team significantly worse with their last salary dump trade.

If Story is looking to join a winner, there's not much reason to sign here at this point. Compare the rotations. Compare the commitment to payroll. Look at what this team just did with its last big FA signing that they expected to carry the franchise. I wouldn't blame him at all if he went with Boston for a few less guaranteed dollars.

 

[h2oface]

PECOTA is just more clickbait. Let's see how their projections came out from last year to check credibility.......

https://www.mlb.com/news/2021-pecota-projections-breakdown

AL Central                                                  Actual

1. Twins: 91-71 (61% odds to win division)        73-89
2. Indians: 86-76 (25%)                                   80-82
3. White Sox: 83-79 (13%)                                93-69
4. Royals: 71-91 (1%)                                         74-88   
5. Tigers: 67-95 (0%)                                       77-85

[tarheeltwinsfan]

6 hours ago, tborg said:

Who does Pecota project as playing SS to give us 3.3 fWAR?  Presumably most of that gets lost if we sign Story, so the gain isn't quite as big as you are making it out to be.

Exactly my question.

 

 

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, h2oface said:

PECOTA is just more clickbait. Let's see how their projections came out from last year to check credibility.......

https://www.mlb.com/news/2021-pecota-projections-breakdown

AL Central                                                  Actual

1. Twins: 91-71 (61% odds to win division)        73-89
2. Indians: 86-76 (25%)                                   80-82
3. White Sox: 83-79 (13%)                                93-69
4. Royals: 71-91 (1%)                                         74-88   
5. Tigers: 67-95 (0%)                                       77-85

We're going to check one year, and one division to check credibility? I mean, they might suck, but that's no way to check math.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Kris Bryant is gone, Greinke is a Royal again and we have Sanchez and Urshela.  Why the optimism?  Is it because we haven't played anyone.  Quit the dreaming.  Lets play some games and see what we have.  I am so confused by the Twins this spring that I do not want to see any projections - what day did they make them?   Did we have Donaldson, Kiner Falefa, Gray?  We don't even know who is on the team.  We don't know who pitches, catches, bats, plays 3B, SS, LF, DH, 1B.  It is all conjecture.  I am going crazy. 

I bet these projections have K-F at SS and Donaldson at 3B and RV at Catcher. FO should have left well enough alone and gotten some pitching.

[h2oface]

40 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

We're going to check one year, and one division to check credibility? I mean, they might suck, but that's no way to check math.

We? Just an example. Check all you want. It will just confirm it. (The link shows all the divisions for 2021. Plenty more right there for starters. Braves, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, Cubs, Cardinals, Mets, Red Sox, Angels, Mariners, Nationals, Rays..... about half the predictions not even close...... ) I find the best way to check predictions is to see how they compare to the actual result. I don't even need math, then. 

Example: 200 negative PED tests, and just one positive, and all credibility and a trip to the HOF is lost,......

I can't keep up with all the arguers "rules". My comment. My rules. I promise I won't tell you how to comment.

[IndianaTwin]

7 hours ago, Richmond Dude said:

It's important to remember that last year's Twins team was better in the second half than the first half, particularly once Colome was removed from the closer role, and that Colome alone seriously undermined this team in the first two months of the season, demoralizing them for the rest of the season. I think we're better out of the gate just by him being gone. It's addition by subtraction.

Correct. 59-61 over the final 120, so basically a .500 team over the final three-quarters of the year.

[Richmond Dude]

5 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Correct. 59-61 over the final 120, so basically a .500 team over the final three-quarters of the year.

And that includes trading off Berrios and Cruz and losing Maeda, all key pieces of the team.  It is hard to overestimate how badly Colome affected the team early on.

[TopGunn#22]

Nice Job Jamie !  Good discussion as well.

[jmlease1]

The Twins traded their best two right-handed hitters? Byron Buxton would like a word.

 

[Game7-91]