Are These Twins For Real?

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, Major League Ready said:

They have won 8 of their last 10 and they have a bunch of important players hurt.  So do a lot of teams but 8 of the last 10 with this many injuries is a team I would not be discounting.

I'm not, I've said I expect them to be better, but I also don't think good teams puke all over themselves as often as Chicago has recently. Perhaps this is their upswing. 

[Major League Ready]

The FO is in the middle of an extensive rebuild on the fly.  They are instituting several long-term replacements. 

Position Players
1B – We all knew this was Sano’s last year
2B – Set with Polanco.
SS – Correa is a great 1 year add helping to put a good product on the field in the midst of a rebuild.  Lewis is the near future.
3B – Donaldson simply was not part of the solution.  He is continuing to decline.  A lot is riding on Miranda.  If he does not make it Steer and CES are relatively close but I assume the front office was planning on Miranda with Urshela as a bridge they could non-tender or trade.
LF – Vacated waiting for someone to step-up.  For those who wanted to keep Rosario.  He is literally one of the worst hitters in all of MLB this year.
4th OF – Celestino was on the door step with other possibilities as well
CF – Signed Buxton to be our franchise player.

Rotation
At the end of last season we basically had one solid back of the rotation guy (Ober) who still needed to prove he was for real.  We acquired Ryan at the deadline and hoped he would live up to his potential.  Winder looked ready last year and.  He got injured and made the opening day lineup.  They added a couple bounce back guys (Bundy / Archer)  to get us through this year and provide an opportunity for Balazovic / Canterino to also step up.

Bullpen
Also needed to be pretty much completely rebuilt.  Duran looks like he can be dominant but this was quite uncertain at the end of last season.  Jax has also shown the signs many of us hoped for in moving him to the BP.  There are still several others possibilities in the farm system.  

That’s a massive amount of rebuild.  It made no sense to operate as a “Real Contender” in terms of trades and free agents. Their plan was very obvious by the way they approached this season and their confidence in the system is looking pretty astute at the moment.  We are on the cusp of being quite good for several years.   That just does not happen immediately.  I am very please and hope you are all as well with having a good product to watch while they simultaneously build a team that can seriously contend for the next several years.

BTW ... Keep in mind that moving Donaldson and building a homegrown pitching staff will enable the team to spend significantly on free agents especially if Lewis can man SS.  They are not going to have any glaring holes so the expenditures can be on impact players instead of fielding enough SPs to keep us in games.  IDK how they will spend but they will be extremely well positioned. 

I never expected them to be a real contender out of the gate.  Therefore, I am very pleased to see all of these changes / developments necessary for them to become a contender are looking very promising.   

[TheLeviathan]

11 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Do you think Detroit, KC, and Oakland are anything other than terrible and pose any threat to sending the Twins into a tailspin? It's as simple as that. 

Weak division, lots of games against the 2 worst teams in said division + playing bottom feeders from other divisions = a soft start. I don't think we need more than surface level analysis here. 

You're asking me to preemptively dismiss baseball victories that haven't even happened yet.  I want off this ride Mr. Serling.

[KirbyDome89]

5 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

You're asking me to preemptively dismiss baseball victories that haven't even happened yet.  I want off this ride Mr. Serling.

Nope, I'm just not putting as much stock into the first 50 games which happen to be the softest part of the schedule. Grain of salt =/= dismiss. 

[old nurse]

The question is not are they real but can they become better. The division and wild card are obtainable. The question becomes are they able to do winning in the playoffs. That all depends on the growth of Winder, Ryan and Ober. Does Gray return to health or does it nag all year? How does Duran develop as the high leverage pitcher? Are Duffey and Thielbar high leverage pitchers? Is their a fourth high leverage reliever? There are a lot of games left to go with a lot of mediocrity to play. The answer to are they real will not be known

[Otaknam]

It’s about health and starting pitching. If they can get healthy and the starters hold up it should be a fun season. If Winder keeps pitching well it looks like Archer is a candidate for long relief. And of course  Buxton  and Correa need to be healthy. The silver lining with the injuries is that some young prospects are getting some experience, which will help down the road. And we’ll find out about Miranda and Lewis’ ability to play 3B and SS in the bigs. 

[ashbury]

I think we can safely chalk it up as a jinx, the question mark format of this article's headline.

[RpR]

They are for but what real is , is the problem.

[USAFChief]

Asked and answered.