Is this Twins team legit?

[Major League Ready]

My take on this team from the 1st day of the season was that they would be good and could be very good by end of the season.  Well, I would say they are already very good but not Astros / Yankees / Dodgers great.  If Winder and Jax continue to establish themselves that would make me more confident.   Add Canterino at some point and get Alcala back would help.  A healthy Kirilloff playing the way we know he can would help although Arraez has been better than I would have expected at 1B and that opening keeps his bat in the lineup most days.  

Things are looking good but this topic will likely have much more clarity in 8 weeks!

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 5/23/2022 at 9:56 AM, wsnydes said:

I'm confident in them to the point where I think they should win the division.  Beyond that, not nearly as confident.  They were outclassed by both the Dodgers and Astros by quite a wide margin.  People can point to small sample size, but that's exactly what a playoff series is.  

Agreed, but in that same breath, a team that gets hot at the end of the season can go on a streak. SSS cuts both ways.

The point of small sample size caveat is to avoid drawing a conclusion, not prepare yourself for heartbreak 

[wsnydes]

2 minutes ago, Richie the Rally Goat said:

Agreed, but in that same breath, a team that gets hot at the end of the season can go on a streak. SSS cuts both ways.

The point of small sample size caveat is to avoid drawing a conclusion, not prepare yourself for heartbreak 

Agreed.  You can't win a title if you don't first get to the playoffs to start with.  I'm not saying they can't win, I'm just saying that I'm not as optimistic about it.

[Richie the Rally Goat]

On 5/22/2022 at 8:09 AM, alexthegreat said:

Our Minnesota Twins begin the 2022 MLB Season with a 24-16 record. However, they haven’t had the toughest of schedules. They’ve been hit with the injury bug early on.

Is this team for real?

Yeah they’re for real. I’m not confident they’ll stay on track for 98 wins, but they can absolutely win the division. 

[Muppet]

20 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

They're on track to make the playoffs and that makes them a good baseball team.  They play great defense, a good team game, and they protect leads well.  

Judging the quality of any team by "they can't win a World Series" is part of the long delusion that we know anything about what it will look like to win a WS this year.  

I mean, last year the key was "Pay two cents for dudes about to be DFA'd, watch them go Babe Ruth on us for two months".  So....moral of the story....in the playoffs, $^*# happens.  Punch your ticket and hope!

Absolutely. The only thing that has been constant in the playoffs is the Twins losing, usually at the hands of the Yankees. But really, anything can and does happen in the playoffs/WS. Long shot wild card teams take it all, people get injured, previously unheard of nobodies make clutch game winning plays, superstars miss games after getting in drunken fights after the games... Anything can and does happen. 

[KirbyDome89]

21 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

The Dodgers getting there three totally different ways indicates there wasn't some blueprint they followed, they just synched up enough random **** that they advanced.

Go ahead and look through the list of WS winners and their regular season records.  In the last 53 years (since 1969, cuz that's the quickest google search I found) the team with the best record in the regular season has won the World Series 13 times.  Only 4 in the last 22 years.  

The playoffs are a series of small samples.  And like all small samples, drawing elaborate conclusions is ridiculous.

A blueprint to guarantee a WS run in the postseason? No, but they certainly have a blueprint for how to build a great team, and that seems to yield postseason success. 

I've never said best record = WS title. Not once. What I have said, repeatedly, is that walking into the playoffs with the best team possible gives you an edge. I don't think that's a particularly elaborate conclusion.

[TheLeviathan]

Just now, KirbyDome89 said:

A blueprint to guarantee a WS run in the postseason? No, but they certainly have a blueprint for how to build a great team, and that seems to yield postseason success. 

You mean have a 300M payroll so you have lots of chances to get lucky?  Sure.  I guess that's sorta a "blueprint".  Not unlike Elon Musk has a better chance at walking out with more from a casino than you or me.  But yeah....blueprint.

[KirbyDome89]

11 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

You mean have a 300M payroll so you have lots of chances to get lucky?  Sure.  I guess that's sorta a "blueprint".  Not unlike Elon Musk has a better chance at walking out with more from a casino than you or me.  But yeah....blueprint.

So which is it then? You don't get to bitch about how the Dodgers' postseason success doesn't count because they have too many good players, while simultaneously clutching your SSS/coinflip argument. 

I'm right there with you as far as salary floors/caps + competitive balance are concerned, but none of that has anything to do with the point I'm making about talent elevating teams in the playoffs. 

[TheLeviathan]

19 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

So which is it then? You don't get to bitch about how the Dodgers' postseason success doesn't count because they have too many good players, while simultaneously clutching your SSS/coinflip argument. 

I'm right there with you as far as salary floors/caps + competitive balance are concerned, but none of that has anything to do with the point I'm making about talent elevating teams in the playoffs. 

It's both, they aren't mutually exclusive.  The Dodgers have bought themselves a better chance (I've always said, the key is depth, not aces or stars or any of that), but despite the massive advantage they bought themselves they have still largely failed.  They won once, in a pandemic shortened season, despite a MASSIVE advantage.  Why?  Because the playoffs are nothing but a series of baseball random samples.  Will talent give you an advantage over the long haul?  Sure, even in the short term you get a slight advantage just like it does every time the Yankees play the Orioles.  Will that stop the Orioles from taking two out of three one weekend?  Hell no.  Lesser teams win constantly in baseball, why would it be any different because it's October?

All the playoffs are is a prayer that your talent advantages show up for that one week blip or that some dude goes Ruth enough to carry you for a week if it doesn't.  That's literally what happens year in and year out.  You're so stuck wanting to believe there is some master pattern that you can't rectify what is easily rectified: small samples are cruel and random.

[KirbyDome89]

10 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

It's both, they aren't mutually exclusive.  The Dodgers have bought themselves a better chance (I've always said, the key is depth, not aces or stars or any of that), but despite the massive advantage they bought themselves they have still largely failed.  They won once, in a pandemic shortened season, despite a MASSIVE advantage.  Why?  Because the playoffs are nothing but a series of baseball random samples.  Will talent give you an advantage over the long haul?  Sure, even in the short term you get a slight advantage just like it does every time the Yankees play the Orioles.  Will that stop the Orioles from taking two out of three one weekend?  Hell no.  Lesser teams win constantly in baseball, why would it be any different because it's October?

All the playoffs are is a prayer that your talent advantages show up for that one week blip or that some dude goes Ruth enough to carry you for a week if it doesn't.  That's literally what happens year in and year out.  You're so stuck wanting to believe there is some master pattern that you can't rectify what is easily rectified: small samples are cruel and random.

So what I've said this entire time. 

That's a rather convenient height to set the bar at. If the Twins make the WS in 3/4 years, and currently look like one of the best teams in baseball, we're worshiping at the alter of Falvine. That seems far from failure from where I stand. I've never said it suddenly becomes different, but conversely you'd expect that Yankee team to handle Baltimore with ease and take 60-70% of those games. That edge doesn't suddenly disappear because the calendar flips to October. 

No, I'm not searching in vain for some hidden formula, I'm pointing out the obvious; better teams carry an advantage into the postseason, and for a team like the current Twins, who aren't on that tier, it isn't simply a matter of "get in and flip a coin." Their battle is uphill. 

[LewFordLives]

The pitching still concerns me. Will Archer and Bundy be exposed when the bullpen loses that extra roster spot and they have to pitch more than 4 innings per start?

How many times can Pagan keep tiptoeing around disaster in the late innings?

The young guys have impressed (Ryan, Ober, Duran, Winder), but they are still green, and they will take their lumps.

And is Buxton anything near healthy? 

They've been on a good run, and it's been fun, but the competition will get tougher.

 

[TheLeviathan]

3 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

So what I've said this entire time. 

That's a rather convenient height to set the bar at. If the Twins make the WS in 3/4 years, and currently look like one of the best teams in baseball, we're worshiping at the alter of Falvine. That seems far from failure from where I stand. I've never said it suddenly becomes different, but conversely you'd expect that Yankee team to handle Baltimore with ease and take 60-70% of those games. That edge doesn't suddenly disappear because the calendar flips to October. 

No, I'm not searching in vain for some hidden formula, I'm pointing out the obvious; better teams carry an advantage into the postseason, and for a team like the current Twins, who aren't on that tier, it isn't simply a matter of "get in and flip a coin." Their battle is uphill. 

You equate "edge" to "not random" and therein lies your mistake.

Every series inflicts randomness on your "edge".  Hence why teams with an "edge" sometimes survive the first roll at random **** happening, but regularly can't survive the second or third volley.  At the end of the day the game of baseball minimizes those advantages in small samples to such a degree that even massive financial outlays aren't enough to do much more than make postseason odds a coinflip.  (60% "edge" over multiple rounds is basically a coinflip.  Worse, really)

You started the conversation arguing teams repeat in baseball regularly and that's false and was demonstrated to you by @chpettit19.  The reason you made that claim without knowing the truth of it is because you've arrived at a conclusion without evidence and keep trying to find evidence that meets it.  Hell, it's the story we're all told as baseball fans to make sense of being champions.  If you try, even for a second, to look at the past 22 years of baseball with the mindset of "random happens"....you'll find the cognitive dissonance disappears.

[Squirrel]

9 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Are the Twins for real? Pinch yourself... If you don't wake up from a dream. They are real. 

If all I get from this is a bruised arm, I'm blaming you  

[Riverbrian]

1 minute ago, Squirrel said:

If all I get from this is a bruised arm, I'm blaming you  

Pinch somewhere else

[KirbyDome89]

6 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

You equate "edge" to "not random" and therein lies your mistake.

Every series inflicts randomness on your "edge".  Hence why teams with an "edge" sometimes survive the first roll at random **** happening, but regularly can't survive the second or third volley.  At the end of the day the game of baseball minimizes those advantages in small samples to such a degree that even massive financial outlays aren't enough to do much more than make postseason odds a coinflip.  (60% "edge" over multiple rounds is basically a coinflip.  Worse, really)

You started the conversation arguing teams repeat in baseball regularly and that's false and was demonstrated to you by @chpettit19.  The reason you made that claim without knowing the truth of it is because you've arrived at a conclusion without evidence and keep trying to find evidence that meets it.  Hell, it's the story we're all told as baseball fans to make sense of being champions.  If you try, even for a second, to look at the past 22 years of baseball with the mindset of "random happens"....you'll find the cognitive dissonance disappears.

Yes, I believe there is a non-random element to winning games in the postseason. 

And yet somehow LA managed to survive all those rolls season after season. How fortunate. I'm curious, what do you make of the Twins current ineptitude in the playoffs? Are they simply the unluckiest team in history of American professional sports? 

Yes, there are multiple teams that made multiple appearances over short periods of time within the last 10-20 years. I guess they're all just lucky like LA. There's a wide gap between "random happens," and "the postseason is a coin flip." I find the latter take too reductionist, but I appreciate your attempt to free me from the chains of mental anguish. 

[TheLeviathan]

13 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Yes, I believe there is a non-random element to winning games in the postseason. 

And yet somehow LA managed to survive all those rolls season after season. How fortunate. I'm curious, what do you make of the Twins current ineptitude in the playoffs? Are they simply the unluckiest team in history of American professional sports? 

Yes, there are multiple teams that made multiple appearances over short periods of time within the last 10-20 years. I guess they're all just lucky like LA. There's a wide gap between "random happens," and "the postseason is a coin flip." I find the latter take too reductionist, but I appreciate your attempt to free me from the chains of mental anguish. 

Yes, they are literally the unluckiest team in professional sports.  See?  The cognitive dissonance need not happen!

Random happens in coin flips too.  There's just less variables.  Baseball is filled with a crap ton of variables that roster construction and money can't account for.  Most of playoff winning comes down to plain old good fortune.

Again, just to summarize: Rosario and Soler were DFA guys that hit like Ruth for a two week span, the 2019 Nationals only got out of the wild card by beating Josh Hader with a two out, error filled rally that would make Benny Hill proud, remember how the legendary.....Steve Pearce?....carried a team in 2018?, and I could go on.  Nope, luck is the mistress you flirt with in small samples in baseball.  No reason to be in denial about it.

[KirbyDome89]

32 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

Yes, they are literally the unluckiest team in professional sports.  See?  The cognitive dissonance need not happen!

Random happens in coin flips too.  There's just less variables.  Baseball is filled with a crap ton of variables that roster construction and money can't account for.  Most of playoff winning comes down to plain old good fortune.

Again, just to summarize: Rosario and Soler were DFA guys that hit like Ruth for a two week span, the 2019 Nationals only got out of the wild card by beating Josh Hader with a two out, error filled rally that would make Benny Hill proud, remember how the legendary.....Steve Pearce?....carried a team in 2018?, and I could go on.  Nope, luck is the mistress you flirt with in small samples in baseball.  No reason to be in denial about it.

Ha, I'll give it to you for being consistent at least. I'm sure you can guess my take on their beat downs at the hands of NY year in and year out. 

I'm not in denial that it plays a part, my quibble is with painting it as the sole contributor. 

[TheLeviathan]

3 minutes ago, KirbyDome89 said:

Ha, I'll give it to you for being consistent at least. I'm sure you can guess my take on their beat downs at the hands of NY year in and year out. 

I'm not in denial that it plays a part, my quibble is with painting it as the sole contributor. 

You're not wrong that talent can give a team an edge going in.  I'd even agree that there can be a mental component to it where teams beat themselves before the first pitch.  I just think it's luck by a country mile that decides the outcome of MLB playoffs because they're a small sample. And we see all too often how weird that can be in any one week span of a baseball season.

I'd rather crown the best record the champ every year and turn the playoffs into a series of wild, WWE inspired zany antics.  Strangely though, Manfred and Co. have not returned my calls.

[cHawk]

1 hour ago, Squirrel said:

If all I get from this is a bruised arm, I'm blaming you  

You don’t really need to pinch that hard, just a tiny pinch should do the trick.

[Squirrel]

6 minutes ago, alexthegreat said:

You don’t really need to pinch that hard, just a tiny pinch should do the trick.

But that won’t wake me up

[KirbyDome89]

27 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

You're not wrong that talent can give a team an edge going in.  I'd even agree that there can be a mental component to it where teams beat themselves before the first pitch.  I just think it's luck by a country mile that decides the outcome of MLB playoffs because they're a small sample. And we see all too often how weird that can be in any one week span of a baseball season.

I'd rather crown the best record the champ every year and turn the playoffs into a series of wild, WWE inspired zany antics.  Strangely though, Manfred and Co. have not returned my calls.

This + a balanced schedule. 

[cHawk]

1 hour ago, Squirrel said:

But that won’t wake me up

Oh it will. If anyone touches me while I’m sleeping I immediately jump awake.

[LastOnePicked]

I would now like to upgrade my vote from "Eh ..."

[Nine of twelve]

On 5/23/2022 at 9:09 AM, Brock Beauchamp said:

Look at what Atlanta did last season.

This is something that is foreign to younger Twins fans, but if a team qualifies for the postseason all that is required to win a World Championship is to have a warm streak. Atlanta's postseason record last year was 11-5. Lots of teams can go 11-5 over 16 games, it's just a matter of doing it at the optimal time.

[Nine of twelve]

A lot of people think that we should expect the Twins to be mediocre every year, and that the success in 2019 and 2020 was an anomaly. (And based on the last 10 years or so not without reason.) I have reached the point where I think we should expect the Twins to be good every year and that the lack of success in 2021 was an anomaly. Call it the new normal.

[Bigfork Twins Guy]

I am enthusiastic about the Twins and feel they are legit for a few reasons.

1) Good defense does not go through slumps and will keep them in games especially in this small ball era.

2) The division is weak (except Chicago) and with the unbalanced schedule the Twins will do fine during the regular season.

3) For a change this season they have a quantity and quality of depth which helps overcome injuries.

If/once they get to the post season, it is anybody's guess.

[Mike Sixel]

16 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

You're not wrong that talent can give a team an edge going in.  I'd even agree that there can be a mental component to it where teams beat themselves before the first pitch.  I just think it's luck by a country mile that decides the outcome of MLB playoffs because they're a small sample. And we see all too often how weird that can be in any one week span of a baseball season.

I'd rather crown the best record the champ every year and turn the playoffs into a series of wild, WWE inspired zany antics.  Strangely though, Manfred and Co. have not returned my calls.

That last part is what I've argued for several years now. Make a huge deal of the first season winner, and then have everyone in the second season. But for some reason, people think the post season is a real indicator of "best". Despite all the evidence.

[Battle ur tail off]

I think we will win the division. Or that is my hope. We might have to get lucky though, I think Rocco is going to burn up this bullpen. 

Once we get to the playoffs, we have Buxton, Correa, Polanco and Duran, heck let's add Joe Ryan. Those 5 are as good as anyone in the league. The rest will have to play out of their minds. 

 

[Parfigliano]

I wish they had already played the evil empire with this lead.

[Parfigliano]

7 hours ago, Battle ur tail off said:

I think we will win the division. Or that is my hope. We might have to get lucky though, I think Rocco is going to burn up this bullpen. 

Once we get to the playoffs, we have Buxton, Correa, Polanco and Duran, heck let's add Joe Ryan. Those 5 are as good as anyone in the league. The rest will have to play out of their minds. 

 

Battle.....is that a reference?