Over the past two months, I've been writing about who I feel are the 14 most important players for the Twins in 2014. I finished up today with number one. I had meant to post a few of these at Twins Daily, but I'm so lazy. Here's my list, each player name is a link to the longer post.

 

14. Peduardo Florscobar

13. Josh Willingham

12. Brian Dozier

11. Kohl Stewart

10. Phil Hughes

9. Aaron Hicks

8. Josmil Pinto

7. Alex Meyer

6. Kyle Gibson

5. Miguel Sano

4. Ricky Nolasco

3. Oswaldo Arcia

2. Joe Mauer

1. Byron Buxton

 

The list might look a little odd and prospect-heavy, but that's kind of where we are with the Twins right now. Many important players won't play a game for the Twins in 2014. Obviously, I wrote about Miguel Sano prior to his injury (it was actually posted on the day he felt the fateful "twinge"). I also didn't include Glen Perkins because I'm not sure how important a closer is to a team that will win 75 games if everything breaks right. That's a personal preference. Perkins would be 14 on this list now, with Sano falling out completely.

 

If the Twins projected to be "good" next year, I might have gone with this top 14:

 

1. Mauer

2. Nolasco

3. Arcia

4. Willingham

5. Perkins

6. Hughes

7. Dozier

8. Trevor Plouffe

9. Mike Pelfrey

10. Sam Deduno

11. Kevin Correia

12. Kurt Suzuki

13. Gibson

14. Hicks

 

Of course, if that list represented the best 14 players for a team that we thought could contend, we'd all be getting tested for delusional thoughts.

 

If you're interested, check out some of the posts above. If nothing else, share your personal top 14 list. Who did I miss? Should prospects be considered at all? Is Joe Mauer a robot? Should Deduno be number 1?

I think this is a lost season where 90 losses is a probability. As such, how most of the veterans perform is almost irrelevant to me. The big exceptions being Willingham and Perkins as I think they could have the value to bring back a significant piece for the future at the trade deadline. Mixed in with those two I think the next (or perhaps as) important players are the development of Arcia, Dozier, Gibson, Hicks etc... with the minor leaguers fitting in there as well.

 

If Nolasco, Hughes, Pelfrey all come out and put up sub-4 ERA's our offense is still bad enough that we won't contend. If they put up 5-ish ERA's well that won't matter either. IMHO of course. A small caveat is needed here, clearly the team sucking is a big deal to season ticket holders that are looking for immediate entertainment value. I just don't happen to fit that category.