5 Most Disappointing Minnesota Twins Players in May

5 most disappointing things is slightly accurate but you should have made it a top 10.  

Miquel "He's just a K machine" Sano who is 2 for his last 25 with 14 K's, 43 K's in his last 90+ at Bats.  Mr. Swing and Miss is hitting 100 lbs less than his weight.  

Rocco Baldelli would be on this list for penciling in Sano on a daily basis.  My goodness his game management is not great.

Buxton, where has he been?  Oh that's right, in the medical tent once again

Hitting Coach?  Do the twins have anyone on the payroll that knows what they are doing? Maybe Cruz and his clubhouse leadership/mentor status that everyone loves to talk about should let us know who it is.  

Shoemaker who is 1-5 over his last 7 starts.  

Great content, Tom! Glad you're providing that for us here.

Regarding Simmons, it's amazing to see that in his 2nd month as a Twin, he's posting a career high in monthly strikeouts.

What's this team doing to its hitters? I often joke that the hitting coaches just tell players "close your eyes and swing as hard as you can", but maybe that's true? If so, it's not funny.

The Twins struck out 14 times again yesterday. That's more than 50% of their outs. And 12 the game before. They're not facing Max Scherzer, they're going against below average starters for the Royals and Orioles.

It's almost unwatchable baseball. Not only are they bad, but there's very little action.

Simmons bat can’t be disappointing, since there were never high expectations for him to hit.   So delete him from list and add Miggy. 

Good article but how can K-Sano not be on the list.  He'd be at the top of mine. Outside of 1 HR to win 1 ballgame for them against Baltimore he kills a rally almost every time he's up to bat. Had the bases loaded twice and a third time had guys at 1st and 2nd yesterday and produced nothing. He belongs in the stands with the rest of us who can't hit. They could bring back Morneau and he'd hit more than .163. 

Time to take a look at some youngsters and move on from the Buxton/Sano era. Neither will nor should be mainstays going forward. One can't stay on the field and the other one shouldn't be on the field. Lets see what Rooker and Celestino can do. 

A ghastly stat line suggests Sanó belongs on this list. That .163 average, high K rate and RISP failure level are hard to ignore. He looks overmatched at the plate.

3 minutes ago, Tom Froemming said:

Regarding Sano, he didn't crack my top five because his performance is not far from what I'd expect so I can't be that disappointed. He's going to strikeout a ton. He's going to slug. His .476 slugging percentage was 50 points above league average for the month.

Matt Shoemaker sorta fell under the same category. They're guys I'm not thrilled with, but they didn't crack this top five because I'm not expecting much more than they provided in May.

I see your reasoning, but they are near the top of the list for me.  Sano comes up in so many high leverage situations and I guess I have to qualify my initial statement here - I expect him to strike out and he does - so the reality is he does meet my expectations.  Good job Tom.   

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

It occurs to me that we could add an additional five disappointing players without much problem. Sanó, Happ, Shoemaker, Duffey, Stashak and Maeda could qualify. The Twins finished 13-16 for the month and the holes in the lineup and pitching staff are pretty deep. 

Barring the near-miracle of rising to contention, the club is in for at least a major retooling next year. 

Happ is twice as disappointingly as anyone else?

What stands out to me and Simmons is a prime example are all the easy outs the Twins make. Always lunging for balls or doing little wrist flip swings. We need to open the wallet and get the hitting coach back we had during the Boomba days! Never should have let him walk for a few dollars!!

The teams the Twins are playing often walk the batter ahead of Sano (often Cruz of late) just to face him. Sano made them pay a couple of times in May, but as noted, he made many more outsin those situations. 

2 hours ago, umterp23 said:

5 most disappointing things is slightly accurate but you should have made it a top 10.  

Miquel "He's just a K machine" Sano who is 2 for his last 25 with 14 K's, 43 K's in his last 90+ at Bats.  Mr. Swing and Miss is hitting 100 lbs less than his weight.  

Rocco Baldelli would be on this list for penciling in Sano on a daily basis.  My goodness his game management is not great.

Buxton, where has he been?  Oh that's right, in the medical tent once again

Hitting Coach?  Do the twins have anyone on the payroll that knows what they are doing? Maybe Cruz and his clubhouse leadership/mentor status that everyone loves to talk about should let us know who it is.  

Shoemaker who is 1-5 over his last 7 starts.  

I agree with you about nothing in the leadership ranks offers much as a hitting coach.  What is only real difference between our Bomba Squad in 2019 compared to our poor batting results in 2020 and now 2021. the batting coach changed!  I know these guys are pros - but something had to change in the way they are being told to hit isn't there?

I'd have Duffey in above Alcala. Duffey had rotten control in April and followed it up by being too hittable in May. Alcala is still giving up too many dingers and hasn't become the dominant, shut-down righty we've been hoping for (yet), but he hasn't been bad and at least he's still only 25. Duffey has regressed badly and looks like just another guy out there.

2 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Not that I don't agree with most of your comment, but the Twins are right in the middle of MLB as far as strikeouts go and that includes Sanó, who, if he get 600 plate appearances, might break the all-time strikeout record by quite a bit. The same is true for run scoring. The Twins sit a 11th in MLB in scoring runs, not elite, but better than average. 

Strikeouts are up everywhere and run scoring is down everywhere. Baseball is trying to remedy these trends, but so far they are bailing out the boat with a teacup. I would guess just about every fan site in every big league city would have the same complaints.

Excuses. They are bad and it needs to fixed. Period. 

I would agree with the list, for the most part.  I would disagree with Simmons.  For me, to be disappointed, you need to expect more than what they are doing.  Simmons did not come here to hit, unlike Cruz and Donaldson, who bats are why they hit top of line up.  Any offense you get from Simmons is bonus for most part.  He came here to play defense, and to my knowledge he still can do that. 

Overall, most of the team has been a disappointment though.  They need to figure out how to not strike out so much.  Personally, I am done with Sano and want him dealt to any team that will take him.  Give his position to Kiroloff.  Once Buck comes back find a team that will give up a top prospect, if one is out there, and send him on his way.  He may have MVP talent, but he lacks the most important ability, avail-ability.  I worry his numbers in April will cause Twins to give him a deal more than they should and he keeps spending half his career in the trainer room.  The most recent injury is a muscle injury, and they pop up time and again.  I expect as he ages they will keep on coming and it will always be the, if he can stay healthy thing.  After this long you just have to accept, he cannot stay on the field for 150 games a year, barely can for 100. 

3 hours ago, bighat said:

The Twins struck out 14 times again yesterday. That's more than 50% of their outs. And 12 the game before. They're not facing Max Scherzer, they're going against below average starters for the Royals and Orioles.

It's almost unwatchable baseball. Not only are they bad, but there's very little action.

I agree. This is true of pretty much all MLB baseball at the moment. The league’s big problem isn’t necessarily that games take too long, it’s that pitching and defense have been optimized to the point that the game is just plain boring to watch. 

It’s hard to limit the number to 5. I liked Mike’s selections. Donaldson and Cruz have not been good. Kepler looks lost at the plate.  Sano looked a little better after trying to change his swing, but it seems like he reverts back to the same big loopy swing most of the time.  I think sometimes the pitchers throw the ball where he swings and hit his bat.  But then, I can’t bring myself to watch every game.  They aren’t much fun to watch. Nobody seems like they are having much fun, even when they win. 

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

@Tom Froemming Why stop at five?

26 is a pretty good number, in my humble opinion...

Hey! Let's leave Rob Refsnyder out of this.

I'm sick and tired of the Twins apologists on here.  How can anyone be so naive about baseball results to make Sano look good to average in his strikeouts.  He needs to go.  It's time to move the veterans.  Bring in some younger players that actually appear to care. This group of "veterans" doesn't appear to.

4 hours ago, Tom Froemming said:

Regarding Sano, he didn't crack my top five because his performance is not far from what I'd expect so I can't be that disappointed. He's going to strikeout a ton. He's going to slug. His .476 slugging percentage was 50 points above league average for the month.

SLG asside, his May OBP was .261, walk rate cratered, and strikeout rate regressed back to almost 42%. I don't see how slugging percentage can come close to balancing out those other factors. He helped win a few games with random HRs, but how many games could have changed if he just puts a few balls in play with runners on? So many rallies snuffed out.

Alex Colome deserves to be on the list as he is single handedly responsible for 4 losses. He was also the Twins big bullpen acquisition for the winter. 

In addition to many of the names mentioned above, I would have Ryan Jeffers on this list. He went from being in the pre-season RoY discussion to playing himself off the roster with a nearly 50% K rate. The consequences are that we have lost several games with passed balls or WP with Garver that a decent defensive catcher would have corralled. 
 

It is really approaching total system failure. The number of regular starters and pitchers who are meeting expectations are rather low  
 

On the plus side Mitch Garver had a tremendous May.

.281 ave/.428 On base%/.579 Slug%/1.017 OPS

Also shout out to the new bullpen additions Hansel Robles and Alex Colome. Even though both were outperforming their underlying numbers in May.

Robles

2.51 ERA 10.05 K/9  (horrendous 6.28 walks per 9,    3.89FIP 4.54 xFIP)

Colome 

1.74 ERA 9.58 K/9 (4.67 FIP, 3.98 xFIP)

1 hour ago, Eris said:

Alex Colome deserves to be on the list as he is single handedly responsible for 4 losses. He was also the Twins big bullpen acquisition for the winter. 

In addition to many of the names mentioned above, I would have Ryan Jeffers on this list. He went from being in the pre-season RoY discussion to playing himself off the roster with a nearly 50% K rate. The consequences are that we have lost several games with passed balls or WP with Garver that a decent defensive catcher would have corralled. 
 

It is really approaching total system failure. The number of regular starters and pitchers who are meeting expectations are rather low  
 

 

Colome gave up 2 earned runs and was credited with 0 blown saves in May.  His Left on base% was 97.2%. He allowed 0 inherited runners to score besides the runner on 2nd rule for extra innings which happened once.

He was responsible for 1 loss which was a walk off homerun in the 10th inning against Cleveland.

He was our best bullpen pitcher in May.