The 2021 Twins Are the Most Disappointing Team Since…

It's hard to classify this one.  2011 and all the injuries seem to be the closest, but this season feels like a mix of bad luck in terms of injuries and bad luck in terms of nearly every free agent signing turning into a bust.  There's also a number of younger players coming up in terms of the lineup and pitching that don't make the future seem that dire.

1993 and afterwards was a total different universe of disappointment - from a bad season to labor disputes to what felt like a nail in the coffin in 1995. I suppose the good news of those memories is that no matter what happens from then on out, there's always a reason for optimism.

We have a habit of dropping like a rock in some seasons.  Look at 1989 -1990

You choose three good examples, but the las 60 years have seen too many of these collapses.  Add 1968 and 1978 to the list of What Happened Seasons.   Here is where those seasons fit into the records.

1993 and 2011 tie. Back in 1993 there wasn't much info available about the minors.  You had to wait fir baseball weekly to give you a weekly snippit of info.  So we didnt really kniw hiw bad our farm system was back then.  In 2011 it was in plain sight and we were completely blindsided by our inability to compete. With this season it feels we are just a few players away from competing again.

1992 will always be the most disappointing season as they were so close yet so far. Not winning when you have a chance is far more disappointing than a season of losing.

1993 and 2011 main because those were teams that had some expectation to be playoff contenders.  Then not only weren't they, it was a precursor to many seasons of losing.  Essentially those were abrupt windows being slammed shut.

2011 was a lot worse than 2021 since the feel on 2011 was the Twins just had horrible luck with injuries and a few players just having down years. I think 2012 was actually much worse than 2011 because it became clear the Twins were a bad team.

I didn't expect the Twins to win the division this year because the White Sox were obviously turning a corner and they were committed to making a run, but I didn't expect the Twins would be this bad.

9 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

 

We have a habit of dropping like a rock in some seasons.  Look at 1989 -1990

1991      95     67      586
1990      74     88     .457
1989 80 82 .494     1988 91  71 .562

You choose three good examples, but the las 60 years have seen too many of these collapses.  Add 1968 and 1978 to the list of What Happened Seasons.   Here is where those seasons fit into the records.

x-1970	98	64	.605	--	1
x-1969	97	65	.599	--	1
1968	79	83	.488	24	7
1967	91	71	.561	1	2

 

1979	82	80	.506	6	4
1978	73	89	.451	19	4
1977	84	77	.522	17.5	4
1976	85	77	.525	5	3

I know this thread is supposed to be about “recent” collapses, but I do remember these.  Interesting that the won-lost record in 1968 wasn’t as bad as I recalled.  But the rebound was great: I guess with The Killer coming back from his injury, the addition of Leo Cardenas (an overlooked Twins player), and—I don’t know—the Billy Martin factor?

I’d like to nominate the drop-off from the nearly 100 game 1970 season to the very disappointing 1971 season, where the Twins were basically a very strong hitting team but a poor team pitching-wise. The high point was Tony Oliva winning his 3rd batting title in 1971.

Rod Carew hit .307 before raising his game massively and winning 6 of the next 7 batting titles with a string of staggering batting  averages!

38 minutes ago, Greglw3 said:

I’d like to nominate the drop-off from the nearly 100 game 1970 season to the very disappointing 1971 season, where the Twins were basically a very strong hitting team but a poor team pitching-wise. The high point was Tony Oliva winning his 3rd batting title in 1971.

Rod Carew hit .307 before raising his game massively and winning 6 of the next 7 batting titles with a string of staggering batting  averages!

But it was the year Tony-O injured his knee!  He was so awesome until then, and then he just limped into the batting title with Bobby Murcer trying to catch him. 

The relief pitching was a train-wreck that season.  

Interesting topic - I still think this 2021 team is the most disappointing team of all of those mentioned above.

No discussion of 2016? Very few people expected an outstanding team but I don't think anyone expected total system failure and 103 losses.

2011.  "The Summer of the Rene's".  God-awful baseball.   

3 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

No discussion of 2016? Very few people expected an outstanding team but I don't think anyone expected total system failure and 103 losses.

Concur.  2011, 2016, 2021 in no particular order for me.  

For me, they are the most disappointing team since...the 2020 Twins.

Heading into the playoffs on a roll, team allegedly healthy, then we absolutely fall apart and crawl behind the couch against the Astros. Bad hitting, bad fielding, questionable managing- that was two days of getting punched in the stomach. I was crushed.

2021 was not as big a disappointment for me as other years because i couldn't see how this Twins team would win more than 81-86 games. I did expect a winning season. The pitching was predictably shaky and not just in retrospect. Berrios and Maeda are very good MLB pitchers. Maeda's difficult year was not expected. Still, I couldn't look at Happ, Shoemaker, Pineda, and Dobnak as parts of a solid staff. Perhaps it was a surprise that one of Duran, Winder, or Balazovic did not step forward to bolster the rotation or that the Twins received nothing from Thorpe or Smeltzer. There were options to trade for a starting pitcher and sign a closer last offseason, however, and the decision to roll with Colome, Happ, and Shoemaker set the tone pretty early this year.

We had many bad and disappointing seasons during the Twinkie years. We've  resembled those years, not only the uniforms.

Projection systems had the 2011 team winning about 84 games. That's a -21. It's really one of the biggest negative outliers in the algorithmic projection era. 

Those same systems had the Twins winning about 87 games this season. The squad would have to lose out this week to really be an argument.

I would say 2011 is the worst in the last 15 or so years. It's in the top 5 for biggest negative differences in MLB for projection vs actual over that span.

This year's club is likely to finish around -17. That they are within striking distance of making that top 5 MLB list twice in 11 years with a week to play is really frustrating though. 

8 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

No discussion of 2016? Very few people expected an outstanding team but I don't think anyone expected total system failure and 103 losses.

It's as big of an underperformance as 2021, but I would say not as big of a disappointment. In 2016 the Twins were expected to be a 77ish win ball club and not compete for a thing.

Fans are really not much more disappointed when a team loses 85 vs 100. It doesn't hold the same emotional weight. 

1 hour ago, Minny505 said:

It's as big of an underperformance as 2021, but I would say not as big of a disappointment.

That nuance is a valid point, and I think in retrospect that 2011 and this year probably were more disappointing than 2016. In fact, bottoming out so badly in 2016 probably has a silver lining in that it spurred a complete retooling of the entire organization.