Can These Twins Avoid Another Total System Failure?

Minneapolis placed used pianos throughout the City in 2016. Prior to a Twins Game that year, I improvised the Total System Failure Blues. Some fans joined in (4-5 maximum). The rest tried to divert their attention from this musical negativity. If the Twins continue down this path in 2021, I will try to do a 2.0 version.

You can’t tell me watching Colome accumulate a nearly impossible -1.5 WAR and cough up 5 games in 8 appearances, with no accountability in terms of his role, doesn’t cause some sort of rot in that clubhouse. If I’m Duffey or Rogers, who’s put my time in here and been performed, I wouldn’t be very happy about it.

Colome is doing this in epically bad fashion. It’s not a walkoff extra base hit to Mike Trout. We’re talking about throwing batting practice level stuff to guys like Jordan Luplow, and the team is in the dugout before the ball lands.

It doesn’t help when Baldelli is getting cute and doing things like yanking Josh Donaldson in the 10th inning. Walking Robby Grossman to pitch to one of the hottest hitters in the game. Forgetting the rules on mound visits with your ace on the mound. The decisions he’s been making are inexcusably bad.

It looks like the life has been sucked out of some of these guys, and rightfully so. It’s amateur hour over there in the FO and management.

Pat Neshek was a great long reliever. I was thinking about him prior and was hoping that Baldelli would use Dobnak the same way if they aren't using him as starter.

The Twins have played 4 games against the Central Division so far this year. It is fortunate they are playing their worst ball now. Lots of games within the division to climb out of the hole they are in.

As completely awful as it is being a fan right now, I believe it will get better. The bad stretches always feel endless, and the good stretches never last long enough (seemingly). Close the gap in the division to a couple games by the All-Star Break and things look a whole lot better.

I have NO EXPLANATION, much less ANY answers as to how and why this team's record is virtually flipped from what was expected or projected. Not just from me, or us as fans, but from the press and purported experts.

NOTHING has really gone right past the first week from injuries to covid to unexpectedly poor performance. And while I enjoyed the OP and the various perspectives, at some point a talented and pretty deep team HAS TO PERFORM even to "normal" standards/expectations, forgetting anyone having a great season.

Knee jerk reactions certainly aren't the answer, or warranted. And I'm as disappointed as anyone! The FO and Rocco didn't just become incompetent overnight, despite a few real questionable calls from Rocco here and there. Johnson didn't just become a bad coach. The available talent, ability, proven past production and potential off the players on this team just didn't disappear in a snap, despite the poor results we've seen.

For whatever reason, all but a few players seem to have begun the season in simultaneous slumps. Is it a fluke? Is the roster just a bad recipe of ingredients that don't work together?

I'm not trying to be an inexcusable optomist, and at some time changes via trade or promotion will probably have to take place for a jump start and new "recipe" mix, but the best thing that could happen RIGHT NOW is for everyone to be healthy and back and for the calender to flip to May.

I know that sounds ridiculously simple, but how many of us at work, or in life, have just had a bad month. And when the next month started, we just took a deep mental/emotional breath and everything just started to go and work better with a feeling of a fresh start?

This team needs to get healthy and start the next month with a new attitude. From there, the FO needs to start being aggressive with moves/changes.

I think the most important parallel to make is:

the "weird Willie Eyre fixation" to the current "weird Colome fixation" (gotta keep rollin' him out because, you know, um, yeah!)

Oscillations are a simple idea. Over time, something goes up and down. A little higher, then a little lower, etc. Over a long enough time, you can draw a line that equally divides the high from the low, to get an average. 

The Minnesota Twins are definitely swinging very low lately. If you are averaging fewer than 4 runs per game while allowing more than 6, you are going to lose a lot of games. Questions: Are Twins hitters historically better than this? Yes, much better. Are the Twins pitchers historically better than this? Starters, yes. Relievers, hard yes. Have Twins coaches been better than this? Yes, Rowson appeared to have the whole team hitting. 

An upward oscillation is likely, at least for the hitters. Keep practicing, keep following a good process. It finally worked for Buxton. Meanwhile, the bullpen could definitely use some substitutions, starting with Colome, Stashak and Thiebar. Jhoan Duran, Jordan Balazovic and Matt Canterino could replace them, or whoever is the best reliever in the system. Maybe a trio of hard throwing talent can swing this line back in a positive direction. 

You can see it in a player's face, whether they are feeling pressure or are applying pressure. Time for the Twins to start applying pressure. 

This from an article on the MLB page....

"But the Twins actually led the AL with a 42 percent hard-hit rate entering Tuesday, and their average exit velocity of 89.7 mph was second only to the Blue Jays. But the results haven’t followed -- just ask Kirilloff, who entered the game 1-for-18 but was hitting the ball well enough for a .293 expected batting average and an expected slugging percentage of .608, per Statcast."

This is where baseball has gone. All this expected crap to try to make it acceptable to lose. Whoppee. Wining the hard-hit rate stat sheet. Expected means nothing in the win and loss columns. Actual means everything.

New Twins strategy: pitch a shutout, have a chance.

I've never been this disappointed in a Twins team, ever. Very short time left to man up and right the ship.

Didn't I read somewhere that Rocco was going to move Colombe to less intense pitching situations and yet he is in a close game to suck again yesterday.  Maybe I'm wrong on the info, but my goodness what a failure to this point of the season for a high priced off season pickup.  Rocco now makes the comment that they "can't control our results"... What the hell, another cute excuse.  You can control it, quit throwing Colombe out there, that is controlling a pending bad result!

This from an article on the MLB page....

 

"But the Twins actually led the AL with a 42 percent hard-hit rate entering Tuesday, and their average exit velocity of 89.7 mph was second only to the Blue Jays. But the results haven’t followed -- just ask Kirilloff, who entered the game 1-for-18 but was hitting the ball well enough for a .293 expected batting average and an expected slugging percentage of .608, per Statcast."

 

This is where baseball has gone. All this expected crap to try to make it acceptable to lose. Whoppee. Wining the hard-hit rate stat sheet. Expected means nothing in the win and loss columns. Actual means everything.

I don't think anybody said those stats count for anything. We are in an age where there are so many outlets for information and in baseball people are dissecting minutia to try to explain things or gain an edge.

The Twins have laid an egg. The only solace I would get from those stats are that the talent hasn't just disappeared and things could swing in the other direction.

This from an article on the MLB page....

 

"But the Twins actually led the AL with a 42 percent hard-hit rate entering Tuesday, and their average exit velocity of 89.7 mph was second only to the Blue Jays. But the results haven’t followed -- just ask Kirilloff, who entered the game 1-for-18 but was hitting the ball well enough for a .293 expected batting average and an expected slugging percentage of .608, per Statcast."

 

This is where baseball has gone. All this expected crap to try to make it acceptable to lose. Whoppee. Wining the hard-hit rate stat sheet. Expected means nothing in the win and loss columns. Actual means everything.

couldn't agree more with the above. Some of the useless drivel that is being wheeled out is just plain unnecessary.this isn't Strat-o-matic. Its what happens when major league hitters face major league pitchers and fielders. Some of the easiest DP's in the game are hard hit, on the button ground balls. You can hit a ball 400 feet, real hard, and if its to center field, its usually an out.

Object of game...score more runs than the other guy and win. And it can happen in a various number of ways. I don't care about 'hard hit' and exit velocity and launch angle and e-i--e-i-o m-o-u-s-e.

But thats just one mans opinion. Others count too, I get it.

Colome's confidence at the moment is shot. Yesterday was a classic example. He goes in trying to keep it a one run game and walks 3 men and hits another, forcing in a run and leaving a mess for another reliever to clean up (unsuccessfully) When you cant go in and throw strikes...when your outings so far this year have been brutal...much of the trouble is mental. Its possible that he has just completely 'lost it', but that is unlikely.

whatever the case, he is a major headache for the Twins right now.

Twins are in a terrible streak. They hit a flare down the foul line, foul by 6 inches, opponent's flare fair by 6 inches. Twins pitcher doesn't get the call on a pitch just off the plate, opponent gets the call. My concern with the FO the past couple of years has been they seem to be trying to get one more good year out of an aging pitcher-Bailey, Hill, Shoe, Happ, Romo, etc. Has worked out some of the time, lets start seeing Waddell, Anderson, Duran. Chalmers, and others. 

This year is much different from 2016.  That team was not built to win in any way shape or form.  This team is playing terrible, and that my be a combination of issues.  They can turn it around, but will need to really start playing better.  

The pen is a huge issue, and their lack of producing runs lately too.  They are failing to do much of the little things they need to do.  I do not know if they have much of anything in minors to bring in for pen spots, but unless we can start getting guys out late in games we will not win much.  

Colome has been nothing short of a train wreck and might be time to cut bait on him, or at very least not be end of game guy.  I sure hope they figure it out soon though. 

I am down on this team but there certainly are scenarios where this is still a playoff team. I trust the offense a lot more than I trust the bullpen and even the rotation. Kiriloff has had some at-bats where I think, "he's gonna be good" even though he lines out. And I'm still a big believer in Sano. But the pitching staff really worries me. 

 

I will add that I am actually thrilled to be watching baseball again after the insanely strange 2020 season and Buxton is absolutely amazing to watch. 

Concur with this 100%. Biggest fail is the bullpen. We are 14-8 if we could hold a lead. Bad bullpen and bad bullpen management. We are not having this conversation if we have a competent bullpen and a competent bullpen manager. All offensive struggles are obvious, but we still win 14 games if we hold leads.

It's beginning to feel like TSF when all aspects of the team at some point contribute to losses, the manager makes questionable decisions, the Covid issue, talent pipeline is tapped and doesn't perform, though it is early on Kiriloff. I guess that's the hope is this can be 2006 and Sano is Tony Batista and Polanco is Juan Castro. Can we trade Kepler for a Shannon Stewart, which was a different year but similar feel.

Maybe we took a bite from the wrong tree.  Check out the Tampa Bay tree.  Bloom, doing well in Boston, Friedman, doing very well in LA, Fardi from Friedman in DF.  Sure there will be failures from this tree, but look at the sucess.