Can the Twins Solve Their Offensive Woes?

The offense has been fine, even with a multitude of injuries. There are 3 teams in the AL that have scored more runs.

There are only 5 teams in the AL that have given up more runs. There are 2 teams in the AL with a higher bullpen ERA. We’re tied with the Tigers for the fewest saves in the AL (and we’ve had plenty of chances).

We’d be just fine right now if our bullpen wasn’t a garbage fire. That’s the issue.

Twins rank in the AL’s top-4 for WAR at multiple positions including second base (2nd overall), third base (1st overall), and left field (4th overall).

Left field? LEFT FIELD?

So much for WAR meaning anything.....

The offense has NOT been "fine."

 

They've scored 3 or fewer runs in 17 of 29 games this year. Almost 2/3rds of the time.

That's not going to work, even if you manage to throw up a couple 12  run explosions.

Exactly. 

>>>>>>" Besides Burnes, both Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom posted strikeout rates of 44% or higher. Unfortunately, the Twins don’t have one of these pitchers."

They do have several of those hitters though!  
 

The stat on total runs scored is really not relevant for the Twins. This is a Jeckel and Hyde team. It’s either 12 runs, or 2 runs. Some of that is Bomba Ball, and some may be a group of front running hitters. Which would explain a seemingly low success rate in high leverage situations. 

For a team struggling to score runs (most times) why don't they try to manufacture runs? Ya know, bunt, hit&run, hit the ball to the open side of a shift? Lots of opportunities there that they hardly ever, if never try. The lineup is Pull happy, Homerun happy, from top to bottom outside of Arraez. They are too one dimensional. When an opposing pitcher knows you want to pull the ball into the seats on every swing he's already 1 step ahead of you.

For a team struggling to score runs (most times) why don't they try to manufacture runs? Ya know, bunt, hit&run, hit the ball to the open side of a shift? Lots of opportunities there that they hardly ever, if never try. The lineup is Pull happy, Homerun happy, from top to bottom outside of Arraez. They are too one dimensional. When an opposing pitcher knows you want to pull the ball into the seats on every swing he's already 1 step ahead of you.

Fundamental baseball by the twins isn't sexy enough for the Bomba Squad mentality. Plate discipline be damned, hit behind the runner/shift, bunt to move players over.  Not sure the Twins remember a good game of strato-matic when a 3-2 game was fun to watch. The punch/counter punch moves using their gut feeling days are over.  Let me look at my spreadsheet and see if I can hit a 3-run homer with no one on base

The problem is getting a hit when we really need one. The team seems to be unmotivated except Buxton and maybe Cruz. Is there a reason behind it?

I also question validity of WAR. Defense seems underrated and hard to believe we are 4th in WAR at LF. Something is definitely broken.

The 3 players who signed multi year deals (Kepler, Polanco, Sano) are struggling, all three.

Is this coincidence?

I'll happily eat crow if this comment appears ridiculous 6 weeks from now.

The 3 players who signed multi year deals (Kepler, Polanco, Sano) are struggling, all three.

Is this coincidence?

 

I'll happily eat crow if this comment appears ridiculous 6 weeks from now.

The coincidence is that those guys were all signed early to team-friendly deals before they fully proved themselves, thus discounting for the risk that they weren't going to blossom into above average players. They all understood that they were better off grabbing the bag now while there was still the 'potential' label on them.

Turns out that flawed players in their mid-20s often remain flawed into their late 20's and beyond.

I was curious about something so I ran some numbers. According to team rankings, the Twins are scoring 4.72 runs per game - 8th in the majors. (not too bad). I took the runs scored per game and ran a median calculation on them, which shows they are only scoring 3 runs per game. This bolsters the previous comment that they either score 12 runs or 3 runs in most games. 

Those pitching stats are brutal.

Throw all the analytics out the window...overall they are not being good fundamental baseball in my opinion...I am not a great analytics mind but my eyes tell me there aren't playing good ball.  Hopefully that changes very soon.  

I hear Costco and Walmart are having bag specials. Buy 1 paper bag for your head and they'll throw in a plastic bag for you to hurl into when the game is over.

Don't blame WAR here, blame the messenger (sorry, Cody).

 

Cody was looking at the combined overall numbers of everyone who has appeared in LF (from the horizontal position list at Fangraphs). So his quoted number covers 297 PA, 2nd most in the AL (over 10 PA per game!), and includes Arraez's full 0.9 WAR, plus 0.5 WAR for Kirilloff and Garlick.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=lf&stats=bat&lg=al&qual=0&type=8&season=2021&month=0&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=21,d

 

 

But what he should have been looking at is the vertical drop-down "LF" split -- that will only show the stats accumulated by guys while playing LF. That covers 116 PA (a much more reasonable 4 PA per game), and only 0.2 of Arraez's WAR has been accumulated in LF (and -0.3 WAR for Kirilloff and Garlick).

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=al&qual=0&type=6&season=2021&month=42&season1=2021&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2021-01-01&enddate=2021-12-31&sort=11,d

 

 

As you can see, Cody's figure is heavily distorted to favor teams who rotate a lot of guys through the spot (like the Twins). It might be interesting when reviewing individual LF options within a team, but it's worthless for comparisons between teams.

 

Our correct LF WAR rank per Fangraphs is 11th in the AL, and 24th in MLB. Twins left fielders to date have performed below replacement level (-0.2 WAR).

I just couldn't assume he could have done it that wrong. Thanks for doing it right.... and I can consider worshiping WAR.