Could the Twins' Injured Roster Win the AL Central?

I think a balanced perspective is helpful. The Twins were projected to be a +/- .500 team this year. The team on the field now has maybe 50% of the players that projection was based on with Buxton, Polanco, Jeffers, Kirilloff, Ober, Alcala, Winder et al out.

A Twins ownership that spent like the Dodgers or Yankees might have another 4-5 impactful players on the roster (assuming no other teams also upped their spending.) But that is extremely unlikely to happen. So scouting, development and exploitation of market inefficiencies (Moneyball) remain key to a competitive Twins team.

One glaring market inefficiency that should be possible to address is player conditioning. Baseball puts incredible repetitive stresses on the body (pitching and hitting) as well as running stresses. A team that developed a training regimen that kept players healthy and on the field would benefit enormously. (And it would probably be cheaper to implement than the cost of a decent relief pitcher.) To their credit the Twins have been trying a regimen that involves regular days off. But, that doesn’t seem to be an effective answer to avoiding IL stints.

Cleveland has been cited as a model for developing good pitching. (Hence Falvey.)  Among the pitchers Cleveland gets credit for developing: Kluber was drafted by San Diego. Bauer and Carrasco had been identified as potential high end pitchers before they were drafted (by Arizona and Philadelphia respectively). Clevinger was drafted by the Angels. Bieber and McKenzie were both drafted by Cleveland.

So identifying pitchers who can be developed, and acquiring and developing them seems to be a key skill. (But, it’s not just about drafting.)

The current Twins regime seems fair but not great at identifying and developing pitching (Jax, Duran, Ryan). If any of Ober, Winder, Balazovic, Varland, Canterino, SWR, etc. turn into above average major league pitchers that assessment could change. But for the present? An awful lot of question marks.

Can the Twins win the division. Sure. Will they? Most likely not this year. So, next year? The potential is there, but….

Once they reach the major leagues they are all professionals  no matter what their prospect ratings are ...

It's a physical and mental game ...

They can't win because the team does not play baseball fundamentals  .....

This is an exercise that has only one dimension - The White Sox have lost considerable time with Luis Roberts and Tim Anderson - both vital clogs.  Gandal has had back problems. Crochet is a big loss in pitching as is Crick and Stiever.  Who has the biggest losses?  I don't know.  

This is certainly an impressive list and has hurt the Twins chances.  Could they win?  Fun to speculate. 

no chance, as is, bottom 3rd in baseball

The injured roster isn't going to win any games because they cannot make it on to the field.

The team has performed admirably at times. I think I predicted 79-85 wins just before the season began. When a team fails to plan thoroughly in the offseason there are consequences.

My main concern in the last 3-4 years with the Twins (including when they win) is the number of mental errors. The number of mistakes due to a lack of fundamentals is actually pretty glaring: throwing to the wrong base; not backing up every play; missing the cutoff or failing to have a cutoff; not reading wild pitches to advance; failing to advance a runner; getting doubled off on clear line drive outs; failing to score from second base with two outs on a single to the outfield; and more. Physical errors will happen as will the occasional mental mishap, but the shear number of fundamental problems are something that can and should be reduced through an emphasis on playing basic baseball.

Interesting note - if everyone had stayed healthy, Gordon would have been cut (replaced by Lewis) before he got a chance to play almost every day and show what he can do. Also, Miranda - there probably wouldn't have been room for him, he would stayed with the Saints and he may have been dealt at the trade deadline for pitching, again before we knew he could or couldn't handle MLB pitching. Right now, those are 2 of our best 4 hitters.

I think this is an interesting exercise, but it ignores all the cause and effect.
If Maeda wasn't injured, Paddack wouldn't have been acquired.
If Paddack wasn't injured, Mahle wouldn't have been acquired, etc.

If Sano and Kirilloff weren't injured, where would Arraez be playing?
Lewis wasn't about to supplant Correa so where would he be playing? I guess he'd be taking Nick Gordon's role, but then where would Nick Gordon be since Gordon can't be optioned?

 

Even though the rogers trade didn't work out great for us. If Paddack comes back next year and the year after and puts up an under 5 E.R.A. Next year our pitching SHOULD be stacked. 

Twins are done Time for Viking football

4 hours ago, ashbury said:

but this roster was constructed to court injury.

Man I so agree with the haphazard roster construction. It was put together with a plan that no player would miss time during the year.

The sweep at Target Field was such an expression of the separation of the two team's philosophies. The Guardians are the youngest team in baseball, had more than half their roster debut this year at the MLB level, and have a top farm system with many skilled athletic players near ready to make the next step if they can only get an opportunity. Oh, and the way the contract with Jose Ramirez was constructed, Cleveland pays him less each of the next four years than he makes this year. Cleveland is flush with players and cash.

Hentges could be the next dynamite starting pitcher for Cleveland.

Will the Twins sweep the Guardians in Cleveland next weekend? Will they sweep the Royals at home before that?

In a recent critical game against the White Sox, Chicago played a lineup without Anderson, Robert, Jimenez, and Moncada. It’s not just quantity, it’s quality.

If everyone had been healthy all year, Chicago, Minnesota, Cleveland, 1,2,3. Although, this probably sells short the advantage Cleveland has in the dugout…which is very significant.

6 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

There's just never enough pitching to overcome 5+ starters missing so much time. 

The Twins have played 139 games and have gotten gotten 95 starts from Ryan, Gray, Bundy and Archer. If you add the 5 from Paddack and 7 from Ober before they got injured that is 107, meaning they had to cover 32 games,  Smelzter covered 12 of them and Mahle 3, So we are really talking about 17 games and that is too much to over come?

To me that say more about this front office than anything else or the lack of people that cover the Twins actually looking at the data. But that is just me getting sick of excuses.

I’m seeing these lists put together a lot lately, and it’s mostly just dramatic effect.

The big problem is the reliance on a lot of these guys.  This isn’t an aw-shucks, who could’ve seen that coming, scenario.

Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco, Miguel Sano, Alex Kiriloff, Kenta Maeda, Bailey Ober, and Randy Dobnak have all had recent and/or significant injury history.  Some with little to no expectation of contributing this year.  They even came into the year setting a goal of 100 games for Buxton.  You can’t set that expectation, then turnaround and lament one IL stint.

Paddack and Mahle were hurt when they traded for them.  Hell, casual fans here were expressing concern at the time of acquisition of both.  There should be no surprises there at all. I still like both moves and they can still payoff - but acting like it’s hard luck that they’re currently hurt is disingenuous.

Guys like Larnach and Lewis were basically unknown commodities, with Lewis also coming off a major injury.

Jeffers has been OK at best, not something that should be overly difficult to replace.  We didn’t choke the season away due to missing Ryan Jeffers playing mediocre defense and hitting at the Mendoza line.

A handful of those guys weren’t going to contribute even if healthy, (Bechtold, Romero, etc.) or can be easily replaced (Stashak).

The problem is that they placed some sort of reliance on these guys.  There is some luck involved on one or two of these guys.  But, when we’re seeing it to this extent, it leans much more toward awful judgement.  It’s their job to make the right call on personnel.  Get the damn job done.  No more excuses.

10 hours ago, ashbury said:

As this roster was being constructed starting last November, half the names on the list given were known injury risks (or in the case of Maeda were already shelved for at least the first part of the season).  The Front Office is getting no sympathy from me, not even patience, if they are moaning "oh, the injury bug!"  Some injuries to unexpected players are an inevitable part of baseball, but this roster was constructed to court injury.

yeah, maybe not

18 hours ago, Seth Stohs said:

As mentioned by someone above, this was a team predicted to finish around .500 with health. I think it's impressive they're still at .500 right now. 

Predicted by whom?

No.

Quote

 

13 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

The Twins have played 139 games and have gotten gotten 95 starts from Ryan, Gray, Bundy and Archer. If you add the 5 from Paddack and 7 from Ober before they got injured that is 107, meaning they had to cover 32 games,  Smelzter covered 12 of them and Mahle 3, So we are really talking about 17 games and that is too much to over come?

To me that say more about this front office than anything else or the lack of people that cover the Twins actually looking at the data. But that is just me getting sick of excuses.

You forget about Winder and Varland, who covered some of those games and look like they belong.  That going forward may be a good thing.

15 minutes ago, beckmt said:

You forget about Winder and Varland, who covered some of those games and look like they belong.  That going forward may be a good thing.

Agreed going forward this could be a good thing, hopefully WInder can stay healthy. I didn't list them because they were part of the pitchers that covered the 17 games and weren't part of the original six/seven starters

It will be interesting where they fit in next year, but have all winter to discuss that

That is a pretty impressive injury list when you lay it out by position like that - I can't imagine how any team could compete with that type of time lost due to injury.

So the big question is WHY?  Are we selecting injury prone players?

Is our training staff not very good at their jobs?  This isn't anything new for us, should we look closer at this department?

Possible, but highly unlikely, would be my estimation.