Twins

With a slow offseason thus far, especially for the Minnesota Twins, the main talking points have resided around the Hall of Fame ballots made public thus far. Ryan Thibodaux (@NotMrTibbs) continues to run an incredible tracker on Twitter, and so far for Minnesotans, there’s a disappointing development. Johan Santana is going to be one and done when it comes to The Hall.

With a season that exceeded our expectations and then ended as bitterly as one could conceive, the offseason gives everyone a chance to reset and turn our attention to 2020. With one of the league’s best offenses and a much-improved bullpen set to return intact, the focus will be the starting rotation. With only Jose Berrios set to return from the 2019’s opening day rotation (assuming Martin Perez’s team option is declined), there are likely to be a few new faces. Today, however, we'll take a look at what the rotation would look like if the Twins do nothing at all.

With a postseason berth clinched, the Minnesota Twins will face off with the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on October 3rd. There’s no doubt this group is going to be a massive underdog, but they’ve been so all year, so it won’t be anything new. Beating the Yankees on the road isn’t something they’ve done in 2017, but there’s a blueprint to get the job done.

With a new general manager and new faces across the roster, the Minnesota Twins were rebooting in 2008. But they were still very much contenders in the AL Central, and would battle for it down to the season's last day.

With a loss on Monday, the Twins second half began in the same way the first half began, with a loss. When the Twins hit the halfway point of their season, they had a record of 27-54. Simple math tells us that they are on pace to end the season with a 54-108 record.

Maybe Murphy’s Law is the best explanation or summary of the Minnesota Twins 2016 season so far. If anything can go wrong, it will, and it has.

With a healthy Byron Buxton, the Minnesota Twins have unquestionably one of the best outfields in major league baseball. Add in super utility man Marwin Gonzalez last season, and the opportunities were limited for Jake Cave to show what he could do at the MLB level in 2019. While those same barriers exist for Cave in 2020, there are, this year, cracks in that armor that could give Cave the path to show how good of a player he is.

With a four-game sweep at Target Field over the weekend, Cleveland surpassed Minnesota in the standings, knocking the Twins out of first place for the first time since early May.

Let's be honest: this was inevitable. The Indians are plainly a better team, and in order to hang with them for the rest of the summer, the Twins are going to need to figure some things out.

With 40 games in the books, we're almost exactly one-fourth of the way through our interactive simulated 2020 Twins season. Let's zoom out to take a look at how everyone's performing, and where we can improve as we try to chase down the world-beating Cleveland Indians in the standings.

With John Bonnes in San Diego, Parker Hageman joins Aaron Gleeman to discuss the final week of a rough first half, Kyle Gibson's slider-based turnaround, Brian Dozier getting back on track, the enigma of Max Kepler, trade deadline candidates, Logan Morrison and Addison Reed going on the disabled list, and how much longer the Twins can stick with Matt Belisle.

You can listen by downloading us from iTunes, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or find it at GleemanAndTheGeek.com. Or just click this link.

With Josh Donaldson aboard and Brusdar Graterol pegged for a relief role, the offense and bullpen both feel complete. (Each with monumental depth and upside.)

The starting rotation, however, could still use a finishing touch. Are the Twins really going to open with two rookies in place?

Presumably, they're still mining the market for a final addition.

Willians Astudillo’s magical season continued Sunday, as he destroyed a hanging slider with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning for a walk-off homer. He also helped guide a few young pitchers behind the plate, including Chase De Jong, who was making his Twins debut.

Willians Astudillo hit his first career home run, Joe Mauer notched the 1,000th run scored of his career, Robbie Grossman delivered a huge go-ahead hit with two outs and Eddie Rosario tallied three hits of his own. It was a mini breakout of the slump the Twins’ lineup had been enduring of late. Kohl Stewart was shaky but the bullpen was outstanding as the Twins earned a one-run victory at Cleveland Wednesday night.