Twins

Looking forward to 2022, the Minnesota Twins need some serious roster turnover on the pitching side of things. Their rotation will be entirely new from how it started in 2021, and the bullpen will also have fresh faces. Who survives in relief?

Byron Buxton is officially locked up in a Twins uniform for the next seven seasons. As exciting as the news is, there is still the question on who will be Buxton's back up to start this extension year in 2022 as his injury history will still have to be considered each season. 

The gang over at 1500 ESPN, along with other members of the Vikings media, made it a tradition to name a “Mr. Mankato” each year at training camp. The honor was designed to recognize the player who entered camp under the radar but emerged with an eye-opening performance. Well, I figured it would be fun to steal that bit and crown a “Sire of Fort Myers." Who are the top contenders?

Paul Molitor wasn't thrilled to be handed a 13-man pitching staff and three-man bench on Opening Day. Despite the team's success in these first seven games, he isn't feeling much better about it now.

The manager has already been hamstrung on multiple occasions, including the end of a Tuesday loss which left him sounding a little exasperated.

Something needs to change soon. That means the Twins have a tough decision to make.

Late Monday morning, the news came out that the Minnesota Twins had fired manager Ron Gardenhire. Gardenhire has been offered a job in the organization, but he says that he wants to manage again and believes that he will.

So the next question naturally becomes; who will be the next manager of the Minnesota Twins?

It’s not likely to make a huge difference in the long run between whether the Twins win in 2016 or not, but the battle for the fourth and fifth outfield spots is shaping up to be interesting just a few games into spring training. With Byron Buxton the presumptive center fielder on Opening Day, Eddie Rosario in left and Miguel Sano in right, and the inevitable twelve-man pitching staff, Minnesota has room for one full- time outfielder and maybe a utility guy to come north.

Let’s handicap the field at this point, assuming that two guys out of this group make the club:

The Twins traded Luis Arraez, in part, because he was functionally redundant with the makeup of their roster and position player mix.

However, his departure does leave a clear hole in the projected regular starting lineup. How will they fill it?

Remember 2019 when the Twins set a major league record for home runs in a season? That was fun. Another full season is set to begin soon so who will lead the team in homers?

Last week the Twins' roster plans began to reveal themselves at least a little bit. Wes Johnson pointed out he’d like to see 15-16 pitchers on the active roster as well as 2 “length options” available outside of the rotation. Today we’ll take a look at the pitchers competing for the last few spots.

Fans who were frustrated by the lack of a competent multi-inning reliever in 2022, and also are bewildered that Emilio Pagán is still on the team, may want to look away from their screens.

Miguel Sano came off the bench in the 12^th inning on Wednesday night and delivered a clutch home run to give the Twins a 3-2 lead and win over the Kansas City Royals. The game was full of excitement, ebbs and flows, good at bad.

As I was watching the Twins, I could help but thinking back to the 2009 Twins. With the Twins win coupled with a Rangers loss, Minnesota is 1.5 games behind Texas for that second Wild Card spot.

In each of the last two seasons, Taylor Rogers has been the team’s primary closer, but his performance suffered through different parts of 2020. Can another pitcher become the team’s saves leader in 2021?