Passing the Blame Around for the 2022 Twins

So many areas to scrutinize with the Twins this year. Outside of everything mentioned in comments/article, I couldn't help but think of a few offensive issues I've tracked all year. One being how incredibly rare it felt when any Twin cleared the bases or dropped a double when we needed one most. I feel like a minor uptick in this metric would have secured at least a few more wins. Our game-by-game RISP was lower than our opponent in what felt like 85% or more 2nd half games games. Plenty of hits, zero hero-ball. The best game performance ALL SEASON I could find all season was Buxton's 2-5, 2HR's, 2R, 5RBI night. I'm betting I could find 100 similar (or better) performances this year, including 4 guys from Toronto who matched/topped Bux's stat line above in ONE GAME. My take, trade/release all the core bats (minus Arraez), buy a few starters, and let the up-and-comers give it a go. Core is in the 28-29yo range and you already know what you've got, which is not enough to be a contender. It's too bad they will indeed keep them and guarantee the inevitable.

Many of the previous comments present excellent arguments.  I loved the employee vs boss segment.  Here are some of the things I totally agree with:

1. JP is ultimately responsible.  He's the only one that can try to repair what is obviously broken.

2. No sense in separating the front office from Rocco.  They are together in this mess. FO's statements supporting Rocco confirmed this.  The front office is either accepting of, or oblivious to Rocco's massive shortcomings. 

3.  Injuries happen.  It is a sad excuse.  When you sign players with injury histories, you take a chance.  You shouldn't get to pout about it when the inevitable happens.  Some injuries like Sano's actually benefitted the team.  

I am completely baffled why so many fans (and I mean big fans) of the Twins accept excuses, losing, and terrible baseball.  Why do they give those responsible for this, a pass?  Why agree with their excuses?  Why not expect better?

You know where this is going already.  Next year will be a big disappointment.  They will underachieve in baseball's worst division yet again.  They will invent new excuses and recycle old ones.  What definite signs do you have to bank on that this cluster won't happen again?

Rocco's Pagan will be someone else next year. Count on it.

9 hours ago, MisstheBomba said:

Well when the Front Office thinks getting a new scoreboard and uniforms is a topic right now, I think they are the issue. Twins should hire Kent Hrbek as conditioning coach. Maybe the players need a beer, Brat and cigar as opposed to a warm butt donut and sympathy?

Yes I was going to add that its clearly the uniforms, and specifically the font.  This way the Correa t shirt jerseys will be on the clearance rack, but so will everybody's because it's the old design. 

I have watched almost every game. My observations: Early in the year they pitched reasonably well and they hit.

Towards the end they still pitched reasonably well, but the hitting was noticeably different. They could not add on, they failed to bring in runs from third with less than 2 outs, and other "solid hitting situations" where they seemed to fail more than fail at pitching.

Rocco was "very inventive" in keeping the mediocre pitching talent relevant...............not so much with the hitters in-game strategies to score......a run.

Nary a bunt or a timely steal.....go the opposite way......no money in that. Gotta go for the fences. Rocco just stared at his notebook, making entries as the hitters tried to hit a 3-run homer with only a man on third and one out. 

I blame it on injuries [you have to....no Buck, no Kepler, no Sano, no Polanco, and who knows how the injured kids would have played]..........and the hitting. The hitting got worse with the injuries. We now have Nick Gordon batting 3rd and/or 4th.......I'm happy for him..................he is a great bench player and an all-round versatile guy. Not a middle of the order guy.

Injuries and hitting. Rocco can go anytime as well.

If I'm looking for something to blame this season on it has to be #1. Their lack of or unwillingness to spend on SP and BP may have caused trades that didn't need to happen and could have cost multiple game in BP implosions. Injuries played their part but if we had invested in 1-2 SP and 1-2 BP arms would we have needed to trade for Paddack, Pagan, Mahle, Fulmer and Lopez? Hindsight in 20/20...

When things go poorly, whether it be an entire season like 2021, or a season like 2022 that showed a lot of promise for the 1st half, there is a natural tendency to ask what went wrong? Who is to blame? That allows for venting. This season DID have promise right up until about mid August and the wheels came off. But to me the rankings or "blame"...and I'm a little uncomfortable with that term...would be ad follows.

1] Injuries

2] The FO

3] Rocco and his staff

Maeda was out for all or most of the season before it began. We knew this. Maybe it was a question of WHEN Paddack would be hurt and not IF. And yes, we all pretty much expected to miss time. But did anyone really see Buck hurting his knee the 1st week of the season? Arraez lost bad weight and added good weight and was awesome until he started slumping and battling a few issues. Polanco was healthy and coming of his very best season and even in an offensively depressed year, he was producing until he got hurt. Kepler was still producing at his normal, average self until his foot and hip and whatever else debilitated him. I never expected Larnach to develop a muscle issue that required surgery. I also never expected Jeffers to lose almost half a season due to surgery. The list goes on and on. You can't predict all that happened or prevent it all. 

I still like so much of what the FO has done previously and I even like a lot of what they did this year. But to have an almost empty rotation and not take advantage of the FA pool except for Bundy and Archer was a huge error in judgment. And while nobody could forsee losing Alcala for all but a couple of IP, the pen still needed re-inforcement even with him being healthy. And while I think Celestino still has a future and I don't hate Garlick, for the 3rd year in a row they didn't have a solid, proven RH bat for the OF.

Rocco can only play the hand he's dealt, even if he's given some really bad cards at times. I don't think he's a poor manager, but I also think there's room for improvement. When the offense is struggling, due to injuries or whatever reason, maybe a bunt or two is smart. Maybe a little hit and run needs to be used. But you can't bunt or hit and run or steal bases if the players you have can't execute. And that's not all on Rocco or his staff. What IS on them is not trying something different here and there, or working on better baserunning, or throwing to the right base, etc. So while I'm not a huge Rocco fan and I'm wondering about some of his coaches, he/they are a clear #3 on my list.

21 hours ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

It always amazes me how dramatic the roller coaster of fandom truly is.  This team was probably overachieving a bit during the first half of the season (along with the White Sox and Cleveland underachieving) and it was "World Series Here We Come".  Injuries, some regression to the mean, and a Cleveland team playing out of their gourd finally caught up with them.  Now the masses are screaming "Fire the FO!", "Fire Rocco!", "Gut the team and start over!"...

1) Expectations for this team were to be .500.  Here we are.  I believe that the team planned to be post-season competitive next year and this year was somewhat of a bonus.  The Mahle and Paddock moves were calculated risks this year with more of a payoff next year.  Maeda out till next year.  Correa basically on a one-year deal to hold for Lewis.  Pitchers coming up to learn the ropes,  This all points to 2023

2) Blame whoever you want, but bud luck goes a long way towards injuries and prevention.  The only way to stop shoulder injuries in pitchers is to have them stop pitching.  HBP, foul tips, concussions are all not preventable.

3) The organization as a whole is stronger now than it was before the current FO regime took over.  Statistical analysis, drafting power pitchers, rebuilding the farm system (the only reason our system is ranked low is because we have graduated many guys out).  They brought that to Minnesota.  Flexibility and adapting were unheard of prior to them.

4) There will always be something to complain about:  Our fielding is horrible.  We don't let our SP go long enough (despite statistics backing most of the decisions, I am looking at you Sonny), we didn't use our relievers correctly or why is <insert player here> batting 3rd or 5th?  Every team has holes in their product.  The key is to find ways to deal with those holes.  Those teams that can do that win.

This team will be competitive next year.  The rotation should be stronger.  They will try to fill in the lineup holes where they can.  Buxton, Kirriloff, Lewis, Polanco, Stashak, should all be back healthy (at least to start).  We will be having the discussion of over/under 90 wins before you know it. 

Hopefully Maeda can return to form also. 

In terms of the FO, I will agree they did not go out and try to nab a starter like Rondon, or Thor, although we do not know if they sent out feelers and were rejected, we just assume based on reports we never showed interest, but we really do not know how contract talks with those players happened.  That being said, Thor was nothing amazing.  Many of the other free agent staters in our expected price range did not do anything too amazing.  Yes, there was better guys out there, in hindsight, than Bundy and Archer, but we do not know if they would have been as good on the Twins as the team they were on.  Rondon was the biggest miss if we could have signed, assuming he would have came here.  Outside of that we did not have any huge swings and misses in my opinion. Keep in mind Archer and Bundy were only meant for 1 year deals, and many others got 2 to 3 year deals. 

In terms of planning for pen, if you look at the top 8 signed pen guys, all but 1 of which was to multi year deals, most did on par with some of our guys.  Pen pitchers are hard to predict, just like how everyone was upset with Rogers being traded, he had a terrible year.  Yes, who we got was not helpful this year, but Rogers after his first month and half has just been terrible overall.  Had we kept him, would you say we should have expected that?  

In terms of the trades we made to fix the issues, well part was we had injuries to expected guys like Acala, Colome, and Stashak who were all hoping to contribute over the year, but all missed the full year.  So yea, we needed to trade away some prospects, but as the 40 man roster crunch was going to lead to some trimming of possible prosects too this is a natural way.  The top guy we traded was Steer, at least as of right now, some young pitchers that may pan out down the road, but Steer was the closest to help us.  He had an below average debut this year, and was like 4th on our depth chart of infield prospects behind, Lewis, Lee, Martin, and possible Julien.  With Gordon emerging as another viable MLB guy, Steer was very dispensable, and would have been traded this offseason most likely anyways. 

Also recall the front office's whirlwind of trades leading up to the Correa signing. Was it a clever orchestration of baseball resources that blocked an opponent from getting a player we wanted? Sure, I can give them credit there, they same way I'll give them credit for the Trade Deadline optics.

At the end of the day, the optics don't matter. What happens on the field matters. And to be frank, the Twins would probably have done themselves a favor to have kept Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa, and forgotten about Sanchez/Urshela and Correa. Would the clubhouse have been as much fun to root for in April and May? Probably not. But for what those three collectively earned, it just seems like a big waste. At least the former FO found crummy performance insanely cheaply (in turn being good for someone, maybe a Pohlad or two).