Where's the Weakness?

Our most glaring weakness is the fans' inability to accept that this team is going to sweep the Dodgers in 4 games and win their 3rd World Series title in October.

Aside from that, probably the bullpen.

Biggest weaknesses:

• bullpen: need one more guy we can count on for the late inning work. Rogers is great, and Parker has the experience to not worry about him too much. It's fair to be concerned about May and whether or not guys are going to start figuring out Harper/Magill
• 5th starter. I'm not convinced on Pineda, and at some point we have to stop writing off every poor performance as "well, he's still coming back after Tommy John". I swear, we've changed his name to Michael He's Coming Back From Tommy John Pineda. Dude is 22 months removed from the surgery.
• OBP in the lineup. We are slugging the hell out of the ball, but we could use a few more baserunners (picking nits at this point, I think, but Rosario's OBP is under .300, Schoop's is only .310, and we could use 1-2 more guys who push that OBP over .350. But if there's a weakness in this lineup, that's probably it.)

 

Biggest weaknesses:

• bullpen: need one more guy we can count on for the late inning work. Rogers is great, and Parker has the experience to not worry about him too much. It's fair to be concerned about May and whether or not guys are going to start figuring out Harper/Magill
• 5th starter. I'm not convinced on Pineda, and at some point we have to stop writing off every poor performance as "well, he's still coming back after Tommy John". I swear, we've changed his name to Michael He's Coming Back From Tommy John Pineda. Dude is 22 months removed from the surgery.
• OBP in the lineup. We are slugging the hell out of the ball, but we could use a few more baserunners (picking nits at this point, I think, but Rosario's OBP is under .300, Schoop's is only .310, and we could use 1-2 more guys who push that OBP over .350. But if there's a weakness in this lineup, that's probably it.)

 

He has 4 quality starts out of 10.   The average overall for all starting pitchers is around 50%.    If his first three starts fell in that category I might tend to agree with you but it is his last three starts that have been quality.   In that time I haven't once said "Well, he is coming off Tommy John surgery" but in fact 22 months is a long time for recovery but it is also a very long time to be away from pitching competitively at the highest level.    He is easily outperforming our #4 - 10 starters from 1987.    Of the current winning teams he has been as good or better than at least the #5 starters on the Red Sox, Astros, Rangers, Braves, Cards, Brewers and Pirates and he is trending up.   I agree that the pen is thin but they have contributed to an awful lot of wins and really only blown a couple early in the year.    Bullpen weakness is likely to be exposed  at some point and the rotation and the offense is likely to revert back to the mean but they play 65 games against the Central and if they can go 60-54 in their remaining games it would put them at 92 wins.   Hopefully Graterol can help the pen at some point and maybe another guy in trade or who steps up from the minors.    Personally I wouldn't mind if they just brought up Stewart for long relief for now.

One of the things that has made the season so fun so far, is also one of the fundamental 'weaknesses' (of sorts). The schedule. The Twins have played 16 games...tied for least in MLB...against teams with winning records. Not the Twins fault, and they're 8-8 so far. But with the way the league is now, you really don't know where you stand at any point in the season until you can play a series or two against one of the few teams that is both trying to compete, and decent at trying. IMO, we'll need to continue to look at the intermittent series against the Yankees, Boston (they'll be there), Tampa, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cleveland (I guess)...to determine where the Twins are on their path to making noise in the post-season.

Our most glaring weakness is the fans' inability to accept that this team is going to sweep the Dodgers in 4 games and win their 3rd World Series title in October.

If they keep playing like they have been, that should fix itself by mid-September at the latest. 

The other BIG weakness is the potential that high performing players will regress to their mean. I would be surprised if Perez has a sub 3.50 ERA at years end, same for Odorizzi. The lineup has a couple of guys who are playing above their history in Polanco and Buxton (and Garver), and even Kepler is hitting better than in the past.  Some of it might be development; some of it might be just luck. Yet there really isn't anyone except maybe Rosario who is playing below expectations (Hildenberger is the same guy he was the second half last year, improvement should have been a hope not an expectation).  Basically the biggest potential issue is what happens if guys regress to their previous mean. Not bad if that's your biggest issue.   

Perez seems to have made changes that look like actual improvement, not smoke and mirrors. A sub-3.50 ERA is not an unreasonable forecast. 

I'm not sure what Odorizzi changed, but he seems like a better regression candidate.

Polanco is likely to regress some, just because he's playing at an MVP level right now and I don't think he's quite that good. (He's young enough and has had flashes in that past that indicate there is at least a possibility he is actually that good.)

Buxton is about halfway between what he has been and what I hoped he would be eventually.  I'll call it a good compromise and hope he stays healthy.

Kepler is marginally better at an age where marginal improvements are the norm.

I never trusted Hidenberger's stuff.  The bullpen and pitching health are my two biggest concerns. 

The biggest strength to this team is their ability to come back from any negative event.  Whether that is falling behind and immediately scoring, or coming back from an ugly loss, their ability to recover is amazing.  So if we are looking for weaknesses, I fear what will happen should they lose this ability to recover from a bad game/inning.

Like many, I am anxious every time Pineda steps on the mound.  But this isn't a major concern as they won't need a 5th starter in the playoffs.  My bigger concern regarding starters is in 2020 and beyond.  Considering none of the prospects at Rochester have stepped up and shown us they are ready to be more than a AAAA starter (I understand one or more may step up over the summer), they really need to get one of Odorizzi or Gibson extended by this summer.

And like most, I see the most important move in July finding one very good late inning reliever who is under control for more than this year.  I would think they have plenty of ammunition in the minors to make one smart move.

Probably worth describing the 'weakness' in context of regular season vs playoffs. For instance, it looks like the starting rotation will probably be a strength overall in the quest to win enough games to take the central division. Yet in the playoffs, where the top 3 start all games (practically), it would be very easy to argue that Berrios would likely be the worse number one among AL participants.

I'm probably concerned more with Berrios than Pineda at this exact moment.  Pineda is trending the right direction, seems to start slow in games and then get better.  I wish he was in better shape, but round is a shape and it may be affecting his ability to get loose more than pitch deep in games.  Pineda has experience and I think he will be a plus in playoff baseball.  Berrios seems to have lost some control.  He was having a pretty good outing last time out until the offense wouldn't let him get back on the mound.  Would still like my ace to be able to go out and get 6 complete in that situation.  Doesn't matter if he gives up some runs in that scenario, just get through the innings.  His pitch count didn't allow him to do that.

The bullpen seems to be good as long as starters are going deep.  Next level analysis, I know.  But, this makes me believe they will be ok in playoffs with all the off days.

Weakness? the weather

While the bullpen has been solid so far, I still believe it is a significant weakness. I think a big part of the bullpen success is due to having a large number of non-competitive games. I looked back over the last 30 games and in 17 of those a Twins pitcher never took the mound in the 7th-9th innings with the game being within 3 runs (one team had at least a 4 run lead). Basically the bullpen has had a large number of low leverage innings. I fear the bullpen could be exposed if the Twins start having more frequent close games. 

I still need to be convinced that Berrios is the #1 horse. The last two starts were less than impressive. I know he's young and has room for improvement but I still don't have the feeling that I had when Santana or Viola hit the mound in their prime. I'll be more convinced when he faces the above .500 teams and comes out with 7 quality innings and a W.

If Santa is asking, I'll have a healthy Hildy and a right-handed Taylor Rogers. Then I'm fine. If not, then bring up Romero again. Gotta find one more reliable two-inning guy. 

I imagine this team will be unable to hit the ball as well against a true ace or a top tier bullpen. This is why the Twins need some better pitching so they can still win some games when they only manage to plate a couple of runs.

If the Twins ever get this -- either a very good bullpen or continued performance by the starters -- I will start to believe they can beat the Yankees in the playoffs.

I still need to be convinced that Berrios is the #1 horse. The last two starts were less than impressive. I know he's young and has room for improvement but I still don't have the feeling that I had when Santana or Viola hit the mound in their prime. I'll be more convinced when he faces the above .500 teams and comes out with 7 quality innings and a W.

I have pulled the data. "Aces" are typically good 60% of the time. That's it.

Conversely, the junky pitchers who manage to stick around a while are good 40-45% of the time. Most pitchers are good about half the time.

The point is, aces will lay quite a few eggs during the season. We all have to realize this. Runs are scored in nearly every baseball game and all pitchers allow them. "Aces" have fewer bad games, but they still have them.

At this point it is hard to say much is a "weakness" but to me it is more what is biggest question of success moving forward.  Offense I am not too worried about, they have shown this is not just a hot start and different guys had picked it up through out the season.  It is possible adjustments to their aggressive approach will be made and they could struggle, but not too worried.

Starting staff there are huge questions going forward this season, as there were coming into season.  It is great what Perez and Odo have been doing, but compared to rest of career it is was off line.  Does this happen for some pitchers to have break out years, in particular when learn a new pitch like Perez, yes, but will it sustain?  That is big question. 

Bullpen, is very similar to starting staff question.  Back end of Parker and Rodgers their success is not all that surprising, nor May.  The rest though that have performed well so far is surprising and they could start falling off at any time and then the real question is what will team do?  Will they bring in other guys, put more innings on top end guys, or just hope the guys work through it? 

I think the Starters are biggest question, because two guys are working much better than expected and above career marks, over several seasons of career.  I think if they start to falter it was have domino effect on bullpen and no matter how strong offense is, it is always hard for offense to carry a team over full season and in playoffs.   

I think our weaknesses are 1) lack of top-end talent, 2) lack of pennant race experience, 3) Bullpen talent.

We have a very solid group of players with production at almost all spots. As others have referenced, we lack an ace, some teams have more than 1. Taylor Rogers may or may not be that unhittable closer, many teams have more than 1. Polanco is playing like Trout, but he isn't Trout or Bellinger or Yelich. We're solid but with probably no "best in baseball" players.

We made a run in 2017 and looked overmatched in the race for the division and in a 1 game playoff. Many of the key pieces of that team are gone. Sano was out. Most of our rotation and bullpen has no playoff experience. We haven't faced any major adversity yet. When the pressure mounts and the are no do-overs, experience usually helps.

Finally, the pen has performed great, and Vasquez, Brusdar, and Romero are potential wild cards. That said, we've seen Hilde implode, we've seen May get injured. If Rogers went down, we'd be scrambling. Luckily, Penn is usually one of the easiest places to upgrade... historically. OTOH, the league has changed. Reliable is still easy to find. Lock-down arms are now a premium commodity. Twins bucked the trend on bull pen construction and are thus far beating the trend. Playoffs with More off days tends to favor the strongest pen, not necessarily the deepest.

I think you are using far too many pitchers as "aces" if that's what your data shows.
The first ace I thought to pull up was Max Scherzer, and his results last year were 16 good starts to 1 clunker, or 94%.

Or we are using different definitions. I count 10 mediocre games or worse (3+ runs or 5 innings or less). That's 70% -- the reason he was a Cy Young candidate.
 

Are there any other aces you know of other than the best starter in the game for the past 3 years? Seems to me the rest of the league is a big drop off from Scherzer. A drop off to, what, ~60% by this definition maybe?

I still need to be convinced that Berrios is the #1 horse. The last two starts were less than impressive. I know he's young and has room for improvement but I still don't have the feeling that I had when Santana or Viola hit the mound in their prime. I'll be more convinced when he faces the above .500 teams and comes out with 7 quality innings and a W.

So basically he needs to win a Cy Young award?