Woe And Seven

i'm reminded of the allan sherman song from the '60s about camp granada. the kid is writing a long letter home about how everything sucks, it won't stop raining and the parents shoulda never sent him. suddenly the sun comes out and everything is great:

Wait a minute! It's stopped hailing. Guys are swimming. Guys are sailing. Playing baseball. Gee! That's better. Muddah, Fadduh, kindly disregard this letter!

There's an awful lot of IF'S there. But one must remember these are IF'S that were consciously put in place. Sano in RF, the BP, Park, and in essence mostly the same starting staff. And while the SP has been above their norm, there is no reason to expect that to continue. Veteran mediocre pitchers may on a rare ocassion find another gear for a year, but not often and not collectively. While there a lot of IF'S, the one that intrigues me the most is the relationship between Sanos hitting and RF Experiment. Something seems amiss. I know he said all the right things, but his actions in the off season, and from what I can gather was not exactly a mad rush to ST early to work on The Experiment causes me to wonder if the he is distracted or disgruntled. Everyone has a slump, but his has made me wonder if the move to the OF is impacting his bat? The Twins lost two years in development of Sano and Buxton to injuries, and one year of development to the faux title run last year. So, I wasn't even expecting a WC chase this year, but was hopeful they would use the year to make adjustments to the awkward roster situation and integrate some more youth. Time will tell!

"During their last eight days in Fort Myers, they went 8-0, receiving strong outing after strong outing as their starters stretched out to season-ready form."

That's my thing:  how the heck did they turn from a strong finish to SP to 0-7 in regular season play? 

Maybe it's over-rating prospects.  Or the bullpen.  Or starters. Or everyday players.  The fallacy of  being playoff contenders this year and the perception of having trade-able players of value doesn't help. 

At best, this is a team that is STILL in building mode.  There are some pieces in place for future success, but even those have warts.

Strap on that jock strap with Kevlar cup:  it's gonna be a bumpy ride. 

There's an awful lot of IF'S there. But one must remember these are IF'S that were consciously put in place. Sano in RF, the BP, Park, and in essence mostly the same starting staff. And while the SP has been above their norm, there is no reason to expect that to continue. Veteran mediocre pitchers may on a rare ocassion find another gear for a year, but not often and not collectively. While there a lot of IF'S, the one that intrigues me the most is the relationship between Sanos hitting and RF Experiment. Something seems amiss. I know he said all the right things, but his actions in the off season, and from what I can gather was not exactly a mad rush to ST early to work on The Experiment causes me to wonder if the he is distracted or disgruntled. Everyone has a slump, but his has made me wonder if the move to the OF is impacting his bat? The Twins lost two years in development of Sano and Buxton to injuries, and one year of development to the faux title run last year. So, I wasn't even expecting a WC chase this year, but was hopeful they would use the year to make adjustments to the awkward roster situation and integrate some more youth. Time will tell!

I don't know about Sano and the off-season.  The part I'm confused about is whether or not management ordered Sano to play RF in the winter leagues or not AND who called it off.  That I don't understand.  Distracted or disgruntled:  At 22, I'd say too young to be disgruntled.  He has a family that grew up in poverty.  But it sounds like they did the best they could and Sano didn't sound disgruntled in the video.  I will say, he's probably facing pressure from family like he's never had in his life.  And from baseball, too.

Whether it be most, quite a few, or some of them believing it, there was a lot of speculation that Plouffe would be traded. A dollar to a dozen donuts Miguel was amongst them. This is not a Plouffe tirade, it's the observation that at 22 Sano could have believed that as easily as at 52. Frankly I was far more easily frustrated at that age than I am now. Impatience and impetuity are more likely equated with youth than with maturity!

Or maybe it's over-rating a "strong finish to SP"

Twins opponents are 17-4 combined, which obviously translates to 11-4 against non-Twins opponents as well.

Not sure how much that counts, but it certainly doesn't help they've played three teams off to great starts.

Didn't Sano start out horrifically last year at AA too? I am only concerned about the obviously stupid move to RF having an effect, but I am not worried that there is a serious regression going on.

Spring Training means absolutely nothing. Hopefully hopes weren't raised because of the end of March! Good lord. ST means nothing and is totally worthless as a predictor for the regular season. They shouldn't even count wins and losses.

Twins opponents are 17-4 combined, which obviously translates to 11-4 against non-Twins opponents as well.
Not sure how much that counts, but it certainly doesn't help they've played three teams off to great starts.

Yeah, when your first opponent is the last undefeated team and your next opponent is the reigning WS champ it makes for a tough way to start the season. 

Sano's problem at the plate is from scouting his inability to hit a fastball up in the zone, and that is all he is getting now, and he swings and misses. He is swinging right through meat at the belt right down the middle and not even out of the zone. Scouting Duffey and looking for his curve instead of being fooled by it........ it is rare for the league to not adjust quickly with all the video, advanced stats, and scouting, and both Duffey and Sano need to make their own adjustments now, too. They are not performing the same because of the very tendencies that made them successful last year, are their nemesis this year.

This team is still an enigma and could end up getting on fire if everyone clicks, but it is just as likely, if not more, that this team finishes bottom 3 in the AL.

 

Same goes for our staff and bullpen.

I would assume most thought this team had/has chances on contending due to the "unknowns" and young guys developing into something and no longer being young unknowns.  7 games in they are still unknowns and young.

I agree with this, but if people think culture, and leadership and other stuff matters.......changing positions and asking players to work on new pitches must matter also.

I have never bought into the pitch that it matters where a player plays in the field and that it affects the performance at the plate. Batting is batting, and has nothing to do with fielding. Mental issues certainly come into play, and rhythm of the game is different if one is a DH and just hits... but whether one plays outfield or infield, or switches around the field..... I don't buy that it should or does have an effect on hitting.

Everything is magnified this early. "Winless through 7 games" can overstate how close most of these games were. The fundamental issues Nick raises are definitely a concern. But we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that there has been some unsustainable un-clutchness so far:

So far Pythag has their expected record at 1-6 (.197), and BaseRuns has it at 2-5 (.310).

Last year they had incredible "clutchness," or cluster luck. So far this year, they've been slightly unlucky, but the team really has been bad--just as it was fundamentally poor last season, if you look at the underlying numbers.

BaseRuns pegged the 2015 Twins as a 73-win (.451) team; if they play the rest of this year at that level, they'll finish with 70 wins. FanGraphs is currently projecting 74 wins for this season. Barring another year of terrific cluster luck, I expect the team will wind up somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm just hoping that some of the younger players will grow, and Terry Ryan will make some deals for the future that he should've done last winter.

Twins are 4.5 games behind right now. Jays are 4.5 games behind. I'm not sweating.

Is it too early to start thinking about the #1 draft pick in 2017?