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With a very much needed, but not incredibly well deserved off day, the Minnesota Twins are guaranteed not to sink further into the loss column today. Fresh off another series loss, this one ending with a 16-4 drubbing by the Houston Astros, things have completely fallen apart for Paul Molitor's squad. The problem isn't what's on his roster though, but rather what has taken place since Opening Day.
 
Coming into the season, the Minnesota Twins had heightened expectations after an out-of-nowhere season a year ago. Peaking ahead of schedule, Molitor took the club to the brink in his first year as manager. Just narrowly missing the playoffs, many tabbed this club as poised for more.
 
Deficiencies were present in the bullpen a season ago, and defense was something that could also be looked upon. Despite no clear ace in the starting rotation, pitching was expected to be a relative strength with young arms on the way. Terry Ryan and the Twins did what they thought best positioned them, without blocking too many internal options, over the offseason.
 
Fernando Abad was a key offseason non-roster guy, and results aside (as great as he's been) it's was a move likely to work. Minnesota believed he was tipping his pitches, and just a year removed from getting everyone out, that seemed like a relative easy fix. Buying Ho Park was brought in to bolster the offense. Sure, he sent Miguel Sano to right field, but there's no denying the Twins run support has been for the better for it.
 
In summary, the roster construction of this team coming into the 2016 season was hardly problematic.
 
That leads us to where we find ourselves now. Local writer, Brandon Warne noted on Twitter that he'd be penning a piece in defense of the Twins roster shortly. Where that veers from the issue is that the roster in and of itself is not actually all that problematic.
 
The results have been nowhere near where this club should be (8-20 is horrible), however, it's been the in season adjustments that have highlighted a much larger issue. There's been an incredibly inept usage of the organizational pieces by both Paul Molitor and Terry Ryan. Promotions and demotions have been head scratching to say the least, and in game usage has questioned Molitor's savvy as a manager in general.
 
Our latest example for the Twins compounding on their own mistakes came in that drubbing to the Astros. Following a start in which the deck was nearly stacked against him, Alex Meyer was sent back to Triple-A, rather than the Twins bullpen, in favor of J.R. Graham. Graham was promoted having totaled an ERA north of 10.00 on the farm this season. Then, instead of being just a hidden body in the bullpen, he was used in the first game he was with the team. Of course, the Astros teed off on him, and the Twins wind up looking even sillier for it.
 
As we've now played over a month of the season, Molitor and Ryan have given us plenty of laughable instances to point at. The leash Eddie Rosario has been given is crazy, David Murphy was awarded a 40 man spot despite his intentions to avoid the dumpster fire through retiring. Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler have both been promoted and gone unused, and Molitor continues to be stoic throughout the whole process.
 
With how things have been handled to this point, it appears the Twins fundamental problem is that both Terry Ryan and Paul Molitor have absolutely zero clue. They have no clue what the identity of this team is, and that's a problem. You can only keep saying that such a small portion of the season has been played for so long. Right now, the Twins have virtually no chance of making the playoffs, yet every roster move is a knee jerk reaction that appears to be made thinking it's the final key to picking up that pivotal win.
 
There's no sense packing it in, but there's a right and wrong way to handle a losing season in big league baseball. For the Twins, making sure they understand what they have in their youth, and unlocking them as contributors for the season that lies ahead, is absolutely important. That doesn't appear to be the plan, process or goal however, and that underlines the much larger issue that this organization is facing.
 
How to change the tide is something that's much more of an uphill battle, but nothing Molitor or Ryan have displayed in 2016 suggest they appear capable of being a part of the solution.
 
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The more consideration I give to the 2016 lineup, the more convinced I am that it is falling on the shoulders (fairly or unfairly) of Byron Buxton. Let's look at the ways he impacts the lineup.
 
1. Lineup with Buxton leading off: Buxton, Dozier, Mauer, Sano, Plouffe, Park, Rosario, Murphy/Suzuki, Escobar.
 
Without Buxton leading off: Dozier, Mauer, Sano, Park, Plouffe, Rosario, Murphy/Suzuki, Escobar, Buxton/Santana.
 
Not only does the first lineup place players in their optimum position, it showcases a very strong lineup 1-9. We have power through the middle with Sano, Plouffe, Park in the 4-6 holes, We have a base-stealing, 1st-to-3rd demon at the top of the lineup, and what I would consider among the league leaders in the 7-9 holes.
 
Without him at the top, almost every player is batting out of position. Too much pressure is placed on Park, Dozier is not a leadoff hitter in the OBP sense, and it feels like every player is one spot away from his ideal place in the order. We have almost no speed at the top of the order. We rely too heavily on 7-9 to produce runs or runners without a consistent RBI presence batting behind them.
 
2. There has been a lot of recent discussion of OF defense. With Buxton manning CF, you can place Rosario in RF or LF, and Sano in the other corner. At least two of the three are elite defensively, all three have great arms, and Sano's athleticism and arm and bat make the team reasonable with the fly-ball pitching staff they have. Many have pointed out how valuable the athletic outfield was to the pitching staff. I don't think it is wrong to suggest that the defense was worth half of the decreased ERA among starters last year, though statistics could prove me wrong.
 
But if Buxton is sent to AAA, the outfield scenarios become....what's the word I'm searching for?....frightening. Sano, Rosario, Arcia? They cannot score enough runs to make up for the defensive lapses. And those lapses don't just cause runs to occur because of missed fly balls, doubles and triples. Those lapses cause mental anguish in pitchers who try to be too fine and miss their targets because of their fear of solid contact. You cannot pitch in the big leagues worried that any ball that is hit will become a problem. Defense translates into confidence in pitchers. Confidence in pitchers leads to success. The last thing I want to think when I'm a pitcher is the things I cannot do - "can't throw a fastball here to this dead-pull hitter; can't throw anything offspeed to this guy and speed up his bat; can't throw a change because he knows I need to avoid the fastball to avoid solid contact."
 
3. I'm not a huge believer in projections, but any scenario in which the Twins make the playoffs and win playoff games starts with Byron Buxton being a difference-maker. If he is a.290 hitter with a .365 OBP and .410 SLG, with 30 doubles, 13 triples, 10 HR, and 34 SBs, the progression or regression of every other player on the team (within reason, we can't have regression by everyone else) makes far less difference. We, in all fundamental fairness to our hopes and dreams, NEED this guy to break out. We don't need him to be the ROY, but he would need to be within the top 3.
 
One caveat. I'm breaking one of my cardinal rules here. I rarely watch football, because I hate the hyperbole. They start every broadcast with "If the Lions are going to win today, so-and-so NEEDS to carry the ball 20 times" or "the defense NEEDS to keep the opposition under 50% in third-down conversions." I have watched enough to know that there are many ways to win, and teams win without 20 carries or 50% third-down conversions. There isn't one thing we need, if enough other things happen.
 
But when I walk through the lineup, and through the defense, and through the possibilities and probabilities, it keeps coming back to this one guy. With all the known and unknown quantities on this team, if he's a bust and spends this year in AAA, I don't see a scenario where we are successful. If he's a ROY/MVP player, I don't see a scenario where we aren't a very, very competitive team with the sky as the limit.