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The other day one of my friends, who is a Yankees fan, asked me how the Twins were such a good team with their roster. This wasn’t some attempt to say the Twins aren’t actually good, he just didn’t realize how many good players the Twins actually have, specifically within their lineup. That same thing is probably going through the minds of many other casual baseball fans of other MLB teams. When you look at the lineup, the only guy most people probably recognize as a star is Nelson Cruz, and he hasn’t really been the biggest of factors so far given that he’s only played in a little over half of the Twins games. This is probably why many national media members didn’t peg the Twins to be this good offensively, and why their preseason over/under win total of 84.5 now seems like it would have been an easy money bet.So, how does this lineup, with such little star power, lead Major League Baseball in so many important statistical categories like runs scored, home runs, batting average, slugging percentage, OPS, wOBA and wRC+? The answer to that is they can hit at every spot up and down the lineup. The table below shows the Twins OPS from every spot in the order so far in 2019, and how they rank in the MLB after play on Tuesday. Download attachment: Bottom of the order OPS.PNG The first thing that sticks out to me in this chart is how much worse the Twins have been in the three spot in the order, relative to the rest of the order. A lot of this could be explained by all the games Cruz has missed this year, but now that Cruz is back and healthy, this number will be on the rise. The other thing that strikes me is how well the Twins bottom of the lineup has been doing. I knew they were getting great production from guys like Jonathan Schoop, Jason Castro and Byron Buxton down there, but these numbers are off the charts for the bottom of the lineup. Overall, the bottom of the order (spots seven through nine) have an OPS of .868. The rest of the spots in the Twins lineup combine for an .851 OPS, which itself is the second-best lineup in baseball one through six. To get a little better context on how well the Twins bottom of the lineup has been hitting I decided to compare their bottom of the lineup to how the bottom of the lineup has been performing for every other team in baseball this season. Unsurprisingly, the bottom of the Twins lineup had the best OPS in Major League Baseball. What is surprising is just how far ahead the Twins are above everyone else. The next closest teams are the Houston Astros and New York Yankees, who each have a bottom of the order OPS of .776. Overall, there are just four teams with an OPS above .750 from the bottom of their order, which is roughly the league average OPS. With this big of a gap on everyone else, it got my curiosity going. How long has it been since an MLB team had an OPS above the .868 mark that the Twins have so far. I started by running a search query on the Fangraphs Splits Leaderboard. Unfortunately, their data for this category only goes back to the 2002 season, but since that time the next closest team to the 2019 Twins is the 2003 Boston Red Sox, who had an .838 OPS from the bottom of their order. After that, just two more teams had an OPS above .800, the 2017 Houston Astros and 2008 Texas Rangers, who both had an OPS of .802. It was cool to see that over the past 18 seasons, no team’s bottom of the order was better than the Twins has been so far this year, and only one other team was even remotely close. However, I was not content, I still wanted to see when the last time a team had a better OPS from the bottom of the order than the 2019 Twins. Luckily, I knew just where I could find that answer, the Baseball-Reference Play Index. Using the Play Index, I was able to view results dating back to 1908, and guess what, the 2019 Twins have the best OPS from any bottom of the order in MLB history. Another benefit of using the Play Index is it excluded plate appearances by pitchers, which would have skewed the results against National League teams along with all MLB teams prior to 1973. This also removes seven plate appearances made by Twins pitchers this year, and raises their bottom of the order OPS up to .875. After the Twins, the next closet team on the list is the 1930 St. Louis Cardinals, whose bottom of the order produced an .851 OPS. Overall, there have been just 22 teams with a bottom of the order OPS above .800, which is less than one percent of the time. I also thought it would be fun to compare the bottom of the order of this year’s Twins team to those of Twins teams in years prior. The team that currently holds the Twins record is the 1963 Minnesota Twins, whose bottom of the order had an OPS of .777. After that, six of the next nine (including each of the next three) teams were the Twins teams from 1999 through 2004. All six of those teams had a bottom of the order OPS between .732 and .756. Now that is consistency. Additionally, both the 2017 and 2018 Twins teams did pretty well from the bottom of the order, as they had a .739 and .732 OPS respectively. We still have a long way to go before the 2019 Minnesota Twins can lay claim to being the best bottom of the order ever, but if they continue to hit at the pace they have been, I think they can make a real run at taking down this 89-year-old record. Addition: Another way to look at this is by using OPS+. This is a metric that compares a team’s OPS relative to the league wide OPS in that season. This helps us control for things like the “steroid” and “juiced ball” eras, as it only looks how much better, or worse, you were than everyone else that season. Currently, the Twins bottom of the order has an OPS+ of 147, which means their bottom of the order OPS is 47 percent better than the 2019 league wide OPS as a whole. This is the third best mark all-time, behind only the 1908 Cubs and the 1965 Reds, who both had a 148 OPS+. Another thing that is worth pointing out, is neither of those teams played with a DH. This gives non-DH teams a slight advantage as they only needed two hitters at the bottom of the order to perform as opposed to three hitters. When looking at other teams with a DH, the two closest teams to the 2019 Twins are the 2003 Red Sox (141 OPS+) and the 1977 White Sox (137 OPS+). Click here to view the article

After the addition of Logan Morrison over the weekend, it left many in Twins Territory wondering how would he fit into the lineup. Including the Twins Daily twitter account. This question drew a number of different responses from Twins fans, so I decided to dive into the numbers and construct what I believe to be the ideal Twins lineup. Just as it is worded in the tweet, I took this approach from the perspective that Sano will be able to play third base this season. I also see the lineup being constructed very differently depending on if the Twins are facing a righty or a lefty, so I created a lineup for both. So, let’s get into it. Against Right-Handed Starters 1st Joe Mauer 1B: Mauer is the ideal fit for the Twins leadoff position. His 0.384 OBP in 2017, ranked 5th among all qualified American League hitters. This ability to get on base is key for the leadoff role, as it gives the heart of the order a base-runner to drive in. 2nd Brian Dozier 2B: Dozier has spent the last season and a half in the leadoff spot for the Twins. Over that time, Dozier has hit 59 home runs. Unfortunately, just 25% of those home runs have been with at least one runner on base. By comparison the MLB average, over that time, is 41%. The biggest reason for this being that the leadoff hitter has the highest percentage of their plate appearances coming with nobody on-base, and by a wide margin at that. 3rd Logan Morrison DH: Last season Logan Morrison mashed righties to the tune of a .251/.365/.548 slash line, along with 32 home runs. Morrison’s 137 wRC+ against righties would have been the best mark on the Twins in 2017. 4th Miguel Sano 3B: I previously sited the fact that leadoff hitters have the smallest percentage of their plate appearances coming with runners on-base as the reason why the Twins should take Dozier out of the leadoff role. Well that same reasoning holds true as to why Sano fits perfect as the Twins clean-up hitter. Year in and year out, the 4th hitter in the lineup sees a higher percent of their plate appearances coming with runners on base than any other spot in the order. Last year that number stood at 48.6%. 5th Eddie Rosario LF: 2017 was a real breakout season for Eddie Rosario at the plate. Rosario saw much of that production come against right-handed pitchers, as his 135 wRC+ against them lead the team. 6th Max Kepler RF: Kepler’s struggles against lefties last season were well documented. However, Kepler excels against righties, and last year gathered a .272/.343/.484 slash line against them. Kepler also collected 47 of his 53 extra-base-hits in 2017 off of right-handed pitchers. 7th Jorge Polanco SS: Polanco really turned his offensive production around in the last two months of the season. Over that time Polanco collected a .393 wOBA against righties, the 21st highest mark in Major League Baseball (minimum 150 plate-appearances). 8th Jason Castro C: As the left-handed hitting member of the Twins catching duo, Castro will probably get a majority of the starts against right-handed starting pitchers. Castro is a solid hitting threat, and can put up numbers that most teams would take from a catcher hitting in the 8th spot in the order. 9th Byron Buxton CF: Even though Buxton made great strides at the end of last season, much of that production came against left-handed pitching. With the strength that the rest of the lineup possess against righties, Buxton will really help the Twins turn their lineup back over hitting 9th. The Twins might have one of the best lineups against right-handed pitchers in all of baseball. This is a great situation to be in given that a large majority of their games will come against right-handed starters, especially in the AL Central. Against Left-Handed Starters 1st Byron Buxton CF: Despite his rough start to the season, Buxton still finished with the Twins’ 3rd highest wOBA against lefties in 2017. His eye at the plate against left-handed pitchers is very strong, as he produced a 0.365 OBP against them last season. 2nd Joe Mauer 1B: As you may have noticed, I really like the idea of Joe Mauer hitting right behind Byron Buxton. The reason for this being that the best type of hitter to place behind a premier base stealing threat is a high-contact singles hitter, as it maximizes the benefit of stealing a base to get into scoring position. Additional, batting Mauer 2nd gives the Twins two strong on-base threats ahead of Dozier and Sano, who are two of the best right-handed power hitters in the league. 3rd Brian Dozier 2B: Normally you would like to see the lineup’s best hitter in the 2-hole. However, given the way the Twins lineup is constructed against lefties, I think their best chance to score runs is trying to get as many people as they can on-base in front of Dozier, so he can make the most of all the power that he has against them. 4th Miguel Sano 3B: I don’t really know what else there is to say, except Sano is just the ideal clean-up hitter for the Twins. Sano also provides great protection hitting right behind Dozier. 5th Logan Morrison DH: Much has been made about Morrison’s scorching numbers against right-handed pitchers in 2017. So, the fact that Morrison was still a solid hitter against lefties in 2017 might surprise you. In fact, his 109 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers would have been the 4th best mark by a Twin with at least 75 plate-appearances against a lefty last season. 6th Jorge Polanco SS: Perhaps the best part of Polanco’s late season turnaround was the fact that he was very productive from both sides of the plate. With his ability to be an all-around hitter as both a righty and a lefty, he could really help fill a hole in the Twins lineup against lefties. 7th Mitch Garver C: Garver posted strong numbers in AAA Rochester last season, and earned a call-up to the bigs at the end of the year. Garver’s right-handed bat could bring some much needed pop against lefties. If he shows that he can produce at the Major League level, Garver might see himself move up a few spots in the order. 8th Eddie Rosario LF: With all of the production that Rosario had against righties last season, those numbers didn’t cross over much to lefties, as he produced a mere .682 OPS against them. The most troubling part is the fact that he drew just 5 walks in 183 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. 9th Robbie Grossman/Zach Granite RF: Baring an injury to either Buxton, Rosario or Kepler, I do not see both Robbie Grossman and Zach Granite on the MLB roster this season. With that being said, I see the 9th spot in the order against lefties going to whichever player makes the team. Clearly the Twins lineup against left-handed pitchers isn’t nearly as strong as it is against righties. Given that realization, I think the lineup against left-handed starters will be a lot more interchangeable. I see this as a perfect opportunity to give some of the regulars a day off, and plug in some of the other bench pieces. I’m sure there are many of you who probably disagree with the way that I constructed these lineups. I would love to hear any changes that you would make to them, and your reasoning behind it.