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For much of the past two seasons the Minnesota Twins have been tied to something they weren’t. In 2019, the club introduced the Bomba Squad and went on a terrorizing run of punishing opposing pitchers. Power production is what became synonymous with the roster, but expect something much different in 2023. This team will pitch. Image courtesy of Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports It’s not exactly a bad thing that the Twins will be looking to usher in a new look given they are coming off back-to-back seasons missing the postseason. Last year, the club was decimated by injuries and the year prior, performance left plenty to be desired. Neither of those teams truly had an identity, and it’s something Rocco Baldelli would probably prefer they get back to. If you’re hoping that Joey Gallo’s signing means Minnesota will blast bombas once again, you’re likely to be disappointed. Sure, the Twins are hoping he can find his swing, but there is positional flexibility and defense to fall back on for the slugger. Carlos Correa returns at shortstop, and while he can manage the lumber, his game is an all around one as well. Nelson Cruz is going to moonlight as a baseball player for the San Diego Padres, and Miguel Sano is still unemployed. The Bomba Squad was a one-time thing, and looking at this roster, the Twins want their strength to be pitching. Luis Arraez was sent to the Miami Marlins for Pablo Lopez, not because the pitcher is an ace, but because he lengthens the starting rotation. Sonny Gray has looked the part of a top arm when healthy, and Tyler Mahle could be more than ready to break out if he’s healthy. Kenta Maeda has previously competed for a Cy Young award, and last year’s Opening Day starter in Joe Ryan may be slated to bring up the rear of the rotation. For the first time in quite a while, the Twins rotation is where much of the investment has been made. Yes, there isn’t a massive free agent contract in the group, but prospect capital such as Chase Petty, Spencer Steer, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand were all utilized to acquire it. Moving on from Arraez wasn’t an easy choice, but the lineup has enough potential to withstand that sort of blow. You can bet that Baldelli is not hoping to win every game 2-1, but this shouldn’t be a Twins team that needs five runs in order to hold things down. Last season, the difference between scoring three or more runs was drastic, and the hope is that tweaks to the defense can help as well. The outfield may be able to lay claim as baseball’s best defensively, and that will only further help whoever is on the mound. Bringing back Correa at shortstop was a must, and while Jorge Polanco is not great in the field, Jose Miranda should be better at the hot corner with Alex Kirilloff possessing Gold Glove ability at first base. Fielding will continue to be an area the Twins look to improve in an effort to help the entire pitching staff. Down the stretch last season, the Twins bullpen made significant strides. Jhoan Duran got all of the praise, but Griffin Jax has emerged as a force, and Jorge Lopez returning to his All-Star form would be a massive high-leverage boost. Both in the starting rotation and the bullpen, Pete Maki is going to feel confident running arms to the mound. Derek Falvey became synonymous with pitching when working within the Cleveland Guardians organization. This may be the first time since he has been with Minnesota where he can feel confident in what the group on the mound has been built as. Not every team is going to have an ace, and although the Twins still don’t, they have as good of a group as anyone could hope for. There are different styles that will trot to the mound, but it would not be at all surprising to see that Twins have the best staff, top to bottom, in the division. Start thinking of nicknames if you must, but this group is going to rely on pitching and defense. View full article

Remember just a few years ago when the Minnesota Twins put together one of the best seasons in franchise history? They won 101 games and hit the most home runs any team has ever compiled during a single season. That was all fun, but the 2023 team looks even better. Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have been hard at work this offseason to supplement a Twins team coming off a second straight losing season. Rocco Baldelli would undoubtedly like to take Minnesota back to the postseason, and doing so in 2023 seems like a must. He gets Carlos Correa back for the long haul and has also seen Joey Gallo, Christian Vazquez, and Kyle Farmer be added. Winning 101 games didn’t happen by accident, and blasting as many home runs as the Bomba Squad did is something we won’t likely see again. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that we’ll see franchise record-level results in 2023, but that doesn’t need to take place for this iteration of the Twins to be better. Put simply, the roster as it stands now is more talented than what we saw in 2019. Going position by position, there is a lot to like. Catcher Gone are Jason Castro and Mitch Garver. Instead, Vazquez has been inserted alongside Ryan Jeffers. Garver was arguably among the best catchers in baseball during his torrid 2019. He won a Silver Slugger and posted a ridiculous .995 OPS. He was coming off just a 104 OPS+ the year prior, and that should be a bar the current tandem can clear. Jeffers has shown an ability to drive the ball and has an exciting offensive profile, but he needs to stay healthy. Vazquez isn’t a juggernaut at the plate, but he’s certainly not a slouch. Infield C.J. Cron and Jonathan Schoop represented an average veteran presence. Marwin Gonzalez was expected to produce coming off of inflated numbers from the Astros cheating scandal, and Jorge Polanco remained at shortstop following a PED suspension. It was a good-not-great collection on Opening Day. We have seen Jose Miranda break out at the minor league level, showing well in his rookie season. Now at third base, he’ll be next to Correa, with Polanco on the other side of the diamond. It appears Minnesota is all in on Alex Kirilloff at first base, and that is a welcomed sight if it means he’s healthy. There is substantially more upside with a superstar shortstop and some actual top prospects filling out the dirt. They’ll need to play better defense, but this collection should rake. Outfield Byron Buxton and Max Kepler remain the same, but Eddie Rosario and Jake Cave are gone. It’s pretty hard to be disappointed about additions like Joey Gallo and Trevor Larnach. Kepler may be moved at some point, but both the free agent and former top prospect bring plenty to the table. Gallo’s bat may be his calling card, but he’s an excellent defender at all three spots. We saw Larnach show off his arm from left field last year, and there has never been a question about the bat. Grabbing defensive insurance in the form of Michael A. Taylor certainly doesn’t hurt either. Buxton will need to stay healthy, as has always been the issue, but this could be among the better units in baseball. Rotation Jose Berrios in 2019 may be better than anything the Twins currently have. However, gone are Jake Odorizzi, Michael Pineda, and Kyle Gibson. Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, Joe Ryan, Kenta Maeda, and Pablo Lopez should represent a much higher water level than that group. Mahle may be the best bet to look like an ace, and Lopez was acquired to raise the water level for the group as a whole. We don’t know how Maeda will fare following elbow surgery, but he’s at least back to 100%. The Twins also have good internal depth behind the initial starting rotation, and that’s a good thing, given the need for spot starts along the way. Bullpen Trevor May and Taylor Rogers were the best arms in the pen of yesteryear. Now Pete Maki is working with Jhoan Duran, Jorge Lopez, and Griffin Jax. It’s hard to overstate how good Caleb Thielbar has been and how good Jovani Moran could be. Ryne Harper was a nice success story in 2019, but Blake Parker and Trevor Hildenberger types didn’t leave much room for error. Minnesota can’t allow Emilio Pagan to sink them again, but there should be capable arms to bridge and close out games. As a whole, it’s almost a sweep when it comes to groupings that look better in 2023 than in 2019. What the 2019 squad did was perform on the field, and that remains to be seen from this contingent. They’ll need to stay healthy, and they must go out there and prove it, but Baldelli should be excited by the look of his roster. View full article

We’ve done it, Twins fans. We’ve officially made it to Spring Training! Baseball games at Target Field will be played before we know it. As the team assembles in Ft. Myers, some of the burning questions that will assuredly be asked of Rocco Baldelli are “Who will be hitting leadoff?” or “What will the batting order be?” It’s a fun exercise as a fan because there really seems to be no wrong answer with this team. If Rocco wanted to, he could draw names out of a hat and the 2020 Twins would score some runs. This lineup has no weak spots. Check out this article from Mike Petriello about how deep the Twins are. The 2020 lineup is similar to the ‘19 version except the Twins are getting a full season of Luis Arraez and of course, they added Josh Donaldson. I’ve been calling them the “Bomba Squad 2.0”. No matter how you slice it, the 2020 Twins lineup is downright silly. The definition of #FunToWatch. They have a real opportunity to break their own major league record of 307 bombas hit in 2019. It got me thinking… How does the 2020 Twins lineup potentially compare to one of the most lethal teams of all-time - The 1927 “Murderers’ Row '' New York Yankees? Of course, the ‘27 Yankees are widely considered to be one of the best, if not the best team in baseball history. They won 110 games, a record at the time, and cakewalked their way to a 4-game sweep of the Pirates in the World Series. Four players in the starting lineup ended up in the Hall of Fame: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and Earle Combs. You might be asking yourself, there’s no way the 2020 team holds a candle to one of the best teams of all-time? Well, it’s potentially closer than you think… 1927 Yankees Top 9 Starting Position Players - SLG % C Pat Collins - .418 1B Lou Gehrig - .765* 2B Tony Lazzeri - .482 SS Mark Koenig - .382 3B Joe Dugan - .362 OF Bob Meusel - .510 OF Babe Ruth - .772* OF Earle Combs - .511 UTIL Ray Morehart - .328 *I would like to point out how insane Gehrig and Ruth’s SLG % were. They were #1 and #2 atop the league in 1927. The third highest SLG % that year was Al Simmons at .645. Those poor 1920’s era pitchers... Combined: AB’s: 4217 1B: 874 2B: 253 3B: 85 HR: 152 SLG: .53189 2020 Twins Top 9 Starting Position Players - Using ‘19 SLG% C Mitch Garver - .630 1B Miguel Sano - .576 2B Arraez - .439 SS Polanco - .485 3B Donaldson - .521 OF Rosario - .500 OF Buxton - .513 OF Kepler - .519 DH Cruz - .639 Combined: AB’s: 4008 1B: 608 2B: 244 3B: 16 HR: 247 SLG: .53193 That’s right. The 2020 Twins projected lineup actually out-slugged the 1927 Yankees (by .0004). Granted, the comparison is a little unfair since I am using 2019 stats. Not to mention the ‘27 Yankees performed better than the Twins in many scenarios (OPS, R/G, and AVG). But for this scenario, I choose to ignore that and only focus on the 2020 Twins being better than the 1927 Yankees at something. Speaking of something, SLG % isn’t the only stat that the 2020 Twins had an advantage over the 1927 Yankees. They also hit more home runs (247 - 152), had more total bases per plate appearance, and had more hitters with an above average OPS relative to the rest of the league. Think about these stats for a second. Who would have thought that entering the 2020 season, we’d be talking about the Twins and Murderers’ Row in the same breath. Imagine telling a Twins fan that after the 100-loss 2016 season. So there you have it. Derek Falvey and Thad Levine have slowly constructed one of the most terrifying offenses in the game today, maybe...ever? OK, that might be a stretch. Only time will tell. Here’s to hoping the 2020 “Bomba Squad 2.0” season ends the same way as the Murderers’ Row - with a World Series victory.

Part of what makes baseball such a special sport is that it, more than any other sport, is almost completely driven by numbers. Numbers will teach us who are the superstars of our sport and will expose players who are not. Because of this, it only seems fitting for my second blog post on Twins Daily to take a look back on the 2019 season and choose one number for each Minnesota Twins hitter that I think best encapsulates the season for that player. The players discussed in this post were the top 10 team leaders in plate appearances this season. 1. Jorge Polanco Number: 153 GAMES PLAYED. In a Minnesota Twins season ravaged with injuries where the Twins saw 5 of their top 6 batters in fWAR spend time on the injured list, Polanco was the one constant in the Twins lineup. Polanco played in 94% of Twins games this season which actually undersells his availability as 2 of his 9 games on the bench came in the final week of the season when the Central had already been wrapped up. In a season where Polanco was an AL All-Star starter and a team leader in many batting statistics (R, H, 2B, 3B) it was difficult to not assign a hitting statistic as Polanco’s number, but as the old adage goes, “the best ability is availability” and Polanco’s availability was the most significant contribution to the Twins this season. 2. Max Kepler Number: .880 OPS VS. LEFT HANDED PITCHING. Prior to this season, Max Kepler struggled mightily against left-handed pitchers. From his MLB debut through the end of last season, Max had posted a career .605 OPS versus left handed pitchers, well below league average. He performed so poorly versus southpaws that there was much talk through his early development that he might be limited to a platoon-type role with the Twins. This year, though, Kepler turned it all around and posted a well-above average .880 OPS versus lefties, even better than his excellent .845 OPS versus righties. Last offseason, Kepler signed an extremely team-friendly 5-year, $35M contract. If he continues to mash lefties the way he did in 2019 that contract will only continue to look better and better. 3. Eddie Rosario Number: 3.51 PITCHES PER PLATE APPEARANCE. This is the first number on this list that should be taken negatively. While Eddie Rosario posted a career high in R, HR and RBI this season, what I will remember most from Rosario’s 2019 season is his impatience at the plate. A huge gripe among Twins’ faithful this season was Baldelli’s stubbornness with keeping Rosario in the cleanup spot all season. It was maddening to have Kepler, Polanco and Cruz work the opposing pitcher into 7 or 8 pitch ABs and mount a rally only to have Rosie bail the pitcher out with a pop out on the first pitch of the at bat. The 3.51 P/PA illustrates this feeling perfectly as he finished dead last on the club in this statistic. 4. Nelson Cruz Number: 1.031 OPS. This was by far the easiest number for me to choose in this exercise. Anytime a player finishes with an OPS greater than 1, you know they had a special season. Not only did Cruz finish with the 2nd highest OPS in the American league this season, he finished with the 4th highest OPS EVER for a 38-year-old baseball player (behind Barry Bonds, Ted Williams and Ty Cobb). Cruz was an unbelievable addition to this Minnesota Twins ball club. Most times when a team signs a 38 year old, they bring him in to be a veteran presence and a mentor in a young clubhouse. While Cruz was a great mentor and a fan-favorite, he was brought in to mash and he indeed mashed in 2019. 5. C.J. Cron Number: .700 OPS AFTER JULY 6 THUMB INJURY. C.J. Cron, more than any other Twins player this season, had a Jekyll and Hyde season. Unfortunately for Cron, the Hyde to his Jekyll was completely injury related. Prior to July 6, C.J. was having a very solid season for the Twins as evidenced by his .821 OPS in 331 plate appearances. After management’s bungling of his thumb injury, though, Cron’s play suffered significantly as he saw his OPS dip 121 points and his K% increase from 19.3% to 25.6%. Hindsight is always 20/20, as they say, but I would love to see how Cron’s 2019 season would have played out if Baldelli & Crew would have allowed Cron’s thumb to heal completely instead of rushing him back into the lineup as they did. 6. Jonathan Schoop Number: .000/.000/.000 BATTING WITH BASES LOADED. There was a lot of talk this season about how poorly the Twins performed in bases loaded situations, and rightly so. While the Twins were second in baseball this season with a .832 overall OPS, they managed to wind up 28th in baseball with a .568 OPS with the bases loaded. Nobody embodied this struggle with bases loaded better than Jonathan Schoop who ended the season with a goose egg in AVG, OBP and SLG% this season with the bases loaded in 8 trips to the plate. Of all the wild things that happened this Twins season, their complete ineptitude with the bases loaded tops the list for me, and Jonathan Schoop is the poster boy for it. 7. Marwin Gonzalez Number: 6 NUMBER OF FIELDING POSITIONS PLAYED. When Marwin Gonzalez signed with the Twins on February 22, Twins fans were excited to bring in a good player who has played in pressure games on the biggest stage. What excited Twins fans most, though, was the versatility that Gonzalez would bring to the club, and we saw that play out all season. With so many injuries popping up throughout the year, Gonzalez’ ability to play anywhere on the diamond allowed the team to continue to fill in a potent lineup even without its biggest stars for much of the year. Gonzalez was able to fill in for Sano at third base for a month to start the season, fill in for Cron when he was hampered with his thumb injury, and ended the season playing in the corner outfield when Buxton’s shoulder injury forced Kepler into CF. Marwin certainly didn’t have his strongest hitting season and suffered his fair share of injuries throughout the year, but his ability to fill in across the diamond and in the outfield covered up a lot of holes and made Rocco Baldelli’s job a heck of a lot easier filling out his lineup card. 8. Miguel Sano Number: .994 OPS AFTER JUNE 27. On June 26, the Twins suffered a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Tampa Bay Rays in 18 innings. The bigger story that day, though, was Miguel Sano going 0-for-7 with 3 strikeouts. It was his second 0-for-7 performance in the last 10 days and brought his season batting totals down to .195/.278/.761. At this point, much of Twins twitter was clamoring for the Twins to send Sano down or even outright cut him. What Twins fans didn’t know, though, was that Sano was going through a complete swing transformation with hitting coach, James Rowson, and literally learning a completely new swing on the fly. Well, Rowson’s coaching and Sano’s hard work paid off in a big, big way as Sano posted a .271/.376/.618 line with a .994 OPS beginning the day after his 0-for-7 Tampa Bay performance through the end of the season. Needless to say, there’s not much clamoring from Twins Twitter for Sano to be cut anymore. 9. Luis Arraez Number: 22 AGE. There are so many numbers that you could come up with for Arraez’s 2019 season and I wouldn’t blame for you picking any of them. The .334 average, the .399 OBP, the 29 (!!!) strikeouts, Arraez had a truly special season. The number that I settled on for “La Regadera”, though, was his age of 22. The Twins were able to generate an everyday second baseman and leadoff hitter from a rookie and with the way he has put up excellent numbers at every level of baseball in which he has played, there is no reason to believe that his 2019 season was any sort of mirage. Arraez’s 2019 season would have been considered incredible from a 32 year old, the fact that he put up the numbers he did at 22 years old should excite Twins everywhere. 10. Mitch Garver Number: .995 OPS. It’s nice when you get to end an article like this with a player who had one of the greatest seasons of all time by a catcher and posted numbers that will blow away even the casual baseball fan. The number that encapsulates Garver’s 2019 season the most for me is his .995 OPS. This not only led all catchers this season (min. 350 PAs), but placed him 17th all-time in OPS for a catcher in a season (min. 350 PAs). Health certainly slowed down the end of Garver’s 2019 season, and unfortunately Garver wasn’t able to showcase his skills in front of a national audience in the postseason, but if Garver continues to hit the way he did this season he will become a household name in no time. Not bad for a guy who just finished his second full season in the majors. What makes this list fun is that there are many different numbers that could be chosen for each hitter. I would love to hear in the comments what numbers you would have selected for the players I highlighted.

Tonight the Twins were shut out through seven innings. In this year of the #BombaSquad, I began to realize that I couldn't remember the last time the Twins were shut out. As the game advanced, I began to wonder just what kind of unicorn we were experiencing tonight. So I investigated. Obviously, two late runs were scored as the game ended in a 6-2 loss to Boston, but this was another interesting perspective on the offensive prowess of the 2019 Twins. Let's be clear about something up front: tonight's experience of being nearly shut out says much more about Boston's starter Eduardo Rodriguez than it does about the Twins. Including tonight's 7 innings without giving up an earned run, Rodriguez has now gone at least 7 innings without giving up an earned run in three of his last four starts. He's having a very nice late August into September, and has brought his ERA down from 4.31 on August 12 to 3.81 after tonight in those four starts. But the question remained in my mind: how often have the Twins been shut out this season? The answer: three times. All at Target Field. This also say some interesting things about how much better this homer-heavy team has performed on the road in 2019. The shutouts came on April 30 to Houston (11-0), June 17 to Boston (2-0), and August 21 to Chicago (4-0). So I was not fooling myself. It has been a rare occurrence. For some perspective, three shutouts thus far put the Twins tied for third place in MLB: the Yankees have only been shut out once, Oakland twice, and the Twins, Dodgers, and Atlanta with three each. To compare, Miami brings in the lead (?) with 20 shutouts thus far in 2019. So the 2019 Twins are not being shut out often. How does this compare in Twins' history? I'm glad you didn't ask: but if you had, I would tell you that three puts in the 2019 squad in a tie for second place since 1960. The 2017 team was only shut out twice on their way to a Wild Card game loss in the Bronx. The 1965 team also was only shut out three times on their way to the American League pennant. At this point, an "on pace" query would round down to a guess of the 2019 Twins staying on that number of three for the year. And while it's a long shot, there is still a chance for the Yankees and Oakland to be shut out some more to bring the Twins into a lead in this obscure category. The Twins are still in position to set some very obscure history in that they do not have a shutout on the road yet in 2019. If they can finish out the season keeping this going, it would be the first time in Twins' history. This year, the Yankees join the Twins in not having been shut out on the road. So it seems that Eddie Rosario's eighth inning #Bomba was not completely meaningless. At the very least, it changed the number in the score column off a zero. And on the road no less!

Also posted a link in the forums here. https://twitter.com/BombazoMLB/status/1160032536761909248?s=20 https://twitter.com/BombazoMLB/status/1160034261992443905?s=20 https://twitter.com/BombazoMLB/status/1160035921393332224?s=20 https://twitter.com/BombazoMLB/status/1160235495957381120?s=20