Lack of Cohesion Costing Twins in Pivotal August Run
The Twins cleaned up their most pressing woes at the deadline; why are they playing at roughly the same level as before then?
The Minnesota Twins woke up in Detroit on June 1 in a good place. Well, if you’re Bert Blyleven you might not think Detroit is such a good place, but I digress.
The Twins were in the process of dropping four of five to the Tigers, but on that June day were 30-21 and up 5.0 games in the AL Central.
Since that day — and including the 5-0 loss on that day — the Twins found various ways to fumble games and ultimately the division lead on the way to going 24-28 (.462) from June 1 to the trade deadline on Aug. 2.
Yet the Twins still woke up on the day of the deadline in first place — this time with Detroit in Minneapolis and this time by just a single game.
To say it was the pitching staff that caused them most of their strife in that 52-game tumble is an understatement. Just four teams had a worse ERA than Minnesota’s 4.62 over that time frame.
Washington - 5.02
Colorado - 4.90
Cincinnati - 4.70
Pittsburgh - 4.66
You can about guess what all of those teams have in common right now. There’s a very real possibility that all four of these teams pick in the top five of the 2023 MLB Draft, if you hadn’t caught my drift.
But it’s not really like the Twins’ pitching staff was that much more reliable earlier in the season, is it? At least based on the way I’ve felt the temperature of Twins fans lately, they’ve felt like the pitching staff has been a patchwork operation all season.
In a way, they aren’t wrong.
Twins starters have just 26 quality starts. Only the Nationals (23) have fewer. And while part of that is emblematic of the shakiness of the rotation at times this season, it more resembles the usage pattern some guys have required, like Chris Archer, Dylan Bundy and Bailey Ober in some way, shape or form.
A pitcher completing six innings for the Twins is a rarity, but it’s also a requirement for a quality start. In a way, it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg scenario.
Twins starters had a 3.24 ERA coming into June 1, but were averaging just 4.79 innings per start (24th in MLB). Is that effective massaging of a patchwork rotation? Is that some small-sample noise over the first two months of the season? Is it some combination of both?
But then what do we make of a similar path from June 1 until the trade deadline, in which Twins starters averaged 4.85 innings per start (similar to before, but now 29th in MLB) but with a 5.10 ERA.
Did the cast of characters change that much? Maybe a little. Did the strategy prove untenable over anything other than a short stretch? I wouldn’t rule this out.
Or did we still just see the volatility of the plan the Twins committed to early in the season? What is the best encapsulation of the team’s starting pitching?
The 3.24 ERA from the start of the season through 6/1
The 5.10 ERA from 6/1 to 8/2
The collective 4.19 ERA between the two
Based on that ERA (18th in MLB through games played on Aug. 2), maybe I shouldn’t be surprised the Twins were only marginally more than average (54-49) to that point.
The offense hadn’t exactly been lights out heading up to the deadline, either. The team was 10th in runs per game as of Aug. 2, and was hitting .251/.321/.419 for a .740 OPS which ranked fifth in MLB. By wRC+ (114), the Twins were fourth.
However, the Twins were also tied for third in MLB in times shut out with 11, leaving more offensive potholes than one might expect for an otherwise competent offense than one would hope to have with a patchwork rotation.
Again, it probably wasn’t surprising that the Twins were just a handful of games above .500 at that point.
But they address their problems head-on with the additions of Tyler Mahle, Michael Fulmer and Jorge Lopez. As far as Twins trade deadlines go, it was by far the most active in team history (at least in terms of players added).
Has it worked?
Well, sort of.
The Twins are 8-8 in the deadline. In the failing vaudeville show that is the AL Central this season, they’ve more or less treaded water somewhere between a few games up or down in the division since then.
But that’s, well, largely the same story as the June 1-Aug. 2 stretch that was also so uninspiring. Is playing .500 ball over 20 days that much different than playing .462 ball over a two-month span?
At least to me it doesn’t really feel like it.
Let’s add some context.
From April 21 to May 24 — just arbitrary dates, but hang with me for a second — the Twins were the best team in baseball. They were 23-8 — a .742 winning percentage tied with the Yankees for the best across all MLB.
Outside of that range, the Twins are 39-49 — a .443 winning percentage that ranks 19th in MLB and puts them in the range of the Rockies, Royals and Cubs.
The range of outcomes here is 72 wins on the low end vs. 120 wins over a full season on the high end.
On the whole, the Twins are still just five games over .500, and playing at a pace that would net them just 84 wins.
Is that enough to make the postseason?
In the Wild Card era, excluding 1995 and 2020 for abbreviated scheduling reasons, only four teams have made the postseason with 84 wins or fewer:
the 2008 Dodgers
the 2006 Cardinals (who won the World Series)
the 2005 Padres
the 1997 Astros
It would be a delicious bit of irony if the Twins ended their 18-game playoff losing skid and made an October run reminiscent of those Cardinals, but it’s not super likely.
For the Twins to reach the postseason, they’re really going to have to pick up the pace.
Wow, great observation, right?
Well at the spot the Twins were struggling most, they really have done this.
In games since the deadline, Twins pitchers have a collective ERA of 3.41 (eighth in MLB). Starters are sixth (!) at 2.93 and relievers are 17th at 4.02.
Is it perfect? No. But is it enough for an otherwise good offense — again, fourth in wRC+ up to the deadline — to clean up in a lousy division?
It should be.
Instead, the Twins are hitting just .240/.306/.372 since the deadline. They’re averaging just 3.81 runs per game (21st in MLB) and are hitting a putrid .206/.284/.279 with runners in scoring position over that stretch (second worst OPS in MLB).
Sure, it’s somewhat due to injuries — but teams have dealt with that all season including the Twins — but it’s not as if those injuries were much more debilitating now than they were earlier in the season.
It also is a small sample size to be sure. It’s just 16 games and 157 plate appearances, but it’s when these are occurring that is hurting the Twins the most.
Instead of the Twins maintaining a healthy lead down the stretch, they’ve played themselves into a three-horse race in what can casually be called an AL Central mid-off.
The Twins were given the opportunity to run with the division, and didn’t.
The Twins made the necessary improvements to fix the problems that prevented them from doing so, and still haven’t run with it.
These elements need to start clicking — and soon. The process of building this team has been fairly sound — we can talk about the bullpen entering the season another day — to the point where they should be considered the team to beat in the division. They have a solid enough offense, three pitchers who can start a playoff game and at least a quartet of relievers who can get big outs at the end of games (not even including Caleb Thielbar and Trevor Megill, who’ve had their moments).
It’s in a baseball enjoyer’s DNA to say “things will figure themselves out in the long run” because, well, they almost always do.
But therein lies the problem.
The Twins don’t have that long runway. They have a 43-game sprint in which they need to be at least two games better than Cleveland, and three-ish games better than Chicago.
Can they sync things up and take off? Absolutely.
Will they? Well, that’s the question as we enter the dog days.
Buckle up.