Minnesota Twins Week in Review: 7.1-7.7.24
#TWiR takes a look at the Twins' stats from the last week at a glance while also combining them to the previous week
Welcome back to The Minnesota Twins Week in Review. That’s right, we’re reviving an old feature here at Access Twins.
Every Monday, we’ll take a deep dive into the week that was for your Twins. We will post on Mondays, and look back from the previous Monday to Sunday since that’s how MLB lines up its schedule.
If you have any ideas for stats to be added, please feel free to let me know in the comments, on Facebook or on Twitter!
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And now, let’s talk to it:
General Team (51-39 , .567 winning percentage, 6.0 GB of Cleveland, 92-70 pace)
Record: 4-2, .667 (t-2nd) — 4-2 at home, 0-0 on the road
Current Fangraphs Record Projection: 89-73, .548 (2nd place, 4.0 GB)
Current Fangraphs Division Chances: 33.0 percent (+0.6 percent change)
Current Fangraphs Playoff Chances: 85.8 percent (+6.0 percent change)
Baseball Prospectus PECOTA Record Projection: 90-72 (2nd place, 4.0 GB)
Baseball Prospectus Division Chances: 25.8 percent (-0.9 percent change)
Baseball Prospectus Playoff Chances: 86.2 percent (+3.3 percent change)
Baseball Prospectus Adjusted Playoff Chances (to reach Divisional Series): 49.9 percent (-0.7 percent change)
Breakdown:
Honestly, could the Guardians lose more often than just when the Twins do? I still think this is going to be a fun race to the finish — Glen Perkins even said over the weekend on a telecast that he thinks they can win the division, and I agree — but it’s annoying how good Cleveland is.
*phew*
I have a little PTSD from even slightly mentioning the Guards and getting swarmed by fans sharing the standings or whatever other reason they think they live in our heads “rent-free.”
Anyway, here’s to the Twins keeping it close until the teams face off again. If nothing else, the Twins have a good shot of making the playoffs as a Wild Card team, anyway.
Hitting (with rankings)
Batting Average: .345 (1st)
On-Base Percentage: .422 (1st)
Slugging Percentage: .549 (2nd)
OPS: .971 (1st)
wOBA: .419 (1st)
wRC+: 177 (1st)
K%: 18.1 percent (6th)
BB%: 9.7 percent (8th)
Runs Per Game: 7.17 (2nd)
Batting Average (w/ RISP): .361 (3rd)
Average Exit Velocity: 88.0 mph (13th)
Breakdown:
To get a feel for how far behind the No. 2 team was in triple-slash stats, Arizona was second at .311 in batting average and also .375 in on-base percentage, while Arizona (.583), Minnesota and Detroit (.507) were the only three teams to slug over .500 for the week.
It’s just a week worth of numbers, but the Twins jumped a full run per game ahead of last week’s sizzling pace, and saw the fruits of their labors from the week before where they were stinging the ball with little to show for it.
(no I don’t know why this says Tigers-Twins when it’s clearly Astros-Twins)
Can they parlay that into success this week heading into the All-Star break? It’s hard to say; they’ll face some of the best the White Sox have to offer on the rotation front — no Garrett Crochet, but they’ll face Erick Fedde and Drew Thrope — but the opponents on the Giants side are two unproven guys and Blake Snell, who has struggled mightily after signing late.
It’s difficult not to be overly enthused about this offense right now.
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Starting Pitching (with rankings)
IP: 33.1 (13th)
IP/GS: 5.56 (11th)
Pitches/Start: 94.5 (4th)
ERA: 5.94 (26th)
FIP: 4.46 (21st)
xFIP: 3.52 (7th)
SIERA: 3.51 (6th)
K/9: 9.72 (9th)
K%: 25.0 percent (t-9th)
BB/9: 1.89 (1st)
BB%: 4.9 percent (1st)
K-BB%: 20.1 percent (4th)
WHIP: 1.29 (15th)
HR/9: 1.89 (26th)
Groundball Rate: 33.3 percent (26th)
Opponent Batting Average: .267 (21st)
Opponent On-Base Percentage: .306 (12th)
Opponent Slugging Percentage: .481 (26th)
Opponent OPS: .787 (23rd)
Average Exit Velocity Allowed: 85.6 mph (3rd)
Breakdown:
This is some wild stuff. My thought is that this is what can happen over a week with a staff that lives and dies by the fly ball. The components are here for a good starting staff, but when the Twins give up contact — it often goes for extra-base hits and notably home runs (that HR/9 is terrifying).
The average exit velocity against is interesting, though. When the Twins aren’t allowing home runs, it seems they’re getting tons of soft contact. That, paired with an extreme fly-ball tendency, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Now with that said, the ball tends to fly more as the season goes on and the weather gets warmer — so that’ll be something to monitor.
I stand by my assertion that the Twins need to add one more starter. It doesn’t even necessarily has to be a stud, either. I keep going back to Paul Blackburn or Yusei Kikuchi, or if the Twins want someone with more than a year of club control, Chris Bassitt makes some sense.
Knowing this front office, it would probably be more along the lines of a Jesus Luzardo or Edward Cabrera type. You know — the “we can fix him” mold that many of the Twins’ acquisitions have been cut from.
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Relief Pitching (with rankings)
IP: 18.2 (t-27th)
Innings Per Game: 3.11 (28th)
Pitches Per Game: 49.0 (30th)
ERA: 3.86 (5th)
FIP: 3.54 (t-11th)
xFIP: 3.71 (10th)
SIERA: 3.14 (8th)
K/9: 9.64 (10th)
K%: 25.0 percent (10th)
BB/9: 1.93 (6th)
BB%: 5.0 percent (5th)
K-BB%: 20.0 percent (7th)
WHIP: 1.02 (5th)
HR/9: 0.96 (t-13th)
Groundball Rate: 32.7 percent (28th)
Opponent Batting Average: .211 (6th)
Opponent On-Base Percentage: .275 (7th)
Opponent Slugging Percentage: .366 (10th)
Opponent OPS: .641 (7th)
Average Exit Velocity Allowed: 83.4 mph (3rd)
Inherited runners scored/total: 2 of 6 (33.3 percent)
Breakdown:
This is an impressive showing, especially when considering the 13-12 loss to the Astros on Friday where the bullpen combined for four innings with six earned runs.
Outside of that performance, the group had a 1.23 ERA, 0.55 WHIP, 17-1 K/BB ratio in 14.2 innings and a slash line against of .135/.151/.250.
The long and short of it is that this is a solid group that should only get stronger with what appears to be a reasonably near-term return of Brock Stewart in addition to perhaps getting back Justin Topa maybe a bit after that.
Make no mistake, the team still isn’t sure what it has in Caleb Thielbar and it can’t necessarily trust Steven Okert to get righties out, but the emergence of Cole Sands and Jorge Alcala combined with Griffin Jax being one of the best relievers in the AL and Jhoan Duran starting to find his footing have made this a strong unit with potential for getting better.