Twins Week in Review: 4/18-4/24

Where do the Minnesota Twins rank in myriad statistics over the last week?

Welcome to The Minnesota Twins Week in Review. On Access Twins, 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!

And now, let’s talk to it:

General Team

• Record: 5-2, .714 (t-4th) — 3-0 at home, 2-2 on the road

• Current Fangraphs Record Projection: 81-81, .500 (2nd place)

• Current Fangraphs Division Chances: 30.7 percent

• Current Fangraphs Playoff Chances: 43.5 percent

• Baseball Prospectus PECOTA Record Projection: 87-75 (2nd place)

• Baseball Prospectus Division Chances: 44.0 percent

• Baseball Prospectus Playoff Chances: 63.5 percent

• FiveThirtyEight Record Projection: 84-78 (2nd place)

• FiveThirtyEight Division Chances: 32.0 percent

• FiveThirtyEight Playoff Chances: 48.0 percent

Breakdown: Let’s just say this — these are so much better than the numbers we saw for the bulk of the 2021 season. Twins back? We’re going to find out.

Hitting (with MLB rankings)

• Batting Average: .255 (12th)

• On-Base Percentage: .346 (13th)

• Slugging Percentage: .372 (13th)

• OPS: .718 (5th)

• wOBA: .327 (4th)

• wRC+: 117 (3rd)

• Runs Per Game: 4.14 (12th)

• Batting Average (w/ RISP): .240 (13th)

• Avg Exit Velo: 89.5 mph (6th)

Breakdown: These numbers are astonishing. A .718 OPS is top five in MLB? A .327 wOBA is good for 117 wRC+? It’s easy to see how squashed offense has been when taking these numbers into account, but it seems unlikely to stay this way with rosters compressing, hotter weather coming and who knows, probably untold changes coming with the baseball.

Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to watch Byron Buxton sock a few dingers?

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Starting Pitching (with MLB rankings)

• IP: 33.2 (t-8th)

• IP/GS: 4.81 (16th)

• Pitches/Start: 74.6 (22nd)

• ERA: 2.14 (5th)

• FIP: 2.95 (8th)

• xFIP: 3.52 (13th)

• SIERA: 3.27 (8th)

• Groundball Rate: 40.9 percent (20th)

• K/9: 8.55 (12th)

• K%: 24.1 percent (10th)

• BB/9: 1.87 (t-6th)

• BB%: 5.3 percent (7th)

• K-BB%: 10.1 percent (27th)

• WHIP: 1.04 (5th)

• Opponent Batting Average: .222 (9th)

• Opponent On-Base Percentage: .263 (4th)

• Opponent Slugging Percentage: .357 (9th)

• Opponent OPS: .620 (7th)

• Avg Exit Velo: 87.3 mph (12th)

Breakdown: Another sigh of relief here. Haven’t seen this many single digits since the 2020 Twins, if not 2019 even. What’s nice about showing the rankings is that while some numbers look great on their own, it’s nice to know that allowing a .263 on-base percentage, for instance, is fourth. In most seasons, that would likely be easily first on any given week. Again, this is something we’ll monitor as things get cooking.

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Relief Pitching (with MLB rankings)

• IP: 28.1 (7th)

• Innings Per Game: 4.05 (14th)

• Pitches Per Game: 62.7 (16th)

• ERA: 2.22 (10th)

• FIP: 3.95 (25th)

• xFIP: 2.80 (5th)

• SIERA: 2.47 (5th)

• Groundball Rate: 49.3 percent (11th)

• K/9: 10.16 (9th)

• K%: 28.6 percent (t-7th)

• BB/9: 2.54 (8th)

• BB%: 7.1 percent (t-7th)

• WHIP: 1.09 (11th)

• Opponent Batting Average: .221 (21st)

• Opponent On-Base Percentage: .277 (11th)

• Opponent Slugging Percentage: .413 (29th)

• Opponent OPS: .690 (26th)

• Inherited Runners: 5 (t-1st)

• Inherited Runners Scored: 0 (t-1st)

• Inherited Runners Scored Percentage: 0.0 percent (t-1st)

Breakdown: And yet another one where we can’t exactly be sure how good the Twins are in this respect. It just doesn’t add up that a .690 OPS against or a .413 SLG against are among the worst in MLB, but the Twins look very good by some advanced metrics (xFIP/SIERA) but markedly less so by FIP. For now, we’ll just keep an eye on the situation and keep you updated.

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All research is done via Sportradar’s r360, Baseball-Reference or Fangraphs unless otherwise noted.

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