Last season, when the Twins won 85 games and made a surprising push to the AL wild-card game, their top six position players in terms of WAR (according to Baseball-Reference.com, which factors in both offensive and defensive contributions) were:
Byron Buxton (5.2), Brian Dozier (4.5), Joe Mauer (3.4), Jason Castro (2.5), Miguel Sano (2.5) and Jorge Polanco (2.0). And their top pitcher by a very wide margin was Ervin Santana (4.6).
Of those seven, four are in the minor leagues right now on various assignments.
Those seven players, who had a combined WAR of 24.7 last season, have contributed a combined WAR of 1 through almost an entire half season.
Take away Dozier (1.3), and they are in negative numbers. Eddie Rosario (3.7), Eduardo Escobar (1.8) and Jose Berrios (2.5) have been great, but they are nowhere near making up for the rest of what has happened.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. mrand@startribune.com
