In a perfect Twins world, Byron Buxton would have picked up in 2018 where he left off in 2017. Miguel Sano would have been in shape and ready to resume the 2017 first-half form that made him an All-Star.
Instead, unmitigated disasters in 2018 from two of baseball's most highly touted young players contributed to the firing of Paul Molitor.
What can a new manager do differently with Buxton and Sano to achieve better results, and what is a reasonable expectation for what those two players will produce in 2019?
First take: Michael Rand
Here I finally get to unleash my hot take that the Twins for too long have enabled Sano's worst tendencies and confused Buxton by making a pure player overthink the game.
That wasn't all on Molitor, but he has been the manager for the duration of both of their MLB careers. A new manager will need to push different buttons and rebuild relationships.
As for expectations: Buxton has an .874 career minor league OPS and a .672 major league OPS. He's excelled in stretches with the Twins, but at a bare minimum Buxton needs to show consistency next year.
Sano needs to refine his approach. As a rookie in 2015, his line drive rate was 31 percent. Last year, it was almost half that at 16 percent.