In charting a stay-the-course path for 2023, Twins are taking a big risk

October 11, 2022 at 5:45PM
Target Field in late September after the Twins had been eliminated from playoff contention.
(TNS - TNS/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Is the course of action summarized by Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey on Monday the best plan, a defensible plan or the only possible plan?

I fear that the answer veers more toward the second and third options than the first.

You can certainly make the case, as Falvey does, that the Twins can improve over their 78-84 season in 2023 with some better luck and improved health. In that scenario, roster additions might be considered more enhancements and tweaks than anything else, while the firing of head trainer Michael Salazar could be the most significant staff personnel move.

"Superficially, sometimes people want personnel changes just because if you make a change, therefore you're trying," Falvey told reporters Monday. "We had to assess whether or not change was needed. But this whole group, we feel like, is the right group to help lead us in the direction we need to go."

Falvey might really believe that. Or he at least might believe that there is no other viable course of action for an organization that is never going outspend its competition and which has a dwindling base of minor league prospects from which to make trades (MLB's web site has their farm system at No. 23 in baseball as of now).

However we define the plan, know this: It had better be the correct one for the sake of the Twins' trajectory, which I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast.

Attendance for Twins home games this season was the lowest it has been for a full unrestricted year since 2001, and the lack of a sharper upturn when the Twins were in the playoff race for much of the summer left President Dave St. Peter "surprised and kind of bordering on disappointed."

Combined with lingering uncertainty about whether their games will be available to a large swath of cord-cutting TV viewers, the Twins face the potential for further erosion in the local sports marketplace.

Firing the trainer hand-picked to run things in November 2019 won't bring fans back. Winning games with a recognizable identity will, and it's a big bet to believe the former is significantly linked to the latter.

It's also a plan that doesn't address two big questions:

  • How to account for the presumed departure of Carlos Correa, whose 5.4 Wins Above Replacement was the best for a Twins player since Brian Dozier in 2016.
  • What happens when a percentage of the players who were relatively upright and productive this season regress or get hurt in 2023? Stay-the-course plans often have a blind spot when it comes to that idea, imagining all the things that can be improved will get better while all the things that are already good will stay good.

The pitching staff does have a chance to be deeper and better in 2023, but there are still major "ifs". Perhaps the plan will come into sharper focus once we see exactly how Falvey and GM Thad Levine are able to add to the roster.

Given what we know about the roster and the potential for reinforcements — not to mention the decrease in games against AL Central foes from 76 to 52 next year — it feels like the Twins are on pace to put up a good fight to reach .500, and not much more.

If that happens, you can imagine (or at least hope) that the organizational conversations and appetite for change will be quite different in October 2023 than they are now.

about the writer

Michael Rand

Columnist / Reporter

Michael Rand is the Star Tribune's Digital Sports Senior Writer and host/creator of the Daily Delivery podcast. In 25 years covering Minnesota sports at the Star Tribune, he has seen just about everything (except, of course, a Vikings Super Bowl).

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