If you are looking for some cold water to throw on the Twins' 23-22 record, ESPN.com (Insider) has you covered.
In a story with the headline and subhead, "Don't build like the Twins: Minnesota is a great example of how not to design a major league roster," writer Mike Petriello lays waste to a combination of a pitching staff that still continues to bring up the rear when it comes to strikeouts and an outfield defense that is also a mess of the Twins' own doing.
A couple snips:
They're treading into some particularly dangerous waters, because the roster they've assembled is the worst-case scenario: They have a staff full of pitchers who allow balls to be put in play in front of a defense that isn't particularly effective at turning those balls into outs.
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Defense can be measured a few ways, though none of them are without their issues over a small sample size. But when they're all generally saying the same thing -- that the Twins' defense is quite poor -- it's difficult to toss that data away.
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Teams can succeed without top-notch defense, as the Detroit Tigers have shown. They can get by without huge strikeout numbers if they have a good defense, as the Pittsburgh Pirates have the past two years. But there's almost no way they can live with both of those things combined.
