Twins fans are mad. Twins players are frustrated. Manager Rocco Baldelli has been noticeably edgy with postgame comments lately.
The Twins are off to a dismal start. Who or what is to blame?
The answer probably isn’t just one thing when it comes to what ails the Twins. But let’s try to divvy up the responsibility anyway.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
April 22, 2024 at 5:57PM
It’s not hard to figure out why.
It was barely six months ago when the Twins ended a season of tremendous promise. They had battled through regular-season adversity to win the weak AL Central with relative ease. Then they broke two streaks with a playoff win and series win before ultimately falling to Houston in a competitive ALDS.
Conventional wisdom was that the Twins could be primed for bigger and better things in 2024 and beyond.
But in all honesty, not much has gone right since the end of that playoff series. Talented players left in free agency. Spring training revealed flaws. Then injuries took a toll. Add it up, and the Twins enter play Monday with a 7-13 record, already eight games out of the division lead.
They have a chance this week to get some wins and confidence against the even-worse White Sox (3-18), but after 20 games Patrick Reusse and I batted around this question on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast: Who or what is most to blame for the terribly disappointing start to the season?
Ownership: Owing to both a natural influx of younger, cheaper players and the expected impact of reduced money from their local TV contract, the Twins went into the offseason expecting to cut payroll.
Executive Chair Joe Pohlad ruled out any expensive roster-bolstering moves in February as enticing free agents sat on the market, earning points for honesty but ceding plenty of good will with fans.
The Twins are paying for not paying up. Sonny Gray has been excellent in St. Louis while the Twins rotation has floundered. There is just not enough quality depth to withstand injuries and underperformance in the rotation or starting lineup, and that’s a direct function of not spending money.
Front office: Derek Falvey, the president of baseball operations, is limited by payroll. But his offseason decisions have not looked shrewd so far. The Twins didn’t add any healthy starting pitchers via trade or free agency. They kept Kyle Farmer at more than $6 million, a curious move for a team cutting payroll.
Farmer and free agent signee Carlos Santana ($5.25 million) are off to dismal starts at the plate, and it’s easy to wonder (as Reusse did) if some of that money would have been better spent on a starting pitcher.
Manager: It’s hard to blame Baldelli for a lot of what’s going on, Reusse said. I tend to agree, but I’ve long held a perception of the Twins manager that goes something like this: He’s a very good manager when he has a good team, but he’s not the kind of manager that will squeeze extra wins out of a lesser roster.
Players: Plenty of Twins have underperformed expectations, and that doesn’t even factor in key injuries to Royce Lewis, Carlos Correa, Max Kepler and Jhoan Duran, among others. The Twins will be more formidable once Lewis and others return. But it’s also fair to wonder already if it will be too late when they do.
When things go wrong, it’s seldom one thing. Every category has some share of the blame. I’d say ownership and Falvey get the majority share for now.
Here are four more things to know today:
*Reusse and I of course also talked about the Wolves’ excellent Game 1 performance in a win over Phoenix on Saturday. Beat writer Chris Hine will join Tuesday’s show for more Wolves talk ahead of Game 2.
*The biggest concern about quarterback Michael Penix Jr. heading into the draft is his injury history. He addressed it in a first-person account for The Players’ Tribune.
*Guard Dalton Risner is still a free agent after playing most of last year with the Vikings. He talked about his status recently with WIBW in Kansas (starts around the 12 minute mark).
*Minnesota United won 3-0 in Charlotte on Sunday night, and Jon Marthaler has all the details.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
