Roster turnover after four years in Major League Baseball, with a pandemic between then and now, is sure to be filled with natural attrition.
Players get older, or too expensive, or less effective, and are replaced.
That is certainly some of what's happened to the Twins between 2019 and now, but that's not the entire story. Some of the roster remake between then and now feels far more intentionally tilted toward a philosophical adjustment.
Put bluntly: The Bomba Squad is no more. In its place is a Twins team that is far more likely to fail or succeed on the merits of its pitching and defense than the long ball.
Again, perhaps some of that is just coincidental. Maybe some of it is a nod to the realization that 2019 was an outlier because, well, juiced balls were helping everyone hit home runs.
But consider this: Of the 10 players who hit at least 13 home runs for the Twins in 2019, only two — Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler — are still on the roster. And Kepler could be gone any day.
The other eight: Nelson Cruz, C.J. Cron, Jonathan Schoop, Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, Mitch Garver, Jason Castro and Marwin Gonzalez.
Cruz was traded for promising rotation mainstay Joe Ryan. Garver was traded as part of a series of interconnected deals that eventually led the Twins to get rid of Josh Donaldson while adding Carlos Correa — more of an all-around hitter than a masher, and a very good defensive shortstop, who the Twins re-committed to this offseason.
