“Nuclear Power” – A Minnesota Twins preview

10:00 AM CDT on May 24, 2019

(Schwerdf / Wikipedia)

Homer: "Well, that settles it. For all those reasons and more... let us choose an electrifying career in..."
Homer: "Line?"
Mr. Burns: (::clenching hand::) "Ugh. Nuclear power."
Homer: (::clenching hand::) "Nuclear power."

We're on the cusp of Memorial Day weekend, and it's finally time to talk about the first place Minnesota Twins. Minnesota made some obvious improvements this offseason, but none could have predicted that der Twain would surge out to the best record in baseball. Their early success is a showcase for just how easy it was for a team to build a competitor this offseason, as they've bolstered their roster using a series of low-risk financial commitments. The Twins are still below the league's payroll median, and roughly around where the "go-for-it" White Sox of 2015 and 2016 sat, yet they've been able to use the depressed free agent market to their advantage and have set themselves up as substantial AL Central favorites.

Not all of these moves would have been fits on the White Sox roster in November, but let's look back and see just how much the Twins have improved themselves at very little long-term cost.

11/26/2018 - Claimed 1B C.J. Cron off waivers, eventually paid him $4.8M in arbitration, control him through 2020

The Twins pounced on the Rays' bizarre payroll situation and added a 2018 breakout slugger that has already reached 13 HR and 1.4 WAR this year.

12/6/2018 - Signed 2B Jonathan Schoop for one year, $7.5M

By Baseball Reference, Schoop was a 5.2 WAR player in 2017. He had a down year in 2018, and the Twins made a relatively small bet that he'd bounce back this year. He's jumped right back on his 2017 pace and is on pace to eclipse 30 home runs.

1/2/2019 - Signed DH Nelson Cruz for one year, $14.3M with 2020 option

Cruz is 38, but his decline has been graceful. That trend has more or less continued in 2019, as his raw rate stats look just as good as his most recent season in Seattle (despite a somewhat concerning uptick in strikeouts).

1/30/2019 - Signed LHP Martin Perez for one year, $4M, with 2020 option

This one's a scouting and development success. Perez was bought out by the Rangers after a miserable 2018. The Twins snagged Texas' broken toy, taught it a cutter, and watched a once-terrible strikeout rate blossom into a good one.

2/25/2019 - Signed UTIL Marwin Gonzalez for two years, $21M

Gonzalez may never again be the slugger we saw in 2017, but he's run into a little bad luck and remains a decent source of OBP that can play good defense all over the diamond (which helps when a guy like Miguel Sano misses the first six weeks of the season). The Twins likely have no regrets about this one, despite diminished power numbers.

***

Those signings made the Twins a better team on paper, but they've taken it a step further and seen excellent seasons-to-date from their incumbents as well. In the rotation, Jose Berrios has been his stellar self, but there's been a couple surprises. Jake Odorizzi's extreme flyball tendencies haven't translated into homers so far this year. There's undoubtedly some luck involved in his 2.38 ERA, but it's worth noting that he's averaging close to 93 mph on his fourseam, up about 1.5 ticks from last year. Kyle Gibson's no longer the irritating pitch-to-contact guy that the White Sox couldn't solve. Thanks to improvements on his slider last year, he's developed into a guy with an almost 4:1 K/BB ratio that the White Sox occasionally solve. Improvement for both parties! Michael Pineda's return from Tommy John surgery has been homer-filled and less beneficial for the Twins, but I guess you can't win 'em all.

The pitching has been successful, but the hitting has been absurd. Every member of the Twins' regular lineup has an isolated power (ISO) above .200. Let me repeat that, because of how absolutely nutty it is. Every member, one through nine of the Twins' regular lineup currently has an isolated power above .200. Not even the Bronx Bombiest of Yankee teams of recent memory could boast that. Granted, we're only a couple months in, but the success of the Twins' bats has been something to behold.

The guy in the midst of the craziest breakout is probably Jorge Polanco, who's leading the AL in batting average and hits while packing enough thump to maintain a 1.000 OPS. Almost as insane has been the success of the catching tandem of Jason Castro and Mitch Garver, who are both slugging at least .600 and have hit 16 homers between them. Eddie Rosario continues to rack up extra-base hits with his free-swinging ways, and Byron Buxton may have finally righted the ship. The excellent defensive center fielder and rebuild linchpin has cut his strikeouts while leading the major leagues in doubles. It's totally unfair that the White Sox' pitchers have to face this gauntlet immediately after the Astros, the only American League team hitting better than the Twins. Still, to their credit, the Sox' arms have held up respectably so far. Maybe that will continue in Minnesota.

***

I despise the Minnesota Twins more than any other team in baseball, with the possible exception of the Kansas City Royals. However, let's look at the facts, here. The Detroit Tigers and the Royals are tanking in the depths of their rebuild, while the White Sox embarrassingly have made no effort whatsoever to make progress on theirs. The Cleveland Indians seem content to cut costs and try to fall backwards into first place. That leaves the Minnesota Twins as the only AL Central team that has actually made an effort to improve their team this winter and is doing right by their fans in trying to win games. As a result, they're having an exciting, stellar season and crushing four organizations currently more focused on their bottom line than their win-loss record.

Good.

Probable Starting Pitchers