At the start of the season, I watched the Twins because they figured to be the White Sox's primary competition in the AL Central.
Now, I watch the Twins as a cautionary tale of a rebuild that's struggled to maintain top speeds.
After back-to-back AL Central titles -- the second one in the 60-game season -- the Twins now have to win five of their last six games to avoid a second consecutive losing season in a weak division, and they drew just 1.8 million fans, the lowest total for a full season with no attendance restrictions in Target Field history. (The White Sox have to draw 57,334 over their final three games to reach 2 million fans for the first time since 2011.)
It's resulted in no lost jobs, at least involuntarily. Pitching coach Wes Johnson left during the season to get paid double at LSU, but Rocco Baldelli will be back, and so will the front office combo of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine.
They also have the injury excuse, even more so than the White Sox. Baseball Prospectus' Injury List Ledger shows the Twins leading the AL in days lost, and finishing second in the amount of Wins Above Replacement Level lost.
Adding to the frustration, Aaron Gleeman notes, is that most players were out longer than their initial timetables, and most reinjured the same part they were attempting rehab.
Of the 19 players to spend at least 30 days on the injured list so far this season, 14 were out longer than initially expected, 15 had a recurrence of the same or a similar injury after returning or while attempting to return and at least 14 were shut down for the season eventually. There’s some subjectivity involved in that, of course, but it seems hard to examine the situation and not see a problem.
You weren’t just imagining it: Twins players were injured constantly, rarely returned when expected and often didn’t return at all.
The Guardians, meanwhile, lost the fewest days in baseball to the injured list, and lost the lowest percentage of their WARP to injuries. The Guardians entered the season with the thinnest margin for error of any Central contender, but they threaded that needle with room to spare.
There were a couple of other reasons the Guardians beat their projections, which Ben Clemens investigated at FanGraphs after various outlets threw the preseason percentages in their faces. The injury inequity dragged the White Sox and Twins down to their level, and the Cleveland bullpen tilted small margins in their favor in the fashion of other shoestring-budget success stories.
The Guardians also had baseball's youngest roster, and while having a bevy of untested players makes it hard to get the math on their side, they reaped the benefits as the schedule unfurled. Not all of their players were successes, but they had enough guys to swap in and out until they found ones who would hit on the better bands of wider-than-standard projections.
We weren’t particularly high on any of those players, which helped weigh down Cleveland’s offensive projections – that’s a lot of plate appearances to give to bad hitters. The Guardians clearly concurred. What we don’t account for in our methodology is their depth. In essence, the team threw a bunch of near-major-league-ready players at the wall and saw what stuck. Oscar Gonzalez has been solid, so he jumped into a starting role. Steven Kwan and Andrés Giménez have excelled, and earned more playing time as a result. Owen Miller has seen his role increase, though he hasn’t exactly run with it. It didn’t have to be these exact players, either; if Arias had been an unexpected gem instead of Gonzalez, the team would have adjusted and found a way to play him instead.
A lot of their players hit the better bands of wider-than-standard projections, they covered more ground in the field and on the basepaths, and, going back to the top of this section, they stayed healthier.
This is why José Abreu might've delivered the White Sox's most important quote of the year when he said, "I don’t think we are as young as we think we are." The Guardians certainly made them look rickety, and it's going to be something that will be difficult for the White Sox to fix on the fly.
Speaking of quotes, the Twins aren't going to bringing back all of their core figures from this past season, because Carlos Correa is going to opt out of the remaining two years of the three-year, $105.3 million deal he signed late last winter, and he alluded to his upcoming opt-out with a heel's flair.
Correa has said several times he’d like to remain with the Twins on a long-term deal and has spoken with the club about how he thinks the Twins can improve. But he’s hoping the Twins don’t wait around too long.
Asked whether the Twins should engage him, Correa said: “When I go to the mall and I go to the Dior store, when I want something, I get it. I ask how much it costs, and I buy it. If you really want something, you just go get it. I’m the product here. If they want my product, they’ve just got to come get it.”
It's hard to think of a quote that's less likely to connect with the standard baseball fan. I've personally never set foot in a Dior store. That's what my personal shoppers are for, and they're under strict orders to avoid even glancing at the tag. Going to the mall? Asking how much it costs? I'm sorry, but perhaps he can use his next $105.3 million to actually buy some status. Of course, he'd probably ask if there's early Black Friday promo code he can use. Unbelievable.
