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The Minnesota Twins have never employed an opening day payroll as high as $72 million. Their recent history has been hallmarked by their star players departing, but the team somehow scrapping together enough bits to compete. This was most evident in 2008, when the club lost Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, Jason Bartlett, Carlos Silva, and Matt Garza, yet still improved by nine wins over the previous season. This year is different. The revenue expected to be generated by newly-constructed Target Field has allowed the 2010 opening day payroll to exceed $100 million. Rather than enduring their perennial deficit of talent, the Twins have made three key acquisitions without losing anyone of real importance. But they did lose some THING of great importance, and that was the HHH Metrodome. Although it was supposedly an awful place to watch a baseball game, the Twins made it into the greatest home field advantage east of Denver over the years. During manager Ron Gardenhire's tenure, the Twins were 137 games over .500 when playing at the Metrodome and 16 games under when playing anywhere else.
The amount their personnel has improved is not commensurate with their increase in payroll, though. Orlando Hudson has somehow managed to go from being one of the most underrated fielders in baseball to one of the most overrated in the past two years. While J.J. Hardy certainly can't be as bad as his .659 OPS from last year, he isn't likely to be an offensive upgrade over Orlando Cabrera. Defensively, that upgrade is significant. Overall, Hudson and Hardy represent big gains from last year's middle infield mess, but neither one is likely to have an All-Star season either. While Jim Thome still swings a potent bat and will likely excel playing only against right-handed pitching, Jason Kubel's left field defense could spell trouble, particularly without Carlos Gomez zipping around the outfield anymore. Denard Span is a very good fielder in his own right and a far better overall player than Gomez, but the outfield defense takes a big hit with Gomez gone and Kubel likely to spend more time in the field. Rumors that Michael Cuddyer is going to serve as Span's backup in centerfield can't be true, can they? The loss of Joe Crede doesn't help the team defense either, as the oft-injured Crede managed to save a dozen runs defensively last year even though he only appeared in 90 games.
The bullpen could be formidable, as there are enough strikeout pitchers down there to neutralize the changes in ballpark and defense. Pat Neshek and Liriano could realistically have comeback years in the bullpen and a full year of Jon Rauch should be a plus. Clay Condrey was probably brought in more for his World Series experience rather than his pitching ability, but there is enough depth ahead of him to hide his weaknesses.
The possibility of a full season of Joe Mauer is tantalizing, but realistically, it's hard to expect the reigning MVP to improve on his overall value from last year. Justin Morneau, however, seems to perform better during even seasons than odd ones for some odd reason. He, like most of the offense, is in his late 20s, and could be primed for a big year. To be fair, most of the pitching staff is in their prime years as well. It may surprise some people to learn that closer Joe Nathan is 35, though. This could be the year that he shows everybody just how rare seven straight seasons as a dominant closer is by faltering. Even still, there may be enough depth in the bullpen behind him for the Twins to absorb that hit, although his contract would force the team into making some difficult choices. Final Word It would be silly to bet against the Twins winning the AL Central now that they are finally spending money like a first-division team. Don't expect them to run away with it, though. The Tigers and White Sox both appear to have improved as well, and there's no way that 87 wins clinches this division in 2010. As usual, once these Twins get into the postseason, they will fold. Most of the thunder in their lineup is left-handed and can be neutralized by the better southpaws in the league. No longer playing on turf, these Twins don't look like the kind of team that is going to manufacture runs terribly well, either. Not that it matters, since a rotation like this won't keep playoff teams from scoring bunches of runs. The Twins may win their sixth division title in nine years and still get their fans upset due to their increased payroll and constant playoff failures. Hopefully the novelty of the new ballpark will prevent Twins fans of the teens to become like Braves fans of the 90s or Yankees fans of last decade. Team Previews Index Do you have a different take? Send your opinions to submissions@baseballevolution.com. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
