Opening Day is upon us, the roster is set. Time to take a look at how the Twins may fare in the American League Central, from top to bottom the toughest division in baseball.
Right away, that spells trouble for the Twins. Looking at the projected starting line-up, there are a full seven positions that featuredifferent players than last year's team. That means that, going into the season, Twins are full of questions as to how the new players will do. It's my own rule of thumb that a major league team can't go into a season with more than three questionable positions and expect to be a contender. And if they want to make the playoffs, at least two of those questions better have positive answers. Unfortunately for the Twins, their team consists almost entirely of questions.
During the days he was writing is annual Baseball abstracts, Bill James hit upon a method of judging players by comparing them to a statistically average player at that position. The thinking was that championship teams have players whose presence in the lineup brought more wins than an average player at almost every position. Without going into James' kind of statistical analysis, let's go through the Twins lineup and see how they might rate against a major league average. Remember, that every position that starts out as an open question makes it that much more difficult list a team as a contender for its division title.
Start in the outfield. Michael Cuddyer is a proven performer and a plus player offensively and defensively. In center, Carlos Gomez is a question mark with the potential to be a plus player. Delmon Young is also new to the Twins, but his one year in the majors established him as a better than average player, and in Spring Training his arm and accuracy looked to be as good as anybody's, and better than most. The outfield, then, shows two pluses and a question mark.
Around the infield, Justine Morneau at first has already won an MVP and established himself as the Twins best power hitter since Kent Hrbek. He's a double plus. Joe Mauer may be the best catcher in baseball. The rest of the infield, though, is all question marks. Brendan Harris may bring more offense at second base, but he has yet to show it based on his performance in spring training. Adam Everett is a top defensive shortstop, but again, his potential offensive contributions are a real question mark. At third, Mike Lamb should provide more offense, but he's never played a full season as a regular player and it remains questionable whether he'll live up to the defensive standards the Twins usually expect from their fielders.
That means the Twins have four positions with big question marks after them, and we haven't even got to the pitching yet. Here's where the Twins have a strange split. Right now, every starter has to be considered a question mark. They're for the most part young and inexperienced, and the one veteran, Livan Hernandez, may be past his prime. On the other hand, the bullpen is all pluses, and Joe Nathan and Pat Neshek are among the very best at what they do.
Add it all up, though, and it makes the Twins a team with nine questionable positions, way too many to expect then to be in the thick of the pennant race, especially in a division where Cleveland and Detroit are loaded up to make serious runs at the pennant this year, and where Kansas City looks to be finally breaking out of years of mediocre play. The only team in the division that looks to be on the way down is the White Sox, and even they have enough veteran players that they could be a factor.
So when it comes to predicting an outcome, Twins fans are left with this. An optimistic guess probably leaves them no better than third, while pessimism suggests a drop to fourth or worse. Since it's the beginning of the season and optimism reigns, let's go that way and pick the A.L. Central to end up something like this:
1. Cleveland Indians
2. Detroit Tigers
3. Minnesota Twins
4. Kansas City Royals
5. Chicago White Sox
