Despite Narrowly Missing Playoffs, Twins Can Take Many Positives from a Successful Season

Outstanding pitching by John Danks and a solo home run by Jim Thome eliminated the Twins from playoff contention last night in a one-game tiebreaker with the Chicago White Sox.  Although the lose ended the season for Minnesota, a lot of positives can be taken from the 2008 campaign.

After losing Torii Hunter to free agency and being forced to trade away Johan Santana during the off-season, the Twins were left with a young team and lots of unanswered questions:  How will the rotation shape up?  Who will play center field?  How will Francisco Liriano come back from Tommy John surgery?  How will the players acquired via trade and free agency fit in?  Even more important than posting a winning record and contending for the Central Division Title to the very end, it was the organization’s ability to answer these questions that will ultimately prove to be this season’s greatest achievement.

During the course of the year, a solid, young starting rotation emerged.  It includes pitchers that were expected to be there like Scott Baker and Kevin Slowey.  But there were also surprise additions like Nick Blackburn, Glen Perkins and Francisco Liriano, who bounced back from a career-threatening injury to post a 6-4 record with a 3.91 ERA in 14 starts.  Hopefully this group of young pitchers will compose the Twins rotation for years to come.

In Spring Training, Carlos Gomez edged out Dinard Span for the center field job.  However, the injuries to Michael Cuddyer meant that Span too would get a lot of playing time in right field.  Both of these young players did well.  Gomez hit .259 with seven home runs, 59 RBIs and had 33 stolen bases.  Span hit .294 with six homers, 47 RBIs and 18 steals in just 93 games.  Now as we look ahead to next season, the organization has four quality outfielders in Gomez, Span, Cuddyer and Delmond Young.

Through trades and free agency the Twins brought in several new faces including Gomez, Young, Bredan Harris, Mike Lamb, Craig Monroe, Adam Everett, Jason Pridie, Levon Hernandez, Phil Humber and Craig Breslow.  Some of these guys didn’t pan out (Lamb, Monroe, Hernandez) and are no longer with the club.  Others have had some degree of success at the major and/or minor league level (Everett, Pridie, Humber).  Still others have been strong additions to the team.  As I mentioned earlier, Gomez and Young had good seasons in the Twins outfield.  Harris proved to be a valuable utility infielder and Breslow was a solid left-handed reliever.  The additions of Gomez, Young, Harris and Breslow to the organization will leave very few roster spots to fill during Spring Training 2009.

So, as the Twins bid farewell to the 2008 season with a bit of disappointment, they have a lot to look forward to.  The starting rotation appears to be set for years to come.  The line-up is looking good with a wealth of outfield talent.  The only area that perhaps needs some attention is the bullpen, which showed some strain down the stretch.  If a few additions can be made there and we can somehow add that power-hitting DH we’ve been looking for all years, then the future could be bright indeed.