The MOA curse

Given that the Twins have just swept the Giants at Target Field in extremely compelling fashion, perhaps this isn't the most opportune time to reveal my findings. I've always joked about a curse in Minnesota, and I think, at long last, I've found the source. 

First, let's go back to the last time there was any success whatsoever in Minnesota men's sports. Back in 1991, the Twins won the World Series, but also, the Minnesota North Stars were in the Stanley Cup Finals earlier in the year. Then, less than two seasons later, Norm Green chose to move the team to Dallas. 

Green is a terrible guy, overall, and said he wanted to move the hockey team from Minnesota because it wasn't popular enough. The hockey team that just reached the Stanley Cup, he claimed, wasn't popular enough because college and high school hockey were TOO popular. All right, buddy. If this sounds bogus to you, that's because it probably was.

Not only did Green chase money (he'd already relocated the Atlanta Flames to Calgary as well) there were allegations of sexual harassment and perhaps an affair. His wife is reported to have demanded that Green move the team. Green originally intended to move the team to Los Angeles (only to be supplanted by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks) and settled on Dallas, again, to get away from the temptresses in Minnesota. 

So they moved, and the Met Center, in the foreground of the above image, was torn down. The sports complex south of 494 in Bloomington had been turned to rubble, with Metropolitan Stadium having been torn down years before, when replaced by the Metrodome. The sin wasn't that the stadiums were torn down. Curses don't start until graveyards are disturbed.

The Met Center was replaced by the Bloomington Ikea, but the Mall of America opened just over 30 years ago, on top of the remains of the former home of the Twins and Vikings, Metropolitan Stadium. Since the mall opened, and sports abandoned this site for good when the North Stars left, Minnesota has failed to put a men's sports team into any championship game or series ever since. Think about that the next time you are at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, on the desiccated remains of Minnesota Sports history. 

Since the final blow to sports at this site was the scornful wife of a misogynist, the sports Gods had one final tweak to other misogynists in the area. You'll note that the curse applies only to men's sports. Women's sports have proven to be extremely successful. The curse remains intact for those that can't appreciate that. 

Twins punchless, plummeting

 The The Twins are in the midst of a 5 game losing streak at the hands of two teams from Texas. The Rangers aren't very good, and didn't provide Minnesota with very good opposing pitchers. The Astros are excellent, and sent Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez to the mound. The Twins haven't hit any of them. 

Looking at the run totals for the season, you might be surprised to see that the Twins are actually in the middle of the pack for total runs scored this season. The opening day roster suggests they should have scored more runs. This last couple of weeks has one wondering how they are even that high on the list.

Since this writing, they have also tried Tim Beckham, and I forgot Kyle Garlick. The Twins don't want to be trotting Cave out there either https://t.co/uqlLbeKBEe

— Ryan Henning (@RhinoandCompass) August 24, 2022

Corner outfielders are premier offensive positions, and a huge source of offense for teams. Same with corner infielders and the designated hitter. It's good that the Twins have got offense from Byron Buxton in center, Carlos Correa at short and Jorge Polanco at 2nd, but it's not enough to make up for the dearth of good options in the premier offensive spots. There is certainly something to be said for players not pulling the weight that they should be, notably Max Kepler, Correa and Polanco, but what can you expect when you are forced to send Tim Beckham to play left Field? There have been some bright spots in the corners, of course. Jose Miranda is hot this summer, and having a very good rookie season. He is being relied upon to be the biggest bat in the middle of the order, and that is simply too much weight. Luis Arraez, playing first, has the highest batting average in the league. He's slumping right along with the rest of the team, and his average is fairly empty, with an ISO of .111, and a walk rate of a surprisingly low 9%. The Twins patched up a terrible bullpen and added a top starter to the rotation at the deadline, and subsequently have been losing able bodied players steadily through August. Along with that, they have started losing games, ground on the Guardians and mojo, wherein mojo is the general ability for players to hit the baseball. They survived the bullpen woes thanks to their ability to score runs, but no amount of pitching will help this team if they can no longer score runs. The Twins will start getting some of their injured players back in the coming weeks. As of this writing, the Guardians are trailing in Seattle. If the Twins can pull off a win tonight, they will only be 3 games out of first place, despite not playing well, and being beset by injuries to the better part of their offense late, and their pitching early. The team has projected optimism, even amid the frustration, and getting some guys back to play important positions might allow those feelings to spread back to the fan base.

The Twins are pissed

 The Twins are a fun group this season. They are winning games, they have good personalities in the dugout and Rocco Baldelli keeps it loose. They have certainly had their downs to go along with the ups, but they haven't let the downs submarine their season. Think back to their back breaking losses so far. Probably more than you can count, but yet, the Twins still have a running record, no extended losing streaks, and many of those painful losses were set up by come backs earlier in the game.

Nearly everyone on the roster has seen the Injured List at some point this season, on top of the roster being reshuffled. There shouldn't be as much chemistry as there actually is. It makes me wonder if having the triple A side just across the river in St. Paul helps out in this type of situation, where there is a heavy need for call ups.

With the trade deadline now come and gone, the front office has made expectations clear. They are in it to win it this year. As if there wasn't enough pressure from the White Sox and Guardians, they are putting it on themselves now as well. For all appearances as a laid back crew, this is a serious baseball team.

Cut to the end of their series with Toronto. You know the play. I'll provide you with the thorough, expletive laden breakdown from Jomboy Media

It was a pretty ok series for the Twins. If this call went the other way, they would have won a 4 game set with a good opponent, but alas, it did not go the way the Twins, or most right thinking individuals thought it should. In the strictest measure, this game was a loss, and allowed the Sox and Guardians to keep pace with the Twins. 

Many coaches and managers like their team to encounter some adversity so they will be ready for the grind of the postseason. It's been pretty chill at Target Field so far, and the Twins schedule isn't among the most challenging to wrap things up. This call could be the rallying point. Everyone is out to get us, and more than just working towards the same goal, they've all been wronged in one fell swoop. That's team building, for better or worse.

Mild mannered Rocco Baldelli rose to the occasion, tearing the umpire crew a new one, and continuing his tirade unabashedly in the following press conference. For a guy that has been criticized for his constant levelness, he came to life on a critical moment at the end of a crucial series and stood up for the team. 

The Twins were winning, and now they are righteously indignant. It's a new look for this team, so let's see how they wear it. 

Look out, Sandy Leon is coming

 A lot of weird things happened during the weekend series with the Toronto Blue Jays. There was the win on Friday that came after new closer Jorge Lopez blew a save (after the Twins had already almost already given up a 5-0 lead) that was ultimately won when Tim Beckham hit into a fielders choice, scoring Nick Gordon, but only after Jake Cave reached on a strikeout. There was Rocco Baldelli running out the same cast of pitching characters the next day for a little load testing. There was whatever the hell last night's ending was. Among the strangest things of all, though, was that I might be falling in love with new catcher Sandy Leon.

I give Minnesota fans a hard time about our attachment to first impressions, but I am just as prone to love at first sight as anyone else. And I mean, if we all loved Willians Astudillo, what's not to love about this total package?

Before the Friday game against the Blue Jays, I told my friend to watch out for Toronto catcher Alejandro Kirk, who was my favorite shaped player. Kirk is short and round. An everyman among ball players. Kirk pinch hit late in the game and stood next to Leon, who was catching, and it really brought things into perspective. Leon is an absolute unit. 5'10. 235 pounds, with 215 of those pounds (estimated) in his haunches. 

Aside from the skin deep attraction, Leon's also made a pretty decent first impression at the plate. Improbably, he came to the Twins with an OBP of .381, and it has only gone up since he arrived in town. Granted, it's only been three games, but Leon is only in town to keep Ryan Jeffers' roster spot warm. 3 games may ultimately be a good chunk of his time in the uniform.

He's been one of the studs in the games he has played. They are 3-0 when Leon starts, and he had a clutch double last Thursday, and reached base at important junctures on Saturday. He's been a good receiver throughout his career, and he hasn't disappointed yet with the Twins either.

What's not to love? 

Twins swing four trades on deadline day, silence critics for almost an hour.

 If you have listened to people on Twitter, Facebook or family gatherings for the last couple of months, it has been relentless grousing about how the Twins didn't do anything in the offseason, and they weren't going to do anything at the deadline, and ultimately, that they had missed the boat on doing things, even with a full 24 hours to the deadline. I insisted that they had done a lot of things in the offseason, and they were going to do something to address the shortcomings of the roster, but they had a tendency to wait for the last moment to do it.

I was right! 

While the Twins fan base peppered social media with hopelessness, the Twins turned around and did everything that those negative nellies said they needed to do, but couldn't or wouldn't. The team needed another starter to move towards the top of the rotation. There were three good ones available, and after Luis Castillo went to Seattle and Frankie Montas to the Yankees, the wailing and gnashing of teeth grew louder. The Twins weren't going to sacrifice the farm for Castillo and didn't have the pitchers Oakland wanted, so they added Tyler Mahle from the Reds for a price that they were comfortable with.

The Twins gave up two fast rising prospects in Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand, though neither was poised to take a spot on the Major League Roster any time soon. The line up, with Byron Buxton, Luis Arraez, Trevor Larnach, Alex Kiriloff, Jose Miranda and maybe even Royce Lewis will have spots in the lineup for a while. Stephen Hajjar, still a good prospect, is a 22 year old pitcher that is just now getting a grasp on the professional level. All of these players are good, but they don't have much of a place in the not so distant future.

Minnesota sent even more players to Baltimore for closer Jorge Lopez, a pitcher who moved to the bullpen and broker out in a big way this season, earning a trip to the All Star Game. The headliners were Cade Povich and Yennier Cano, but two pitchers from the international complex were included. Cano is a 28 year old Cuban who debuted, poorly, at the MLB level this year. Povich was a fast rising pitching prospect, but old enough and far enough down to be fully expendable.

Don't be fooled into thinking that the Twins gave up too much for Lopez. His bad numbers are from his time as a starter. Glen Perkins wasn't much of a starter either, but when he refined his offering and limited his exposure to hitters, he emerged as an all-star in the same manner as Lopez. He's under team control for another couple of years, and everyone outside of Jim Bowden believes that this was a good deal for the Twins, and a little sad for the Orioles, frankly.

The Twins also did a couple of 1 for 1 swaps with divisional rivals. The Tigers and Twins have often linked up for these little trades, and don't seem to have the reticence to do so that other divisional rivals do. In this case, the Twins added Michael Fulmer from the Tigers to work some late inning relief. This was the greatest area of concern, and the rental of Fulmer for Sawyer Gipson-Long, a prospect who has struggled at AA, made sense for both sides. 

The Twins also made a swap with the Cleveland Guardians. Minnesota has been rife with injuries, and the one that attacked the depth the most was Ryan Jeffers' injury. Caleb Hamilton isn't quite Major League capable, so Sandy Leon, acquired for a different Hamilton, Minor League reliever Ian, was acquired. Leon has plenty of playoff experience with Boston and Cleveland, and is a suitable stopgap, acquired at a reasonable fare. 

Unless your name is Jim Bowden, you were inclined to believe that the Twins nailed this deadline. They addressed all of their needs at a good price. It even quieted the Twitter masses. Well, until they lost Tuesday night. Then the pitchforks came out again.

We approach the deadline with Terry Ryan PTSD

The Twins likely knew that their bullpen wasn't perfect heading into the season, but also knew that relief arms are the most commonly moved players at the deadline. I'm sure they figured that if they indeed were contenders for the post season, they could patch things up at the deadline. Sure enough, they are contenders, but I don't think even the most pessimistic outlooks could have seen how comically bad this pen has been.

It has made many people opine that the Twins front office is inactive, despite the fact that they traded for or signed four starting pitchers this offseason (Sonny Gray, Chris Paddack, Dylan Bundy and Chris Archer) and signed the number one free agent on the market in Carlos Correa. They were plenty active this offseason, but the flashiest moves simply were not in the bullpen.

The Twins have also not been left out of the deadline ever since Derek Falvey and Thad Levine took over, save for 2020, which was a bizarre year anyways, to say the least. Either buying or selling, this team has made moves when it was time to make a move. The success rate remains debatable, but this is a long change form where the Twins organization used to be. 

Terry Ryan was always loathe to move prospects, which in retrospect is even more frustrating, considering how little value they got out of guys like Kevin Slowey. Minnesota was often rumored to be in the mix for intriguing players, from Kris Benson to Alfonso Soriano, but Ryan and crew never came through in the end. People blamed the front office when Ryan was inactive, but the current regime seems to tell us that it was more Ryan's personality. 

Of course, in the interim, there were Rob Antony and Bill Smith. They were a bit more loose with the trades, for better or worse, but this is the first front office that I can remember in Minnesota with a history of being aggressive. A lot of Twins fans still seem to be stuck in the mid-2000s, when the Twins were mentioned as teams asking about trade candidates, but never following through. Falvine is different.

Injuries have ravaged the pitching staff this year, rendering a lot of the offseason work for naught. Recent rounds of injuries to both prospects and major league players likely limits the possible return for the Twins this year. On the other hand, Jose Miranda's July likely made him too good to be traded. Just because it will be harder to make trades doesn't mean that this front office won't, even if you don't believe they weill.