The offense is coming

 

Last season, the Twins started at an historically bad pace, thanks largely to their ineffectiveness in late and close situations. Fangraphs has a "clutch" statistic, evaluating performance in high leverage situations, compared to the normal production. The Twins are bad offensively, and even worse when it counts. The scary thing is, they are significantly better in this metric than this time last year, when they went off the scale, thanks to their ineptitude. 

But they are hitting. Or rather, they are making contact, and making hard contact. But they also have a .043 BABIP in the big spots. That is something unlucky that will inevitably turn around. Even outside of the high leverage foibles, they have proven pretty hapless in general, but so much of that is at odds with their true talent as well. 

xwOBA is a statistic that tries to show what a player's productivity should be, based on things like exit velocity and launch angle. wOBA is a measure, by itself, of how productive a player is at the plate in general, with .320 being average, and .400 being great. Players that are at or above average on the Twins roster in xwOBA this season include Max Kepler, Miguel Sano, Jorge Polanco and Trevor Larnach. Max Kepler is actually second on the team in xwOBA behind Nick Gordon, and they rate in the high .370s, in Fangraphs' "Great" category. 

And then there are the players that are just off so far this season that one has to expect will come around. Carlos Correa stands out in that category. One hopes that this is where Alex Kirilloff is at as well, slumping, but better than he has shown. He has been fighting an injury, so perhaps this is an explanation.

There is also the cloud of the team that everyone has been talking about. The literal clouds. The cold, wet weather inhibits the flight of balls, and makes breaking pitches break a little bit more, making everything that much tougher. As things heat up, the bats should too. 

There are a lot of things working against the Twins right now. Bad luck in big situations, bad luck just in general for the hardest hitters in the lineup. Important players not doing what we expect them to do, and bad weather. All of these things will come around. The Twins will come around. 

Of course, I was saying this last year, too.