The Twins are cooked, but what about their employees?

 

It's getting to be pretty dark out here in Twins Territory. The Twins were a game and a half out of first and welcomed the Cleveland Guardians to town, looking to make some serious inroads in the final month of the season. The Twins never led for any of the series, and now find themselves 5 games out of first. I've considered myself a more positive fan than most of the fan base, but even I have to admit -- the Twins are cooked. 

As often happens in beleaguered markets, many fans are openly speculating on whether or not the front office or manager Rocco Baldelli may potentially be on the outs. Almost certainly not. Rocco Baldelli can't be held to account because a league leading number of his players have spent time on the injured list this season. That said, with the tumult on his coaching staff this year, and the absolute meltdown of the offense, it wouldn't surprise me if there were new pitching or hitting coaches next year.

Thad Levine openly said they were going to try to get weird with the pitching set up, but given he injuries they had, they simply looked like they had an incompetent offseason, because they had to fall into a more typical pitching cadence that didn't work for this team. Imagine how differently it would go if Dylan Bundy got to pair with Bailey Ober, Chris Archer with Chris Paddack. But even if there were longer starts, they still needed to generate a better bullpen. That too was afflicted by injury, but even in full health, it was suspect.

Derek Falvey came to Minnesota promising to develop pitchers. And he has. Consider that the Twins added and develop Jhoan Duran in a trade with the Diamondbacks. Bailey Ober and Louie Varland are former double digit draft picks. Randy Dobnak was signed out of independent ball. The Twins have developed pitchers. In fact, most of the top 30 pitching prospects were drafted in the 4th round or later. This is a systemic strength, the ability to make prospects out of lowly regarded pitchers. 

Of course, the Twins also have a knack for signing players that perform at a level that is not consistent with expectations, and find themselves injured too often. That is a discredit to organizational scouting and the training staff. And Levine's pitching strategy exposed the team to a lot of risk, and the worst case scenario came to pass with a reluctance to adapt. Even the healthy players for Rocco Baldelli failed to hit in the clutch. Seizing up in pressure situations was a hallmark of the Gardenhire tenure, and this is the second year in a row of this in the regular season. At some point, Baldelli will have to answer for this as well, fair or not.

Nobody should lose their job over this season, but if changes aren't made in their approach to near, time on this particular organizational tenure may be winding short.