The Rhino and Compass, a sports blog
We are in the midst of some pretty heady times here in Minnesota. The Timberwolves are on the Western Conference Finals after convincingly defeating the Golden State Warriors, and the Twins just finished a 13 game winning streak.
But remember, as the Wild and Vikings did with their playoff flameouts, that Minnesota men's sports are cursed. The highest nail is the one that gets the hammer. This was the result of our own hubris.
Back when Derek Falvey was hired, it was with the promise that he had come from the Cleveland pitching development program, and he would bring that ability and ethos to a Minnesota system that was coming off a year where Tyler Duffey had the third most starts of the season, and the second best pitcher, Kyle Gibson, had an ERA that would slot in behind every starter the Twins have thrown out there this year.
The bullpen, too, was regarded as a strength during season outlooks. That shine was taken off by some rough outings, notably by Griffin Jax and Jorge Alcala, at the beginning of the year, and those two ae still suffering for it with ERAs over 5 and 8 respectively going into today's games.
All told, the Twins have the 3rd best pitching WAR in baseball, the 5th best ERA and looking at the pen, are #1 in the league in WAR, even with the early scuffles. The pitching staff for the Twins is a strength for the team, and everyone but Jax has been added either via trade, signing or draft since Falvey took the helm of baseball operations.
There has been more pitching added via trade or signing than Cleveland ever had, and there has been some criticism of the lack of internal development. Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan and Simeon Woods-Richardson, all members of the rotation did make their major league debuts with the Twins, and the organization has leveraged their prospects, like Chase Petty, to acquire former Twins Sonny Gray.
But if that isn't enough, the Twins also have Zebby Matthews and David Festa waiting to join the team, and now have Dasan Hill in Baseball-America's Top 100 prospects. Hill was drafted just last year.
There is pitching here, and there is more on the way. This was the promise of Derek Falvey brought with him, and it is being delivered. Despite all of the headwinds the Twins have faced, this, at least, has remained an area that Falvey and his team have continued to be able to advance.
For those that were curious, Following the Compass is still a thing. I still pick teams and follow them through the year, and if the situation allows, I'll watch a randomly selected game off their calendar. Having a wife and children makes actually going to the games a bit tougher, but this year, back in February, I went to Kansas City to watch North Dakota (my selection for the year) square off against Missouri-Kansas City.
The game was on Saturday night of Super Bowl weekend, surely not the most top of mind event in KC that weekend, but it was still a weekend contest that was inexpensive and in town. The Roos have a loud and loyal following unlike those I have seen in many of my other adventures, so it was a good atmosphere in the fairly tiny Swinney Center, which has been in use for 84 years. The age gave the game a bit more gravitas.
The building is unassuming, and is housed within the Student Recreation Center, so I had a difficult time figuring out A) where it was and B) where I needed to go to park. I finally found a lot, got distracted, missed a turn, got yelled at by a campus police officer and made it to the game. While neither team had a terrific year, they each had a terrific player. Jamar Brown for the Roos and Treysen Eaglestaff for the Fighting Hawks were the stars. Eaglestaff was a prolific scorer, and Brown was scrappier and more well rounded, but both stood out. UMKC ended up winning 80-69.
Somehow, and against all odds, the Summit League has become an important power player in college basketball. Brown ended the season with UMKC and will be joining UCLA next season. Similar letters, completely different program. Eaglestaff was going to South Carolina, but changed his mind and is now at West Virginia next season. Regardless of what happened, he needed to end up at a state with a direction in the name. As a point of curiosity, Eaglestaff's brother Teysean is not going anywhere, and is staying... at UMKC.
But the two stars of the game I went to aren't the only Summit League stars making big moves this summer. The Gophers added former Fighting Hawk BJ Omot (via California), while Wisconsin collected Andrew Rohde, formerly a Tommie from St. Thomas. Perhaps most famous was Grant Nelson, who had played for North Dakota State before becoming a vital cog for Alabama the last couple of years. And don't forget the key players from Oral Roberts' Sweet 16 run, Kevin Obanor (Texas Tech) and Max Abmas (Texas).
More lax transfer rules are talked about often, and about how teams need the money for NIL deals, ensuring the best players come to their school, but it doesn't address the fact that the way it works now, the top schools are indeed getting the best players. Instead of churning through blue chip freshmen, college blue bloods can let a player like Jamar Brown mature at a smaller school before coming to UCLA and the bright lights.
A skinny kid from Mankato isn't a likely candidate to get playing time right out of high school, but now here is Omot, in his second power conference. A member of the Cheyenne Sioux Nation doesn't see too many recruiters at his games, but now Eaglestaff is going to play in the Big 12. NIL, and transfer rules have taken the onus of big schools from finding the player that fall through the cracks, or worrying about developmental years and only having to claim nearly finished products, be they players from rural environments, unrefined players who only started because they were tall exchange students, or players that needed to develop a bit more physically.
There is no consistency at schools anymore, but now we can be sure that the best players are going to be playing on the biggest stages.
It's pretty easy to be negative about the Twins. Quite easy to be pessimistic. Really, really, really easy. Too easy. For years. Decades. A generation. Too easy to be pessimistic. There is something about this team that leads me to be less so, though.
The last couple of years, the unreasonable optimism I had came from their incredibly poor luck. Year over year, their "clutch" rating looked unsustainable, but somehow the Twins managed to sustain their inability to hit in important situations. This year, that hasn't been the reason for the slow start. They've just been legitimately bad. Don't worry, I'm getting to my reason for a little optimism.
The Twins have started to string together wins, so I think this optimism was indeed warranted, but it looked especially dark in Atlanta. Games were blown, pitching was poor, but they remained in contention through even the games that they were losing. How?
They were hustling. Runs weren't coming off of the batted ball, but they were coming through advancing runners, heads up baserunning, stolen bases and a general attitude of hard work. Byron Buxton has been the best version of himself this season, stealing bases and scoring runs pretty much whenever he gets on base. As the teams emotional leader, it spread to young players like Luke Keaschall and veterans like Harrison Bader.
It was bound to click eventually. The Twins came back to Minnesota after grinding out their previous home series with the Mets and having a calamitous set in Atlanta to a series opener with the White Sox. They didn't hit great against White Sox pitcher Davis Martin, but smart baserunning and just one home run from Trevor Larnach put them in front. It was a running catch from Buxton that ultimately kept the game in the Twins' hands. Hustle.
The only game the Twins have lost since was a rain shortened game against the White Sox, just as the Twins were starting to get into the Chicago bullpen. The offense has come alive, buoyed by a persistent effort, even in the face of poor performance. Maybe there will be more stumbles along the way, but and certainly some more cold spells, but at the very least, the Twins are putting up a fight.
The Twins are, once again, off to a miserable start. They have won one series, on the road against the White Sox, and lost every other one, including a 4 game set against the Royals. Everyone has played poorly, save perhaps for the starting pitching. They have barely hit, and even when the bullpen has struggled, it's truly only cost the team a couple of games. It was time to shake things up, and mercifully, over the weekend, the Twins did just that.
The Twins sent Jose Miranda down to St. Paul after a base running blunder against the Tigers on Saturday that stood out even on a team that has produced an unseemly number of problematic moments through the first couple of months of the year. It helped ease the decision to demote Miranda that Brooks Lee was ready to come off of the Injured List. Causation vs Correlation, but the Twins won the first game after the swap.
The Twins have been expressly terrible since about mid-August last year. One can complain about injuries, but then you must also acknowledge that this season, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton have played every game, they have had decent starting pitching, even with Pablo Lopez picking up a knock. The malaise has gone on long enough that it can't be written off to sample sizes. There is something deeply wrong with the team.
It goes beyond the product on the field. At the end of the 2023 season, it was clear that the ownership group saw the writing on the wall. They weren't going t get a significant TV deal, despite all the preparation they had done to set themselves up for such an arrangement. They then cut salary, and saw their TV situation get more and more tenuous, including issues with Comcast taking the team off the air for many fans through much of the season.
The real problem was that they announced that they were cutting the salary, and really disrupted the momentum the team had built with their first post season win in more than a decade. Even when the team played well last year attendance was down. Then, the bottom fell out and attendance is even worse this year.
So the on field product has been a mess, and after 15 games of this season, the team has made the first move that was in direct response to poor performance. The cyclical nation of baseball says that the Twins will eventually shake out of their funk, and a third base upgrade will help get us there a little sooner, I imagine. Will it bring fans back? Will it get people to watch? Will the season be worthwhile?
The biggest question of all is: will the Pohlads still find a buyer? The Twins are not a draw right now, and after last season, may not be for a while. If the team can't be marketed to fans, can it be marketed to investors? There appears to be no incoming TV revenue, and the stadium is locked in for another decade, and those are the two biggest revenue generators around. There is always value for buying into the exclusive club of team owners, but perhaps not at the number the Pohlads were hoping for.
It seems a vicious cycle. The Twins don't get enough support from ownership, and interest wanes. As interest wanes, the revenue for ownership also decreases, and the support and interest keep feeding back. There was a blip ahead of the team being placed for sale that the owners were convinced to invest, and the on field product and the fan investment increased, but then the regional sports network system collapsed, and so too did the Pohlads commitment, followed swiftly by fan interest. Sometimes the cycle we are stuck in is actually a downward spiral.
But hey, maybe sending Jose Miranda to St. Paul will pull the team out of it.
The Twins are off to a pretty uninspired start in 2025. They've only won three games, and two of them were against the White Sox, which barely counts. The Twins since August 18th of last year have the second worst record in all of baseball. It would be concerning if it wasn't all so typical of the Twins to come out with an awful start to the season. They've been unlucky, as they always are, and their best players are off to a bad start, as they always are. They will shake out of it, and Twins fans will be wary for the rest of he season. Same as it ever is.
I overheard someone complaining about the Twins and their injury concerns, which is valid, of course, and lamenting that oft injured Royce Lewis is just another reiteration of Byron Buxton, another oft injured Twin. The two couldn't really be further apart, however, and I can tell you that Lewis is far more concerning than Buxton, even in his 30s and knowing what I know about his history.
In their own ways, Buxton and Lewis evoke the old school and new school ethos in both their positives and their potential pitfalls. Buxton is a pure athlete and lays it all out on the field. It's what so many long time fans, and even new ones desire to see. Visible, tangible effort. Lewis is strong. His natural athleticism has been augmented by time in the gym and his development of raw power that was evident in his first ride in the postseason, and seems to crop up most evidently when bases are loaded.
Of course, the flip side of this has come up far too often. Buxton's aggression has led to him into walls and awkward dives, which has led to broken bones, deep bruises and swelling. Lewis, alternatively, has seen his muscle development lead directly to pulled muscles and strains. Of course, he has had some catastrophic knee injuries, but those haven't been the issue as he's reached the Majors. It's been hamstrings and lat strains and generally things that I don't have to deal with because I don't have muscles.
Buxton isn't inherently prone to injury because of his bodily structure, and there is a chance that he could remain healthy with good circumstances and a more calibrated approach in the field. He keeps getting hurt because he's playing as hard as we all want our athletes to play, and also because Minnesota is cursed.
Lewis is like modern day pitchers. We've developed pitching techniques, strength building and performance to a level that is beyond what ligaments can sustain. Pitchers are stronger and throwing harder, and it is tearing apart UCLs across all levels of baseball. Royce Lewis is a product of the evolution of baseball and professional athleticism. He works hard, has developed a size and strength that unfortunately, tests his muscles and tendons every time he exerts himself.
We can see Buxton plow into the center field fence and know problems have arisen. Lewis has a tendency to pull up after rounding a base because something has grabbed or feels uncomfortable. This is much harder to plan around or feel good about long term. Buxton, on the other hand, may prove to be less injury prone as he grows older.
Whatever the case, the Twins need them (and Carlos Correa) to stay on the field if they want to be successful. Oh, and they need to actually produce when they are on the field. That would be nice as well.
Link Dump! I know I dropped one of these a couple of weeks ago, but this is just a much easier way to touch on all of the news that is happening in the sports world. Such as.....
The NCAA Transfer Portal is alive and well, even as the tournament is ongoing. Who are the top players? Glad you asked. - SB Nation
The Timberwolves have finally been sold, freeing up Glen Taylor to buy the Twins (That last part was my speculation, not the PiPress) - Pioneer Press
Speaking of the Timberwolves, heck of a game last night - CBS Sports
The crazy thing about NFL Mock Drafts this year is how consistent they have been in putting Tyler Warren to the Colts at 14 and Nick Emmanwori to the Vikings at 24. Those are late picks to be that consistent. - Sporting News
The Women's NCAA Final Four is going to be just as good as the Men's and just as good as last year's. - USA Today
The Loons look good this season! - MLS
The only torpedo bat story I care about is how the Twins bats are torpedoing their season so far. - Star Tribune
And you have now all been linked. Congrats!
