The serenity to accept that which cannot be changed

 It's important to accept those things that we cannot change. The things that are beyond our control. This season, the Twins are 4 games better than they were last year, which is a pretty big shock when you also consider that at the same point last year, they were a game ahead of the AL Central, and this year, they are 8 games behind the Cleveland Guardians. The Twins have at last caught the Royals for second, but sheesh, that is a foreboding hill to climb, catching Cleveland. 

Last year, the Twins were also able to kick it into a higher gear as the season wore on This season, the Twins are successful despite Pablo Lopez's anemic performance. Last year, his worth evidenced itself in the latter half of the season, including pitching to a 2.00 ERA in August. If there is that kind of improvement this year, then that is especially fantastic. 

Part of the worry in 2024 versus 2023, though, even as the team is improved a bit is that one player that hasn't is Lopez himself. Even compared to his sluggish start in 2023, Lopez was dominant last year against right handed hitters, and is merely average against same handed hitters in 2024. There is something to be said for expecting Lopez to be better in the second half, but it's unlikely that he will be nearly as good as he was in the second half last season. 

The season has been a series of ups and downs for the Twins, but one thing in particular has gone very wrong for the Twins. The Cleveland Guardians are playing very well. As much as the Twins can hope for Lopez to return to his 2023 form, it is much more reasonable to start to hope the Guardians slow down, or the suddenly resurgent Twins offense keeps it up. 

As I noted at the beginning, hoping for the Guardians to start to fall apart is all that the Twins can do. There are a few games left on the calendar between the two teams that the Twins will need to win, but beyond that, it's just hope. Hope that the seemingly more challenging schedule proves to indeed be more challenging for Cleveland. Cleveland is thought to have the most difficult schedule the rest of the way. Twins fans can also hope that the the Guardians anemic offense of 2023 was their true self, and not the blistering offensive performers that they have been this year. Come on, regression!

One thing the Twins can do is keep hitting. Their offense was their bugaboo in the beginning of the season, but then it started to gel. The return of Royce Lewis was an obvious kick in the pants, but so too was the arrival o Jose Miranda. Max Kepler and Carlos Correa were next, followed by Carlos Santana and Willi Castro. Now, Byron Buxton is one of the hottest hitters in the game, and games just seem a lot easier to win now. 

If they can keep hitting, they can keep winning. And that might not be enough to take the Central.

Decision Season is almost here

With the summer beginning to warm up, so to do the opinions. It's only early June, but still, everyone is trying to formally assess their team, because decisions are being made. It's really just baked into the season, and not a fault of overzealous fans and sports writers, but even though we are getting into the summer heat only now in the northern US, we are also in All Star Voting season, and beginning to look ahead to the trade deadline.

The initial discussion is a pretty easy solution for the Twins. There are really only two players to consider for the all star game this year - Ryan Jeffers, who may not make it because Salvador Perez and Adley Rutschman will get spots, and Joe Ryan, who would be the third Twins starting pitcher to make the all star game in the last two years, which is fairly incredible. After that, the next best option is Griffin Jax, which is probably a good lesson in why the Twins don't feel like they are having a good season, even as they are better than their 2023 selves. Carlos Correa is simply too unpopular, and Royce Lewis has only been involved in just over a dozen games.

This is a tough thing for the Twins, though. It's really hard to figure how good the Twins actually are on an individual level. This isn't a "small sample size" thing either. Minnesota as a baseball playing environment fundamentally changes as the year goes on. Outdoor games through May are a pretty inhibitive offensive environment, and it get's a heck of a lot better when summer rolls around. But it's decision time now!

Especially after last year, and despite the positive results, it's important for the fans and the team to know that there is support. Sure, the Twins might not be able to really ratchet up payroll (though I believe they will at the deadline) but they could still make moves that improve the team for the home stretch. Of late, the offense seems to be a bit better calibrated (so long as the Twins aren't playing the Yankees) and the pitching has been rougher around the edges. Do you look at the longer season sample, or this last burst of action when making a move?

I've long insisted that I don't think the Twins thought they would be challenged this year, and as a result, overplayed the television situation. Now that they find themselves in a stickier spot than they expected. The team is better than they were at this point last year, but they have also had better luck in the health department. While the atmospheric issues are going to become more favorable for the offense, the internal talent is going to remain about the same.

The Twins bet on Kyle Farmer and Willi Castro to be the utility man, with Farmer struggling mightily, and Castro becoming the life of the party once again. There were concerns about first base initially, but Alex Kirilloff was sent down and Jose Miranda is getting quality run. Carlos Santana has also turned into the reliable offensive presence the team hoped for when they signed him. I think offensively, the greatest need is to supplant Farmer (or Manuel Margot, I guess) and get better from the right side of the plate. 

It would always be nice to add more pitching, but deadline trades in that department have been an unmitigated disaster for this front office. What was the best deadline trade the Twins made a for a pitcher? Was it Sergio Romo? I think it might be. The Twins could use another pitcher, especially if Pablo Lopez doesn't go on a heater to end the year like he did last year, but, and this isn't a money thing, I don't see the Twins making a significant pitching move at the deadline this year. We'll see Randy Dobnak back in the big leagues before that happens. 

The problem at the center of all these decisions remains the same. It's hard to say what this Twins team is yet. We've only seen them in a couple of summer like games. Will the offense click on it's own, and will the Twins believe that it can keep it up when it starts cooling off outside in October? It's hard to decide right now, but you better believe people are looking for decisions.

The looming City Connect uniform is being revealed in 5 days

 In a league as staid as Major League Baseball, new uniform reveals are still a big deal. Changes are infrequent, and there are so many games that new jerseys are going to be seen regularly. There is buzz about the Twins City Connect, debuting on the 10th of June. While part of me hopes they are bringing back their  Turn Ahead the Clock  uniforms from the 90s, I also know that this won't be the case. So I have ideas.

First, I would make the whole thing out of Minnesota Plaid. You know, Paul Bunyan, red and black. Still can't picture it?

You might be saying "Ryan, the Twins clearly teased a water theme".  Of course they did, which leads to the second element. What says "going to the lake" more than a life jacket? And not the good ones with the clasps on the front that were purchased sometime after the Nixon administration. I'm talking about the ratty old ones you have on the pontoon at the cabin.

Get the orange around the collar and down the front of your red and black jersey. I don't know how you can get more connected to the city than that. 

The Twins need Royce Lewis, but how?

It's hard to believe, but the Twins are actually 2.5 games better than the 2023 Twins were on May 30th, 2023. There are a couple of big difference, of course. The rest of the AL Central came to play this year, and Minnesota presently finds themselves in 3rd place. Also, the Twins have been on an extraordinary roller coaster ride throughout the season. 

The pitching has been steady, for what it's worth. Through every spin of the rotation, any pitcher, particularly Joe Ryan, is liable to give 6-7 quality innings, and the bullpen started extremely strong, and has cooled since then. The most volatile part of the Twins production, though is the offense.

It doesn't help that Royce Lewis was injured in the first game of the season, or that Carlo Correa missed a tract of time in the early part of the year either. Those two are viewed as the steadiest hands in the lineup. The Twins seemed to get a boost from Correa's return. One must surmise the same may happen with Lewis when he comes back.

So the Twins, despite a good stretch of baseball, are looking forward to having him come back and patch one of the holes in the lineup. Great! 

Well, maybe not so great. OK, so it is great, but it isn't going to be easy. For all the talk about an inconsistent lineup, the most consistent hitter has been Jose Miranda, Lewis' replacement. Fortunately, both Miranda and Lewis or positionally versatile and can be slotted nearly anywhere in the infield. 

I'm not even going to dig into the stats for Carlos Correa, because he is obviously not going anywhere. Utility hitter Willi Castro has been the third most valuable player for the Twins in the month of May, for some reason.

That leaves 4 hitters in the infield that might lose their spot when Lewis is ready to go. The young players that still have options, Alex Kirilloff and Edouard Julien buoyed the team for the first part of the team, but have since fallen on hard times. In the last couple of weeks, though, Kirilloff has started to come out of his funk. Julien plays a position that Lewis isn't known for. Do you let Kirilloff continue to swing his way out of his troubles, trusting him to be a major leaguer at this point, or do you want one of your top prospects to play out of position?

Those aren't the only two options, of course. There are a couple of veterans that might see their time with the Twins come to a close. Carlos Santana is the 10th oldest player in Major League Baseball (at a youthful 37) and was miserable to start. In the month of May, he was the 5th most valuable Twin, about where his productivity was expected to land. That leaves Kyle Farmer, an extremely popular player in the clubhouse. His popularity, the glue he provides to the team, were factors in the Twins spending what they did to retain him. He hasn't become unpopular, but his productivity has fallen off. Will the Twins want to sacrifice the investment they put into him?

There isn't an easy choice, but the nature of baseball is that there is always something unexpected around the corner. An injury would completely change the decision making process. For now, it's kust a tough decition.

Supreme confidence and the undoing of Minnesota sports

I have some exciting news to share, that my family just was unimpressed by at the Mother's Day cookout. I had a question answered by Steve Adams during MLB Trade Rumors' regular chat. It's quite the accolade, and I'm very happy about it.

Suffice to say, Steve didn't share my opinion, but also, he didn't convince me that I was wrong

The Twins thought they were going to be good enough to win the AL Central with the roster as it was. Ultimately, they are still a business, and if they thought they could do it with Carlos Santana and Anthony DeSclafani, then they weren't going to spend any more money. Like I've been saying, they didn't believe they needed the strong players now, they need them in October. 

And of course, this hubris led the Twins to a very rocky start to the season. watching Louie Varland's start to the season had quite a few Twins fans on the cusp of a breakdown. The Twins front office, again, by my theory and not necessarily thanks to evidence from anyone else, assumed they had the upper hand in the AL Central, and an abysmal start to the season made that assumption seem silly. 

Amid the Twins surge back to baseball relevance, the Timberwolves were on a blistering 6 game playoff winning streak. They swept the Suns out of the playoffs, then took the first two games against the Nuggets in Denver. Nearly anyone that spoke about basketball with any sort of national presence and knowledge of the game declared the Timberwolves a force to be reckoned with, a potential NBA champion.

Then, there was a long layoff before the series moved to Minnesota. The Wolves got to hear about how great they were while the Nuggets, 2 time defending champions, got to get angrier, and prepare to for the Wolves. As we all now are painfully aware, the Nuggets subsequently went on to peel off three straight wins. Ouch. 

Now, Minnesota, given less time to figure it out, after not thinking they would need to figure things out. Denver adjusted to them, and when you are in control, you don't ever plan to make adjustments. The Wolves are lost, now, unsure of how to get back to where they were, and with time running out. They got overconfident, and it may cost their season.

Even with the long history of sports malaise in Minnesota, you would think that people would temper their expectations when it comes to our teams. I guess this is athletes and management who don't have the 30 years of torment, or the national press, looking at Minnesota teams as though there wasn't a unique history of failing to live up to the moment. Overconfidence is a blight for any situation, and it's tough to watch, since local teams haven't won anything yet. 

Finding deeper depth

Some people talk about roller coaster seasons, but I don't think there is a finer example than how the Twins have started the 2024 season. Through about a month and a half, the Twins are about where they were expected to be, just with a more interesting path. And also, the team isn't really what we expected.

When the team trimmed payroll, most of the trimming was done in the rotation with Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda moving to new homes. Little was done to replace pitchers - the only starter added was already injured Anthony DeSclafani - that left, and fans were distraught. The pitching hasn't been the problem when things go sideways, however.

The rotation has been steady even if not spectacular. The bullpen, even without Jhoan Duran to start the year, has been spectacular. The pen is a low cost area to do good work, and the Twins have done so, with Griffin Jax and Cole Sands among the success stories. With that in mind, the rotation's steady output is all that they have needed. Selecting either Chris Paddack or Simeon Woods-Richardson as the replacement for Maeda is a clear win, given Maeda's start in Detroit. Gray has been very good in St. Louis, but the luxury of having him in the rotation was probably not worth being on the hook for 3 more years into his mid to late 30s, not when the Twins have faith in their emerging pitchers.

And again, the Twins have the prospect depth to add a frontline starter as the postseason approaches. The Twins shouldn't need an ace pitcher in May, but they would really like a good, healthy extra pitcher in October. 

I've gone off the scent, responding to the various strawmen I usually respond to from the Twins internet. The problem this season, when there are problems, is the hitting. It hasn't helped that sparkplug Royce Lewis has been injured since game 1, but it hurts even more that through the first several weeks of the season, only Alex Kirilloff and Carlos Correa were providing any offensive value. 

When the Twins bats started coming around, so did the teams' fortunes. Sure, getting to face the White Sox helped, but so too did Correa's return from injury, Ryan Jeffers' explosion and Max Kepler's full health. The struggling Willi Castro became the incandescent Willi Castro. Carlos Santana couldn't stop hitting home runs. 

The Twins made a decision to cut payroll, and blamed it on the TV situation. In truth, they were probably loathe to spend a lot of money on old pitchers, and they didn't want to sink a lot of money into position players where youngsters were poised to take over. Last year, bridge players like Michael A. Taylor and Donovan Solano were effective. The one they held on to this year, Kyle Farmer, and his other players in similar roles, including Santana and Manuel Margot, have not picked up the slack, making things look even worse. 

Minnesota simply hasn't had depth that was as effective last season, so when injuries arose early, they couldn't shake out of the funk. The closer to healthy roster, with input from Austin Martin, Trevor Larnach and Jose Miranda has been encouraging. The veteran bridge has disappointed this year, but as the Twins hope for a healthy Royce Lewis and Brooks Lee, while awaiting Walker Jenkins, the key to success might be realizing that the bridge has been built internally. 

The Vikings, if nothing else, had the most interesting draft day

 

The NFL is pervasive. The Timberwolves just swept their way into the second round of the NBA playoffs, their first ever experience being the sweeping team in a postseason series. The Twins are in the midst of a 7 game winning streak (and this is more or less a Twins blog!) and yet here I am, writing about the Vikings and their draft. 

Unless someone from one of your favorite college teams was drafted in the later rounds, it is unlikely that you have any insight into the later rounds. If you are very interested in the draft, or even fairly interested in college football, you will have a pretty good concept of how teams did in the first couple of rounds, or will at least be able to form an opinion on the matter. This is a long way to say that I'm only looking at the first two rounds of the Vikings draft. Maybe one of the late round picks will blossom as well.

For most of us, and really probably for the most part, it was a two person draft for the Vikings. They plucked JJ McCarthy to be their quarterback of the future, and Dallas Turner, a dynamic edge rusher, to replace, they hope, the production that they lost when Danielle Hunter went to Houston. There are plenty of mixed opinions on the arrangement. 

The Vikings pursuit of a quarterback was not a secret. Leading up to the draft, they traded into another 1st round pick, which many suspected would be paired with their original selection to move up as far as they could to nab the QB. That turned out to be an impossible task, as the top three teams, the Bears - after trading away Justin Fields, Commanders and Patriots - after trading away Mac Jones, all needed a quarterback.

The next several teams did not need a quarterback, but there were still at least two available that were intriguing. The behind the scenes manipulations and jockeying led the Vikings to be comfortable with staying where they were. Many of the teams ahead of them wanted to ensure they got the best players at their position, or others simply weren't expected to trade within their division (like the Chargers, who weren't going to trade with the Broncos or Raiders so they could get the QB of their future). The Vikings were in a good position.

And then, the Falcons, the same Falcons who selected Kurt Cousins, leading the Vikings to need a quarterback, selected Michael Penix Jr, taking away one of the QB options Minnesota and all the others had been relying on.

Similar to the Chargers not wanting to help their division rivals, the Bears, picking 9th, weren't going to help the Vikings out, and Minnesota was fortunate enough that Chicago didn't also help the Broncos or Raiders. The Vikings then did the right thing and made a swap with the Jets to prevent the other QB needy teams from moving up for JJ McCarthy. All of this is a preamble to say that the Vikings played this draft as well as they could have. 

My opinion of rookie quarterbacks is that teams will get more mileage out of them with a good foundation around them. Receivers are one thing - and Minnesota has one of the best corps in the league - but also, a veteran and solid offensive line will give young QBs more time to think in the faster game. There are questions about McCarthy, but he probably ended up in the best environment. 

This isn't a Christian Ponder situation. This is a team that has acclimated to winning, and will put McCarthy in the best spot to succeed. No, he may not start right away, or be able to be an elite thrower, but a well constructed offense, and a very good defense will keep him and his team in games, allowing him to learn without panicking. 

And on the topic of the defense, the other selection the Vikings made was on the defensive side of the ball, where edge rusher Dallas Turner was selected. Minnesota made a trade with Jacksonville to mov up an select Turner, a larger jump than the move for McCarthy. Turner was the third overall defensive player drafted. Remember, McCarthy was the 4th overall drafted quarterback. 

With one of the best defensive minds in the game in Brian Flores as the defensive coordinator, I am left with no choice but to believe that Turner was the player that would most significantly improve the Vikings defense next year, despite what other analysts or scouts would believe. The Vikings knew they had to get a quarterback, but it was icing on the cake, I'm sure, that they were also able to get one of the top defenders in this class.

The downside to this draft was how much they had to give up. They are left with only three picks next year, but conversely, ended up making their full 7 picks this year. It's not perfect, especially with next year's situation, but there is still time to add more picks next year, and I appreciate their ability to fill out a draft class in 2024. 

Most reports I have read opining on the Vikings draft class gave them a B- or a C or something in that range, which leans heavily into the fact that they had no day 2 selections. I think given the circumstances and the means at their disposal, Minnesota did an excellent job. They needed a quarterback for the future, and unlike many of the the other teams in a similar spot, they weren't bad enough last season to have a high choice in the draft. McCarthy was not the top prospect in the draft, but he is going to a good home, and the Vikings didn't ultimately have to leverage a whole lot to get him.

They were prepared to expend a bit to get him if they had to, however. Instead of using the resources to move up for a quarterback, the Vikings were able to use them to select an edge rusher who many are already picking to be the Defensive Rookie of the Year. I hope Minnesota fans are applauding the fact that, instead of resting on their laurels, the Vikings leapt at an opportunity.

The Vikings maybe didn't have enough selections, and there is obviously going to be a difference of opinion on Turner, and drafting a quarterback, let alone the 4th quarterback, is always going to raise an eyebrow, but from my outside perspective, it looks like the Vikings did what they had to, and made the most of their situation.