The Minnesota Twins Murder Baseballs In Cold Blood
The the White Sox got their tits blown off their chest all weekend by the Twins. Frankly, I was 1/2 expecting it and 1/2 thinking to myself I expect some level of dominance out of both Lucas Giolito and Dylan Cease. Both of them are here for the longhaul and are two of the small handful of players currently on the 25 man I am emotionally affected by their success or lack thereof. If the Sox get smoked when Dylan Covey is pitching, who gives a shit? Even before he was optioned yesterday he was on borrowed time. But when Gio or Cease perform poorly… well that’s going to cause the fanbase to shit their pants, which is exactly what happened this weekend.
Now I was in central IL for a wedding all weekend. Had just about zero service and couldn’t watch any game other than yesterday’s debacle. But every time I’d connect to my cousin’s hot spot to get an update I’d open my score zone app to another Nelson Cruz bomb. It got to the point where it was actually funny how badly they kicked the Sox teeth in.
But they’re not just doing that to the White Sox. They’re doing that to the entire league and at a never before seen pace. The Minnesota Twins currently have 205 home runs
205!!!
200 home runs is a good barometer for any team over the course of an entire season. If you hit the 200 home run plateau, your club had a good offensive year. But it’s goddamn July 29th. The Twins are on pace to hit
*checks math*
316 home runs this year, which would beat the record set by the 2018 New York Yankees of 267 dingers by almost 50 whole bombs.
But the crazy thing is this: the Twins only hit 166 home runs in 2018. They had a record of 78 and 84 in 2018. Their Vegas over/under for 2019 was about 78 or so. They are going to FLY PAST all of those numbers or already have. They have a good farm system (per usual) and figured to be a year or so away from really competing. But instead of going full scorched tanking like so many clubs including the Astros and Cubs have done, they decided to reload on their farm while also trying to compete at the Big League level.
Novel concept! Here are their bigger offseason moves:
1. Signed Nelson Cruz – 1 year, $14.3MM with 2020 team option for $12MM
2. Signed Jonathon Schoop – 1 year, $7.5MM contract
3. Signed Marwin Gonzales – 2 year, $21MM contract
4. Signed Jake Odorizzi – 1 year, $9.5MM
That’s about $52MM they invested to win now. On the contrary, the White Sox made these moves:
1. Traded for Ivan Nova – 1 year, $8.5MM left on his deal
2. Traded for Alex Colome – 1 year, $7.5MM and is in arb 3 this winter
3. Signed Ervin Santana – 1 year, $3MM, was DFAd after 3 starts
4. Singed James McCann – 1 year, $2.5MM and is in arb 3 this winter
5. Signed Kelvin Herrera – 2 years with 2021 club option, $18MM
6. Signed Manny Banuelos – 1 year, $559K, 5 years of control
7. Traded for Yonder Alonso – 2 years, $9MM
that’s about $50MM the White Sox spent this offseason on pure, unadulterated dog shit. They won’t pay all of that $5oMM as Santana and Alonso got DFA’d, and I’m not going to act like I know what their plan was. Maybe it was to gun for a top 5 pick again, not sure. But after whiffing on Machado, they didn’t do anything to supplement the young core of Moncada, Giolito, Cease, Eloy, etc. Imagine if they had Nelson Cruz DH’ing, Schoop playing 2B, Gonzales in RF (though he’s been bad this year) and Odorizzi anchoring the rotation with Giolito, Cease, Lopez who’s been much better and Nova who’s sneaky been okay this year? That’s a team that would still be hovering around .500 and entering August looking to maybe, just maybe, get hot and make a run at the 2nd wild card.
Now I fully trust Rick Hahn to enter this offseason with an insatiable appetite for wins. It could have been this year with a few cheap yet smart and easy to make signings, but it is what it is. It’s time for the front office to put up and shut up. Spend money. Spend all the money. Enter 2020 with a $150MM+ payroll. Go for the goddamn jugular just once. They are officially OUT of mulligans.
Just like the 2019 Twins did. That team is going to maybe bash their way into the World Series.