Twins' collection of 'wanna-be stars' could be what ails 'wanna-be fans'
It was the dead of a Minnesota winter and like many Twins fans, Byron Buxton was killing time on the internet.
When one fan joked that Buxton would get hurt while unveiling the Twins' new uniforms, Buxton accused them of being “wanna-be fans.” When Buxton was unable to attend TwinsFest due to a family commitment, he doubled down saying that the “wanna-be fans think y’all above everyone else.”
In a way, Buxton is right. Some fans can be a pain. But when it comes to this year’s Twins, their biggest problem is a collection of wanna-be stars.
A star in baseball is a player that carries a certain kind of gravity with them. They show up to the park and they make the game fun. Their stats are as reliable as the mailman and they have the ability to carry a team.
Think of Kirby Puckett during the Twins' World Series runs in 1987 and 1991. Think of Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau during the 2000s. Even Royce Lewis feels like a star at times with the way he conducts himself on the field. The current iteration of the Twins have a collection of players that don’t live up to the hype.
It starts with Carlos Correa, a player that nearly got his own parade when he signed in March 2022. A World Series ring with the Houston Astros carries its own kind of weight but like many Twins, Correa hasn’t lived up to his own legend.
In 231 games with the Twins, Correa has hit .265/.340/.438. Take out a blistering month of September 2022 where Correa hit .355/.412/.589 as the Twins were falling out of contention and his line is .250/.329/.449 and a .778 OPS that is 59 points lower than the .837 OPS he put up in seven seasons with the Astros.
Mix in a .183 batting average with runners in scoring position over the last two seasons and Correa’s performance at the plate has been as “sexy” as lutefisk. But he is far from the only offender.
Max Kepler has been a favorite of the front office since 2019 when he hit .252/.335/.519 with 36 home runs, but after being one of the biggest beneficiaries of a juiced-up ball, Kepler has fallen back to earth, hitting .223/.310/.403 over the past four seasons.
Although Kepler is posting his best batters line since that season, it’s still .232/.296/.445 with 0.8 wins above replacement. While it could be worse, it’s not the franchise cornerstone the Twins thought they were getting when he signed a five-year, $35 million contract prior to 2019.
The Twins believed that Joey Gallo could have a resurgence with the elimination of the shift and signed him to a one-year, $11 million contract. Their reward is a 5-for-45 stretch that’s included 28 strikeouts in his last 50 plate appearances and a .178/.292/.448 line with 114 strikeouts on the season.
Christian Vazquez, who signed a three-year, $30 million contract this past offseason, carried a track record of a two-time World Series champion but is on pace to post the lowest OPS for a Twins catcher since Drew Butera (.449) in 2011. His current mark of .601 would also be the sixth-lowest OPS by a catcher in franchise history just ahead of Glenn Borgmann’s .581 OPS in 1975.
In a lot of ways, Buxton may be the last true star the Twins have but even he has slumped to a .216/.301/.484 line in the first two seasons of a seven-year, $100 million contract extension.
While Buxton has a laundry list of injuries as a reason for his decline, the other players aren’t so fortunate. It creates a collection of “stars” that should be running away in a weak American League Central. Instead, they sit one game ahead of the Cleveland Guardians for first place in the division.
They're on pace to set an MLB record for strikeouts. Their games carry a fear of the worst. Even when they do have exciting moments – like a 9-2 record out of the All-Star break – they turn around and lose five straight including a three-game sweep by the last-place Kansas City Royals.
It creates an interesting dynamic at the trade deadline. The Twins could make deals to add on to a team that should be good enough to win the division, but it may be too far gone to make a trade that could save this team’s fate.
Is it worth giving up Brooks Lee to put Paul Goldschmidt on a team that might not make the playoffs? Or is it worth further depleting a farm system that has already been ravaged after making trades for Tyler Mahle and Jorge López?
If the Twins’ stars don’t begin to play like stars, it could be in a similar position as it was last winter, combating trolls online and fighting the demons of an 18-game postseason losing streak.
