Know Your Enemy, Season Opener: Minnesota Twins
Some people are fans of the Minnesota Twins. We here at SSHP are not. This is our series preview to the 2020 series so White Sox fans can know their enemy.
Your Enemy
The heroes of Little Big League: Minnesota Twins.
The Twins would be a lot more interesting if the kid were their actual owner.
Fun fact about the actress who played the mom: Her son was drafted by the Mets in the first round in 2020.
Enemy Manager
Rocco Baldelli. He was brought in to replace Paul Molitor (who was fired at the end of the woeful 78-84 2018 season), and whose name is very fun to say. The rookie manager won the AL Central and lost in a sweep of the ALDS against everyone’s enemy New York Yankees.
He’s 38, so does that make him the Sean what’s-his-face-from-the-L.A. Rams, only for baseball? Probably, but only if he went to the World Series and lost instead of getting swept in the ALDS.
For what it’s worth I prefer Molitor, because his name is funnier to say.
Your Enemy’s 2019 Record
101-67.
The Twins destroyed baseballs in 2019, destroyed the AL Central, and crapped out against the Yankees, which is par for the course when the Twins make it to the postseason. Oh yeah, and they broke the single-season home run record. Were balls juiced? Who knows. What we do know is that they weren’t banging garbage cans to do it.
The 2019 season was good to the Twins. A new, young manager was brought in during a time when the talking heads speculate about reaching the younger guys in the locker room. Kind of like when your weird uncle asks you at a family party how to use Facebook and you tell him “No, Uncle Bob, we use TikTok.” Listen weirdos, Joe Girardi may not be able to talk to the kids, but he’s still Joe fucking Girardi.
Something else of note for 2019 was that it was the first time since 1965 that the Twins have had a 100-win season since moving from Washington in 1961 (1965 also ended with a 4-3 World Series loss to the Dodgers, so history is on their side in big-game losses). It had been nine years since the Twins won the division, having spent the better part of a decade toward the bottom of the ALC. The 2010 season was also the last time that Rocco Baldelli was on an active roster — that of the illustrious Tampa Bay Rays.
So the Twins spent the better part of 2019 mashing taters, as people say, and had a 21.1% strikeout rate.
Enemy Pitchers
José Berríos aka “La Makina” was announced Monday as the Opening Day starter, going head-to-head with Lucas Giolito. This is the second season in a row that the Twins have tapped Berríos to open the season.
Berríos ended 2019 with a 3.68 ERA and 195 strikeouts in 200 ⅓ innings. The Sox had a team average of .267 and an OBP of .299 when they faced him, so I don’t expect our guys to have any nerves there.
The 2019 season was a phenomenal turnaround for Giolito, where he finished the year with a 14-9 record, 228 strikeouts with 176 ⅔ innings and a 3.41 ERA. Giolito famously blanked the Twins, so I imagine they’re not thrilled to see him again. They don’t want that smoke.
Minnesota's starting rotation includes Berríos, Jake Odorizzi, Kenta Maeda, Rich Hill, and Homer Bailey. Potential additions are Randy Dobnak, Lewis Thorpe, Devin Smeltzer, Jhoulys Chacín, and Sean Poppen. The five veterans have done nothing to suggest they won’t be the starters, especially with Hill being fully healthy. The others could be in the mix, but expect them more as either long-relief or filling in during injuries.
Minnesota’s bullpen looks like it could go either way this season. Taylor Rogers is coming off a 30-save season with a 2.61 ERA. The Twins could have picked up a few middle relievers during the off-season but the same could be said of some other teams (*cough cough* Sox).
With a solid rotation and a potentially decent bullpen, the Twins are once again the AL Central favorites. We’ll see if they can keep Cleveland at bay.
What sucks for the Sox
The Twins add Josh Donaldson and his projected WAR of 1.9 to their lineup. Adding him to a team that killed the MLB HR record seems like a bit much, when his contribution to 2019 included 37 home runs. Miguel Sanó returning from COVID gives the Twins a healthy boost. Nelson Cruz doesn’t have to worry about losing his place as the DH since the Twins made no other moves in the offseason to pick up any significant bats. Despite approaching 40, Cruz has homered in the last few intrasquad games, so I don’t think there’s any concern about him underperforming.
The rotation saw a re-signing of Odorizzi and adding Bailey and Hill. Hill finally gets a chance to be part of a starting rotation after bouncing back and forth between the Dodgers bullpen and the rotation over the last couple seasons. Berríros, a two-time All-Star, could put himself in Cy Young contention if he continues to keep his ERA under four. Let’s not forget that Michael Pineda returns from his PED suspension in September, so let’s see what difference that makes to the bullpen.
Having opened in 2010, Target Field still doesn’t have a roof OR a Target attached, which feels like an engineering oversight.
What might not suck for the Sox
We’ll see if there’s any ring rust on the Twins bats this season. Man, 307 home runs without the aid of a garbage can is a pretty big feat, especially for a small-market team. We can cross our fingers that the bullpen allows for some late-inning hits or that the starting rotation isn’t that strong, starting this late in the game. Chicago added some bats going into the 2020 season who haven’t faced Twins pitchers, and the youth can go either way.
Let's hear it from Sox fans
My Husband (who I just asked what he thought of the Twins): “Trash. Their name is stupid.”
And finally, from our Laura Jansen: "If you're going to beat us every single season, at least take a fucking postseason series, guys."