During their recent run of success, the Minnesota Twins have maintained an image of being an undermanned, scrappy, “win at all costs” type of team. Players like Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiewitz, and Lew Ford embodied this “battle-your-tail-off” style of baseball during the first half of the run, while guys like Nick Punto, Carlos Gomez, and Alexi Casilla have carried the torch more recently. Maybe those players weren’t/aren’t the most gifted baseball players in the world, but they do the small things to help a team win games. Offensively, the Twins were the anti-Yankees. Their strategy revolved around fielding athletes at as many positions as possible that were going to put the ball in play, take the extra base, and force pitchers to field their position by threatening to bunt at any time. This offensive game plan employed by Ron Gardenhire and Co. has flown directly in the face of the tactics being used by the American League’s most successful teams over the past decade. Teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Oakland A’s were among the most successful clubs of the 2000’s. They scored runs by working pitch counts, taking walks, and hitting lots of home runs. Strikeouts were of little concern, because “Moneyball” views an out as an out, regardless of how it’s recorded. Billy Beane and his Moneyball system caused teams to rethink the importance of batting average while increasing the importance of players who reach base a lot and hit a lot of homeruns. The Moneyball system was designed around the power surge that came about during the steroid age of baseball. While that period seems to be more or less a thing of the past, the tenets of Moneyball remain in use because homeruns still win games. Just as important to this movement as the changing skill set of the average MLB player was the statistical revolution initiated by baseball numbers guru Bill James and his disciples known as “sabremetrics.” With the growing popularity of statistics such as OPS (which is simply a players on-base % added to his slugging %), BABIP (which measures a players batting average on balls put in play, eliminating strikeouts and homeruns from the at-bats equation), and ISO (stands for isolated power and is the percentage of extra base hits a player gets per at-bat), teams have been taking a more in depth look into what makes a player a good hitter. In the past, good hitters would have a .275 batting average, great players would have a .300 average, and poor hitters would hit below .250. Now, for most teams, it’s not that simple anymore.
The Minnesota Twins were one team who seemed hell-bent on doing things the old-fashioned way. Despite the Twins ignoring the new age of statistical analysis, success still found them. They scouted well, developed their players from within their own organization, and made a few very shrewd trades of veteran players that helped stock the organization with young, affordable talent. Before Twins fans knew it, success wasn’t a happy surprise anymore; it was expected. Since 2002, the Twins have won 5 AL Central titles and lost a division tie-breaker. During that time, Twins players have earned two Cy Young awards (both Johan Santana), two MVP’s (Morneau and Mauer), and three batting titles (all by Mauer). No other team in baseball can claim as many major awards during that period. The Twins’ technique for building a baseball team has been different than nearly every other successful team during this era, yet it has lead to these remarkable results. Despite this, the team has started shift their focus away from their traditional game plan. Over the past couple of seasons, the Twins have turned their attention towards building a more powerful lineup that can put up runs quickly.
Joe Mauer became the ideal Moneyball player with his power surge last year. Even before getting his power, he was a guy who reached base an obscene amount and worked the count consistently. By adding power, he completed his resume for being a middle-of-the-order hitter for a contending team. Justin Morneau has focused more and more on being a consistent hitter as opposed to just a power threat. He had a career high in walks per at-bat in 2009, and as a result, his OBP increased relative to his average. Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, and Joe Crede (for half the year, anyway) gave the Twins three other legitimate power threats in their lineup. The result of this increase in power bats led the Twins to hit more homeruns in 2009 than in any season since 2004. Last season was only the beginning, however. In the 2009-2010 offseason, the Twins showed a willingness to go outside the organization in order to find the power it was looking for.
Carlos Gomez; a young, talented (albeit inconsistent), and promising player, was traded to Milwaukee for established power hitting shortstop J.J. Hardy. Gomez is exactly the type of player the Twins have attempted to stockpile in the past, as was evidenced by them acquiring him in the Johan Santana trade before the 2008 season. In this case, however, the Twins dealt from a strength (outfield depth) in order to fill a hole at a position of need. Only time will tell how well this trade works out for the Twins, but it shows willingness on the part of the organization to part with pure athleticism in order to obtain a more powerful, polished player who has less upside. This has never really been the case in the past. The signing of Jim Thome to be a bat off the bench and backup DH to Jason Kubel followed this move. This was another transaction that flew in the face of convention for the Twins, as they have typically preferred bench players who were versatile and athletic. Thome is neither of those things. Jim has not played so much as an inning at first base since 2007 and has stolen exactly one base in the past seven seasons. Thome is the epitome of a one-trick-pony at this point in his career, but he provides the Twins with something they haven’t had since the days of Matthew LeCroy; a bat off the bench that can change the game with one swing. This luxury may prove especially valuable in the playoffs, where the Twins would do well to avoid at bats by Nick Punto and Brendan Harris in tight spots late in games. Thome may not have much left in the tank, but assuming the Twins can keep his at bats to a minimum and keep his aching back healthy for the entirety of the season, he will make up for his lack of versatility by providing run production off the bench.
As a result of all the moves that have been made and deals that have been handed out, the 2010 Twins look a lot more like a traditional Yankees or Red Sox lineup than the lineups Minnesotans got used to seeing at the dome each year. The Twins’ current 3-8 hitters are all capable of going deep at any moment. The question remains as to what the impetus for this transformation was. One of the main reasons the Twins have favored speed and contact hitters in the past is because it gave them a big home-field advantage on the hard Astroturf that adorned the floor of the Metrodome for the past 28 years. Ground balls that would be eaten up by the grass at an outdoor park skipped through the infield as though they were rolling on ice. Balls hit to the gap rolled to the wall as if they had a rocket booster attached to them. Having speed in the outfield was a necessity at the Dome, and the Twins usually employed as much as they could. With the move to the new field, the game will slow down a bit, reducing the amount the Twins will have to rely on speed to be effective on their home field.
The final piece of this transformation seems to have laid with the Twins signing Joe Mauer to an 8 year, $184 million contract at the end of Spring Training. In the past, the knock on the Twins has been that while they’ve been adept at developing talent, they’ve been unable to lock most of their good players up through their prime seasons. Johan Santana, Torii Hunter, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few examples of this principle. In place of signing these transcendent talents, the Twins have given large deals to above average players and played it off as if they had locked up franchise players. Contracts given to Brad Radke and Michael Cuddyer over the past decade are great examples of this. While Radke and Cuddyer were/are good players and have been a big part of the Twins success, they are not top flight players. However, that was the consolation Twins fans were left with when they were unable to keep their big name talents. After the 2008 season, Twins brass was able to sign former MVP Justin Morneau to a long term deal that will keep him in Minnesota through the 2013 season. This signing gave fans hope that a similar deal could be reached with Mauer in the near future. Somewhat unfortunately for the Twins, Mauer went out in 2009 and had the finest seasons anyone will ever see out of a catcher. Joe batted .365 last year, and despite missing all of April with a lower back injury, Mauer more than doubled his previous season-high in homeruns by bashing 28 dingers to go along with a career-high 96 RBI. Mauer’s explosive performance, after being a player who had previously shown nothing more than occasional power, transformed him from being viewed as a Wade Boggs/Tony Gwynn type of hitter to being one of the top three offensive players in all of baseball. After considering his unique defensive ability as a 6’5” catcher and his youth, it’s hard to say what a team like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, or Dodgers might have been willing to shell out if Mauer were to hit the open market as a free agent after this season. The Twins had to have known that allowing Mauer to play out the season without a contract extension would have surely led to them being pushed aside by baseball’s big spenders in the “Mauer Sweepstakes.” Signing him to a long-term deal prior to the start of the season was their only option that didn’t involve Joe playing somewhere else in 2011. Had this negotiation dragged into the season, the likelihood that Mauer would have been traded would have risen significantly, as the Twins would have been facing the prospect of losing Joe while only getting a couple of draft picks in return. All of that is moot now, as Joe will remain a Twin through the 2018 season as a result of his new deal. Clearly, the Twins learned a lesson from their negotiations with Torii Hunter, and made sure that similar mistakes weren’t made this time around. When Torii was lost to free agency, it was viewed by Twins fans as being an unfortunate, but not disastrous outcome. If Mauer had left the same way Hunter did, the Twins might as well have packed up shop and called it a day. Fortunately, a world without Mauer as a Twin is not something fans will have to worry about for quite a while…if ever. The Twins new modus operandi allowed them to make a financial commitment that wouldn’t have been possible in the past.
While some fans may long for the years of “Piranha Ball” and “small-market club” excuses, those things appear to be in the past. With a payroll closing in on $100 million this season and a brand new stadium to show off, the Twins are much more of a “have” than a “have-not.” Teams like Kansas City, Toronto, Tampa Bay, and Oakland will now be able to add the Twins to the list of teams with which they cannot compete with financially. The downside of this change in financial position for the Twins is that their built in excuse for failure in the post-season is gone. Team personnel will now have to be held accountable if the post-season debacles of 2006 and 2009 repeat themselves in the future. I’ve been as guilty as anyone of giving the Twins a “pass” in the playoffs, saying that it’s great just to watch them play in October. With all the changes being made within the organization, I’m not sure I’ll be able to be so conciliatory come crunch time this season. For teams like the Yanks and Red Sox, the rub of being expected to win championships year in and year out is that not winning a ring is viewed as an abject failure. The Twins have never had to deal with such expectations from their fan base. In 1987 and 1991, success by the Twins came as a surprise. Even in recent years, when the team was expected to be successful, winning the division was often enough to placate the Twins’ faithful. By getting the new ballpark they’ve been clamoring for, and by proving that they finally have the money to keep their top talent, the Twins have stepped out from behind their protective bunker and opened themselves to the same criticism the big market teams are susceptible to.
This reality has certainly played a role in their change in baseball philosophy. No longer will fielding a team that is good enough to compete but not really good enough to win be acceptable to the fans. Hopefully, the end result of the Twins new way of doing business is that they become a perennial World Series contender. That’s the best case scenario for this club. The worst case scenario is they become the Cleveland Indians. When Jacobs Field (now Progressive Field) was built in the mid-90’s, the Indians went from being the doormat of the American League to an annual contender. While Cleveland had an off-year here or there, they were as good a ballclub as the American League had for about ten years. The downfall of the Indians came when the luster wore off of their new park and the money dried up. Players like Manny Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, Jim Thome, Carlos Baerga, and Roberto Alomar fled for more lucrative deals in the early 2000’s. More recently, the Indians were forced to trade away much of the team that lead them to within one win of the World Series in 2007 due to their increasing salaries. Victor Martinez, C.C. Sabathia, and Cliff Lee have all been sold off, and rumor has it that Grady Sizemore could be the next to go. While Cleveland gave teams like the Twins a good blueprint as to how to build a winning club with fresh money, they are also a good example of how new stadium money doesn’t last forever. Their run of success lasted over a decade, but ended without a championship. After the buzz created by Target Field is gone, it’s important for the team to keep a good product on the field. Ultimately, success is the only way to draw fans. Save for the Chicago Cubs, whose fans seem more interested in the experience of being at Wrigley Field than winning or losing, the teams that consistently draw fans are the ones who win. The Twins have taken a big step towards ensuring they will be competitive into the next decade by locking up their young star players.
The next step is to not be content with what has been built. Issues are going to arise over the next few years that will have to be dealt with. What will the Twins do when Michael Cuddyer’s deal is up? When Jason Kubel is free agent eligible? How will they deal with the uncertain future of Joe Nathan and the impending hole in their closer role? What are their long term solutions at the infield positions not currently being manned by Mauer and Morneau? These are all questions that don’t necessarily need to be answered right now, but how they get answered will determine whether the Twins can sustain their success of the past ten years for another ten years.
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