Fresh off another disappointing first-round exit in last year’s American League Division Series, the Minnesota Twins are back on the diamond at their spring training facility in Florida with their sights set on a division three-peat and an end to their recent postseason struggles.
Sitting in third place at the All-Star break last season, the Twins caught fire to finish 48-26 in the second half and capture their sixth division crown in the past nine years. Despite losing All-Star closer Joe Nathan to Tommy John surgery prior to the season and MVP frontrunner Justin Morneau to a concussion in mid-July, the Twins still became the first team to clinch the division and finished with the highest win total since the 2006 campaign with 94 victories.
Although the Twins sported baseball’s best record after the All-Star break last season, the Yankees made quick work of the Twins in the playoffs while extending Minnesota’s playoff losing streak to eleven games—only two defeats shy of tying the futile 1986-95 Red Sox for the longest postseason skid all-time. Minnesota has now exited in the first round of the playoffs each of its last five trips, with four of those series defeats coming at the hands of the Yankees.
The Twins remained quiet throughout most of the offseason, but made a splash in December with the signing of Japanese switch-hitter Tsuyoshi Nishioka. The move came after second baseman Orlando Hudson opted for free agency and the club shipped shortstop J.J. Hardy to Baltimore. Nishioka brings his talents to the Twin Cities fresh off a 206-hit performance for the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan’s Pacific League, the highest single-season tally since Ichiro Suzuki in 1994.
Last season, the Twins ranked 25th of 30 Major League clubs in stolen bases with 68, the same number that Chicago’s Juan Pierre swiped singlehandedly to lead both leagues last year and the fewest by a Twins team since the 1985 season. In the offseason, manager Ron Gardenhire voiced his desire for a speedier ballclub, and his new middle infield seems poised to lead a more dynamic base stealing campaign this season. Nishioka averaged 28 base thefts over the last six seasons, and his primary companion up the middle will be Alexi Casilla, who tied for fourth on the team last season with six steals, despite appearing in fewer than half of the team’s games.
While the Twins’ new double play combination undoubtedly possesses a unique blend of speed and excitement, the duo of relatively inexperienced 26 year-olds are replacing a middle infield of Hudson and Hardy that entered last season with a combined 13 seasons of Major League experience. Casilla has proven his ability to produce in the clutch with an impressive collection of walk-off hits including the game-winning single of the Twins’ tiebreaker victory to clinch the division in 2009 and a two-run base knock in the club’s penultimate game of last season against Toronto. With that said, Casilla has only approached 400 at-bats once in his career, and it remains to be seen whether Nishioka’s talent will translate into big league success.
The remainder of last year’s lineup remains intact, with Denard Span, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, Delmon Young, Michael Cuddyer and Danny Valencia set to join Nishioka and Casilla in the batting order. The Twins brought back Jim Thome with a one-year deal that ensures the popular slugger will chase the 600 home run mark this year within the confines of Target Field. Thome will share time in the designated hitter slot with Kubel, and Jason Repko will reprise his role as the club’s fourth outfielder to allow the Twins some flexibility in the lineup. A young core of players who have made their way through the Twins organization and project to add depth off the bench this season include Matt Tolbert, Ben Revere, Drew Butera, Luke Hughes and Trevor Plouffe.
This year’s club features an overhauled bullpen, with newcomers Jim Hoey, Eric Hacker, Scott Diamond and Dusty Hughes set to make an attempt to replace last year’s core of Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier, Jon Rauch and Brian Fuentes. Hoey is a lanky right-hander who can top mid-90s on the radar gun with his fastball, while Hacker has historically relied on his control to get him through the late innings. Diamond—who was selected by the Twins in this year’s Rule V Draft—offers the Twins a left-handed specialist while Hughes—another southpaw—spent the last two years in Kansas City, where he ranked second on the team last season with 57 appearances and posted a 3.83 ERA.
The remainder of the bullpen is comprised of several familiar faces, with Jose Mijares, Pat Neshek, Glen Perkins, Jeff Manship and Alex Burnett all reprising their late-inning roles. Matt Capps—who notched 42 saves last season between stints with the Nationals and Twins—will begin the season in the closer’s role, but all eyes will be focused on Nathan as he returns to the mound. The four-time All-Star saw his first action in almost a year earlier this week, and has already showed signs that his velocity is returning to pre-operation form.
The starting rotation faces the opposite dilemma of the bullpen, with an overabundance of capable arms vying for only five spots. Carl Pavano proved last season that he can effectively eat up innings, and Francisco Liriano pieced together his most effective season since his dominant 2006 rookie campaign, but questions abound regarding the remainder of the rotation. Brian Duensing received Gardenhire’s support on Tuesday in his quest for a spot in the rotation, which likely leaves Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn and Kevin Slowey vying for the final two slots. At this point, it appears likely that Gardenhire will pencil Baker and Blackburn into his rotation, but should the recovering elbows of either hurler flare up once more, the Twins will have Slowey, Manship or perhaps even rising prospect Kyle Gibson waiting in the wings.
The race for the Central Division title in the American League projects to be a tight one with a pair of division foes having bolstered their lineups in hopes of unseating the Twins. The White Sox signed one of the game’s premier boppers, Adam Dunn, to play alongside fellow long ball threats Paul Konerko and Carlos Quentin in hitter-friendly U.S. Cellular Field. Chicago also revamped its bullpen, cutting ties with Scott Linebrink, J.J. Putz and closer Bobby Jenks while adding former Twins Phil Humber and Crain. Meanwhile, the Tigers shored up their bullpen by acquiring Rays setup man Joaquin Benoit and signed Victor Martinez to replace Johnny Damon’s bat in the lineup.
The Twins’ success this season depends primarily on getting healthy performances from their primary run-producers Mauer and Morneau over the course of an entire season. The pair of former MVP winners only appeared in 67 games together last year before Morneau’s concussion sidelined him for the remainder of the season, so a healthy year for the two is certainly at the top of fans’ wish lists throughout Twins Territory. Gardenhire’s club will also rely heavily on Young and Valencia to build on their breakout performances of last season while hoping for a return to prominence by Span and Cuddyer, both of whose offensive numbers dropped off slightly from previous years.
On the mound, the Twins will require lots of innings from their starters to limit use of the team’s relatively inexperienced bullpen. While the Twins’ new set of relievers will play a large role in the team’s playoff chances, the key may very well lie in the recovering arms of Neshek and Nathan. If the pair of once-dominant relievers can rediscover their pre-surgery forms and Capps can continue his impressive run as a closer, the Twins just may be able to win their seventh division title in a decade and take aim at their first postseason series triumph since 2002.