Kuzul

The success of the 2012 season depends on two men: Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

When the Twins won three of the previous five American Central League titles, Mauer and Morneau were at the heart of why Minnesota was successful. During that stretch, Mauer averaged 13 home runs, 80 RBI, posted a .334 batting average and never posted a slugging percentage below .426 or an on-base percentage beneath .382.

Morneau was even better.

He averaged over 105 RBI, over 27 home runs, posted a .298 batting average and never had an on-base percentage beneath .343 or a slugging percentage below .492. And that’s after Morneau missed 81 games in 2010 because of his lingering effects of a concussion.

But last year, the two were not on the field often—combining to play 151 games—and they were not  overly productive when they were.

Mauer’s .287 batting average, three home runs, 30 RBI, .360 on-base percentage and .368 slugging percentage were all career-lows—in a season when Mauer played more than 81 games.

The Canadian-born Morneau was right with Mauer. His .227 batting average, four home runs, 30 RBI, .285 on-base percentage and .333 slugging percentage were all career lows—in a season when Morneau plays 69 or more games.

Part of the reason both struggled was that neither was healthy for extended periods of time. Morneau had lingering concussion problems, and Mauer had bilateral leg weakness.

Morneau’s concussion problems, which began in 2010, have his career spiraling in the wrong direction and were the source of him missing so much time in 2011. The 2012 campaign will either get him back on track or continue him down his regressive path.

Mauer has never played over 146 games in his career, which is (in part) why the Twins have toyed with moving Mauer to first base—and should explore third base too. He’s injury prone.  

But this year has to be different. It has to be different for both.

The Twins have far too many uncertainties as they enter 2012. Mauer and Morneau cannot be part of that group. Those two need to revert back to the 2006-2010 form.

Without the two for much of the season, the 2011 season spiraled out of control very quickly and ended in the worst Minnesota team under Ron Gardenhire’s watch (63-99). One more loss and Minnesota would have had its first 100-loss season since 1957 (when they were the Washington Senators).  

In 2012, the Twins have $23 million invested in Mauer and $14 million in Morneau. For that type of dough, the Twins need better return on their investment than they received in 2011. Mauer and Morneau earned the same figures last year.

Without Michael Cuddyer and without Delmon Young—albeit an inconsistent Delmon Young—the Twins have no other proven threats in the middle of a MLB lineup. And without Cuddyer, the Twins need their top two earners to play larger leadership roles—something neither has excelled at during their careers.

2012 must be different if Minnesota has any chance to be successful. The M&M boys are the key to what happens in Minnesota from April through September. If they regain their form, then Minnesota can compete for an AL Central crown. If not, look out for six more months of terrible baseball.

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2011 was a season which the Twins and their fans would like to forget sooner rather than later. The team is approaching the start of spring training with a lot of question marks throughout their 25-man roster. Most notably, will the bullpen be better? can Mauer and Morneau regain their MVP form? And most importantly, what are the playoff chances looking like?

The following are six bold predictions I have for the Twins in 2012 which will help to answer those questions and more.

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2011 was a season that Minnesota Twins fans have not endured in nearly a decade.

From the beginning of the season to the end, the hits kept coming…and they were not during the course of a game. Injuries riddled the Twins lineup and kept players like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Tsuyoshi Nishioka, Denard Span, Glen Perkins and Delmon Young on the bench. As the slide continued, the bullpen blew leads, the starters struggled and the team could not seem to get a run across the plate.

By nearly every account, the Twins season was horrendous. The Twins managed to score a mere 619 runs; the lowest amount in a non-strike shortened season since their inception. Their 63 wins tied for the lowest in franchise history and the team allowed the most runs (804) since 2000.

For a team that has been used to regular season success (the postseason being a glaring exception), such a depressing season hits hard. Over the last 10 seasons, the team produced five 90-win seasons and six postseason appearances with players winning batting titles and MVP awards. Despite lack of success in the playoffs, the Twins received a new ballpark and has now generated the second-highest attendance total in the American League.

But past successes don’t make the 2011 failures any easier to cope with for Twins fans, especially considering that there is not much in the way of hope on the horizon. However, despite the stats, injuries and poor play, this is hardly the most depressing offseason the Twins have faced in their history. Ten years ago, the Twins faced an offseason with more uncertainty and with more at stake.

In November, 2001, a Minnesota judge ordered the Twins to honor their Metrodome lease as MLB Commissioner and then-Twins owner Carl Pohlad worked towards contracting the Twins. For Twins fans, the offseason between 2001 and 2002 was filled with the understanding that after the coming season, the Minnesota Twins would cease to exist. The team finished the 2001 season with 85 wins, the highest since 1992—the year after the team won the World Series and the team had a promising core of young players.

With the fourth lowest payroll in baseball ($40 million), no one expected massive free-agent signings, especially with contraction imminent. Baseball owners from Seattle to Atlanta supported the plan that would have removed the Expos and Twins from the baseball map. Selig went to Congress stating that without a new ballpark, the Twins could not compete. Things looked bleak for the Twins and it was a long offseason.

But the saving grace came from the play of a virtual group of “nobodies” that kept playing while the Titanic was sinking. Their play in 2002 made it impossible for Commissioner Selig to contract the team and their success in the following years brought them a brand-new stadium, now lauded by the league.

Of course, the Twins that take the field now bring different expectations of success. Many fans saw the elimination of the Twins in 2002 as inevitable and therefore only hoped for one last hurrah to stick it to Bud Selig and an owner that they thought had betrayed them.

This year, with a beautiful new ballpark and huge contracts to superstar players, expectations are justifiably high. Offseason chatter has turned to speculating on moves the Twins need to make to turn the team around, and there are a lot of holes to fill.

This is not to say that Twins fans should just be grateful to have a professional baseball team but more of a positive way of looking at a season that by all accounts was lost before the end of the first series. The Twins need to prove to the state that the recent investments have been worth it and the front office must find a way to finally win in the postseason.

What the Twins have that many other clubs have do not is the fact that while the last season was a debacle, the organization has faced worse. Yes, the expectations are different and we as Twins fans are warranted in our high expectations; getting to the playoffs is no longer enough to consider a season a success as it was ten years ago. But if any organization can face these challenges, it would be the Twins. 

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Since being renamed the Minnesota Twins general manager, Terry Ryan, according to Baseball-Reference.com, has signed more free agents than any other team in baseball.

On paper, at best it looks like the Twins are no better than they were in 2011, and perhaps a little worse. His approach appears to be to replace what has been lost, and hope what remains returns to the form that delivered 94 wins in 2010, instead of the result in 2011.

With 20 signings, Ryan and the Twins have signed as many free agents as the Tigers, White Sox and Indians combined.

The problem is Ryan appears to be rebuilding the Twins farm system that is not as strong as it was when he stepped down in 2007, with 75 percent of the free agents signed to minor league contracts.

Perhaps one can take some solace in that all 15 of the players signed to minor-league contracts have been invited to spring training. 

The five free agents added to the 40-man roster include catcher/first baseman Ryan Doumit, left fielder Josh Willingham, second baseman Jamey Carroll and starting pitcher Jason Marquis. The re-signing of closer Matt Capps rounds out the Ryan’s work so far.

Gone are free agents Jose Mijares, who signed with Kansas City, Jason Kubel, who is now in Arizona, Michael Cuddyer, who will play with Colorado and Joe Nathan, with the current two-time AL Pennant winner Texas Rangers.

While signing starting pitcher Marquis is a solid move, with a career 104-98 record and a 4.55 ERA, he’s not the staff ace many Twins fans were hoping for.

The addition of Willingham almost offsets the loss of Cuddyer—almost. Gone is the flexibility to play just about anywhere on the field. On the plus side, Willingham brings a bit more power, averaging 16.5 home runs over eight seasons, compared to Cuddyer’s 12.8 per season in 11 years with Minnesota.Even with the worst record in the American League, Minnesota was second only to the Yankees in attendance with 3.16 millions fans attending games at Target Field. With no blockbuster deal, Ryan and the Twins must think that the lure of Target Field will overpower the on-field performance for at least one more season.

The honeymoon of a new ballpark will only carry them so far.

The Twins need to be more than just improved over last season—after all, it shouldn’t take much to improve on their 63-99 record of last season. They need to contend for the AL Central in 2012, or the fans will start looking forward to the Vikings season come August.

The timing to reduce the payroll comes at the wrong time. The Twins need to make a bold move to improve the team. Returning to the success of winning the division only to make a first-round exit in the playoffs is no longer acceptable.

The expectation with the revenue from Target Field was to improve the team and bring another World Series Championship to Minnesota.

Anything less than that is a failure—and Ryan has not even come close with the moves made so far.

All is not lost, yet. Perhaps Ryan is looking to bundle many of those minor-league signees to make a blockbuster trade before the season starts.

Of course, that would be totally out of character and unprecedented for the Twins GM.

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It’s obvious after the Minnesota Twins finished the 2011 season with the second-worst record since the franchise moved to the Twin Cities, the team has plenty of needs.

The team needs a couple of solid starting pitchers, an effective reliever, a power-hitting corner outfielder and an effective middle infield combination.

For general manager Terry Ryan, it appears that the wheeling and dealing is done, and from the looks of things, with no blockbuster deals, the team will be taking a long, slow ride to respectability.

Ryan, taking no big swings to improve the Twins, is relying for the most part, on the current roster of players to improve over last season. The hopes on the 2012 season is that many of these players will return to form that had the Twins winning six division titles over nine seasons.

The only changes to the lineup appear to be Ben Revere taking over one of the corner outfield positions, Josh Willingham the other, and Jamey Carroll manning one of the middle infield positions.

Here are 12 things the Twins need for a successful 2012 season.

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Relief pitcher Jason Bulger has had an interesting career. The right-handed hurler has pitched in the major leagues every season since 2005, yet he has appeared in at least 20 games only twice—and at least 60 games but once.

Now that he has signed a minor league deal with the Minnesota Twins, he hopes to up that latter count to twice as well.

The 32-year-old spent 2011 in the Los Angeles Angels system, making five appearances for the big club and going 0-1 with a 0.96 ERA and an astonishing 411 ERA+. He spent most of the year with their Triple-A affiliate, the Salt Lake Bees, going 1-0 with a 4.03 ERA in 35 games.

Though brief, Bulger’s stint with the Angels last year perfectly exemplifies just what has gone right—and wrong—in Bulger’s career; that is, it shows exactly what the Twins will be getting.

In 9.1 innings last year, he demonstrated his strikeout capabilities in striking out seven—in fact, in 133 career frames, he has K’ed 138 batsmen. But, he also walked 10 batters, demonstrating one of his biggest faults—he is prone to the base on balls.

Bulger doesn’t give up a lot of hits (only six last year, and 112 on his career), but he gives up his share of home runs, leading to an ERA that can swing from really low (like last year’s) to really high (like ’08, when he had a 7.31 mark in 14 appearances).

In short, the former Valdosta State Blazer is not very consistent. Look, for example, at his ’09 season: that year, he appeared in 64 games and posted a 3.56 ERA. During one 17-game stretch, his ERA was a mediocre 5.40—but then, during another 38-game span, his ERA was an incredible 1.86.

Despite his past inconsistencies, the righty has a reasonable shot at making the Minnesota Twins’ 25-man roster out of spring training, if he performs well.

Last year, the team’s bullpen was unimpressive, boasting only one main reliever with an ERA under 4.00. As a whole, the team finished 13th in the American League in ERA.

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This was not how the Twins‘ 2011 season was supposed to go.

Coming off consecutive AL Central Division titles, and on the 20th anniversary of their last World Series championship, this season was supposed to be the year they stepped up and finally made it past the divisional round of the playoffs.

Currently tied with the Kansas City Royals at 23 games behind the division-leading Detroit Tigers, the Twins are poised to accomplish the exact opposite in 2011—going from winning 94 games and finishing first in the AL Central in 2010 to finishing last.

Since Ron Gardenhire took over as manager in 2002, the lowest the Twins have finished in the division is third—in 2005 and 2007.

On Sept. 10, 1991 the Twins were 85-54 with an eight-and-a-half game lead on the rest of the American League West. They would finish with the best record in the AL, at 95-67—second only to the Pittsburgh Pirates. This was a 21-game turnaround from the previous season when they finished last of the seven teams in the AL West.

I compared the rosters and the performance of the Twins to uncover what changed to propel them from the depths of the AL West in 1990 to the pinnacle of baseball in 1991. Surprisingly, there were only a few changes in the starting lineup and starting pitching rotation that would see the side catapult from last to first in a single season.

Can the Twins learn anything from that historical reference that might help turn around their dreadful 2011 season, and hopefully return to championship form in 2012?

Here’s a look at what changed in 1991, and what the Twins could do for 2012.

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This year everything has gone wrong for the Twins and it was inevitable that Jim Thome would be traded. It makes sense that he should return to where it all started 20 seasons ago when he made his major league debut on September 4th, 1991. Thome has hit 335 of his 602 home runs while wearing a Cleveland uniform.

In less than two seasons with Minnesota, Thome hit 37 home runs, more than any other player on the Twins roster over that time. In 2010 he led the team with 25 home runs, averaging a home run every 11.04 at bats when the Twins won 94 games and their sixth AL Central division title since 2002 when Ron Gardenhire took over as manager. 

I started thinking about some of the players the Twins had signed in the twilight of their career. Many of them were brought in because they were a low-cost option at the time, having made their mark on baseball with another team. 

There have been several players who signed with the Twins later in their career and achieved a significant milestone.

Some of these players made quite an impact and helped the Twins achieve great things, while others were a veteran presence on some young teams trying to find their identity.

I poured over the Twins rosters since they started play in 1961, looking for players who joined the team later in their career. 

Here are the top 20. The criteria included their impact on the Twins, their performance while in Minnesota and their career success.

The players ranked from No. 12 through No. 20 are all pretty much interchangeable. Once we get to those players that helped the Twins between 1987 and 1991, it gets interesting.

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For years under the direction of Tom Kelly, we constantly heard that the baseball season was a marathon and not a sprint.

“Take it one game at a time” was the mantra constantly repeated to the players, media and fans during Kelly’s tenure as manager from 1986 to 2001.

In 1991, Ron Gardenhire became the Twins third base coach, a position he held until Kelly retired following the 2001 season. While Gardenhire has a little more fire to his managerial style than Kelly, he espouses the same philosophy.

While Kelly is the Minnesota Twins all-time leader with 1,140 wins as manager, over 16 years he only had five seasons with a record better than .500, and only two division titles. Kelly made the most of those two post-season appearances, winning the World Series in 1987 and 1991.

Gardenhire has been able to run the marathon with a little more success than Kelly, winning six division titles in nine years. Currently 286 wins behind Kelly, Gardenhire has a solid chance to surpass him by the end of the 2014 season.

Unlike Kelly, Gardenhire’s success ends after game 162. In six tries, Gardenhire has only made it beyond the divisional round of the playoffs once.

In the two seasons Kelly won the World Series, he had teams that were better suited for a seven-game sprint, than the marathon of a 162 game season.

The best example of this would be in 1987, when, with only 85 wins the Twins would earn the distinction of having the fewest regular-season victories of any World Series Champion up to that time.

That year, pitching coach Dick Such struggled to find five pitchers for the starting rotation. The Twins would start 12 different pitchers that season with only four of them making at least 20 starts.

Once the postseason began, Kelly was forced to go with a three-man pitching rotation—Frank Viola, Bert Blyleven, and Les Straker.

Blyleven was the veteran of the staff, leading the team with 37 starts and 267 inning pitched. Viola was the ace of the staff, going 17-10 with a team-leading 2.90 ERA. Straker was the best of the rest. He only went 8-10 in the regular season with a 4.37 ERA.

The three-man rotation allowed Kelly to pitch Viola three times in the seven-game 1987 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.  Viola would go 2-1, winning the first and last games of the series.

While the rotation was better in 1991, the Twins still had their best pitcher start three games in the World Series. Like Viola, Jack Morris would go 2-1 and win the crucial seventh game of the World Series in a dramatic 10-inning complete game, 1-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves.

What Gardenhire and the Twins are missing is that one pitcher who can carry the team over a seven-game series. 

Gardenhire was unable to take advantage when he did have such a pitcher in Johan Santana.

Between 2003 and 2007, Santana would go 82-35 with a 2.92 ERA. Over that span, the Gardenhire-led Twins were 2-9 in the ALDS.

The closest thing the Twins have to a dominant pitcher this season might be Scott Baker, who leads the team with an 8-6 record and a 3.01 ERA.

Baker was struggling to just make the starting rotation at the beginning of the year. To consider him the ace of the staff shows how poorly the Twins starters have been this year.

Even if Gardenhire can work his magic and get the Twins to their seventh division title in 10 season—which appears unlikely at nine games back and 10 games under .500—he doesn’t have the horsepower to make it any further.

With the current starting rotation consisting of five number three or four starters at best, the Twins have no chance of making it out of the ALDS.

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There have been many words used to describe the Minnesota Twins‘ 2011 campaign—frustrating, humiliating, injury-ridden, disappointing, lost.

However, one word that has come into view following their assent from the American League Central’s cellar: historic?

That’s right. The Twins have a chance to erase the largest deficit in Major League Baseball history, should they come all the way back to win the division.

As of June 2, the Twins sat 16 1/2 games behind the division-leading Cleveland Indians. By June 25, following a three-game losing streak, the Twins have closed that gap to eight games behind Cleveland and seven games behind the Detroit Tigers (who I identify as the real team to beat in this division).

Should the Twins erase the deficit it would be the largest comeback in MLB history.

The current record is held by the 1914 Boston Braves, who sat at 26-40 in early July that season, 15 games back in the standings.

The “Miracle Braves,” as they became known, finished the season by going 70-19, eventually winning the pennant by 10 1/2 games over the New York Giants. The Braves would go on to sweep the favored the Philadelphia Athletics in the World Series that season.

The Twins are facing an uphill battle, but have shown great resolve in recent seasons. In 2009, the Twins erased a seven-game lead of the Tigers in the final weeks, eventually securing the division title in one of the most memorable games in Twins history—Game 163.

The Twins will now turn to Fransisco Liriano to get the comeback back on track in the second game of a three-game set in Milwaukee.

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