Major League Baseball decided to bring more excitement to its product by playing with an enlarged golf ball for the 2019 season. The Twins took advantage of this by hitting an all-time record 307 home runs and winning 101 games in the regular season.
They followed this by capturing their traditional no victories in the postseason, getting swept in three games by the New York Yankees.
The Twins decided to first address a shortage in pitching by raiding a senior home on the last day of 2019, signing starters Homer Bailey and Rich Hill and relievers Tyler Clippard and Sergio Romo.
They were only required to pay $2 million of a $7 million deal with Bailey (the Dodgers owed him the rest), which did not prevent ridicule from here on the sidelines — since Bailey would make two appearances for the Twins.
The true strangeness began on Jan. 22, 2020, when it was announced the Twins had signed Josh Donaldson to the largest free-agent contract in franchise history — four years, $92 million for a 34-year-old power hitter, which seemed to be the last item needed by a team coming off a record number of home runs and with a mighty need for "quality'' pitching.
On Feb. 10, 2020, the Twins traded a promising reliever, Brusdar Graterol, to the Dodgers for starter Kenta Maeda. Five weeks later, spring training was shut down by COVD-19 and the 2020 baseball season turned into a 60-game fiasco without spectators.
Maeda was very successful in this environment, going 6-1 with a 2.70 ERA and finishing second to Cleveland's Shane Bieber in the American League's Cy Young Award voting. Needless to say, Maeda could not prevent the Twins (36-24) from getting swept in two games by the Astros (29-31) in the expanded COVID-era playoff field of 16 teams.
What has followed has pretty much been a series of front-office follies. There are excuses, of course, and some personnel decisions that were not derided originally, but here's the deal:
Baseball boss Derek Falvey and his enormous collection of brain wizards are paid to be correct, and sports writers and other independent media members are paid much less to second-guess — and the fans pay for the right to deride all of us.
It was a minor transaction in the big picture, but the feeling here is that the first sign that aliens from Pluto were running the Twins came on March 28, 2021, when the Twins signed Randy Dobnak to a multi-year contract worth $9.25 million that runs through 2025 — with three option years afterward.
Yeah, let's lock up the Dobber.
I was in St. Paul earlier this month, Dobnak was starting, and there were so many rockets hit in his three innings that I feared for his well-being.
Here are the major deals, and you can offer a litany of excuses (such as financial realities), but the Twins should be expected to be right on the return — and mostly, they haven't been.
Even with Maeda's initial success, you'd a lot rather have Graterol throwing bullets in the bullpen alongside Jhoan Duran than be paying Maeda for almost two years of rehabilitation before his anticipated return this week.
As for the other trade highlights:
— July 30, 2021: Twins don't want to pay José Berrios so they trade him to Toronto for prospects Simeon Woods Richardson (pitcher) and Austin Martin (infielder). Woods Richardson isn't close to ready, and Martin has been injured and not close to the sure thing he was supposed to be. As for Berrios, he's still out there every five days, never missing a start for the Blue Jays.
— March 13, 2022: Twins unload Donaldson on Yankees and received third baseman Gio Urshela and catcher Gary Sanchez. Urshela was good, Sanchez not so much. Urshela was given away in a trade with the Angels last offseason and just suffered a serious injury. Sanchez landed in San Diego recently and hit a bunch of home runs.
— Same day: Twins acquire Sonny Gray from Cincinnati for young No. 1 draft choice Chase Petty, who is finding himself in the minors and could be the Reds' No. 1 pitching prospect. A good trade. Give the Twins credit for this one.
— April 7, 2022: Taylor Rogers and $6 million — $6 million — to the Padres for starter Chris Paddack and reliever Emilio Pagán. Paddack had a history of elbow problems, and after five starts he was headed off to Tommy John surgery early last season. And Pagán? He gets 'em out … unless it matters. Meanwhile, after a rocky period, the lefthanded Rogers has found himself and allowed one run in his past 23 appearances for the Giants (32 Ks in 21⅔ innings).
— Trading deadline, 2022: Yennier Cano and three other young pitchers to Baltimore for reliever Jorge López . Admittedly, I was a big fan of Lopez, but when I'm wrong, it doesn't mess up a team, as it does when Falvey and Co. are wrong. Cano has become unhittable in the Orioles bullpen; López has been awful for six weeks and now is taking a mental health break.
— Trading deadline, 2022: Acquire starter Tyler Mahle from Cincinnati for infielder Spencer Steer and DH Christian Encarnacion-Strand. Mahle has made nine starts total for the Twins since joining the team's "we traded for a Tommy John customer'' list. Meantime, Steer is versatile and excellent for the Reds, and Encarnacion-Strand's hitting will soon be added to the Reds' dynamic young roster.
Even the Star Tribune's recent acquisition of Bobby Nightengale as a baseball writer from the Cincinnati Enquirer can't even out that heist.
— Jan. 20, 2023: Second baseman Luiz Arráez for Miami starter Pablo Lopez. As of Tuesday morning, Arráez was batting .400 and leading MLB with 102 hits. Here in Minnesota, Carlos Correa was leading Popkins' Popguns (named in honor of batting coach David Popkins) with 51 hits, which figures to exactly 50% of Luis' total.
On Monday night, Arráez went 5-for-5 for the third time this month. He became the second player since 1900 to have five hits three times in a period of 15 games. The first was Ty Cobb in 1922. And at Target Field, Lopez went 5⅔ innings, suffered from bad fielding and bad walks, took a 9-3 loss to Boston and is now 3-4 with a 4.40 ERA.
Thus, in Miami, where the Marlins are now a shocking 42-31, Arraez — the AL batting champion of 2022 — is being mentioned in the same sentence as the legendary Tyrus Raymond Cobb.
And in Minnesota, where the first-place Twins are now a disgusting 36-37, we're saying, "Well, Pablo hasn't been all we hoped, but he's still an upgrade on Dylan Bundy.''
