ESPN Ranks The Minnesota Twins Use of Analytics Very Low
Analytics are a big deal. Numbers never lie. Unless you are Ron Gardenhire who said “Numbers lie a lot. I have a hard time believing all that stuff.”
That quote from the former manager comes from ESPN. ESPN ranked every single team in the four big sports to how well they use analytics. The ranking looked at stats, but, of course, is partially based on how the publication feels which is ironic.
The Minnesota Twins didn’t do very well. The club just ranked above two other teams: the Miami Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies.
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The analytical breakdown was put into different categories: All-In, Believers, Skeptics and Nonbelievers. The Minnesota Twins were last in the ‘skeptics’ category.
The Twins blurb does state that the Twins did employ more defensive shifts during the 2014 season than the average MLB team which is good. The article then does point out that the twins have the lowest strikeout percentage and highest ERA, outside of the Colorado Rockies, over the past four years. The article says this is due to an emphasis of pitching to contact, the dreaded term, but it also can’t be ignored that the Twins pitching has just been overall awful as well.
The rest of the American League Central was all around the map. The Detroit Tigers only finished one spot ahead of the Twins in the Skeptics category. Chicago placed in third with the highest spot in the One Foot In category. Kansas City was second in the Believers category with the Cleveland Indians being third in the whole MLB in the All-In category.
The Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs finished one, two.
The article does say that Paul Molitor will be more open to the analytics of the game, he is a great baseball mind for crying out loud, but that with Terry Ryan at the helm, it doesn’t look good for the Twins’ number game.
Check out all the rankings here from ESPN.
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