Minnesota Twins Pre-Season Staff Predictions
- Who will be the Twins breakout player of 2016?
Jordan: Joe Mauer. Is it possible to breakout twice? We’ll see, but if the Twins want to succeed, they’ll need Mauer to literally break out of his slump.
Martin: Back in January I made picks for breakout hitter, breakout pitcher and bounce back player. For overall breakout player I’ll go with Kyle Gibson. It will be his fourth year as a Twins starter, and every year he has shown improvement. I predict he’ll be the Twins best starter by the numbers at the end of the season.
Scott: As I stated earlier, I think it will be Suzuki. He will have lots of RBI opportunities. A repeat of his All-Star 1st half from a couple years ago wouldn’t surprise me at all. I think Byung-ho Park is the real deal. Him hitting 30+ HRs wouldn’t be a surprise, or “breakout” to me.
Paul: Fernando Abad. He was allegedly tipping his pitches last season and had no success with his cutter. This season the team is working on avoiding his tipping, and Abad has hopefully taken the cutter out of his arsenal. Look for him to be a surprise treat in the bullpen.
Manuel: Buxton 101%. He’s ready to take the league by storm.
Mike: I’ll go with Buxton as well. I’ll pick a breakout pitcher as well: Jose Berrios.
We will pick up where we left off with the remaining 6 questions in Part 2 at noon today.