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Minnesota Twins: Power ranking the All-Star Candidates

By Nate Palmer

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JUNE 08: Jose Berrios #17 and Eddie Rosario #20 of the Minnesota Twins celebrate a solo home run by teammate Robbie Grossman #36 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim during the sixth inning of the game on June 8, 2018 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rosario was holding an inflatable Prince guitar as the team honored the late musician. The Angels defeated the Twins 4-2. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS, MN - JUNE 08: Jose Berrios #17 and Eddie Rosario #20 of the Minnesota Twins celebrate a solo home run by teammate Robbie Grossman #36 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim during the sixth inning of the game on June 8, 2018 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rosario was holding an inflatable Prince guitar as the team honored the late musician. The Angels defeated the Twins 4-2. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
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Minnesota Twins
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – JUNE 08: Jose Berrios #17 and Eddie Rosario #20 of the Minnesota Twins celebrate a solo home run by teammate Robbie Grossman #36 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim during the sixth inning of the game on June 8, 2018 at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Rosario was holding an inflatable Prince guitar as the team honored the late musician. The Angels defeated the Twins 4-2. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /

The Minnesota Twins as a team have been off to an underwhelming start to their season but still have several players who could be All-Stars.

The Minnesota Twins have had a less than impressive start to the season. In fact, their 31-37 record would have been considered an absolute disappointment if we would have been told about it before the season began. It still is an absolute disappointment in many ways, but the Cleveland Indians’ struggle is fueling some hope for the Twins and their fans here in the middle of June.

Amongst the disappointment, the Twins have had some players performing very well. A couple of them should receive some legitimate consideration when it comes to the MLB All-Star game.  In the following words, we are going to do a power ranking of the Twins players that have been performing the best this season and have a shot of being placed on that All-Star roster.

In all transparency, clearly, some of these names mentioned will not be making the All-Star roster. Unless of course most of the league simply opt out of playing in the game. These players are right now the best players on the Twins roster 68 games into the 2018 season. We start with some honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions:

Ryan Pressly

If we would have compiled this list earlier in the season Ryan Pressly would have easily made our top-5. Since the calendar has read June it seems that the workload that has been put on Pressly may have simply caught up to him. He leads the Twins relievers with 36 appearances. Please, someone save manager Paul Molitor from himself when it comes to bullpen usage!

Anyways, through the end of May Pressly had logged 28.1 innings and had a 2.22 ERA and 39 strikeouts. After a stretch of three straight outings where he gave up two runs in each of those outings, his overall numbers look much worse now. Pressly now has a 3.41 ERA over 34.1 innings but does have a 2.92 FIP, 121 ERA+, and a 13.1 K/9. When performing well and rested Pressly has the best stuff in the Twins bullpen.

Fernando Rodney

Fernando Rodney had a rough start to his season. In March and April Rodney appeared in 9 games and held a 5.87 ERA and a .343 batting average against. Since then the Twins closer has rebounded well. From the beginning of May on, Rodney has pitched in 16 games and 15.2 innings and with a 1.72 ERA and 12 saves. Bringing his season numbers to a 3.09 ERA, 8.9 K/9, 15 saves, in 25 appearances.

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