Minnesota Twins: 5 Goals for the Twins as the Season Winds Down

Minnesota Twins September Goal No. 5: Finish the Season with Less than 90 Losses and avoid the American League Central Basement

This may seem like a fairly arbitrary goal, but avoiding the 90 loss mark would be a small consolation for a team that was expected to win 90 games this season. The final record and place in the division won’t matter in the long haul, but it’ll provide optimism going forward.

The Minnesota Twins need to win one of their final twenty-two games in order to avoid the 100 loss mark, so the team should easily avoid 100 losses for the fifth straight year. Avoiding 90 losses for the fifth straight year would be gravy.

The Twins are already too far ahead of the Pirates, Diamondbacks, Orioles, and Pirates, so a Top 4 pick isn’t realistic. The difference between picks 5 and 10 isn’t that different like the NFL, NHL, and NBA, so tanking for a better draft pick really isn’t necessary.

As for avoiding the AL Central basement, finishing third after back-to-back division titles is far less embarrassing than finishing the year behind the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals. This is all within reach too.

The Twins need to go just 11-11 the rest of the way to avoid 90 losses. That’s extremely possible and with the way the team is playing, it can fall under the likely category. Passing both the Tigers and Royals is the taller order.

Kansas City sits just one game ahead of the Twins, so I don’t expect the Royals to keep ahead. On top of that, the Twins play the Royals six times the rest of the way, so if the Twins take most of those games, we’re looking at a team that’s in fourth place.

Detroit is a little further out. The Tigers currently sit 3.5 games ahead of the Twins, but the Tigers are 16-19 over their past 35 games, so it’s realistic to believe that if the Twins finish hot, they could pass the Tigers and finish just a few games back of fading Cleveland. This isn’t a tough goal, but the team can make fans feel like there’s optimism for next year with a solid finish to the year.

Minnesota Twins September Goal No. 4: Find a Way to Get Jose Miranda to the Major Leagues and playing

The Minnesota Twins (and several other major league teams) are very hesitant to bring up their top prospects when the team doesn’t have lots of time for them to play. Having them in the majors wastes service time, and that has led Jose Miranda spending 2021 in the minors.

For those who don’t know Miranda, he’s a 23-year-old prospect who’s played first base, second base, third base, shortstop, and left field at Double-AA and Triple-AAA in 2021. He ranks as the Twins’ No. 8 prospect and has nothing left to prove in the minors after slashing .332/.390/.545 with 13 homers and 40 RBI in 63 games at Triple-AAA.

Bringing up Miranda would give the Twins a jolt of young talent and give fans a reason to keep coming to games, as fans have been clamoring for him for some time now. The big issue for the Twins is playing time. The team’s core six of Miguel Sano, Jorge Polanco, Andrelton Simmons, Josh Donaldson, Luis Arraez, and Nick Gordon have eaten up almost all of the team’s playing time in the infield and at designated hitter, so Miranda doesn’t have a real spot.

Designating Simmons for assignment and outrighting him off the roster would clear a spot for Miranda to join the 40-Man and clear up a little more playing time. Moving Rooker to the bench and running lineups with Sano at first, Donaldson at DH, Arraez in left, Polanco at short, Gordon at second, and Miranda at third would bring a lot more offense and offer a look at the future.

Even if you want to take Gordon out of the lineup, that still would allow Miranda the playing time he deserves. The Twins should Miranda on the roster to start 2022, and not giving him solid experience in 2021 is a mistake. Give him a spot on the major league roster as soon as possible so he can get ready for next year.

Minnesota Twins September Goal No. 3: Get Jovani Moran to the Big Leagues

Jovani Moran is in a very similar spot to Jose Miranda. Moran is one of the top relievers in the farm system as the 24-year-old slots in as the Twins’ No. 26 prospect, and a player who has consistently produced since being converted to a reliever in 2017.

Moran has a 2.41 ERA (3.03 in Triple-AAA) and 109-32 K-BB (45-18 in Triple-AAA) over 67.1 IP this year. He’s been dominant as a reliever in 2021 and had similarly strong years in 2017 and 2018. His career ERA in the minors is a sterling 2.64 and his 1.052 WHIP is very solid.

In terms of playing time for Moran, the situation is a lot less complicated. He’s a better reliever than Andrew Albers and is a lefty to boot, so there’s simply no explanation for why he’s not there and on the 40-man.

His options in relief might be limited with a bullpen of solid contributors ahead of him, but he could be far better than most of those guys. He’ll also be on the team longer and is supposed to be a key piece of the bullpen in the future.

Moran turns 25 in April, so he’s a little older than some the other top prospects the team has, but the to for the former seventh round pick still has loads of talent to show off. It’s time to get the strikeout machine up to the highest level.

Minnesota Twins September Goal No. 4: Get Young Players on the Field, Get the Veterans off of it

This feels like it should be common sense for a team that is out of the playoff hunt, but apparently it still needs to be said. Stop giving playing time to veterans who aren’t important to the team’s future and see what the youth can offer.

Every inning that Rob Refsnyder or Jake Cave gets prevents the Twins from seeing if Brent Rooker can ever be anything. No one should kid themselves into thinking Refsnyder or Cave will be an important part of this team going forward, but Rooker could be.

Even if Rooker ends up being a bust, I’d still rather see a younger unknown than a player who likely will be off the roster within the next year. As fun as Refsnyder has been, both he and Cave fit into that category.

The same can be said in the infield. Willians Astudillo has played in 65 games this year. Nick Gordon has played in 54. Gordon will likely never live up to his billing as a Top 5 draft pick, but he can play second, shortstop, left field, third base, and center field and is a capable clutch hitter. That sounds like a solid bench player for the future. I’d rather see him than Astudillo.

It’s hard for teams to continue to trot out young players, but teams going through rebuilds (Detroit, Baltimore Orioles) no to bring out young talent more than veterans who aren’t a part of the team’s future. The Twins should try that right now.

Minnesota Twins September Goal No. 5: Keep the Pitch Counts Low on the Young Arms

This one pains me to write about, but the Twins are doing the right thing by limiting Bailey Ober and Joe Ryan’s pitch counts this season. Both of the young arms have a lot of mileage on them (991.1 IP combined through college, the minors, and the MLB), so the Twins are doing their very best to make sure they are fully healthy going into 2022.

It’s always hard to see young talent being taken out of the game early, but this time it’s actually for the best. Keeping the pair under 90 pitches allows them to stay fully well-rested and be prepared for next year when they will likely be the workhorses of the rotation.

Falvey and Levine have built a pipeline of pitching talent that the team will be able to draw from for a while, but it’s for the best to keep the first to products of that pipeline healthy for a season when they are likely the only sure things in next year’s rotation.

The other thing the Twins have going for them is a bullpen that has rebounded nicely in the second half of the s. Caleb Thielbar, Tyler Duffey, Juan Minaya, Danny Coulumbe, and Luke Farrell are all having solid seasons. Even Alex Colome has rebounded into form. The Twins have a solid bullpen for a team out of contention, so the team is okay without Ober and Ryan going deep into games.

Though the team is out of contention, the Minnesota Twins still have several things that they they can do the rest of the way to keep the fans happy and set themselves up for a good beginning to 2022.