It hasn’t taken long for the Minnesota Twins to start paying the price for trying to go cheap this offseason.
The roster is already being ransacked by the injury bug, something that has magnified the lack of movement in free agency that already had fans frustrated. Rather than chance the most successful postseason run since 2002 by trying to improve the roster, Twins ownership sheepishly cowered in the face of potential lost future revenue and slashed the payroll.
Now the team is reaping what it sowed — which is a historically bad start to the season with no reason for hope anywhere in sight.
Injuries have played a huge role, with star players like Royce Lewis, Jhoan Duran, and Carlos Correa already on the IL. The one big move the Twins did make has also dudded so far, with Anthony DeSclafani already out for the season and Justin Topa missing the start of the year with an injury he suffered in Spring Training.
On top of that Minnesota is hitting a historically awful .193 as a team which is the second-worst mark in half a century of baseball. It’s almost like refusing to add meaningful pieces to the roster and hoping for the best was a bad strategy.
As if things the Twins weren’t already down bad enough, the New York Mets annoyingly placed a cherry on top of the garbage sundae that fans are being force fed.
Mets take advantage of Twins bad offseason decisions
Last week the Twins placed Max Kepler on the IL after he was unable to battle through a knee injury he suffered on Opening Day. A corresponding move was trading cash to the Mets for former Twins pitcher Michael Tonkin and adding him to a depleted bullpen.
Tonkin was barely able to finish his cup of coffee before the Twins DFA’d him to make room for Jair Camargo and Matt Bowman on the roster. The Mets claimed Tonkin off waivers, which means they were essentially given a donation by the Twins since everything is where it was a week ago expect the pile of cash Minnesota sent to New York.
While it’s annoying, there’s a sick catharsis in the Pohlads spending money they clearly didn’t want to and getting nothing for it. It’s like how Anakin Skywalker had those premonitions about Padme dying in Revenge of the Sith and basically manifested his fears into reality.
That’s what happened here.
The Pohalds outright refused to invest in the team during a time when it would have mattered and there were legitimate options available that would have bene worth the money. Now they’re burning a hole in their own pocket — albeit not a large one — and are paying a tax for going cheap.
Nothing really gets solved by this, even if it feels like the Michael Scott passively yelling ‘Thank You’ meme come to life. Twins fans can feel validated in knowing they were rightfully upset over the winter, but the Pohlads can now crawl deeper into their resolve to forever be cheap.