What If the Twins Won the World Series?
As I write this, six teams have already reached 90 wins. Another three teams still could. Four teams have won at least 60% of their games, which is the highest total for the league in more than a decade, and that doesn’t include the Yankees, who have baseball’s second-highest run differential. It also doesn’t include the Cubs, who last year were one of the better teams in recent memory, and who this year picked up Jose Quintana, among a few others. The Dodgers, who are great, added Yu Darvish. The Astros, who are great, added Justin Verlander. The Nationals, who are great, added Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson, and Brandon Kintzler. And so on. The top of the league is always good, by definition, but this year the best teams seem particularly strong. Particularly talented, and particularly deep. This year has marked a step away from what had been a trend toward greater parity. Now the parity is simply among the elite.
The great teams are going to the playoffs. That’s what’s supposed to happen. The Twins, also, look like they’re going to the playoffs. It’s not yet locked up, but it’s just about there, with the Twins looking ahead to a date in New York. Playoff entry, of course, is everything, because each of the final 10 teams gets a chance to win it all. It’s inarguably true that the 2017 Twins could win the World Series in a month. The question is, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? It’s a question I’m actually posing to you, but not before I go over each side.
I don’t write this to specifically pick on the Twins. It could almost as easily be written about the Rockies. The Rockies have a slightly better actual record, but these are both the second wild cards, and according to BaseRuns, both the Twins and Rockies have played like .500 ballclubs. If you’re a Twins fan, I don’t mean to offend. It’s just, well — the Twins aren’t great. The Twins aren’t great. Other teams are great. The Twins aren’t. That’s the point. The shot at the World Series is the other point.
At the end of this post is a poll, for your consideration. This is all about your own opinion, specific to you. If the Twins were to keep winning until there was nothing left to win, would that be more of a good thing for baseball, or more of a bad thing? Before the poll, some brief position summaries.
The argument for good
It’s hard to imagine a better Cinderella story. The Twins are a young club, with a new front office, and last year they finished with baseball’s worst record. And not just baseball’s worst record — at 59-103, the Twins were worse than the next-worst team by nine whole games. Those Twins were legitimately bad, and these Twins were expected to be as well, with our own preseason projections pegging them at 75-87. These Twins weren’t supposed to become a contender. As late as early August, they were under .500. Never forget that this team tentatively tried to buy, and then it immediately sold, in response to a slump. The Twins’ own front office didn’t see this coming.
How great is that? How great of a movie would this make, if this team, these Twins, toppled all of the giants? You don’t need me to say how fun it is to root for an underdog, and playoff teams don’t get much more underdog-y. The Twins have played well before their time, with players like Byron Buxton and Jose Berrios beginning to blossom. It would bring hope not just to Minnesota, but to locales all over the place, cities and states with middling ballclubs. If the Twins could win, why couldn’t the Braves? Why couldn’t the Reds? Why couldn’t the White Sox or Padres or A’s? The Twins have been where they all are. The same Twins who could win the dang title. A last-place team wouldn’t feel so much like a last-place team, not, at least, before the season has started.
The Twins would cover the underdog angle. They’d supply a definite breath of fresh air. And, not to be lost, there might be certain roster-building implications. I think fans everywhere would prefer teams not have to tear down and rebuild, even if they understand the reasoning behind the decision. No one wants for their team to be intentionally non-competitive. If the Twins won it all, it would be a reminder that a championship team doesn’t have to be great — simply good enough. You don’t need to worry about winning 95, if 85 could get the job done. A Twins World Series might stop the next rebuild in its tracks, and you could argue that would be good for everyone. Sports aren’t supposed to suck for years at a time.
The Twins aren’t one of the very best teams. That much cannot be argued. You can’t frame the numbers in such a way that the Twins look even close to as good as the Indians. But the Twins could beat the Indians, and all of their opponents. It’s in our nature to pull for the little guy. This October, these guys could be the littlest. Isn’t that just what we want?
The argument for bad
It all comes down to the cheapening of the regular season. It’s the same argument that’s been made against the introduction of the second wild card in general; this would just be an argument against one second wild card, specifically. The playoffs are one month. The season is six months. You need to do well during the season to gain entry into the playoffs. Some people could say a team only needs to be good enough, that it doesn’t matter if you’re team number 10 as long as you aren’t team number 11. Yet, until recently, the line was between team number eight and team number nine. Is this expansion of the playoff field actually good? Do we want for there to be postseason underdogs, if they’re going to be underdogs of this magnitude?
In theory, you could design a 30-team playoff field. It would be weird and complicated, but possible. If that existed, then there would be a chance that, say, the 2017 Tigers would win out. That would be interesting and everything, since they’re not good and all, but what would that mean? What would even be the point? Why have those playoffs, and why have that regular season? Why play six months to allow teams to separate, if, at the end, you end up with teams all the way from the Dodgers to the Twins?
Not that there’s anything to be done right now about the playoff format. It is what it is. But the cheapening could at least be ignored or brushed aside if the Twins lost early on. If they were to get clobbered by the Yankees next week, well, that’s what happens when you’re not as good as the competition. You need a certain amount of faith that baseball can sort itself out. If the Twins went on a run, it would highlight the fact that they made the playoffs in the first place due to recent playoff expansion. It would be entertaining, there’s no question, but maybe the randomness would come off as too extreme. It was good that the Cubs won last year because, in all honesty, they should’ve. The Twins aren’t those Cubs.
And as for other implications: how would teams even know how to respond? Do you want a league to so immediately reward an organization that didn’t believe in itself right before the trade deadline? Oh, sure, if the Twins won it all, maybe that would make the next would-be rebuilder think twice. But it would also make the next would-be buyer think twice. There would be less reason to be the next team to make a Darvish or Quintana or Verlander-level splash. Baseball seems like a better game when those trades are made. Teams might come away somewhat stuck. If the Twins could win, anyone could win. And that just leads to paralysis.
It’s in your hands, now. Thank you in advance for your participation.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
This would not be the worst Twins team to win the World Series.
I didn’t believe you right away. I’m surprised to see the 1987 team does look worse then this team. At least in total WAR:
1991 – 27.4 hitting, 15.2 pitching — 42.6
1987 – 15.4 hitting, 11.5 pitching — 26.9
2017 – 23.0 hitting, 9.4 pitching — 32.4
It’s not that simple. The 1987 and 1991 Twins were not that good during the regular season, but were great in the postseason, in part because those are two different things.
Their pitching rotation was two men strong followed by a huge drop off. Over a whole season, that means a lot of losses and a bad run differential.
In the playoffs, two ace pitchers, good fielding, and a powerful lineup from top to bottom is a legitimately good team.
The difference between quality over a whole season vs. just the playoffs includes many other variables. Injuries, trades, call-ups, improvement of young players all change a team over time.
This year, for example, the Twins had a -72 run differential before August 1, and were +96 after. So are they a good team? That depends. If you look at their whole year, they weren’t that good. But they’re pretty good now!
Their bullpen was literally the worst in the league; it’s been bolstered by several minor-league call-ups.
Their starting pitching was horrendous; but many of those pitchers who got shelled, leading to that horrible first half run differential, aren’t on the team now.
They also had startling improvements in their younger players. They have more innings played by people under 25 than any other team, and several made huge strides.
They also have new coaches and use analytics now. Their talented youngsters used to lead the league in swings out of the strike zone. As a group, they dramatically improved their plate discipline, and their potential was unleashed. I’ve never seen anything like it.
People below call this a “fluke.” Could be. They could all regress. But it doesn’t look random to me. Rosario always had great hands, but he swung at everything. Somebody got through to him. And what’s happening is exactly what’s supposed to happen when a disciplined player lays off the bad pitches and makes a pitcher come over the plate. The old regime used to encourage people to stay aggressive; this one encourages them to wait for a pitch to hit. And it works.
The twins have led the AL in runs scored in the second half, and are now third for the whole season. If that’s a fluke, it’s a lot of flukes all occurring at the same time. At some point you have to say they’re just good.
Does this make them better than the ’87 or ’91 teams? Maybe than the ’87 team. I was going to say no way, they don’t have two aces like Blyleven and Viola. But Blyleven actually had a 4.01 ERA that year. They had one starter with an ERA under 4!
I don’t think Blyleven’s playoff success was a fluke though; he’s a borderline hall of famer. And the lineup was filled with young future stars who broke out at the same time. Sorta like this year.
But I think Blyleven and Viola are both far better playoff starters than anyone on the 2017 team.
So I disagree with the comment above that this wouldn’t be the worst Twins team to win a World Series. I don’t think they have the two good starters it takes for an underdog to advance in the playoffs, like those teams did. They’re a fun team on the rise, but I don’t think they have a prayer to win it all.
In 2006, when they had Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano was 12-3 with a 2.26 ERA before he got hurt and needed Tommy John surgery, they were the team nobody wanted to face in the playoffs, including the Yankees. It didn’t matter who else was on the team. Two guys can win you a series. As the ’87 and ’91 teams show. Okay, Puckett et al helped. But you can have the best offense in the league, like the Twins over the past two months, and without those two ace starters, you’re not going anywhere. You can have big holes in your team and still win in the playoffs. But this team doesn’t just have holes; it doesn’t even have pants.
My goal is to knock out the Yankees, and then go shopping for pitchers.
The only knock I have on this post is that you said Blyleven is a borderline Hall of Famer.
Blyleven is in the Hall of Fame, thank god.
The Twins of that era were very good *at home* because their stadium was a joke – and as scheduling then worked they got home field advantage throughout in odd-numbered years. The “mediocre in the regular season, good in the postseason” argument works for the ’06 Cards, but not the ’87 Twins.
I figured this article had been stuck in the internet for the last 30 years and just now got released somehow.
Although my vote is also based on the fact that I am a fan of the Cleveland Indians, and I can’t separate that out of the equation. If I weren’t, it would be a reluctant yes, but only if it happened every once in a great while.
I’d vote yes for that reason if it had been anything close to a great while since something like that has happened, but it hasn’t, so I went no.
Honestly, I really hope one of the better teams wins because if the best teams usually don’t win there’s little reason to build one. The ‘make the playoffs as often as possible and hope’ approach isn’t particularly fun.
There should be an incentive for teams to select Be Fantastic This Year over Pretty Good for a long time, but there really isn’t.
But that’s just the nature of baseball. Short of making postseason series 15+ games long variance is always going to win out a significant amount of the time in the postseason. And the wildcard teams are already significantly handicapped as it is, there’s a huge incentive to winning your division. Not sure what other advantages the best regular season teams should have.
I actually don’t mind “make the playoffs every year” if I’m a fan of a specific team. Would you rather be a Tigers fan over the last decade or a Marlins fan from 1998 to 2008? I’d pick Tigers for sure.
Teams that are clearly not that good have won before (the Cardinals, the previous Twins), but I don’t like it and would always rather have a good team win. No problem with the Twins getting into the playoffs, but I don’t want them winning (after they beat the Yankees, that is).
And with no salary cap let’s make sure it’s always the big market teams.
I’m for a large playoff pool unless there’s a cap. Otherwise I don’t see the point of saying “go assemble a great full season team” because most of the league has to pick and choose their windows. They can’t all throw $250 million at it like LAD.
Speaking as someone whose team has long been eliminated:
It would be great if [Indians / Astros / Dodgers / Nationals] won.
It’d be pretty cool if [Twins / Rockies / Diamondbacks] won.
I’d be okay if [Cubs] won, because [they just won last year].
Please don’t let [Yankees / Red Sox] happen.
If Yankees/Dodgers happens, I am afeared that the onslaught of “old school” sportswriter cliches might doom us all
I’d rather see the Cubs win than Twins/Rockies because I would rather see a dynasty than a random one-off so-so team win. The Diamondbacks are somehow almost in that top tier, so I’d be ok with them. I’m rooting Indians, Astros, Nationals, Dodgers, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Red Sox, Rockies, Twins, Yankees (because their fans are insufferable).
My vote is Good. Overall playoff excitement is derived from unlikely or unbelievable circumstances, especially if your team isn’t in it. Unpredictability breeds interest, and specific moments to recall and savor. Last year’s Rajai Davis homerun. Because, WHAT?! ’04 Sox Yankee series. Because, WHAT?! So for a .500ish team to win the World Series, there would need to be a series of jawdropping, headline making, “no they can’t do it, can they?” moments.
Forgot the 83-79 2006 Cardinals?
Because that was awful.
Whenever someone gripes about that 2006 Cardinals team winning, I wonder if they also care that the Cardinals were knocked out of the playoffs by a team with a worse regular season record in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 2005.
And 2015, by my Cubs.
I’ve always thought 2006 Cardinals criticism was unfair, considering all the injuries. Yes, injuries happen. But by memory, that team just started playing to its potential when everyone got healthy at the right time.
By wild-card teams in all those years, except 2001. And the 2006 Cardinals did win their division, even if it was a horrible, horrible division.
Eh, the 2001 Cards lost to the 2001 DBacks who were only ONE GAME worse in the standings, and from what I recall, they felt like they were the favorites in that series. Maybe in part because they had the home field advantage due to winning their division, but in large part due to Johnson and Schilling. They were FAR from hosed that year!
I apologize to all Twins fans with this post.
I don’t know what it is, but if the Rockies or Brewers or Mariners (which almost certainly will not happen) win the world series I think that would be fun. But the Twins going all the way, especially without Sano, sounds like a disaster. I love unpredictability, excitement, major upsets. Or at least, I thought I did, because the Twins winning it all doesn’t excite me at all.
I tried looking at the numbers to see if I could figure out why I find the Twins boring. The pitching is bad. The hitting is good (which surprised me). Their win differential is about what you would expect it to be. Here’s the only thing that stands out: They have the fourth most PAs in the league. Which makes me wonder, is there something about the sequencing that makes them seem so boring to me, despite them being really good on offense?
They have done well without any standout player, which can make them seem pretty boring from a distance. It’s pretty flat contributions across the whole roster. Their biggest WAR total is Dozier, who ranks only 32nd in all of baseball, but they have hardly any position player with negative WAR. A little bit from everyone. Whether or not it’s exciting, it gives me great faith in the new management. Generating stars is pretty random, but good management can at least keep the garbage off the middle and bottom of the roster.
It’s funny what some people consider boring. I’ve thought they are the most fun team to watch
I agree with you, though. I think it’s because most of their good players succeed in a boring way:
Jose Berrios: Good but not crazy good K rates, good but not crazy fast fastball, young but not really a “phenom” in the way Wood, Strasburg, Ankiel, etc. were
Ervin Santana: Average K rates, average walk rates, gets by with lucky BABIP suppression
Brian Dozier: Good but not great OPS, good power but not really “light tower power,” average defense
Byron Buxton: Awesome defender (but CF only gets “flashy” plays a couple times per series at most, unlike a third basemen or shortstop), pretty good hitter against lefties, still bad against righties. Would be fun to watch on the bases
Eddie Rosario: Good but not great offense, seems flukey based on prior years
Joe Mauer: Meh.
Compare to Kluber/Ramirez/Miller/Lindor (all exciting) or Verlander/Altuve/Springer/Correa (all exciting) or Sale/Kimbrel/Betts (all exciting).
I’d be more interested if Sano were there.
You had a decent run until Buxton. There aren’t many players in baseball more exciting than Buxton imo. I would argue berrios demeanor and look is pretty exciting as well, but the Buxton point just seems poor. He’ll be one of the most exciting players in the post season.
Agreed, he’s arguably the best defender in the game and he’s a terror on the basepaths. Blazing speed is always fun.
Yeah, I organized that in a dumb way. I meant to say that Buxton is exciting on defense but it’s only “flashy” a couple times and it’s hard to appreciate how good he is on most other plays. And he’s a mediocre to bad hitter against non-lefties. He’d be great to watch on the bases, though.
How is arguably the fastest player in the game not exciting to watch? Apparently, he has the top recorded speed in the game according to Statcast.
Just to respond to every comment here: I had no idea why I think they are boring. But I think Luke in MN and dl80 are both right. This team has a really low Q-rating. I do think Sano and Buxton (on defense) can be exciting, but the position player grouping mostly succeeds by not having anyone below average. And the pitching except for Berrios? Bleh.
Maybe my opinion will change if Max Kepler breaks out, or once I start trusting Buxton, or the whole team just gets more exposure.
I can’t get on board with the Buxton is only exciting on defense narrative. Buxton’s inside the park home run was arguably the most exciting, athletic and incredible play of the season offensively. It was truly an unbelievable thing to watch. The guy went first to home in 13.85 seconds.
Makes me think of this piece: https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2014/9/29/6428179/giants-playoffs-2014
Idk if the Giants winning in 2014 was good for baseball, but it was certainly hilarious.
Perhpas not to the Twins’ degree, but didn’t we just go through this with the Royals? They were pretty clearly not the best team when they won.
I’m a Twins fan and am obviously pulling for them, but from a baseball perspective, I don’t think them winning with all of these legitimately great teams this year would be a good thing.
In fairness to the Royals, the year they won the World Series, the Royals had the best record in the AL. They probably were not the best team, but best record is best record. Maybe you are thinking of 2014 when they won the pennant?
Granted 15′ was better than 14′ but even in 15′ they had the third best run differential in the AL and 5th in baseball. Neither year were they one of the best teams.
But again, they actually did have the best record in the AL. Those games happened and those results happened. To discount the actual standings so you can say a team with the best record wasn’t that good based on theoretical projections seems like cherry picking at best.
Either way it is certainly nowhere near the same thing as the Twins this year.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/your-opinion-of-royals-magic/
It comes down to this. I do not think their “magic”/over-performance of projections was skill and made money betting their 2016 win total under on this basis. You’re entitled to think otherwise. They did win the world series, but I maintain they were not close to the best team. Though, I agree not to the degree that this Twins team isn’t close to the best – this would be 1987esque.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/theres-something-about-the-royals-or-something/
In sports, full season outcomes mean more than full season expected outcomes. The royals proved they were not flukes. Run differential has its flaws as does any other statistic or metric. The royals were built to win close games – their bullpen heavy blueprint is a good one for the short series’ of the post season. To say you made money in 2016 is silly; if you truly didn’t believe in their magic then you got destroyed fading them in 2014 and 2015. Bottom line is the team with the best record won the world series a year after making the world series. There was nothing flukey about it. They set a bullpen trend in baseball that other teams now copy.
Once again actual outcomes based on the course of two full seasons – not one half or month – are more valuable and valid than expected outcomes.
The Royals went into the eighth inning facing elimination and facing pennant odds under 1%. Their winning the 2015 world series was the very definition of a fluke. Yes their bullpen set a trend now copied, but it’s a post hoc narrative to say they were the best team because of it. They got lucky/hot when it mattered. I’m not saying they were a below average team – I’m saying they were not among the best teams either year.
btw their 14′ and 15′ projected win totals which I avoided were substantially lower than their 16′ total which seemed to price in some of this “magic” and was still just ~86!
Regarding your first sentence that “full season outcomes mean more than full season expected outcomes”. Ummm, no. The Rangers were 36-11 in one run games last year. Were you better of believing their 95-67 record or their 82-80 expected record? #clutchisnotapredictivemeasure
They got lucky/hot at the right time? So they were lucky and hot the entire season?
Yes, they do mean more. I’m not quite sure what you can’t grasp. Does it mean the Rangers were lucky, sure, but those things happened. When evaluating a season, the actual outcomes mean more than the expected outcomes; that’s why the playoffs and standings aren’t determined by what “could have happened,” but by what did happen. You are also using a crazy example – the Rangers – and extrapolating that out. Regardless the Rangers didn’t go on to win the title.
To try to discredit what the Royals accomplished – having the best regular season record then winning the World Series – because their run differential wasn’t the best in baseball is just disingenuous. They proved from April until October – based on actual outcomes – that they were the best team in baseball. There was nothing flukey about their title, and insisting that there was is just wrong. Advanced metrics and projections are a valuable tool to use to evaluate likely outcomes, but they don’t discredit something like the Royals having the best record and then winning the World Series. Winning baseball games is all that matters; they weren’t an 84 win team getting lucky and hot in the playoffs and winning it all.
Of course they mean more. To say otherwise is absurd. The entire sport, every sport in fact, is based around the actual outcome of games. To argue that a teams actual win/loss record means less than their theoretical win/loss is just, as I said, absurd to a massive degree. It would be like arguing that the guy who lead the league in avg should not win the batting title because another guy had a better pre-season projected avg. At the end of the day what happens is what happens. Regardless of whether you think it should have.
Now when it comes to projecting teams for the future or trying to decipher how a team did what they did after the fact projection systems can be very useful. But that is a much different kettle of fish than what you are suggesting here which is that the Royals winning more games than anyone in the AL in 2015 somehow does not qualify them as one of the best teams that year.
Their bullpen wasn’t exactly a new way of winning. People forget a large part of the success of the late 90s/early 2000s Yankees was because of their shutdown bullpen. They took long ABs to wear out opposing pitchers to get to their more inferior pen, but the Yankees pen was pretty dominant in the post season. Wetteland, Rivera, Stanton, Nelson, etc.
I was curious what the twins record was according to baseruns (even .500). What I did expect to find was that the Rockies are actually a half game worse than the twins according to baseruns. I know the Rockies haven’t been as good as of late, but this really caught me off guard.
Dave would be presumably very angry.
I get the point of the article but I think the last few years of the cubs nullifies the point and makes a stronger case for the impressiveness of the Twins.
The cubs are still a rebuilding club, still figuring out which players are good long term (Rizzo, Bryant, maybe Contreras) and which players are going to be busts (Schwarber, Russell, maybe Baez etc.). I definitely could be wrong about some of these, but we all know, some prospects on rebuilding teams bust out.
So the cubs won quite a few years earlier than expected, before the growing pains and the “earning it” took place.
But what makes the Twins MORE impressive is that they didn’t have half a billion dollars to throw at the problem like the cubs. Overpay Lester for $150M, overpay Heyward for $180M, overpay Zobrist for $50M etc.
These are payrolls the Twins will never approach, so I say kudos Twins, go beat the evil empires that don’t have to play by the same rules.
Hear, hear, hear, hear!
This is my dilemma: I love cheering for the underdog, the small market team. However, if small market teams win more than they should, MLB can point to that as reasons not to even the playing field.
Yes, Russell’s season has been disappointing.
But he put up 2.9 war and 3.9 war in his 21 and 22 y.o. season respectively.
Calling Russell a bust is ridiculously premature.
He is still younger than Turner, Bogaerts, Story, etc.
The whole point of professional sports is entertainment. If the point were just to find the best team, there would be no playoffs at all after a 162 game season (unless there was a tie). The WS tournament is entertaining, and would be more so if a team like the Twins made a serious run for the title.
A 30-team playoff would be fun too, except it would make the regular season less entertaining because the stakes would be too low. I think an 8-12 team playoff strikes a good balance.
And the wildcard teams are sufficiently handicapped to the point that I don’t think their addition cheapens the regular season, there’s a huge incentive to win your division and avoid that sudden death. And playoff baseball is so different from regular season baseball anyway. Depth is so less important. With or without the addition of extra playoff teams you could argue that the different structure of the playoffs already cheapens the regular season by itself.
I was about to write a similar thought. I do really like this version of the wildcard that incentivizes and rewards winning the division. There are also years when the 2nd wild card could have the 3rd best records in its league, see 2015 Cubs.
Counter-point: I find trying to discover and watch the best team entertaining. I like watching the best teams play each other. I am significanty less interested in watching 4th best team in one league play the 5th best team in the other league.
tl;dr Not everyone finds random events entertaining.
Fair enough. My point was that a lot of the counterarguments to the Wild Card structure (and in particular to the situation this year, where neither of the second Wild Card teams are very good) seem like they suppose that the point of the World Series is to crown The Best Team, rather than to entertain the fans. I think it’s important to remember that baseball is a game, and the whole point of having a professional league (and a championship tournament) is to provide something fun for the fans to watch.
They do suffer for being the worst team in the playoffs. Their odds to win are something like 25/1, while the Yankees are 10/1, and the Indians are 3/1. So if they win, I guess you could say–beep boop–it’s just some random outcome that will occur one out of 25 times. Or you could say that did something rather amazing against high odds. If you’re really uncomfortable with the Twins having a 25/1 chance (which they earned by, you know, actually winning enough games to qualify) you might as well not even have the playoffs and just declare a winner at the end of the regular season based on third-order predicted win percentage or something.
They’re a smidge better that the Rockies I believe.
Byron Buxton could have a world series ring before Mike Trout. Baseball!
And an infamous Cub fan who shall go nameless already has a WS ring before Mike Trout. Life!
The Twins aren’t great, but they’re 32-21 in August and September. They were mediocre until then, but something clicked. Now Buxton, Polanco, Dozier, and Mauer have been on fire and Kyle Gibson has pitched great. If Santana can shut down the Yankees, they could make a run and people would probably enjoy it.
As much as the numbers say Gibson has pitched well in his last 7ish starts. As a twins fan, Watching him pitch scares me more than any other pitcher on the Twins.
I feel the opposite – Colon is the weak link while Gibson has been putting it all together. If Giby weren’t striking so many guys out, I’d feel different. I think he could easily be the Twins best bet on the mound in a long playoff run.
They would have to play out of their minds to win the WS. That seems really fun.
This is a great point. They may not have been exciting during the regular season, but they’d have to take it up another level in order to win the World Series.
This would be the third time in the last 30 years the Twins went from worst to first, right?
Hard to go worst to first when you’re in second place by 16 games with six games remaining.
Don’t blame the second wild card. Under the old two division format, the Twins would be leading the AL West (assuming Astros and Brewers never switched leagues).
Yeah but that system was bad. Having .525 teams get in over .600 teams was mathematically routine. No system is perfect but there’s no reason (other than entertainment value) to use formats that allow mediocre teams to win. Unfortunately, those with my viewpoint seem to be in the minority, and most fans have a sort of impudent, defiant stance that random outcomes are favorable.
2014 didn’t seem to cheapen the regular season as wild card teams did all right. Perhaps the problem is that Twins, Giants, Royals crushing predictions might cause predictions to be belittled?
I voted good – mostly for the future roster building implications. I like the idea that a team can arrive a season or two earlier than expected.
I hope the Astros rebuild does not become the model rebuild. Things went well for the Astros – their draft picks panned out and they got a few surprise contributions from non prospects that turned out really well. If a team that does the full tear down ends up with a couple of prospect busts, how long is the rebuild cycle?
Ask the Philadelphia 76ers!
Mark Appel waves hello from the Phillies triple-A team. Should have been Kris Bryant.
I really like Kyle Tucker down the road.
The second wild card is completely necessary thanks in part to the NL West and AL East. Much of the time, the budgets of the Dodgers and Giants or Red Sox and Yankees will dwarf those of their division rivals, who would often have nothing to play for barring a lot of luck.
This may be why some of these six teams seem reluctant to sell off (in addition to the obvious issue of alienating fans). Modest hope for a wild card is the best they can reliably hope for, so punting those chances is not unlike spending Halloween waiting for the Great Pumpkin. If such a team were to sell off repeatedly to slowly build up talent, it is pretty likely to be trumped by a big money rival before or as the upstart reached contender status.
Alan,
Well stated.
If it becomes an issue that the second wild card is a frequent threat to win the World Series, MLB could adjust the divisional series to 7 games. More revenue, potentially, and improves likelihood, to whatever degree, that the best teams move on.
I’m ordinarily a sentimental sap who loves Cinderella stories. But there are already three sentimental sap teams in this playoff race. The Indians haven’t won a World Series since 1948, the Washington DC area hasn’t won a World Series since 1924, and the Houston Astros haven’t ever won a World Series. Heck, they’ve only been to one WS in 52 years – and the Nats/Expos/Senators haven’t won a pennant since 1933.
After the Cubs broke their curse last year, I’d like to see Cleveland, DC, or Houston break theirs this year.
The Nationals are not really a sentimental sap team to me. They’ve only existed for 13 years, and lots of their fans were Orioles fans (technically the same MSA) who won as recently as 1983. There really just aren’t a lot of actual, long-suffering Nats fans, which to me are only the ones that followed the team from Montreal. They also are a rich, large market team. I’d definitely put the Twins and the Rockies way above them on the sentimental sap team leader board.
I’ve talked to enough 60, 70 year old Nats fans who remember the doomed 50s-60s teams to feel differently. True, nobody remembers Walter Johnson anymore, but there are plenty of older Nats fans who never got over the loss of the Senators, and certainly never forgave the Orioles for stealing their turf. O’s hatred runs shockingly deep in Nats fandom.
I’m a Red Sox fan, and even I would be happy to see the Indians or Astros or Rockies, and maybe one or two other teams win it all. The only bad outcome, in my opinion, is if the Yankees go deeper into October than the Red Sox.
I’m almost always pulling for the underdog or the team that hasn’t won in a long time. The regulars and the “best” teams, I prefer to see them lose in the playoffs most of the time.
The point of a playoff is to say that any of the teams in the playoff could be the best team in a given playoff iteration. The MLB has decided that, because of league structure and several years where deserving teams had been left out at the 9th or 10th spot, to add the two extra spots, even if it means some years teams who weren’t great, like the Twins, would get in. The Twins have been good enough to make the playoffs, though, so I think it would be exciting that the 10th team could still make it. The way to solve this feel-bad experience while still making sure that all “great” teams make the playoffs would be to cut the playoffs off by some sort of median record or run differential, but that solution seems clunky and unexciting.
“Baseball seems like a better game when those trades are made.” I am conflicted regarding trade deadline trades. It is exciting that teams can improve and fix holes like the A’s did what seems like eons ago. However, on the other hand, it allows great teams to have even more pitching depth in the playoffs.
While it is smart what teams are doing in the playoffs now, I’m not sure it is as entertaining watching fresh arm after fresh arm come in. I’m thinking the odds that an underdog like the Twins may be worse than in the past as better teams are using their pitching advantage more effectively in the playoffs than they can in the regular season or have in the past in the playoffs.
This is going to sound a little convoluted, but could it be good for baseball and bad for the Twins all at the same time? Clearly winning the World Series is never bad for a team, but by the same token, the Twins have done a solid job in their rebuild and winning this year could cause them to abandon the rebuild to a certain extent. To say that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind about the Yankees would be an untruth. Dealing with success is sometimes more difficult for teams than dealing with failure. When you stink, its an easy thing to stay the course with your team rebuild. When you arrive ahead of schedule, you could start shrinking your window considerably for your one shot. Maybe for teams with a recent history of success, its easy to say we want to extend our window. For teams that have been bereft of success, one World Series ring might be worth it. It’s the Marlins argument. Have the Marlins been one of the most successful teams of the last 20 years or one of the least successful?
I think it would be great for baseball because it would show that a small market team could get it done. Also considering how dominant the majority of division winners have been this year, the casual fan probably has no idea who is even playing in the wild card games. Fan interest is always good for baseball.
Now that 1/3 of the teams make the playoffs every year, there is less incentive to go beyond the “make the playoffs every year and take our chances” model. Few fans remember that it used to just be the NL’s top team vs the AL’s top team. I know the inertia is toward constant playoff expansion, but one side effect is reduction of incentive to build a great team. Good enough for the playoffs is safer and cheaper. But also less exciting.
A handful of franchises in baseball can build a “great team” because that is predicated on money over time. Half the league maxes out at $90-100 million in short spurts and basically can never have a contract go bad. A good portion of the league is sunk if 1/4 of their payroll goes to a below average player like Jason Heyward, particularly if they didn’t do something drastic like intentionally tank for half a decade.
The Wild card almost has to be there to give much of the league a chance to come close to competing more than once a decade. Baseball’s landscape is already so heavily skewed towards big markets that have a lot of money, it would be hard for the league to not lose a lot of viewership when a sizable portion of the league is out of the hunt April 1st because they can’t spend $500 million in a single offseason.
It’s not like 1987 sucked, and that Twins team was worse not only than this team than dozens of Twins teams that missed the playoffs. In terms of WAR the 1987 team is right at the 40th percentile. It’s more about the particular performances than about the inherent quality of the team that makes them.
Otherwise, why have playoffs at all? If what you want is to reward being a great team, have a balanced schedule and award the championship to the best record.
It’s about generating narratives, and these Twins are no worse at that than any of the other teams. I’d say they’re above-average at it.
What were your thoughts on the 2006 Cardinals? They got in on 83 wins and the fact that *someone* had to win that division, they had a run differential that would have put them in fifth place in the AL Central, at best third in any other division. They won the world series on the strength of Jeff Weaver, he of the season long .3 WAR, turning into Sandy Koufax, and a rash of bizarre pitching errors by the Tigers.
That was the biggest let down of a world series I can remember, and a lot had to do with the fact that the Cardinals were a relatively cruddy team. I used to root for chaos in the playoffs, but that post season was a big part of me changing my mind. It’s fun to see the best players Duke it out.
My biggest memory from the 2006 postseason was the Tigers having to wait a full week between games because they had swept the ALCS (the Cards waited 4 days themselves after edging the Mets). So much down time had to have had an impact, especially those pitcher errors.
The Twins can’t beat the Yankees. The Twins can’t beat the Yankees. Jeff, I will bet you my house that the Yankees win the wildcard game against the Twins.
I know all about odds and “anyone can win a single game” idea. Leading up to the election, I felt pretty confident that Trump was going to lose. But I was by no means certain.
The Twins cannot beat the Yankees. They’ve embarrassed themselves in every playoff series they’ve had against the Yankees in the last 15 years.
I am certain of the following two things when I awake on the morning of Wednesday, October 4th, 2017:
1. The sun will rise.
2. The New York Yankees will have beaten (probably crushed) the Minnesota Twins in the wildcard game the night before.
As it was, so shall it be. The Twins CANNOT beat the Yankees.
You are almost begging the baseball gods to make the Twins beat the Yankees. Careful…
Scooter, you are CORRECT.
You would think the Red Sox in ’04 and the Cubs in ’16 would dispel this sort of silliness, yet here we are.
SCENE: scooter262’s bedroom
DATE: October 4th, 2017
scooter262 opens the window.
“Uh, it’s really dark here…”
Hey sadtrombone, guess what? Sun is rising. And who won the game? The Yankees spotted the Twins a 3 spot and still crushed them.
I hate the Yankees. I wish the Twins could win a meaningful game against them. But I feared it would not happen.
After reading a previous comment of yours (revealing that you’re a Red Sox fan), am I wrong to assume this comment is meant to somehow, someway, jinx the Yankees?
YKnotDisco has it partially correct. Obviously, I was exaggerating a bit. Obviously, it is possible for the Twins to win a 1-game playoff against the Yankees. I was also writing as a Red Sox fan who watched the last 15 years of Yankees/Twins postseason series–and watched the Yankees utterly destroy the Twins each time.
I would love it if the Twins won the game — so, in that way, I guess I’m trying to jinx the Yanks.
But also, considering the history, and considering the current teams, and considering what the Yankees just did to the Twins a week ago, does anyone really think the Twins will win this game? I’m guessing this will be a 2 to 1 bet in favor of the Yankees, from the oddsmakers point of view. That is, you’ll need to bet $2 to win $1 if you bet the Yanks.
Honestly, I would not bet on the Twins in this game unless I was getting 10 to 1 odds.
Voting purely selfishly, as a Braves fan, I think it would be good. The Braves will never win a playoff series regardless of whether they win 98 games or 83, so it would be nice if they were at least encouraged to contend by the spectacle of a Twins championship.
One league, balanced schedule, 162 games, winner take all, no playoffs, it is time
If you contract two teams, you can actually do a balanced schedule: 6 games (3 home, 3 away) x 27 opponents.
Next poll question: which two teams should be contracted?
The Twins lineup this year isn’t much different from the cellar dwellers of 2016 – Dozier, Mauer, Sano, Buxton, Rosario, Escobar, Kepler, Grossman are holdovers. Buxton and Sano, to be sure, were top prospects whose improvement isn’t a surprise, but the Twins haven’t had a massive influx of new talent – the guys they already had are just playing better. This speaks to one of the points on the “Good” side; the success of the Twins without an extensive overhaul means fans can hope for success every April no matter last year’s position.
That’s true, but I would say the point for “Bad” is that some of those players (Rosario, Escobar, Belisle, and Kintzler) are just having flukey years and we might not hear from them again. Rosario and Escobar, in particular, strike me as not being this good again. I want to see good players win, not mediocre players with a lucky career year.
Rosario came up through the minors known for his hitting and his plate discipline is significantly better this year, so discounting this year’s breakout seems foolish. Belisle is on a hot streak but was terrible early in the year so I don’t think you can really say his year is “fluky.” Kintzler has been pitching at this level for nearly 2 full years now (and isn’t even on the Twins anymore). Finally, Escobar’s HR totals sure are unusual but if you ignore the counting stats, 2017 (.250/.308/.440, .190 ISO) looks a lot like his 2015 season (.262/.309/.445, .183 ISO).
I didn’t know about Kintzler and was just going by the WAR leaders on their team page.
Rosario’s numbers above A ball (back in 2013) are awful outside of this year and a very small sample in AAA last year. Maybe I’m cherry picking, and I acknowledge that’s possible. If he was “known for” his hitting, that’s a low bar for prospects in the system, then. Maybe that AAA stretch was at the end of last year and he figured things out some and that’s carried over to this year? Otherwise, I bet he won’t ever get to 2 WAR again.
Escobar is the kind of high-K, low-BB player that hits a hot streak once in a while but is otherwise not a great hitter (Buxton has also done this). In fairness, it’s not like he’s been the driving force of the Twins’ offense. But he’s not someone we are ever going to look back at and say he was a star.
That’s my point. Not that these guys are terrible or worthless, but that this isn’t the start of a star career blossoming in the playoffs for the first time (like Bryant was last year or Ramirez would be this year). At best, these Twins are fine, averageish players who may stick around for 8 or 10 years but aren’t going to become anywhere near stars. I don’t find that all that interesting, but to each their own.
It feels like you’re trying to Twinsplain my favorite team to me.
Rosario had serious fans in the prospect community. The main one was probably Klaw who had him in his top 100 before anyone else.
One of the reasons I enjoyed this team is that it’s full of former top prospects. Of the 10 guys who have gotten 400 PA this year, only two of them (Dozier and Escobar) aren’t former top 100 prospects. Escobar is a utility infielder (arguably one of the best this year) and Dozier is a pretty good player. Of the 8 guys left, five of them are 25 and younger. This is a solid group to grow with.
Yeah, Rosario after his first AA taste in 2013, this is Sickels’ right-up for the Twins top 20 prospect list:
“5) Eddie Rosario, 2B, Grade B: Solid line drive hitter with consistently good production through the Double-A level. Converted outfielder has made good progress learning second base. Strong makeup adds to package. Development of Brian Dozier means the Twins won’t have to rush Rosario. ETA: late 2014.”
He stumbled in the minors in 2014. In 2015, in the majors, his age 23 season, he put up 2.2 WAR in 122 games and 474 PA, so about 2.7 WAR per 150 games or 2.8 per 600 PA. With poor plate discipline, but he hadn’t been so bad in lower minors, at least with the Ks. last year he struggled, this year he improved. So his season this is year is really nothing out of line with what we might see normally from guys that improve a bit with experience, especially given the current home run environment.
Sorry for the lame question, but – Where’s the poll in this post?
If the Twins somehow make it all the way, then they played by the rules and won. But I don’t like the rules–or more specifically, I don’t like the extra wildcard. I understand it’s revenue generator, but it devalues the first WC spot with a winner-take-all one game playoff, and having won that game, puts this team on equal standing with Division winners.
Devaluing the first WC was part of the point. The Yankees didn’t try for first in the AL East in 2010 because they knew as the WC team, they’d play the Twins (for some reason, the Twins have been awful against the Yankees for years). The second WC was certainly added for the one-game playoff drama, but also to incentivize teams in the first WC spot to gun for a division title.
I had to pick good because if it isn’t, then really only the best team in baseball deserves to win it, meaning there’s no point to having playoffs.
I’d be fine with there being much more advantage to teams with the best records (perhaps 5 of 7 home games?), but I am certainly in the minority. I’d be fine with the World Series being won by one of the top 2 regular season teams in either league. Without a balanced schedule, though, it’s hard to know who those are.
Of course it would be good for baseball. No one actually cares about any of the stuff you said. We don’t watch baseball to get some scientific and foolproof determination of who the best team is. I don’t care about the margin of error for the Twins being the objectively best team. I am not here to run a two-tailed hypothesis test on that outcome.
If baseball fans wanted statistically sound outcomes governed by indiscriminate experiments that could not be corrupted by luck, we’d have a 500 game regular season and no playoffs.
We watch baseball for the entertainment, and weirdly mediocre teams going on runs and winning it all is entertaining, which is all that matters.
I would imagine I’m in the small minority on this, but I’d much rather have the baseball playoffs turn out like the basketball playoffs.
The finals teams are always one of the top 2-3 teams in each Conference, the last team in might make a little noise but never wins a series (almost). The better team wins almost every series, though they can be exciting and in doubt sometimes. I know baseball won’t be like that, but I wish it were.
“Is it good for baseball?” is a complicated question. The Twins in the World Series will be bad for ratings. It will be bad for the casual fan who can’t name a single Twin.
But if the Twins win the World Series, it’s probably the toughest path any baseball team has ever had en route to a championship. One game on the road against a favored team, followed by arguably the best team in baseball (Indians), followed by a really good Astros/Red Sox team, followed most likely by a dominant NL team.
Not something a casual fan can get behind, but I certainly can.
Go Twins!
I’m a Twins fan. As Jeff says, they are clearly the least talented AL team in the playoffs. If you don’t want them to win, beat them.
The argument that the 2nd WC cheapens the regular season is simply incorrect. I can accept that the original WC cheapened the season, but not the 2nd. The first WC created a lack of incentive to win the division over getting in as a WC. In fact, WC teams did very well during that era as they usually benefited most from dropping the back end of the rotation. The division winner had no real advantage over a WC team in the playoffs. The 2nd WC suddenly brought back the importance of winning the division. It even added in the importance of having the best record in the league – not seen since the advent of divisional play. Now the team with the best record gets to face a team that has usually burned their staff ace in the WC game. This is a real advantage.
There’s more to say, but it is simply incorrect to say that the 2nd WC cheapens the regular season. Compared to the 1 WC era, it gave the regular season much more value.
With all due respect to Jeff, I think “would the 2017 Twins (or Rockies or Brewers or Mariners or whoever) winning the World Series be good or bad?” is the wrong question to ask. I think the better question to ask is “as a year-to-year average, are the chances of a team like the 2017 Twins (or Rockies or Brewers or Mariners or whoever) winning the World Series too high or too low?” I think most of us would agree that it would be bad if a team like the 2017 Twins won the World Series every year, because the best teams should get rewarded–but I think at least some of us would ALSO agree that it would be bad if a team like the 2017 Indians or Dodgers (i.e. a team that is clearly the best or very nearly the best in its league) won the World Series every year, because that would be boring. (This is why I have little interest in the NBA playoffs–they always feel like a fait accompli long before the games are actually played.)
So, look: in MLB, home field advantage is worth about four percentage points, i.e. between two evenly-matched teams, the home team will win about 54% of the time. If we assume that all five playoff teams in each league have roughly equal true-talent levels (a VERY BAD assumption in most years, but it represents the very highest conceivable year-to-year average probability of a 2017 Twins/Rockies/etc. winning it all), the probabilities of each seed winning the World Series are roughly as follows:
1-seed: 26.89%
2-seed: 25.87%
3-seed: 24.06%
4-seed: 12.55%
5-seed: 10.63%
I think I’m comfortable with the fifth-best team in its league winning the World Series once every nine or ten years (at most), but YMMV.
I voted “bad” in the poll, but this post changed my mind. One major upset per decade feels about right to me.
Really nice post. Well done.
It’s bad that they’re making the post-season.
It would be good if they win the world series.
That they even have a chance to win is what devalues the regular season. Whether they do or no has no bearing on that.
Given that they do, however, I think it would be beneficial to keep a trophy away from the major media markets.
This seems like an insane question to me. Normally, I feel like I am onboard with the thinknig that goes on at fangraphs but this is the second article in a few days at fangraphs that seems to imply somehow that unpredictability in the playoffs might be a bad thing?
Multiple teams have made and won the World Series as a Wild Card. The Twins (or the Rockies) aren’t unusually bad for a Wild Card team even if you count the days when there was only one Wild Card. The Twins (or the Rockies) wouldn’t even be notably bad playoff teams compared to many of the teams that made the playoffs over the years BEFORE the Wild Card existed.
Where is this concern coming from? I am a Twins fan but I also am used to rooting for the Wild Card teams almost every year for the same reason that I root for lower seeds in other sports’ postseason tournaments. It’s fun to root for the underdog.
Some of you may not like this Twins team but the fact is that they have done what is necessary to make the playoffs. That’s the goal, make the playoffs. Wins on top of whatever is required to reach that goal aren’t important unless they move you into a Division winner spot.
In my opinion, if you include the Twins (or Rockies) in this group, then you might as well also include the Cubs, Red Sox, Yankees, Diamondbacks and Nationals as they also clearly aren’t as good as the Dodgers, Astros and Cleveland. There are three tiers of teams in the playoffs it seems and if the third tier doesn’t deserve to play with the first tier, I don’t see any reason that the second tier should be involved either.
The 83-78 2006 Cardinals won it all as the division champ.
It seems like every 8-9 years or so a division winner is just terrible and there is the discussion that an under .500 team may make the playoffs.
I don’t see how the Twins winning this year would be any worse than either of those situations.
If the D-backs win the World Series, we need a series of articles explaining how this could happen after all the negative stuff written on this website about the genius who built the team…Dave Stewart Bitches….I thought you guys were the smart ones….ok just kidding I know by reading your poorly thought out articles that you’re stupid as hell when it comes to baseball, but y’all do know how to sheperd sheep like a mother fudger I’ll give you that.
If D-back wins the championship, we need a series of written explanations. This happens after all the negative carrots on this ingenious web site have been created in the group. Dave Stevart Nuggets … I think you’re smart … OK, I only know how to read my bad news, your mind is so stupid when it comes to baseball, but all you know Shepherd is like fudge My mother has to admit it.
I got 99 problems, but wins ain’t one.
If the Twins beat the Yankees, Indians, Astros or Red Sox, and then one of the Dodgers, Nationals, Cubs and DBacks, they will have earned their WS, given how unfavorable those match ups are.
Just a reminder, the Twins went from worst to first in both their World Serries titles. It’s destiny.
I think some people are missing the point. There is no right or wrong answer. He’s asking for your opinion on whether or not a lesser team winning playoffs is good or bad for sport. But there is no right or wrong answer here, and some seem to be trying very hard to point out why Jeff is wrong about facts….
IMO, it is good for entertainment purposes for sports to remain unpredictable, otherwise it’s just a story we already know the ending to. That said, we know the ending of most movies, but the process of getting there is still entertaining. So, I’m not sure I know the answer anymore……like I thought I did.
The best regular-season teams should not have to play teams that have been, over the course of a 162-game season, shown to be noticeably inferior at the game of baseball. Especially teams that have been noticeably inferior playing more-or-less the same schedule, as teams in the same division do.
We don’t need a playoff series to tell us the Indians are better than the Twins, if the teams meet in the postseason. We know the Indians are a significantly better team. A five-game series that tells us, in any way, a different story is a lie. A playoff system that crowns the Twins as “best” would be a fraud, especially given the number of teams that have been superlative — a 100-win team already, another couple knocking on the door, and the Nationals having an outside chance (albeit having played against a poor division).
Huh. I’m still making arguments I was making in 1993. I don’t know whether to file this under admirable consistency or an inability to adapt to reality.
The Twins swept the Indians earlier this year and just beat them tonight, but lost the season series. It is obvious that the Indians are better, but if they’re that much better, they can prove it in a 3 game sweep. I’m not a huge fan of the second Wild Card, but now that it’s in place, I’ve got no problem with the second Wild Card team upsetting some teams.
I voted bad. My argument is almost entirely emotional.
Anyone who’s researched it at all knows baseball playoffs are almost random. Once we get to the Division Series, every team is 10-15% to win the World Series. (FG has some funny numbers in their playoff odds and 538 even funnier with Indians 20-30% to win the series; I’d like to bet on those WS lines.)
But we like the illusion of playoffs as determining the champion/best team not just a form of entertainment to randomly award a title. The Twins winning the World Series shatters that illusion and almost devalues any championship from “we were the best” to “we got lucky”.
In a related vein, for the NCAA basketball tournament, I enjoy the excitement and upsets of first three rounds, but otherwise don’t watch because it’s a terrible process to determine a champion.
Twins fan since 1961,of course I think its a good thing.
Small markets have a hard enough time.
This at least gives us a shot!
The first Wild Card is a concession to Selig. The second WC was not put there because team #5 in each league deserves it, but because a disadvantage needed to be given to #4 to make winning a division worth something. It was better for the great teams when it was two divisions.
Twins Pythag from Aug 1 on is .663. They’ve scored way more runs in that stretch than anyone.
I’m no Twins fan…just saying. I’ll root for the Astros as a consolation after Hurricane Harvey.
If the Twins win, it will be a year early and a very good SP and RP short of what should be needed. It won’t cause paralysis – the Twins are actually confirmation of the age-old method: build from within and use free agency and trades to fill your needs. It’s just that so far, the Twins have primarily built from within.
There really should be a third option–Ambivalent.
The best thing about the second wild card, the necessary thing, is that the first wild card does not get equal treatment with the division winners. They suffer a one game playoff to get that.
Not gonna happen. No way this team gets out of the wild card. The Yankees are the best playoff built team since the 2000 Yankees.
I said it would be good, but for purely emotional reasons. I’m a Phillies fan. We are in the third year of our rebuild, which at this point looks more like a deconstruction. But this team, for all its flaws, is marginally better than the 2016 Twins. If the 2018 Phillies were somehow to make the playoffs, I would be pulling for them mightily. So it would be more than a bit hypocritical to say that a WS win by the 2017 Twins would not be good for baseball.
As to the second Wild Card, I like the idea of requiring that team to win both ends of a doubleheader in the first WC team’s ballpark in order to advance to the division series. It would rectify some of the inequities of the current winner-take-all arrangement. Any team that could pull off a doubleheader sweep in an opponent’s ballpark would acquire instant credibility as a post-season entry.
They also would enter the division series with their pitching depleted. If they could overcome odds of that sort, they would make a very powerful case that they’d earned their WS trophy by overcoming odds that no other team faced.
Twins have been great in the 2nd half. Third best in position player WAR (13.9), 10th in pitcher WAR (7.2), 5th overall (21.1) in major league baseball. The second half ranks has the Twins behind only the Indians (29.2), Yankees (22.4), Cubs (21.8) and Cards (20.7), and well ahead of the Dodgers (18.4), Astros (16.5), Nats (16.5) and Red Sox (15.2).
I know they play a full season, but there’s something to watching the teams currently playing the best. I wanna see Buxton. And i wouldn’t mind seeing Mauer get his shot. Of course, a lot of good teams have good young players I want to watch, or vets finally getting a chance. Still, as well as they are currently playing, since they have managed to nab a spot via the 2nd wildcard, I have no qualms about it.
Good. What’s bad for baseball in my opinion is if the Dodgers, Yanks, Red Sox, Cubs, or Nats win, since those teams are five of the top nine in opening-day payroll, way ahead of the median. If baseball is going to allow teams to spend whatever they want, then the worst thing for baseball is for that strategy to be proven to be good. The Dodgers’ total payroll is four times that of the Brewers. The Twins defeating the Red Sox and the Brew Crew defeating the Dodgers to meet in the WS would be a lot of fun (but I’m in MN . . . ).
This article is gonna look very silly after the Twins lose 6 in a row and the Angels win 18 in a row to become Word Series champions.
i dont see how the point of it being bad that a team wasn’t dominant all 6 months of the regular season winning the world series stands. i mean we all follow trade rumors, prospect ratings, and stats with a common understanding, which is that teams are not likely to look the same in august/september than they did in april/may. part of the process of playing a season, particularly if you don’t get a hot start, is identifying necessities and fortifying strengths. the narrative of baseball is not that we only want to watch teams that faced no adversity and overcame no challenges, maybe it was in the days before division play, but it is much the contrary today. the 6 months is a journey to become good enough to participate in that high intensity one month, and the twins have definitely taken that journey this year. since they all star break their position players have accumulated the highest WAR in their league, and their pitching that is ranked 4th in that regard. at this point the twins are playing some of the most competitive baseball, and in fact are playing more competitive as of late than the astros who benefited from a hot start but whose playing level has declined since.
Hey, the greatest sports upset in history was the 1980 Minnesota U.S. Olympic Hockey Team, so “go Twins!”
I think it’s good for baseball for another reason. This shows teams that the 2nd Wildcard does have real value towards winning a championship and hopefully creates a surge towards teams trying to make the playoffs. With more teams being buyers, I believe that teams can rebuild quicker as more teams are willing to trade higher end talent for assets and hopefully it will have a slight decrease in the number of years teams need to rebuild and tank.
Like it or not, this is the way pro sports are set up today. A team doesn’t have to be great during the regular season; they just have to be good enough to make the playoffs. Winning a championship is about reaching the playoffs and then peaking at the right time.
I am a big Twins fan and I have to say right up front that it’s very unlikely they will get to the World Series this year. In the playoffs they will have to get by the Yankees, the Indians and the Astros. If they manage to pull off that trick they will deserve whatever accolades come their way.
Sullivan highlights the drawback of the second wild card (i.e., diluting the value of a playoff spot) without appreciating how the current top heaviness of each league magnifies this effect. If there was more parity within each league, there would be no handwringing over the second wildcard. The difference between the Indians/Dodgers and the Twins/Rockies would be slimmer.