Requiem for the Twins, 2015

Warning:  Sports content!

I love baseball, and I love the Twins.  The 2015 season was remarkable.  This team was not only picked to be the worst team in the American League Central, and the American League as a whole, I saw two predictions where the Twins were called the worst team in all of baseball.  They weren't relevant all the way to game 162 of the season, but they made it to game 161.  The fact they went into the final series of the year with a legit chance at making the playoffs was amazing.

Really, we should applaud the Twins.

I know many people will point to the senior leadership of Torii Hunter as the justification for giving him the MVP.  He had an outstanding beginning of the season, but his impact faded as the season went on.  Joe Mauer lead the team in hits, but he can't be the MVP (more on that in a second), and Brian Dozier was great, but he too faded as the season went on.

No, the MVP of the Twins this season was rookie Miguel Sano.

He only played half of the season, but without him in the lineup in July, August and September, we would've been eliminated well before Labor Day.  His swing is pure, and as a rookie, he's already lofting pitches into the upper deck.  Just do me a favor, do not try to turn him a singles hitter and do not trade him for nothing to the freaking Boston Red Sox, like you did to the greatest player in baseball for the last 15 years (David Oritz).

I also want to give a shout out to our catcher Kurt Suzuki.  As I've followed the team this year, in almost every win Kurt's name shows up in the scoring summary.  He doesn't have monster numbers, but he always seems to be sacrificing a runner, getting a clutch single or scoring a go ahead run.  He also is a pretty good catcher.  Most underrated Twins player of 2015 for sure.

With the good comes the bad.  Three worst things this season:

3) Joe Mauer.  Yes he lead the team in batting average and hits, but those numbers pale in comparison to real impact players in the league.  He's a $9-12 million a year player at best, not a $23 million.  His contract is hampering the team greatly.  That contract is one of the worst things the Twins have done the last 25 years, worse than trading Oritz (he wasn't hitting well when they sent him to the Red Sox), or even the Bill Smith tenure as General Manager (at least he did bring in some future prospects).  It won't be the worst contract the league has ever seen, but if you step away from the hometown rose colored glasses and evaluate the contract on the merits of the performance, it might end up being top 3 worst contracts in Twins team history.  His moderate return for that much money hurt us in 2015.

2) Mid-July to mid-August.  What a God awful month of baseball that was.  Great teams turn up the heat in July, but we decided to turn up the AC.  We were in command of our destiny at the beginning the month, but by the time we got into August, the shine was gone, and we were scrambling just to make it to September.  Yes they did make it a legit season by recovering midway through August, but this team folded in the summer heat.

1) September 15th through the 19th.  That's when we lost the playoffs.  We lost two to Detroit, and then lost three to the Angels, AT HOME.  That five game slump is what eliminated us from October.  The Angels were a good team (who also did not make the playoffs, for the record) but losing 3 out of four to them when you needed wins was hard, but I prefer to focus on the utter collapse against the Tigers, a team which was a traveling tire fire.  A legit team, in the middle of a playoff chase, should've taken that series at home, verses the worst team in the American League Central, if not swept them.  Those two games cost us the playoffs.  Those two loses were inexcusable.

Sigh...

Anyway, the best part of baseball is the following line, "there's always next year!"