Dearly beloved. (Is that how they start these things?) We are gathered here today to pay our final respects to an underachieving baseball team. Some may find this incredibly negative. Some may find this incredibly sacreligious. However, it's time to put our favorite baseball team to rest. For they do not know the amount of suffering they have caused to their fans by blowing 10 run leads, having starts that last as long as Mike Fetters stint with the Twins a couple years ago (that was about 3 innings, FYI). Yes, it's time to move on and look forward to a sport that a lot of us have been craving since February: Football.
However, to know where we are. We must look back at where we've came from. This season wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to win the AL Central easily and maybe get a slight nudge from the Cleveland Indians. Well, both teams fell flat on their face, but still. One of the comforting thoughts from losing the one game playoff to the Chicago White Sox last year was that we were so young and had so much to gain.
For example, no starter last year was over the age of 26. The Twins relied on a rotation of Francisco Liriano, Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, and Glen Perkins and it worked...until September. Remember just how bad Glen Perkins was in September. His ERA was about 12. Nick Blackburn picked up four losses in the month of September and we all cringed when his name was mentioned as being the starter for game 163. Kevin Slowey took a line drive off his wrist in the final home game against the White Sox (Which still remains the best Twins game I've ever been to, but regardless.), an seemingly harmless injury which flared up in July and cost Slowey the rest of the year. All of these warning signs were ignored, and the Twins showed up for spring training with a lot of optimism.
What's even more disheartening for the Twins is that there were things that went right for the team. Yeah, it's not showing up in the box score, but the Twins actually made moves to hint that they wanted to be a competitive baseball team. They signed Joe Crede in March. While Crede hasn't hit for average, he did add pop to the 3rd baseman position. It was nice having Crede at times this season, but next year we'll see a young prospect, Danny Valencia (.296 avg, 6 HR, 32 RBI in 48 games at Rochester), take over and hopefully we'll see a more Twin-like performance as Crede has not been willing to play through any sort of pain, which contradicts past Twins like Brad Radke, who in 2006 pitched with a torn labrum in his shoulder from June til October.
The Twins also made a trade for SS Orlando Cabrera. Yeah, they could have done better, but Cabrera has been great for the Twins since his arrival. Not only has Cabrera hit about .300 since joining the Twins, but he's been a mentor for struggling Twins Carlos Gomez and Alexei Casilla. (Speaking of those two, I don't think too many people expected this big of a dropoff for those two in March but anyways.) They didn't give up too much for him, and he's paid off.
But, this season was more about failures and wasted opportunities than victories. The Twins have only been able to win 4 games in a row, and their best extended stretch of baseball is 6 out of 7. That's not a sign of a playoff team in Major League Baseball. The most disheartening fact about this is that the Twins are wasting monster seasons in the middle of their lineup. Joe Mauer has a career-high 22 home runs and (don't look know) is flirting with .400 again. Justin Morneau has 28 bombs, but again has tailed off in the second half. Jason Kubel is putting together a solid season and it looks as if he's finally back after completely destroying his knee in 2004. Alas, all of this has not lead to victories.
The worst part of all this is that it could even get worse the next couple of seasons. The Chicago White Sox got better with the additions of Jake Peavy and Alex Rios. While Peavy is hurt and Rios is underachieving this season, I think that they're great moves for the future. Even if the White Sox don't win the division this year, they have Peavy locked up until 2012 and Rios locked up until 2014.
The Twins also continue to be cheap despite the fact that they're moving into a new shiny stadium next season (NOTE: If you haven't driven by Target Field in Minneapolis yet, do it. You can't see much, but this thing is going to be sweet.) This is essentially the case in signing first round pick Kyle Gibson out of Missouri. Gibson was supposed to be a top 10 pick until he suffered a stress fracture in his forearm. A lot of scouts thought this was an elbow problem so he free falled to 22 where the Twins snapped him up. Gibson was 11-3 with a 3.21 ERA in his junior year at Mizzou and according to the Star Tribune, the sides are a million dollars apart. Billy, do you see your rotation right now? SIGN HIM!!! OVERPAY HIM!!! You did it with Nick Punto didn't you? (LNP is getting paid more than Orlando Hudson is right now, btw. This sucks.)
The Twins also apparently have Jarrod Washburn on their radar for free agency next winter. Washburn, despite battling with the Twins in a division race, Washburn said that he would love to play for the Twins next season. When you have a staff without an ace, it seems like a no-brainer to pick up the guy who's got one of the lowest ERA's in the American League. But, will the Twins shell out the money to do it.
So in closing, thanks for the bad memories 2009 Minnesota Twins. I know we've had some good ones, like the cycles from Jason Kubel and Michael "Master of the Solo Home Run" Cuddyer, but overall...this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. We'll pay you one last visit as you play your last game in the Big Inflatable Toilet in early October and then we'll put you to rest...that is until the Vikings choke this winter but anyways....
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