Over the winter, the Minnesota Twins invested heavily on
their infrastructure throughout the organization. Not only were a handful of
new coaching and developmental staff brought in, but new technology was introduced
to generate more production out of the same players. We’re just a couple weeks
into the 2019 season, but there’s some very promising developments that have
taken place on the 25-man roster.
Any number of storylines could be generated from the early
performances a handful of Twins players have put up. Without a bit more
substantiation to the numbers though, I think it’s just worth noting some of
the eye-popping production that has taken place thus far.
Jorge Polanco began his 2019 with a bang, becoming the 11th
player in Twins history to hit for the cycle. Just a couple days later, he
missed the feat by falling a double short. Through nine games, his 0.8 fWAR is
tied for 8th in baseball, and is already half of his career best
season (2017). A 51.6% hard hit rate is almost double his career average, and
the contract extension is looking like a massive bargain for the Twins.
Mitch Garver owns the second highest fWAR among Twins position
players, and his 16.7% barrels/plate appearance ranks 6th in all of
baseball. He became the third player ever to hit two home runs off Jacob deGrom
in a single game, and his offensive prowess looks as evident as ever. Behind
the dish his defensive adjustments have been evident and generating extra
strikes by presenting a stronger zone has seemed to show up plenty.
Jose Berrios has been as advertised. A dark horse Cy Young
candidate, his 0.7 fWAR is tied for third in baseball among pitchers. Command
has been sharper than it’s ever been, and the addition of a devastating changeup
has him looking like a whole new level of lethal. Across three starts, he’s
absolutely dominated the two better teams (Cleveland and Philadelphia), en
route to posting a 2.18 ERA. He’s looked the part of a staff ace for a while,
but the emergence to a true ace is something that would be more than welcomed.
Byron Buxton is familiar with slow starts, but 2019 hasn’t
been anything close to that. He’s batting .292 and owns an .846 OPS through his
first 26 plate appearances. Looking more aggressive at the plate, Buxton has
sat on pitches to generate a career best 33% hard hit rate. He’s laid off the
breaking ball down and away, and he’s ripping off doubles at an impressive
pace. Staying healthy will remain a key focus here, but it looks like the
breakout we’ve been waiting for is finally upon us.
We’ll need to wait for things to play out in order to draw
any concrete conclusions this season. With over 150 games still to go, we’re
just getting started. If any of these early indications for the Twins turn out
to hold significant weight as the schedule draws on though, we should be in for
quite the ride.
