The Jays start a three-game series against the Twins in Minnesota tonight. The Twins are third in the AL Central, 3.5 games behind the Guardians, and hold the last Wild Card spot.
The Twins are fourth in the AL in runs scored per game at 4.86 (the Jays are ninth at 4.18). And they are ninth in the AL in runs allowed per game at 4.38 (the Jays are 12th at 4.65).
I sent some questions to Benjamin Jones, managing editor of Twinkie Town, SB Nation’s Twins site.
I was all set to ask about Trevor Richards, and then you released him. For the Jays, he was a useful pitcher who could play any role and generally did well. What happened with the Twins?
Richards was abjectly terrible in his limited time in Minnesota. In 13 innings, he only gave up 6 runs, but he complemented that with 11 walks, 7 wild pitches, and two hit batters. It frankly could have been worse if not for some good defense by the Twins’ catchers. He was already a two-pitch pitcher, but he spiked his changeup 10 feet in front of home plate every time he tried to throw it. Their lone deadline acquisition was a failure.
But I can ask about former Jays’ prospects Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson. How are they doing? We have no complaints about Jose Berrios.
Let’s start with SWR, who has had a mini-breakout and been surprisingly reliable in 2024. Sim had plateaued a bit in the minors, with his FB velocity cratering to around 89 MPH last year. He worked with the Twins’ pitching development crew on some mechanical changes, which paid off tremendously, with his fastball now averaging nearly 95 MPH.
His secondaries need a lot of improvement and he needs to limit his walks, but this rookie season is a big building block. Woods Richardson will not be the front-line starter many thought in his early prospect days. Still, he’s already a league-average starter, which is a huge step up from the Twins’ internal evaluations of him as recently as last season.
As for Martin, he’s been a bit up and down as well since joining the Twins’ system. They tried to overhaul his swing to develop more power while he was in the minors, but that didn’t work out, and he reverted to his contact-heavy approach. He gets on base a lot, but the key to him sticking around the majors will be defense.
Without the power, Martin needs to be a plus on defense, which he is definitively not at the moment. The Twins moved him off of shortstop last year after posting terrible defensive metrics over the years, and he now plays primarily centerfield and second base. With Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa both currently on the IL, Martin is essentially an everyday center fielder while Super-utility-man and All-Star Willi Castro plays short.
On your site, there is a post titled “Coming to terms with a bad ownership group.” Can we get a reader’s digest version of the post? Why is the ownership bad?
The Twins had their most exciting season in quite some time in 2023, handily winning the division before finally breaking their 18-game postseason losing streak against, of course, the Blue Jays. They won that series, had a competitive loss to Houston in the ALDS, had the core of a contender locked down for the foreseeable future (Correa, Buxton, Pablo Lopez, Royce Lewis, Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran), and a host of Top 100 prospects on the way to supplement them (Walker Jenkins, Brooks Lee, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Luke Keaschall, David Festa, Zebby Matthews).
Ownership responded by cutting payroll by nearly $30 million heading into the offseason, which was decidedly not well-received by fans. They cried poor due to their TV contract expiring but promised to make games more accessible to fans and eliminate blackouts with their next deal. They returned to Diamond Sports, keeping the blackouts while still pocketing the cash they claimed they couldn’t get when they slashed the payroll. To make matters worse, the Comcast/Diamond dispute has meant 90% of the Twin Cities couldn’t watch the Twins between May and August. So they cut the payroll, still took the money, and somehow, the TV situation got even worse.
No one was asking to go compete with the Yankees or Dodgers in spending, but dropping from middle-of-the-pack to bottom-of-the-league is a failure of ownership for a team poised to compete for the World Series. It’s become especially contentious the last few weeks as injuries to Joe Ryan, Chris Paddack, Brock Stewart, and Justin Topa has left the Twins thin in both the rotation and the bullpen.
Can we have a quick scouting report on the starting pitchers the Jays might see?
Pablo Lopez is still one of the best pitchers in the sport, despite what his top-level numbers show. He had a rough start and some bad luck to start the season but is really rounding into form since the All-Star Break, with a 2.25 ERA since then. His FB is elite, but the key for him is his secondaries. He get away with going 70% FB because the pitch is that good, but if the Jays are whiffing on his sweeper and changeup, he’ll be nearly untouchable.
Zebby Matthew’s: One of three rookies currently in the rotation, Zebulon Matthews has flown up prospect rankings and the Twins system this year, starting 2024 at High-A before making his MLB debut two weeks ago. The name of the game for Zebby is command versus control. He famously doesn’t walk anybody, but he’s had trouble putting away hitters in the pros. There’s a fine line between pounding the zone and throwing meatballs, and Zebby hasn’t quite figured out that balance yet. If you want a more detailed breakdown, I went deep on him when he first got promoted:
Bailey Ober: Ober is a big man, sitting at 6’9” with obviously elite extension, allowing the ball to get on hitters quickly despite middling velocity. He’s probably responsible for the Twins’ 10 best starts this season and their three worst, so you never quite know what you’ll get from him. He goes primarily fastball, cutter, and changeup and mixes in a few sliders and curves every so often, but when he’s rolling, the changeup is his out pitch. He blew up against the Braves his last time out but had a string of 10 straight quality starts before that. He’s their second-best starting pitcher, behind Lopez.
The Twins are holding onto the last Wild Card spot in the AL. Will they make it?
I’ll put it this way… I think it is way more likely that the Twins will end up with the top AL seed than they will miss out entirely on the postseason. They’ve had a bad week but still are only 2.5 games back of the division, with head-to-head matchups against Cleveland and Kansas City still lined up to overtake them.
The Red Sox are the closest team to them in the Wild Card, still 3.5 games out, and they can’t pitch at all these days. The Twins have a tougher schedule, but they’re also poised to get some powerful reinforcements over the next week when Buxton and Correa return.
Who is your favourite Twin to watch?
I’m a bit younger than most in our industry, so I didn’t grow up watching Twins legends like Kirby Puckett and Johan Santana. I grew up in the late-2000’s with those excellent Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau teams. Objectively, one of them should probably be my answer, but I have to stay true to myself and answer Brian Dozier.
He doesn’t get as much love because he was the star player on some of the worst teams in Twins history, but that’s probably why I latched onto him so much. He was a light-hitting shortstop prospect he was basically promoted just to eat innings for some bad teams, and became one of the best power hitters in the game and a legit MVP candidate for four years. Being a Twins fan in the mid-2010s was hard, but Dozier made them watchable.
Anything else we should know about the Twins or Minneapolis? I really liked your stadium, back when I was there in 2015 (maybe in part because my Jays had a good team back then). I also enjoyed an English pub on the walking mall nearby (maybe enjoyed it one beer too many once).
A lot has changed if you haven’t been there in almost a decade! The Warehouse District has become a great food spot with tons of award-winning bars and restaurants all around Target Field. You really can’t go wrong, depending on your tastes.
I’ll give a specific shoutout to a Minneapolis classic, Matt’s Bar and Grill and their famous Juicy Lucy burgers. They played a part in Carlos Correa’s re-signing with the Twins, so you know they’re that good.
https://x.com/JonHeyman/status/1506636925117079558
Thanks, Benjamin.