ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism.
Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the Minnesota Twins.
Minnesota Twins
Reason for optimism: It looks like some more thought is being put into player acquisition.
Reason for pessimism: There aren't nearly enough new players being acquired.
In the Boston Red Sox write-up, there's a discussion on matching player skill sets with environment to obtain optimal performance. For instance, it was noted Pablo Sandoval's contact-on-every-at-bat-at-the-expense-of-walks-and-power approach to hitting played extremely well in AT&T Park. Similarly, Juan Pierre, derided by sabermetric types his entire career (despite often hitting .300) for his lack of walks as a leadoff man (and for his frequency of getting caught stealing) had a .343 batting average in Coors Field (in nearly 1,000 plate appearances). You could argue Pierre had more intrinsic value in Colorado because the large playing field played to his strengths of making contact nearly every at-bat.
A poor union of skills and environment would be to place poor fielders behind low-strikeout pitchers. But that is exactly the formula the Minnesota Twins have pursued for the past four seasons.
From 2011-14, the Twins' staff had the lowest strikeout rate in baseball each year. How bad has it been? In that period, Twins starters struck out just 14.4 percent of the batters they faced. That's not just below league average; it's below league average going back a generation. The league strikeout rate for starters hasn't been as low as 14.4 percent since 1990. But things may be changing thanks to the success of Phil Hughes in 2014.
After years of acquiring low-strikeout pitchers like Vance Worley, Carl Pavano and Kevin Correia, the Twins signed Hughes as a free agent last offseason and saw firsthand the benefits of having a pitcher with an above-average strikeout rate. Hughes wasn't the beneficiary of good defense -- far from it, as opposing batters hit .321 on balls in play -- but his ability to reduce the number of balls in play resulted in a 3.52 ERA and designation as the ace of the Twins' staff.
This offseason, the Twins signed Ervin Santana, coming off a 21.9 percent strikeout rate last season in Atlanta. It's just one small step at a time -- after all, the defense is perpetually awful and they've still got Mike Pelfrey on the roster -- but at least it's a sign the Twins' front office recognizes a massive problem of its own making.
(Editor's Note: Santana was suspended by MLB for 80 games on Friday after testing positive for stanozolol, a performance-enhancing substance.)
There are just marginal shifts in the lineup entering 2015, which is nice from both a stability and production standpoint because the Twins were seventh in the majors in runs scored. However, that was partly due to a healthy amount of "cluster luck" on offense, or stated another way, fortunate sequencing. The Twins jettisoned offensive dead weight at left field, but the solution, Torii Hunter at age 39, can't have a lot left in the tank -- especially on defense -- where he got very low marks during his years with the Tigers.
Speaking of the defense, the Twins not only converted the second-lowest percentage of batted balls into outs, their fielders, due to the lack of strikeouts from the pitching staff, had more balls hit at them than any other team. As such, the Twins allowed far and away the most baserunners in the majors. Despite all those extra baserunners and all those batted balls, the Twins were just 21st in double plays turned and 29th in throwing base stealers out. Put it all together and the Twins cost themselves roughly 55 runs last season compared to an average defense.
Other than some regression to the mean, the worst team in any category usually benefits from a new year; that said, it's hard to see how the Twins will be better on defense this season, or that there will be a meaningful decrease in batted balls, the addition of Santana notwithstanding.
There's no way to sugarcoat it: Right now, the Twins are simply well behind the rest of the AL Central. Even with the lowest AL wins total on the board, it looks like there is still decent value for "under" bettors. During this century, the most number of games the worst team in the American League has won in a season is 69 by Tampa Bay and Minnesota in 2000. With roster improvements in Houston, Boston and Texas, it's hard to see how any of last year's AL cellar dwellers/70-win teams won't be better than Minnesota in 2015.
The Twins' total wins market, currently sitting as high as 73.5 at the Westgate, is a strong "under" selection.
2015 projection: 68-96 (fifth, AL Central)
Bet recommendation: Under