Reason for optimism: Miguel Sano has started a parade of lineup talent that can form the core of a championship contender.
Reason for pessimism: Until the pitching staff is overhauled with arms that can strike out batters, it won't matter how good the offense gets.
Most baseball bettors, including me, got the Minnesota Twins' outlook very wrong in 2015. Pegged to finish last in the AL Central, the Twins played like a bottom-tier team for exactly seven games, opening the season with a 1-6 record. From that point on, Minnesota was nine games over .500, occupied first place as late as June 4 and finished ahead of everyone in their division except the eventual World Series champion Kansas City Royals.
I protested all year that the Twins were, at best, a 72-win team that had no business even being in the wild-card discussion -- and yet, it really didn't hurt me on a daily betting basis. Why? Because oddsmakers felt the same way I did all year long.
The Twins sported a total wins over/under last spring of 72.5, and that's exactly the way they were priced throughout the season. Looking at the sum of their single-game implied win probabilities, Minnesota's outlook never changed from 73 or 74 games each quarter of the season. I've tracked this for every team for years, so I know how unusual that sort of stable pricing is -- especially for a team that outplayed expectations all year long.
I may have made a huge forecasting error when it came to the Twins last year, but so did Vegas.
This year, as we'll see below, Vegas has blinked, and Minnesota's total win market is seven games higher than last year -- on par with the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago White Sox. The question for bettors becomes "does that present an opportunity?"
Despite the doubts around Minnesota's success last year, there were differences between last year's squad and the teams of the previous four years, which all lost at least 90 games. Sano is a bona fide star, Brian Dozier provides valuable middle-infield power and there is more lineup talent on the way. However, in one important way, the Twins have yet to solve a huge problem which underscores how unlikely it was that the team finished with a winning record in 2015.
For the fifth year in a row, the Twins pitching staff finished last in the majors in strikeout rate. There are two ways to combat this competitive disadvantage: acquire pitchers who can strike out batters, or surround your staff with tremendous fielders to handle all the extra balls being hit into the field of play. Of course, attempting solutions assumes the competitive disadvantage is acknowledged; it's hard to credit the Twins' front office with even recognizing the problem.
Since 2011, the Twins have used 30 starting pitchers, and only four of them with five or more starts had a strikeout rate above the 2015 league starter average of 19.5 percent. There's no reason to expect anything to change this year -- the Twins have the exact same rotation as in 2015.
How about the defense? For the third straight year the Twins had one of the six worst defenses in the majors, and catcher Kurt Suzuki is consistently among the worst catchers in baseball at framing pitches. That's like entering a time trial with a bunch of slow runners and then voluntarily making them run uphill and into the wind.
A low strikeout rate and bad defense is the exact formula needed to give up the most runs in the American League, and there is no reason to expect things to be any different this year. From a modeling standpoint, unless paired with an offense as powerful as the Blue Jays', it's just about impossible to foresee a .500 record. Make no mistake about it -- Sano would fit very well on Toronto's roster, but realistically, the Twins need a full lineup of Sanos to compete. Top prospect Byron Buxton could join Sano as an exciting offensive addition, but there are too many holes for opponents to exploit over the course of the season.
The Twins were incredibly fortunate to come within four runs of outscoring their opponents last year, which means they were even more fortunate to finish four games above .500. Although it didn't move expectations during the season last year, there's some evidence that the emergence of Sano has raised the bar this year.
At 79.5 wins, this year's over/under market is at its highest level since 2011. I think that's an opportunity, because I still see a team that will struggle mightily to score as many runs as this pitching staff allows. I do think the Twins will be better this year, but the baseline for improvement is the 72-win team they played like last year, not the 83-win team that showed up in the standings.
With Vegas boosting expectations, there is value to be had on the under, and if the oddsmakers start pricing the Twins as a .500 team after the season starts, there might be even more value on a daily basis.
2016 projection: 75-87 (fifth, AL Central)
Bet recommendation: Under