Jonathan Lee

AccuScore Analyst

Twitter @thejonlee

Minnesota should have reached the playoffs, and the final standings should not have been close. It should never have reached the last week of the year. Before the season started, the organization seemed to think the team wasn’t ready to contend thus precipitating a series a moves. And yet, the organization countered those changes with a few far more perplexing changes that indicated it did believe the team could compete. It was a paradox that ultimately led to no postseason for the Twins.

Here is a rundown of the worst mistakes Minnesota made that prevented them from winning the American League Central. Remember that one win at any point over the course of 163 games would have led directly to a playoff spot.

Carlos Gomez sabotaged the Twins
from the top of the lineup

5. Batting Carlos Gomez leadoff
Acquired during the off-season in the deal for Santana, Gomez showed he has promise displaying his elite level speed on the field and on the basepaths. What Gomez also showed was that he was absolutely not ready to hit major-league pitching. He batted just .258 for the year with a dreadful on-base percentage of .296 yet Ron Gardenhire found it prudent to bat his worst hitter leadoff for most of the year. Gomez made 415 plate appearances in the leadoff spot posting an OBP of .281. He profiled as a poor no.9 hitter but was instead leaving the bases consistently empty for Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

4. Overuse of Craig Monroe
Monroe somehow made 47 starts for the Twins and appeared in 58 games. He made had a modest 163 at-bats, which was 163 too many. Monroe batted an abysmal .202 and posted an on-base percentage of .274. He performed far below replacement level. Giving those at-bats to quite literally anybody else on the roster would have been a better choice.

3. Signing Mike Lamb
Lamb was signed to be a veteran presence at third base, and he entered the year with a career average better than .280. Seemed like a decent idea right? But in yet another puzzling move for this so-called small market team, the Twins gave him $3.5 million. It was just a sheer waste of resources to give that amount of money to a decidedly average player. Lamb then went out and hit just .227 through July that led to him being released towards the end of August. Brian Buscher was recalled to the bigs in June and ended up making 64 starts at third. He posted an OPS of .730 while not the greatest, was a massive improvement over Lamb’s .598.

2. Signing Livan Hernandez to a one-year deal for $5 milion
This was by far the worst signing for the Twins. Why get a player who is nothing more than an innings eater if you don’t believe the team can contend? And if the goal from the beginning was the playoffs, why sabotage your own chances by giving Hernandez the ball every fifth day? Hernandez somehow made 23 starts for Minnesota posting some just horrendous numbers: a 5.48 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, and an absurdly low 3.48 K/9. Compounding the problem was that Francisco Liriano was absolutely dominating hitters in the minor leagues through June and July. During those two months, Hernandez made 11 starts for Minnesota.

The Twins would have been better
off keeping Johan Santana for
another season.

1. Trading Johan Santana for spare parts and a bag of balls
Sure Santana was going to be a free agent after 2008, and the Twins were unlikely to resign him. That doesn’t matter. Keeping Santana for a playoff run and then receiving two compensatory draft picks when he left would have been a better choice. The four prospects the Twins got in this deal were Gomez, and pitchers Phil Humber, Deolis Guerra, and Kevin Mulvey. Besides Gomez, only Humber appeared for the Twins throwing 11.2 innings as a September call-up. Several other teams were able to acquire better prospect packages during the season for players of lesser stature than Santana.

Obviously, Minnesota performed well enough to contend all year and Santana’s presence in the rotation alone would have been worth 2-4 wins minimum over any pitcher in the rotation. Given that he could have replaced the 35 combined starts made by Hernandez and Boof Bonser, the difference is even bigger. Santana posted another Cy Young caliber season for the Mets posting a 2.53 ERA, 1.15 WHIP and 206 strikeouts en route to 16 wins. That would have led Minnesota in every category. Even a midseason trade would have been preferable to the off-season move for the Twins. A better trade package might have been leveraged at the deadline, and the team would have had half a season of Santana.

All these moves worked against Minnesota all season, an organization that is constantly praised as one of the best in baseball yet made several costly mistakes. Keeping Santana alone would have easily made the difference, but even more strange organizational moves compounded the problem. The Twins should be in the playoffs, but instead they are staying home for October and have no one to blame but themselves.