Despite an excellent first half for the Minnesota Twins, some moments over the last few months have shaped the season so far. It’s enough to make many fans wonder “what if” on a few different occasions.
What if injuries hadn’t impacted so many of Minnesota’s young players?
The Twins have been able to get through the first half of the 2022 campaign with only minor injuries to the team’s core. But that’s not to say injuries haven’t had a considerable impact on the season.
A nagging wrist injury from last year sidetracked Alex Kirilloff early this season. He recently found his swing again, working his slash line up to .268/.313/.398 this year. Trevor Larnach will also miss multiple weeks due to a core muscle injury.
But the biggest what if Twins fans have to wonder is, what if Royce Lewis didn’t crash into the center field wall and tear his ACL for the second straight year? Before the injury, he was crushing big-league pitching with a .300/.317/.550 slash line and 2 home runs in 12 games. The Twins may have eventually sent him down with the logjam at short and third. But he continued to be a spark plug for a Twins offense that goes quiet too many times for a lineup that is as talented as it is.
Jorge Alcalá was going to be a big piece of this team’s bullpen until an elbow issue kept him sidelined for almost all of this year. Jhon Romero (biceps), Cody Stashak (shoulder), and Randy Dobnak (finger) have all played little to no innings out of Minnesota’s pen. The Twins may have leaned on any of those guys this year, given how rocky the relief corps has been.
Chris Paddack, the centerpiece of the Taylor Rogers trade with the San Diego Padres, looked sharp early on. Despite a 4.02 ERA in just over 22 innings pitched, Paddack had a 1.72 FIP and a 4.50 K/BB ratio. However, Paddack needed Tommy John surgery just five starts into his Twins tenure. The Twins needed Paddack as a middle-of-the-rotation starter, especially considering the team’s 3.92 ERA, 15th best in baseball. Losing him was a big blow to a rotation.
Having those extra bats would have benefited a Twins offense that’s been inconsistent at times this season. It would have also given more of an opportunity for the young players to earn big-league at-bats. The team would likely look to add another reliever or starter, regardless. But they may not be in the dire situation they’re in now.
What if the Twins never traded Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa in March?
The Twins sent Josh Donaldson and newly-acquired shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa to the New York Yankees for Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela. Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa have been starters on a Yankees team that’s partying like it’s 1998. However, that move cleared up payroll to bring in Correa in free agency.
But what if the Twins decided to roll with Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa for the season?
Donaldson’s stat line doesn’t seem drastically different from what he put up last season. He’s slashing .224/.310/.390 with nine home runs and compiled a 1.1 WAR in 72 games. His defense has been great, with 10 DRS through half the season compared to his 1 DRS the year before.
However, Donaldson still would have been eating $21 million this year and next year. Prospects like José Miranda were big league ready and being blocked by the 36-year-old. Miranda could earn some time filling in at third and playing at first. Still, first base is also logjammed, with Sano, Kirilloff, and Arraez playing that spot. There’s also the clubhouse chemistry issue. Donaldson did not aid the Twins, who have a laid-back approach to going through a season.
Kiner-Falefa has been underwhelming in his first season in New York with a slash line of .271/.318/.325 and zero home runs in 82 games played. He doesn’t strike out much, but that has also resulted in plenty of weak contact for Kiner-Falefa. The Twins brought him to Minnesota as a stopgap for Lewis. There’s a good chance Lewis earns his spot on the big-league roster and doesn’t give it back to Kiner-Falefa. That likely means Lewis never hurts his knee and remains the starting shortstop. It also turns Kiner-Falefa into a platoon infielder in another logjam for playing time.
Essentially, the swap with New York ended up netting the Twins Sánchez (0.8 WAR), Urshela (0.4 WAR), and Correa (1.7 WAR). Those three players combined for 2.9 WAR in the first half. Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa have produced at a 1.8 WAR clip. Not a terrible flip, and it comes with the possibility of financial flexibility if Correa opts out after the season.
If they hadn’t made this trade, the Yankees would likely stay with Urshela at third and flipped Sanchez to another team. It’s likely that New York still has the best record in baseball without Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa. To Donaldson’s credit, having a former MVP as your six-hitter has helped New York’s lineup, even if his production hasn’t been worth $21 million.
Even with some peripheral benefits, it doesn’t feel like the Twins would be in a better spot with these two on the roster. They wouldn’t have been terrible, but they added production and avoided some team chemistry issues. Ultimately, it’s a net positive for Minnesota this season.
What if Minnesota’s pitching didn’t perform at the beginning of the season?
The entire ire of the Twins fanbase has been focused on the team’s pitching staff, which is in the midst of a free fall. Over the past few weeks, that unit has turned multiple wins into backbreaking losses. However, the pitching staff was one of baseball’s best in the first two months of the season, with a 3.44 ERA – 7th-best in the league.
The six-man rotation of Joe Ryan, Sonny Gray, Bailey Ober, Dylan Bundy, Paddack, and Chris Archer were all solid in their roles. While the bullpen was shaky at times, it was still relatively solid at the time, with Duran, Emilio Pagán, and others on the back end.
Consider that the league was in the middle of a historically bad offensive stretch during the season’s first month. The Twins’ offense had scored 117 runs, which ranked 16th in baseball. Runs were hard to come by, especially in the first few weeks. But the gap was made up by stellar pitching early on from guys like Ryan but also Archer and Bundy.
Twins pitching has regressed recently, but the offense has increased their run production.
It might have been weather or post-lockout fatigue or the league messing with the baseballs again. But without that stretch of solid pitching, there’s a good chance the Twins never found a groove and finished the first half below .500. They would have been out of the playoff picture by this time of the year.
As the All-Star Break wraps up, the Twins are sitting in first place and in a position to make moves at the trade deadline. Just a few different situations could have made this season look incredibly different.
