Hitting Stats

[greebs]

I was doing a little figuring on where twins stand as far as offensive numbers against the other winning teams in the AL and discovered that frankly the numbers are very offensive.

We are tied with bosox for the best hitting average of .281. We are waaaay at the bottom of hr's with only 108. Other than the 4th place jays, all the others are 149 or higher. Obviously this relates to slugging % where twins are second from bottom at .410. Only 4th place jays have lower slugging %. (Think we'd be in second place today if we could swap out 40 of our season singles/doubles for an hr in those instances? I know it's quite a simplified example here but...)

Twins winning percentage against these AL teams with winning records is less than 38%. Call me negative nellie all you want, but does this not scream that we need to pick up a right handed third basemen that isn't a piranha in the off season? Buscher seems like a nice guy but he has little power and isn't all that great defensively. Seems that we've got to pick up a right handed bat with a little power threat and 3b is the obvious place to put him as that is traditionally a player with a hr threat and it's been a long time since we've had that type of player in that spot.

Delmon still might be a rh batter that can provide some pop but please don't anybody throw out the name Michael Cuddyer as being a rh power hitter if he can stay healthy. I don't mind him at all as a player but he's not much of a power threat healthy or not.

This season has been an exciting one and it's not done yet. Again call me negative nellie all you want but even if they somehow manage to get in the playoffs this year, they just don't match up well at all with the better teams in the AL and see that as a problem next year too. I also fear that the indians and/or tiger next year could turn out to have the kind of teams that were expected of them this year so I sure hope that there are a couple upgrades in the offseason.

[PierBridge]

All you need to about offense is Runs scored which we were 4th in the league last time I checked.

[UdeLakeTom]

I am thinking the only upgrade they really need would be an 8th inning reliever...somebody to get them to Nathan.

[maros91]

We are 4th in runs but we need 3 hits an inning to score a run. Hard to do that all year. It would be nice to have a RH 30 HR guy behind Morneau. Delmon could be there in time but look for the Twins to sign a 3B slugger this offseason or trade for one.

[PierBridge]

We can only hope!

[greebs]

...and I guess I should clarify that I'm talking from the standpoint of not only contending for a division title but also seriously want to contend for a world series championship in the next couple years. "Doing it the Twins Way" has put us in the playoffs or at least in contention for several years now but I don't recall in any of those seasons where we beat the top teams more than we lost to them and we all know how well the playoffs have gone in those seasons.

Fortunately, we are in a division where the expected teams have not done so well this year but unfortunately, we aren't in the NL and still at some point are going to need to put together a lineup to get past teams like the angels, yankees, red sox, etc. just to get into the world series. It's very deflating to have an inning where we send seven or eight batters to the plate and come away with two runs and then have the other team scrape out a walk followed by a two run homer. I'm not saying we need to hit 200+ homers but like I mentioned before just think what 150 homers instead of 108 would have done for us so far this year.