2007 Minnesota Twins Predictions

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The Minnesota Twins have been the best team in the American League Central division in recent years, but even I counted them out last season after recording just 83 wins in 2005 when they had been averaging better than 90 wins in each of their previous three seasons. With the Tigers, Twins, and White Sox all at or above 90 wins last season, the AL Central is making a strong claim that it the best division in baseball, not the AL East.

Last season, I made the idiotic statement that Twins fans should get ready for finishes in the middle of the pack in the AL Central for the rest of the decade with the emergence of the Indians and the White Sox. We had the numbers to support this as Minnesota was just 16-21 versus the Sox and the Tribe in 2005. The Twins still didn’t run away with the division finishing with a 41-35 mark against the AL Central which was well behind Detroit’s 45-30 division mark. But the Twins were by far the best home team in the American League with a 54-27 home mark, and they crushed the highly-touted AL East winning 22 of 35 games against baseball’s supposed strongest division.

There’s no question that the Twins made their big turnaround with great starting pitching last season and if Liriano doesn’t go down hurt, maybe the Twins make it to the World Series instead of the Tigers. Liriano was by far the biggest surprise in the league last season punishing opponents with his 12-3 record and his 2.16 ERA. As if having the best left hander in the game wasn’t enough, the Twins may now have the two best lefties in the game. Johan Santana is, of course, the other South Paw I’m referring to. All he did last season was go 19-6 with a 2.77 ERA collecting his second Cy Young Award. But as we saw, if either one of these guys go down, it’s going to be awfully hard for the Twins to do anything in the postseason as Silva and Bonser just don’t have the quite the stuff to pick up enough of the slack. But if this rotation is healthy with Joe Nathan closing out games, the Twins will once again be making a playoff trip.

The offense didn’t know where it was going to get its runs from going into the 2006 season. Justin Morneau stepped up and exceeded all expectations capturing AL MVP honors. Hopefully, we won’t see a slump out of Morneau after a breakout year. I don’t expect it as he just has a one-year deal and another huge season could solidify a long-term deal worth big bucks from the Twins or a number of other takers. Tori Hunter was a big surprise in 2006 as he became a lot more consistent at the plate and still put up good power numbers. Michael Cuddyer also had a breakout year with 24 homeruns and finished second on the team in RBI’s. None of these guys can have a lackluster year in 2007 if the Twins want to stay ahead of the pack in a deep and hungry AL Central Division.

I should also note that the 2006 Twins were 16-2 against the NL last season and I fully expect that trend to continue so we’ll look for good value spots to back the Twins in interleague play. We’ll also look to take the Twins on the road with their top two lefties on the hill. But don’t jump on this team too hard in the early going as last season’s run is sure to have the books overvaluing this club out of the gates.

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