Minnesota Twins 2012 Season in Review

Well, the third season of Twins baseball at Target Field has come and gone, and it's been a second consecutive disappointing season. It was nice to see a resurgence in the offense by Joe Mauer, Trevor Plouffe, a healthy Justin Morneau and new acquisitions Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit, but again the main concern for this team is their starting pitching.

Last year's "ace" starter Carl Pavano went 2-5 with a 6.00 ERA in 11 starts this year, and never really looked healthy all year. With starter Scott Baker shelved all year with an injury and Francisco Liriano traded to the division rival White Sox during the season, the team tried many different starting pitchers this year, with mixed results. The one mainstay for next year's rotation appears to be Scott Diamond, who posted a 12-9 record with a 3.54 ERA in 27 starts. The rest of the rotation has are question marks, with Pavano and Baker not likely to be re-signed during the offseason and unproven starters Liam Hendriks (1-8, 5.59 ERA in 16 starts), Samuel Deduno (6-5, 4.44 ERA in 15 starts), P.J. Walters (2-5, 5.69 ERA in 12 starts) and Cole DeVries (5-5, 4.11 ERA in 17 games, 16 starts) all remain candidates at this point.

Another question mark for the Twins next year is their middle infield, particularly second base and shortstop. After the failed Tsuyoshi Nishioka experiment, the Twins plugged utility infielders Alexi Casilla (.244 avg, 1HR, 30 RBI and 21 SB in 106 games) and Jamey Carroll (.268, 1HR, and a career-best 40 RBI in 138 games) in at second base for most of the year. After shifting Trevor Plouffe from shortstop to third base following the disappointing play of now former Twin Danny Valencia, the Twins handed the everyday shortstop role to rookie Brian Dozier (.234 avg, 6 HR, 33 RBI and 15 errors in 84 games) before abruptly demoting him to Triple-A Rochester in favor of former Baltimore Orioles farmhand Pedro Florimon Jr. (.219 avg, 1 HR, 10 RBI and 7 errors in 43 games) late in the season.

The recent dismissal of coaches Jerry White, Steve Liddle,Rick Stelmasek and head trainer Rick McWane are somewhat of a shakeup. I'm comfortable with the reassignment of coaches Scott Ullger and Joe Vavra, especially since I never was a big fan of Vavra's approach to being a hitting coach. Now that Terry Ryan has removed the "interim" from his general manager title, I'd like to see him get down to business into making a team that can make a good playoff push. For this team to go from the first team in the majors to clinch a playoff spot in 2010 to being the worst in the American League each of the last two seasons is simply unacceptable for us diehard Twins fans. I'm hoping for a better performance next year, although I'm sure I'll go to at least a few more games at Target Field next year, simply because it's one of the best ballparks in the majors right now.