What is the story about?
The Twins ended the season on a high note, winning their last two series, including playing spoiler in the AL West race, taking two games from the Rangers. This wraps up the season with a 77-85 record, good for 3rd in the AL Central, a distant seven games back from the last wild card spot, and the 11th worst team in the majors. But now we look forward to a lengthy offseason that could get messy quick with CBA negotiations between players and owners.
The Past Week on Twinkie Town:
- Check out The Feed, where you can add your discussions about the Twins!
- How big of a Twins fan are you? Matt Monitto is back with our annual “Name Every Twin Who Played This Season” quiz.
- Zach Koenig reminisces about the one good day in the 2006 Twins season.
- Aiden O’Brien hands out awards to this year’s top minor leaguers in the Twins system.
Elsewhere in Twins
Territory:
- Aaron Gleeman provides his take on the decision the Twins will need to make about Royce Lewis this offseason.
- Despite the season not ending the way they wanted, Dan Hayes at The Athletic explains why the Twins are excited about the future of the outfield.
- Ryan Jeffers is a free agent this offseason and Matthew Leach at MLB.com checks in with the catcher in what could have been his last day in a Twins uniform.
- Lou Hennessey at Zone Coverage looks at why the Twins should re-sign midseason acquisition A.J. Minter.
- The Twins have announced that they are switching up the staff, parting ways with pitching coaches Pete Maki and Luis Ramirez along with athletic trainer Jason Kirkman.
In the World of Baseball:
- We have our playoff bracket! Ultimately, Tampa Bay and Cleveland earned byes to the Division Series in the AL. We have a marquee matchup between the Yankees and Red Sox on the Tampa side of the bracket and the White Sox and Astros will face off on the Cleveland side of the bracket.
- In the National League, the Brewers and Dodgers earned byes, with Milwaukee facing the winner between the Padres and Cubs, and Los Angeles facing the winner between the Phillies and Atlanta.
- Black Monday got an early start with the Mariners parting ways with manager Dan Wilson on Sunday.
- Yordan Alvarez won the AL Batting Title, but Pete Alonso’s furious September (11 homers, 22 RBI), stopped Alvarez from winning the Triple Crown, finishing second to Alonso in both categories. Still, he’s the likely AL MVP, so can’t complain too much.
- Gabriel Moreno finished with the best average in the NL, one point above Luis Arraez, while PCA led the league in home runs and Alec Burleson gave a silver lining to the Cardinals season, finishing first in RBI.
- Jacob Misiorowski capped off his dominant regular season, leading the majors in ERA, strikeouts, and opponent batting average. He’ll now hope to lead the Brewers to their World Series title.
