The 2016 Minnesota Twins season began with great optimism. It took almost no time at all for such hopefulness to turn horrific: an 0-9 start followed by Total System Failure (TM). No amount of Brian Dozier dingers could fully compensate for RF Miguel Sano & the abject failure of Byung Ho-Park.
In the months of August & September ‘16, the Twins kept losing (19-39). The final tally: 59-103—the worst single season in franchise history (narrowly edging out the 60-102 1982 squad).
To somewhat-mercifully close out my coverage of that dreadful ‘16 summer, a few “tales of the tape” showing exactly how across-the-board poor this team was.
Home/Road Splits
- 30-51 at Target Field
- 29-52 elsewhere
Close/Blowout Splits
- 15-29 in 1-run games
- 14-33 in blowout (5+ run difference) games
Batters WAR
Only three batsmen compiled 2.0+ bWAR…
- Dozier (5.8 WAR)
- Rookie Max Kepler (2.5 WAR)
- Mr. Reliable Joe Mauer (2.3 WAR)
Pitchers WAR
Only four hurlers held a bWAR greater than 1.0…
- Ervin Santana (4.0 WAR)
- Ryan Pressly (1.2 WAR)
- Brandon Kintzler (1.1 WAR)
- Fernando Abad (1.1 WAR)
Losing Streaks
- 13-game losing streak from 8/18 to 8/31 (only behind the 14 consecutive L’s put up by the ‘82 gang)
- 7-game losing streak from 9/16 to 9/23
Minnesota sports fans were perhaps never more ready for the Vikings to take the gridiron (christening new US Bank Stadium, no less!) than they were in September of 2016.
Somewhat hilariously, the Twins did manage to end the campaign on a two-game winning streak against the Chicago White Sox. If one really wanted to dig—and this would take multiple shovel-fulls—for a glimmer of hope, it could be taken from rookie pitching prospect Jose Berrios banking a W and second-year Byron Buxton going 2-4 with a home run on the season’s final day.
But ultimately, as unexpected as the thrilling 2015 season was after the 2011-2014 doldrums, this 2016 slog was every bit as baffling for how such an electric group of prospects could stoop so low so fast.
