These are the end times, according to many Minnesota Twins fans. Taking a “Chicken Little:the Sky is Falling” approach, the Metrodome roof will be collapsing, figuratively if not literally, next spring when the Twins open the 2008 season against Torii Hunter and the Los Angeles Angels.
Listen to fans in the days since Hunter was traded and they will make you feel like the Twins are in a nosedive comparable to the stock market. Hunter is gone. Johan Santana, Joe Nathan and Carlos Silva won’t be around much longer. Even Justin Morneau, the doomsdayers contend, won’t play a game in a Twins uniform in the new downtown ballpark that opens in 2010.
The facts are the Twins aren’t as good without Hunter and they were a team with hitting and player position needs before he took the $90 million contract and headed west, deciding that $45 million wasn’t enough to make a life that he wanted. The reality, too, is the Twins may lose more players either through free agency or trades, but the truth also is no one knows at this moment what the opening day roster will look like.
Patience and perspective, not panic, is the recommended prescription for ailing Twins fans. The organization ranks among the winningest teams in the American League in recent years and the Twins have made the playoffs four of the last six seasons. (Since the 2001 season only six major league teams have won more games than the Twins and just two are from the American League, New York and Boston).
The front office team has used a philosophy of developing talent in the minor leagues and filling other needs with effective trades. The results have made the small market Twins, using budget restraint, the envy of some other organizations.
Twins president Dave St. Peter told Sports Headliners on Monday that the organization is determined to field competitive teams now and in the future including when the new ballpark will provide additional revenues that he said will be invested back into players. What’s his definition of competitive?
“A team that has an opportunity to advance to post season play and contend for a world championship,” he said. “Of course, we’ve been to the post-season four out of the last six years. We’ve been in that position. We failed to get it done once we got there but getting there in baseball is obviously a significant accomplishment. …That’s our intent. It’s not to be .500. It’s not to win 85 games. It’s to get to get to the post-season. …”
St. Peter said the franchise’s same baseball leaders, including Terry Ryan, Bill Smith and Tom Kelly, are still with the Twins. The goal is to return to the playoffs where a team can get hot and go on a winning streak as Colorado did this year, surprising almost everyone by participating in the World Series.
St. Peter said he shares the frustration of the public about Hunter and understands it, but he hasn’t been hearing that the 32-year-old outfielder is worth $90 million to the Twins. What about the gloomy feelings of many fans?
“It’s a reaction to people’s feelings toward Torii who was a player that obviously connected with people,” St. Peter said. “I fully understand that and get that. At the same time, despite his departure, it is not an organization that has the cupboard bare. …It’s a franchise that has a solid nucleus of players. Now, do we have holes? Yes. … The final chapter has not yet been written. I continue to believe we will go to spring training with a team that is much more dynamic offensively than the team that we had in 2007. …That’s our intent. …”