The Twins Signed Josh Donaldson, So How Do The White Sox Counterpunch?
I’m not going to lie, I was really enjoying watching the rational Twins fans squirm about their shitty offseason and the White Sox on the MLB and Twins Reddit pages this winter. But then again, every time the Sox would sign someone new, a Twins fans would pop up and say, “YOU REALLY THINK THEY CAN IMPROVE BY ALMOST 30 GAMES IN ONE OFFSEASON YOU IDIOT?!?”
No, you fucking morons, I don’t. That’s dumb to insinuate. But don’t forget, the Twins improved by 23 games over the course of one offseason just ONE YEAR AGO. So to say the White Sox can’t go from 72 wins to a 85-90 wins as their window is opening is also dumb… and 90 wins just might be the magic number to win the division.
What we have here is this: a division where 60% of the teams should in theory be playing meaningful games in September, the Sox, Tribe and Twinkies. Prior to the Donaldson signing, Vegas posted these team win totals…
… so they agree with me. Vegas knows more than anyone on earth, including Fangraphs, Steamer, Zips, or any other projection model. That’s just a fact, Jack, and I’m only being slightly facetious here. They think it’s going to be a pretty tight race in the Central, and anyone looking at the division rationally would agree.
That is until Donaldson signed with Minne. It sucks to say, but the Twins now have the best shot of running away with the division. Not saying they will, saying they have a better shot at doing so than the Sox or Tribe. What we have to hope for is that we get the 2018 version of Donaldson that looked like a player on his death bed; not the 2019 version that looked about as good as he ever has.
Here is Donaldson’s 2019 slash line: 155 game, 659 PAs, .262/.379/.521 slash with a .900OPS and ++ defense and 4.9 fWAR
Now if we do go by Steamer projections, Josh Donaldson adds 5.3 fWAR to the club. That’s huge. He shifts Miguel Sano to 1B where he’s better suited defensively and replaces CJ Cron who’s gone and projected to produce .3 fWAR in 2020. For all intents and purposes, let’s say the Twins netted about 5 fWAR by losing Cron/adding Donaldson. That’s big. No denying that, and it sucks for Tribe and Sox fans.
So the question is this: should the White Sox counter punch and if so, how? I did what I do best on Twitter last night and kinda freaked out when the news dropped. I immediately thought the have to counter punch. Start a Cold War against the Twins and make another splash.
I just wasn’t sure how. Sign Castellanos? That was my immediate reaction, as I am far from sold on Mazara and think Castellanos has a few monster years on deck. In the end, I had no idea. But after sleeping on it, I’ll flat out say it: they probably shouldn’t make any reactionary moves. Takes a man with integrity and gumption to admit he probably reacted poorly to something, which I did last night.
This guy said it best:
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Now I’ll disagree that the Twins only landed a “jab” and it was more like a clean upper cut that knocked the Tribe and Sox back a step, but it was far from a knockout blow. The White Sox are still going to be complete and total pricks to play against for the Twins in 2020 and still have room to add mid-season. Hit the Twins back with an upper cut to the chin of their own by augmenting their bullpen and rotation, should they need to.
I will now say that Robert needs to limit his growing pains as much as possible in 2020. Can’t have a Moncada-like start to his career, need him to play at least somewhat to his superstar potential. That, and the Sox entire pitching staff needs to put its big boy pants on. That Twins lineup is straight up terrifying and the Sox rotation has its work cut out for it in their 19 contests against them in 2020, which brings me to my next point:
As it sits now, this is how the Twins starting pitching projects:
Now I will say this: Steamer is extremely conservative in projecting rookies and younger players in general. That’s not to say that the Twins don’t have youth that might also outperform projections in 2020 as well, but the White Sox sheer talent in their young arms supersedes the Twins’ by a lot. That’s an objective statement; Kopech and Cease have more talent in their pinkies than Randy Dobnak and Devin Smeltzer have in their entire bodies. They just need to pitch like they’re capable of. Easy, right?
I’ve done nothing but trash the Twins’ rotation this winter, and this is where bias sets in; I still think the Twins’ rotation is trash outside of Berrios, Odorizzi and to a lesser extent Piñeda, that the White Sox rotation will be better over the course of the full season, and that the Twins aren’t set up for a deep playoff run as currently constructed. Their 3-5 is so so so meh, I don’t care what any projection model says, and once Kopech/Rodon return, the Sox surpass them in both depth and star power. The Twins don’t have too much room for error or injury at all in their starting staff. Berrios or Odorizzi go down and they’re fucked.
So my newfound counterpunch is this: ride out the first few months by working each round to a draw, hit them with a flurry or two of jabs mid-season to make a run at the division, then go BIG next winter with a knockout blow that vaults the Sox into AL Central favorites for years to come. Ya know, a knockout blow in the form of signing someone like Mookie Betts. Obviously that’s pie in the sky type shit, but it’s more than doable with their payroll moving in future years and something they should be all over. Will they be? I won’t get my hopes up as we’ve all seen that movie before, but again, the Sox are not playing for one division title, they’re playing for multiple, so that’s what we’ll be watching for in the coming calendar year.
Long story short: the Sox do should not immediately blow their wads because the Twins signed one (34 year old) stud, at least not at this exact moment. The division is still up for grabs. Let’s go fucking take it.