It’s early. Full stop. That simple sentence needs to be the lens through which everything else written here is seen.
Are we good? Okay, moving on.
There was no debate over what the biggest question mark hanging over the 2022 Twins roster was - starting pitching. Followed fairly closely by the bullpen. One week and six games into the season is far too soon to come to any firm conclusions, but it’s still worth discussing what we’ve seen so far.
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The first time through the rotation has been- interesting? Heading into Chris Paddack’s Twins debut on Wednesday, the starting staff had a collective ERA of 3.18. You’d certainly take that over the course of 162 games. Dig a little deeper, however, and the question marks return. Their FIP over those five games? Almost a run-and-a-half higher at 4.59. And an xFIP (which adjusts for ballpark variance) of 5.06. So the defense has been helping out a bunch, as is evidenced by an absurdly low BABIP of .164. Long story short, if the Twins were playing league-average defense behind their starters, the results would look far more dire than they have so far.
But defense - especially up the middle of the diamond - was expected to be a strength of this club. Presuming the key defensive players stay relatively healthy, and that’s not an automatic, there’s at least a chance the starters could outperform their peripherals.
Then there’s the bullpen.
Tyler Duffey had a rough first outing on Opening Day, and Caleb Thielbar’s foray on Tuesday night was utterly forgettable. So fans could be forgiven thinking that the ‘pen is in big trouble. But the numbers don’t back that up. As a group, they had a 3.22 ERA coming into Wednesday's finale with the Dodgers. And the peripherals back that up with a FIP of 3.32 and a nearly average BABIP of .295. So while the defense has clearly aided the starters, the performance of the relievers doesn’t appear to be nearly as biased.
As a staff, the Twins came into Wednesday leading the AL in Opponent Batting Average, ranking 4th in ERA and are in the top 10 in WHIP, HR allowed and Strikeouts. While no one will argue they’ve been great, they’ve been better than some expected, and good enough to shift attention to the early inconsistency of the offense.
So we end about where we started, with far too little data to support any significant conclusions; but the early returns are mildly encouraging.
Twins President of Baseball Operations Derek Falvey repeatedly expressed confidence in the group the Twins started the season with, even as fans clamored for a blockbuster addition. And while it’s still a very arguable point that additions will need to be made in order for this club to have a successful season, the earliest of early numbers would say that he wasn’t entirely wrong.
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