Jul. 15—In the classic 1989 sports comedy ‘Major League’ Clew Haywood’s second home run in as many at-bats against Ricky Vaughn sends the Yankees to another win over the protagonist Indians, dropping them to 60-61 on the season.
After the game, general manager Charlie Donovan visits manager Lou Brown in his office to tell Brown what a fine job he’s done to get his team to within a game of .500.
“60-61 is hardly a great job,” Brown grumbles.
“With this club — it is,” Donovan replies.
Back in real life, the Minnesota Twins enter the All-Star break within a game of .500 under first-year skipper Derek Shelton.
Is 48-49 a great job?
With this club — it is.
After all, this is a team that went 70-92 last year after a trade deadline fire sale and then made few significant additions in the offseason. Expectations were not high when the team reported for spring training in February.
But now as the season reaches its unofficial midpoint and Minnesota finds itself in the thick of the (admittedly watered down) playoff race, it’s amusing to observe the parallels between this year’s Twins and the fictional Cleveland team from ‘Major League’.
While Tom Pohlad is no Rachel Phelps — I have no doubt he wants his team to win — Twins ownership remains a villain to much of the team’s fans. Shortly after the Twins won their first playoff series in two decades, in 2023, they cut payroll and stopped investing seriously in personnel, reverting back to Metrodome era payroll spending. Then came last year’s fire sale, which was as much a symbolic slap in the face than a series of bad baseball moves.
When it came time to assemble the 2026 roster, what did the Twins do? Very little. Castoffs like Ryan Kreidler, Alex Jackson and Tristan Gray were signed despite having track records that suggested they’d be among the worst hitters in the majors. Almost no effort was made to build a competent bullpen.
And early on, it looked like the Twins got exactly what they paid for, as they lost six of their first nine games. They rebounded to win eight of nine but that appeared to be a mirage when they then lost 11 of their next 13 to fall to 13-18, a 94-loss pace.
But Shelton, who knew exactly what he was getting into when he took this job, replacing the fired Rocco Baldelli, just kept believing in his guys.
In that scene in the manager’s office in ‘Major League’ where Donovan and Brown discuss their team’s flirtation with contention, Brown earnestly expresses his belief in the young talent on his team, unaware that they were assembled to lose on purpose.
That’s not how the Twins were put together, of course, but did they really anticipate, say, Kreidler having an above-league-average .743 OPS at the break? The guy had a career batting average of .138 in 89 games before this season.
Did they really think a 30-year-old Kody Clemens would be an impact player after hitting .216 last year?
They have an ace in Joe Ryan and a veteran superstar in Byron Buxton, but after that there wasn’t much to like on this roster.
But bat-for-hire Josh Bell has been their Pedro Cerrano, fireballing Rays castoff Taj Bradley their Ricky Vaughn, while waiver claim Yoendrys Gomez has become a reliable closer. Trevor Larnach, Austin Martin, Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis have all gone from replacement-level stiffs to significant reasons the Twins are among the highest-scoring teams in baseball. There are legitimately exciting prospects knocking on the door in the minor leagues.
And like the guys in the movie, the Twins are fun to watch. Easy to root for. Underdogs usually are, but it’s easy to see that this team enjoys each others company and knows that nobody really believes in them. They don’t appear to have a chip on their shoulder so much as they seem to just be having fun playing baseball without any pressure to win, and it’s resulting in more wins than most anybody expected.
Shelton and his players aren’t dumb. They know why the fans don’t like the owners and why so many are refusing to come to the park. But rather than taking sides or complaining about it, they’re staying out of it. The Pohlads’ refusal to make any major additions to this team is the reason Bell and Kreidler and Gomez and others have jobs, and they’re taking advantage of the opportunity.
Can they keep it up to the finish line? It’s tempting to say no, but the American League is basically terrible this year, the Central Division especially. According to Fan Graphs the Twins have the seventh-easiest remaining strength of schedule (Cleveland and Detroit have the two easiest).
And it kind of feels like they’re going to go for it. The Twins traded a decent catching prospect to add veteran reliever Tommy Nance last week, and have seemingly shown no interest in trading Buxton. Saying no to offers for Joe Ryan and Ryan Jeffers may prove more difficult, and with the deadline looming on July 31, how the Twins start the second half may determine their strategy.
It starts with a seven-game road trip through Wrigley Field and Cleveland. Then comes a six-game homestand against the Athletics and the Royals.
Lou Brown predicted it would take 32 more victories to get his Indians into the playoffs, and if you’ve seen the movie, you know what he put in the locker room to symbolize the 32 wins they needed, and ultimately got (some quick math indicates they went an incredible 32-9 down the stretch to go from 60-61 to 92-70).
For the Twins, 32 more wins would give them 80 for the season. That might be enough to get the last wild card this year, but the hunch here is it’ll take at least 83 wins to make the playoffs.
You know what that means. Shelton needs 35 pieces for his clubhouse cardboard cutout of Tom Pohlad.
