Are The Twins 4 Real?

Well, the Twins just finished off their 4 game series with the mighty Boston Red Sox with a 7-3 victory and I am on cloud 9. They took three games from the World Champions and currently stand atop the AL Central with a record of 20-17. That's 1.5 games better than the Indians and the White Sox. I am completely surprised by this and wonder if they can actually keep this up for the entire season. Luckily, the kind folks at Baseball Prospectus keep track of this sort of thing so I decided to see if the Twins are actually good or merely just an early season fluke (or some of both).

The first thing I did was look at the standings. Wouldn't you know it, the Twins are 19-17 (as of yesterday) and atop the AL Central. So far, BPs projections are right on. Well, what the heck are these numbers to the right of those!!! They don't matter, the Twins record is what it is!!! Except, I think that they do matter and are actually an indicator of what the rest of the season will have in store. As you can see the Twins records gets worse on the right side of the table. This is because their expected record, based on their current offensive and defensive output and strength of schedule, is significantly worse than the actual standings. They should be a below .500 team, but due to some luck, aggressive baserunning, timely hitting and an effective handling of the pitching staff, the Twins are outplaying their current projections. I just hope they can keep this up.

I do see a lot of reason for optimism, aside from what these numbers predict. First of all, the season is very young. The sample size may simply be too small to make accurate projections. Secondly, the Twins started out the season on a down note. They weren't scoring runs and their pitching was erratic. Once the calendar turned to May, the Twins really started to play better, particularly offensively. Over the last 12 days the Twins are 2nd in the AL in runs (in only 9 games), 3rd in batting average, 4th in OBP, 3rd in SLG, 3rd in OPS (behind the Yankees and Red Sox), and 5th in stolen bases. Is this just a hot stretch or is the team actually playing to its potential? I tend to side with the latter out of blind loyalty. The Twins pitching has continued to be erratic, but this has been due in part to injuries (Scott Baker, Pat Neshek, Kevin Slowey). Hopefully the rotation gains some stability, because if it does there is no reason for the Twins to stop winning. I just hope my optimism isn't misguided because I love the sound of "Your first place, Minnesota Twins"!!!

*Some other observations from the expected standings.
1. The Tigers pitching is bad.
2. The White Sox might be better than I want them to be.
3. The Royals suck!
4. Beware of the Cleveland Indians. They are probably the best team in the division.