This article is part of our Series to Watch series.
The Minnesota Twins are the biggest surprise in baseball, defying all expectations to lead the American League Central after the first two months of the season. They have the best run differential in the division at plus-25, have won seven of their last 10 games while the other top teams in the division have floundered, and they have formed an imposing offense despite two of their expected difference-makers this season – Kennys Vargas and Oswaldo Arcia – currently playing games in the minor leagues until their bats again prove worthy of big-league consideration. The Twinkies appear to be playing over their heads, not just because of a win-loss record that far exceeds expectation, but because they are doing so without a single regular player batting above .273.
The Brewers are sitting on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a minus-68 run differential that's the second-worst mark in the league and an offense that is one of just four clubs in baseball that have yet to crack the 200-runs-scored barrier. They have been beset by injuries and poor performance this season, but with Carlos Gomez clicking on all cylinders and Jonathan Lucroy's recent return to the lineup, things are looking up. The standings make this series out to be a mismatch, but the full-season outlook of these two ball clubs puts them each closer to the middle – and to each other. From a fantasy standpoint, this battle will come down to the bats, with a weak slate of
The Minnesota Twins are the biggest surprise in baseball, defying all expectations to lead the American League Central after the first two months of the season. They have the best run differential in the division at plus-25, have won seven of their last 10 games while the other top teams in the division have floundered, and they have formed an imposing offense despite two of their expected difference-makers this season – Kennys Vargas and Oswaldo Arcia – currently playing games in the minor leagues until their bats again prove worthy of big-league consideration. The Twinkies appear to be playing over their heads, not just because of a win-loss record that far exceeds expectation, but because they are doing so without a single regular player batting above .273.
The Brewers are sitting on the opposite end of the spectrum, with a minus-68 run differential that's the second-worst mark in the league and an offense that is one of just four clubs in baseball that have yet to crack the 200-runs-scored barrier. They have been beset by injuries and poor performance this season, but with Carlos Gomez clicking on all cylinders and Jonathan Lucroy's recent return to the lineup, things are looking up. The standings make this series out to be a mismatch, but the full-season outlook of these two ball clubs puts them each closer to the middle – and to each other. From a fantasy standpoint, this battle will come down to the bats, with a weak slate of starting pitchers that could lead to a big weekend from the under-appreciated offenses of the northern Midwest.
Game 1: Friday, June 5 at 7:10pm CDT: Kyle Lohse vs. Kyle Gibson
We get treated with a battle of the Kyles, two pitchers with the same first name but widely different experiences over the first two months of the season. Lohse has been in a tailspin all season, compiling a 6.50 ERA and an ERA+ of just 62, after four consecutive seasons of run prevention that was comfortably above average. Things haven't looked this bleak for the 36-year old Lohse since he was a 25-year old Twin, and though his strikeout and walk rates are right in line with those of previous seasons (the K rate of 18.8 percent is actually a career-high), the right-hander's line is marred by his 13 homers allowed in 62.3 innings.
Gibson is enjoying his finest season as a big-league starter, with a 2.61 ERA through his first 10 turns of 2015 after entering the season with a 4.92 mark in his career, but the peripheral stats show that there is trouble rumbling beneath the surface. His strikeout rate of 11.5 percent is the fifth-lowest in baseball among qualifying pitchers. He has limited the long ball and given up walks at a league-average rate, but Gibson's FIP of 4.41 is more indicative of his performance this season than the subterranean ERA, and the Brewers' bats are ready to inject a dose of statistical correction into his line this weekend.
Game 2: Saturday, June 6 at 1:10pm CDT: Matt Garza vs. J.R. Graham
Garza has been serving up homers in the Major Leagues since 2006, and though his current pace of 10 home runs allowed in 62.0 innings is worse than normal, regression even to his personal mean would leave him as a homer-prone pitcher. He has kept the BABIP low throughout his career, with a .283 mark against him since 2008, a feature which plays into the hands of a ball club that matches up well with a Minnesota lineup that likes to put the ball in play.
Graham makes his first start this season after throwing 20.3 innings out of the bullpen in 14 appearances. He was stretched out his last two appearances, throwing three full frames in each including 60 pitches in his most recent game, and the fact that he hasn't pitched in five days is further evidence that this was a planned transition. Graham is unlikely to throw more than 75-to-80 pitches maximum (and that might be generous), and it will be interesting to see if he backs off the gas pedal on a fastball that averages 96.0 miles per hour this season in order to endure the enhanced workload.
Game 3: Sunday, June 7 at 1:10pm CDT: Mike Fiers vs. Mike Pelfrey
Fiers is the pitcher with the greatest upside in this series, with a strikeout rate of 10.8 per nine innings this season, yet he has just one double-digit strikeout game to show for it thanks to a general lack of pitch-count efficiency that has led to just two starts reaching the 18-out level. He has averaged just 5.25 innings per start this year, and his penchant for long at bats will hurt his count in the K department while standing as a barrier between Fiers and the big W.
Pelfrey is one of the few pitchers with a lower K rate than Gibson, with his 11.0 percent rate of punch outs ranking as the third-lowest mark in the game among qualifying pitchers. His ERA is also in the same unsustainable boat as Gibson, with Pelfrey posting a nearly identical 2.59 mark this season that will feel the hard pull of regression against the Brewers this weekend.
Carlos Gomez endured a very slow start and then went on the disabled list with a leg issue, the combination of which painted a bleak picture for his 2015 season. He has come back to swipe five bags in eight attempts since the start of May, but his power has been lacking, including a .194 batting average and .268 slugging percentage over his last 10 games, so Gomez's line could benefit greatly from a full weekend against a Minnesota rotation that is on the precipice of deep regression.
Ryan Braun is a veritable lefty-killer who will have to wait until the bullpen comes into play before reaping his substantial platoon advantage. He started the season in an awful slump, with a slash line that stood at .226/.273/.274 as late as April 27, but a surge of six homers in 11 games brought his stats back into focus. Now hitting a more robust .258/.332/.489, Braun will look to get his slugging percentage above .500 this weekend with his first long ball of June.
Adam Lind might be the only batter in the Milwaukee lineup who has hit consistently this season, busting out with a .975 OPS in the first month and maintaining a mark above .800 for the season. He has hit a bit of a rough patch more recently, with just two extra-base hits in his last 13 games, but the lineup around him is starting to take shape in order to put more ducks on the pond while simultaneously reducing the urgency for him to produce. The left-handed bat with a nearly 300-point platoon split in the OPS department will enjoy the dearth of southpaw starters on the other side of the ball.
The consistency of 2014 failed to spillover into this season, as Jonathan Lucroy began the year in a 6-for-45 funk before he hit the disabled list for a six-week stay that evaporated his opportunity to rebound in May. He already has four hits in his first 13 at-bats since returning, and it makes sense to hit the reset button on the catcher's 2015 performance in order to capture his true value going forward.
Brian Dozier has been the most interesting bat on this ball club in 2015, and it hasn't been especially close. Another lefty-masher, Dozier has enjoyed a .292/.350/.611 batting line in 80 plate appearances against southpaws this season, though he will be confined to facing right-handers for the vast majority of his at-bats over the weekend, against whom he has hit a relatively modest .248/.333/.474. Dozier has been on fire for the past month, posting a .700 slugging percentage over a 28-day span during which he has clubbed eight of his 10 homers, a recency effect that overshadows any platoon splits.
Extraordinarily streaky this season, Torii Hunter is currently in the middle of one of his better stretches of the year, collecting hits in 10 of his last 11 games. He hit five of his seven homers this season in an 11-game stretch from early-to-mid May, though he has gone deep just once since that run came to an end. Nevertheless, his solidified slot in the middle of the Minnesota order has helped to buffer the RBI totals (he has 32 Ribs so far) even while the power goes out of his bat.
The power spike of 2012 has looked more like an aberration the farther that it has gotten in the rearview mirror, but Trevor Plouffe's pop has resurfaced this season with a .452 slugging percentage that is right in line with his breakout campaign of three years ago. The ISO isn't quite as impressive this year (.191 this year compared to .220 in 2012), but his all-around offensive game is more well-rounded than at any other point of his career. Enjoy the performance while it lasts because just when you get accustomed to his bat being a weapon "Plouffe!" it's gone.
I accepted long ago that the power spike of 2009 was a blip on the radar, but the bat-to-ball skills and on-base chops that defined Joe Mauer's value has gone missing for the past two campaigns. The batting average is on a downhill slope (just .263 this season) and his 7.8-percent walk rate is not just the lowest of his career, but it represents a cliff-dive from the 12.0 percent career mark that he had demonstrated over 5,700 plate appearances. Mauer was always able to barrel up baseballs, and while his fall off the power wagon was perfectly acceptable when he was behind the dish on a regular basis, the current version is a poor-hitting first baseman whose $23 million annual salary is crippling the frugal franchise in Minnesota.
