2018 Twins Turkey of the Year is:

The 2018 baseball season is in the books, free agents everywhere are sitting back and waiting for the offers to pour in, a number of teams (including our Twins) have hired new managers. The temperature is 31 degrees outside and there is a slight coating of snow on the ground here in Plymouth so we know it is time to start sorting our candidates for the 2018 Twins Turkey of the Year.

The Twins finished in second place again this season behind the Cleveland  Indians. This past season the Twins were 78-84 as compared to 85-77 in 2017 and this year they were just 13 games back as compared to 17 games behind the year previous. Yet the 2018 Twins were looked on as failures as compared to the 2017 team that was a Wild Card participant albeit for just the one game against the New York Yankees. Manager Paul Molitor was the American League Manager of the Year in 2017 and after the 2018 season ended he found himself unemployed along with most of his coaching staff after signing a new three-year contract just a year earlier. Twins fans were unhappy and attendance dropped to its lowest point since 2004 at the Metrodome. Meanwhile the Twins Front Office added to staff and continued the “new ways of fielding a winning team” such as increasing the number of shifts, playing four outfielders here and there and jumping on the new “opener” strategy employed by teams such as Tampa Bay and Oakland.