Here it is early February and Spring Training hasn’t even begun and I am writing a piece on the Minnesota Twins and the postseason. Believe me, I have no magic 8-ball and I am not here to predict the future, I am here to share some Twins postseason history with you and give you a chance to look and see who the Twins best and worst postseason players have been over the years. It can help fill some of your time before Spring Training starts.
The Minnesota Twins have not had much success in postseason play of late, but that is not news, is it? The Twins have been in the playoffs in 2020, 2019, 2017, 2010, 2009, 2006 and have not won a single game. I am not going to remind you here how many games in row that the Twins have lost in the playoffs. The last time they won a playoff game was in 2004 and the last time they won a playoff series goes back even further, not in 2004, or 2003 but in 2002 when they beat the Oakland A’s three games to two in the ALDS before losing to the Anaheim Angels in the ALCS four games to one.
Back in the old days there were no playoffs and the teams with the best records in each league (AL & NL) advanced to the World Series to determine the MLB champions. Who knows, maybe that was really the best and fairest way to crown a worthy MLB champion. It seems to me that the more teams that are in the playoffs, the lesser the chance, that the best team comes out the winner. But we are not discussing the merits of the playoffs here because as we know back in 1969 the playoffs came into existence and they have been changing and growing ever since and now we are at a point that six out of the 15 teams in each league make a playoff appearance and if it was up to Commissioner Rob Manfred there would be even more teams in the playoffs.
Just for fun lets take a peek at how Minnesota Twins hitters have fared in the postseason, and when I say postseason, I am including World Series play. I ran a quick Baseball-Reference Stathead search on Twins players that have one or more plate appearances in postseason play and the results can be seen here.
To be fair we also need to take a look at Twins pitching. Here the criteria is that we are looking for Twins pitchers with a minimum of one batter faced in postseason action and you can see the results here.