What’s the worst case scenario for the 2017 Twins?

The 2017 Twins season is quickly approaching, and you know what that means—somehow (maybe?) things are going to go horribly, horribly wrong for our boys of summer. It seems to be the trend these days.

So last week I asked you, the good people of Twinkie Town, to come up with your worst-case scenarios for the Twins this season. We had a lot of participants, which is great! I think.

Below are the worst-case scenarios you guys came up with, along with a poll for us to vote on which one of these is truly the worst.

The Bullpen Makes Eddie sick

The first person to respond was Theo77, who wrote his post in the voice of bullpen coach Eddie Guardado, just with a lot less swearing. Although he voices several complaints about the team, the gist I’m going with is that expressed in the parting line:

I'm thinking that a lot of Tequila and 98 losses are in my future.

Of course, because the post was written as Eddie, the future here is Eddie’s. I’m going to put this worst case scenario down as: "Eddie G goes to the hospital with alcohol poisoning because the bullpen is so bad."

Clean house

I wasn’t sure where beckmt’s worst-case scenario was going at first, because it seemed to be a laundry list of things that could go very wrong with the team (mostly pitching). In the end, however, it came around to what the rest worst-case scenario would be: "Pohlad fires Falvey and Levine and brings back the old front office."

Yikes.

Skol!

SaintAugustine had a very long and creative post that starts off really bad (someone at Target Field spills an incredibly expensive beer), gets slightly less bad (the mouth of hell literally opens in the stadium, sucks everyone in, damning their souls for eternity), then ends on a more realistic note: "The Twins actually do really well and then mega-choke at the last minute a la the Vikings."

Things Fall Apart

Win-MIN-Twins had another long, great description of his worst case scenario where just about everything goes wrong. Jose Berrios has a 6.80 ERA. Byron Buxton turns into a fourth outfielder. The team collectively spends 1,398 days on the DL (the list of injuries is pretty good). The entire coaching staff resigns, except Eddie Guardado, who becomes the defacto manager. Joe Mauer retires. Brian Dozier gets lost in the woods somewhere in Mississippi. Due to a scheduling and communication error, Tommie-Johnnie is played the same day the Twins play the Blue Jays.

It goes on and on, but it ends with this one crux: "Danny Santana shows up every day and plays wherever asked. He is a constant in a sea of chaos."

Lose first nine games?

I really appreciated rcglanzer’s very focused worst-case scenario, which talks about the team starting off the season with nine straight losses again. That would be pretty bad.

However, he also acknowledged what the real worst case scenario would be (which would also be mine): "The team plane goes down."

No leadership

After all the craziness, zkonedog came in his much more level-headed and realistic post examining Paul Molitor’s seemingly inability to develop young players. Molitor himself wasn’t exactly the worst case scenario though, which could better be summed up as this: "There’s a leadership vacuum and no one can get the team going."

Minor Leagues

jere.johnson.37’s worst case scenario was similar to some others, but had a very nice progression and sort of complicated story to it. Basically, the Twins make the playoffs due to a lot of bad umpiring, but then the Yankees beat them and win the World Series. And oh, yeah: "The Twins are forced to become a triple-A team."

If you’re wondering how the hell that happens, you just have to read Jere’s post.

The Big One Oh Oh

As you would expect, bean5302 came up with a detailed and realistic picture of the team’s worst case scenario for 2017. He has descriptions of what could go wrong for every player, in case you like feeling really depressed. The post even has its own fun poll! The bottom line, however, if: "The Twins lose another 100 games."

A Team in Stasis

jonboy11 had a similar list of everything that could go wrong—no hitting, pitching sucks, blah, blah blah. He even has Jason Castro getting kicked out of the league for framing pitches too hard. The overall gist, though, stated in the beginning, is this: "Veterans play just well enough to not allow prospects new chances, and they all suck anyway."

Those are all pretty bad, but...