Twins players of the month: April

Wow, what an insane month for the Twins and their fans. After a 17-10 start to the season, there are many players deserving of the awards in the lineup, rotation and even the bullpen. In fact, I am going to need the community to help me out at the end because it’s impossible to pick just one hitter out of this insane month. Lets start with the rotation.

•Twins starting pitcher of the month: Jake Odorizzi.

To my surprise, Jake actually was the better pitcher in the month of April. While he and Berrios are extremely similar in their stats so far, my final decision came down to the difficult of the opponents faced so far.

-Odorizzi has faced opponents with a combined record of 93-76 (55 winning%)

-Berrios has faced opponents with a combined record of 72-98 (42.3 winning%)

Not only has Odorizzi faced tougher opponents, but his stats so far are outstanding. He currently holds a 3.34 ERA, a 3.19 FIP and a 1.112 WHIP. He has allowed a .206 AVG, a .556 OPS and a .258 wOBA.

Overall, Odorizzi has been extremely impressive to start the season. Outside of his start in PHI, he has a 2.17 ERA with a 0.97 WHIP. Hopefully we can see Jake see some of this same success throughout the year.

Twins reliever of the month: Taylor Rogers.

Taylor Rogers has quietly become one of the best relievers in all of baseball, and he is only getting better so far in 2019.

His statcast rankings show exactly what I mean. He is near the top in literally every topic listed here.

As I’m writing this, Rogers holds a 1.98 ERA, a K/9 of 13.2 and a WHIP of 1.468 and he’s been an elite set up man.

His batting against stats are not stellar though. He has given up a .286 AVG (.198 xBA) with a .332 wOBA (.258 xWOBA) is the expected stats signify he will actually get better from here.

He seems to have taken on a role of being the 8th/9th inning guy who will come in and do his job almost every time.

Twins batter(s) of the month: Jorge Polanco...maybe?

Alright now this is where it gets tricky. There are three hitters with Cruz, Polanco and Rosario who all deserve this recognition but there can be only one winner, so head down to the bottom and vote. Here’s the upside to each of them:

Jorge Polanco: .327/.385/.612 (.998) with five home runs. He also ranks 3rd on the team in wOBA (.413), 2nd in wRC+ (60), and 4th in win probability added (0.41)

Nelson Cruz: .307/.409/.587 (.996) with five home runs. He is 1st on the team in win probability added (1.29), 1st in wOBA (.416) and 1st in wRC+ with 162.

Eddie Rosario: set the record for most April home runs in Twins history. Owns a .248/.296/.624 (.920) line and has hit 11 bombs. His on base percentage and

average aren’t impressive so those will hurt his chances.

Alright Twins fans, vote down below on who the Twins hitter of the month should be, and tell us why. I would love to see who the community thinks is the most deserving.

Final player of the month results:

•Starter: Jake Odorizzi

•Reliever: Taylor Rogers

•Hitter: Jorge Polanco (unless the voters say otherwise)