Ouch, Our own parent site seems to have forgotten we exist.

SBNation is a collective of over 300 sports blogs, of which we are one. This entire organization was founded as a confederacy of six baseball blogs, and has grown to become the behemoth known as Vox Media today. All that being said, at the site level, we all usually get along pretty well, and I would call several of the writers who participated in the SBN preview of the 2021 MLB season “friends of the site,” if not even personal friends. They all seem to have entirely forgot the Twins exist though.

Click the link, and read their work. Then come back and we’ll all have a good-old-fashioned-complaint-session in the comments.

Andrew (Mearns, of Pinstripe Alley) I can forgive forgetting about the Twins, afterall, he is a Yankees fan, and that is just what they do. As for the rest of you, I’m disappointed. I thought we were buddies, after all.

Butttttttttt noooooooooo..... Lets dig deeper! Why am I mad at my coworkers?

Well, everyone was asked for a bold prediction. Brady (Klopfer, McCovey Chronicles)’s prediction, I guess could cover our Bomba-oriented players, as he predicts a three-way home run race, with totals reaching near-Bondsian totals. Nelson Cruz could get involved in that. Ashley (MacLennan, Bless You Boys and DRays Bay) predicts that this is year of the pitcher, so perhaps maybe Kenta Maeda and Jose Berrios make this one work for us too. This question is the one that I can best tie to the Twins though, and I bet we weren’t who they were thinking of.

Brady and Sara (Sanchez, Bleed Cubbie Blue) both took the field over the Dodgers to win the World Series. We’re the field. Go you guys! But they are still in the minority on this question. To be fair, you have to win a playoff game to win the World Series, so they probably didn’t forget about us. Literally all five writers also take Mike Trout to win the AL MVP. I mean, that’s a safe bet, but lets get a little variety. There are something like 400 players to choose from, and roughly half are position players. Andrelton Simmons, Max Kepler, or Byron Buxton could all have been reasonable picks.

Questions four and six though, that’s where my feelings got hurt. Question five is about a disappointing team, so I’m glad we weren’t mentioned there, but question four was about the biggest surprise—and if you’re going to write a long preview about the season without including the word “Twins,” you probably could take any qualifers off saying they will surprise you. The Twins are still the favorite of every projection system to win the Central afterall. They’ve made the playoffs several years in a row, and return the same or an improved player at nearly every position. Ashley, especially, made me sad by picking the Eloy Jimenez-less White Sox. The Sox will be a surprise alright—a suprise disappointment. Even the Tigers blogger wrote us off. Question six was no better for Twins fans.

Its sad to see no one name the ageless wonder Nelson Cruz having a chance to lead the MLB in bombas. Mr. Bomba himself Eddie Rosario (although no longer a Twin) doesn’t merit a mention. Nor does past-MVP and two-time Silver Slugger Josh Donaldson, or the always dangerous Miguel Sano. Any of them could easily take that crown.

The final question was of World Series matchups. Its fair not to pick the Twins here. For NL teams, everyone picked either the Dodgers or the Padres. For the AL, there were three votes for the Yankees, which is not totally unreasonable, and Ashley picking the Rays to repeat makes some sense too. The odd one out here is Chicago (Cubs) writer Sara, who picks the White Sox. Ouch. That hurt. I guess maybe you can make a wild-card run to the series from second place, but I think that will be the only way the Sox can get there, and I won’t even be shocked if they finish third in the division.

Despite your hurtful, hurtful predictions though, I still love you all. Just remember that sound you hear in October, it will be me looking back on these predictions and laughing.

Oh, and by the way, Twinkie Town folks, the whole thing was put together by my boss, so if I’m not here tomorrow, it was nice knowing you all!