2007 one of the "most talented" Twins teams ever? Really, Jim?

In a recent Star-Trib article, Jim Souhan made the argument that Twins should spend more when they have a chance to make a run at the World Series. I agree with this, but I don't agree with the second claim he made that the 2007 Twins had "one of the most talented rosters in franchise history." Now, I don't know about you, but I'd like to think that one of the most talented teams in franchise history would finish better than 3rd in the division, 17 games behind the division leader. The debate of which Twins teams did have the most talent in franchise history is intriguing, but we're going to hold off on that for now. Instead, we're going to take the notion of the 2007 Twins being one one of the team's most talented incarnations and bitch-slap it back to hell.

The first question obviously becomes, how do we determine the "talent" level of a team? I decided to go with the overall VORP accumulated by a team's hitters and pitchers; higher overall VORP implies higher expected run differential, which in turn implies more wins. I chose this because I felt like it best described "talent" best for a team, as opposed to just run differential or winning percentage. Here are two links you can use to find any VORP data you want for hitters or pitchers.

For the 2007 Twins, we have:

2007 Twins Hitters: Combined VORP of 92.7.
2007 Twins Pitchers: Combined VORP of 232.0.
Combined 2007 Twins VORP: 324.7.

Ouch. That means that if we trotted out AAA players all year, we theoretically would have only scored about 93 less runs. (Yes, I realize that's not the way VORP works. I'm generalizing for effect, here.) A few players of note: of course, Johan paved the way with a VORP of 57.7. Carlos "The Walking Heart Attack" Silva managed a VORP of 35.5 while relievers were lead by Matt Guerrier's VORP of 36.8. On the other end of the spectrum: The Piranha! Putting forth a herculean effort, the Piranha accumulated a mighty VORP of -27.1. Although not quite one of the worst seasons in history, it's far from desirable. Rondell White and Alexi Casilla didn't help the Twins cause either, posting VORPS of -8.8 and -10.9, respectively.

I hear your next question: "So, Curse of Marty Cordova, who are you going to compare this stellar group of ballplayers to?" Let's start with one of the most popular versions of the Twins: the 1991 World Series champions.

1991 Twins Hitters: Combined VORP of 240.8
1991 Twins Pitchers: Combined VORP of 238.1
Combined 1991 Twins VORP: 478.9.

That's over 150 runs better than the 2007 Twins. Now, obviously what precisely this means is more complicated than that, but it's easy to see that the 1991 Twins were more "talented." Feel free to take a look at the data for some interesting facts, such as Kevin Tapani in '91 outpitched Johan in '07. Also, the '91 Twins simply hit better: Cuddyer's VORP of 18.4 was fourth best on the 2007 Twins, but only would have made him 7th best on the '91 Twins. Kirby Puckett and Chili Davis also posted VORPS of +40, while the 2007 Twins had no players obtain a VORP above 40.

Okay, but those Twins were World Champions, not just a run of the mill club. Even such a large gap between the two doesn't mean that the '07 Twins can't be one of the "most talented Twins teams ever," right? Well, how about the 1996 Twins, in the midst of the most recent dark age for the Twins, who finished 21.5 games back in their division?

1996 Twins Hitters: Combined VORP of 193.2.
1996 Twins Pitchers: Combined VORP of 205.6.
Combined 1996 Twins VORP: 398.8.

That's still about 75 runs above the 2007 Twins. Still, you could argue the number is thrown off slightly by an absurd year by Chuck Knoblauch (VORP of 98.8). So how about the 1979, 82-win Twins?

1979 Twins Hitters: Combined VORP of 171.1.
1979 Twins Pitchers: Combined VORP of 219.8.
Combined 1979 Twins VORP: 390.9.

Still a solid 65 runs higher than the 2007 Twins. To put this in even more perspective, let's compare the 2007 Twins to the 2007 Cleveland Indians, who actually won the division.

2007 Cleveland Hitters: Combined VORP of 200.6.
2007 Cleveland Pitchers: Combined VORP of 258.7.
Combined 2007 Indians VORP of: 459.3.

Cleveland posted a mighty 135 runs higher than the Twins. Closing that gap is going to take personnel improvements in multiple areas, something the Twins couldn't have realistically done last year.

You may be thinking "Hey, your argument only works because the Twins underperformed relative to 2006!" Yeah, in a way, that's true. Some Twins did perform below their expectations in 2007, such as Johan Santana or the Piranha (who, although normally not good, brought "bad" an epic level last year.) Then again, other players such as Torii Hunter and Matt Guerrier overperformed relative to their career averages. Mauer and Cuddyer both had large jumps in slugging in 2006, while Morneau had a large jump in his OBP; large single year jumps are rarely repeated and the player's performance tends to trend back down to the players average levels.

In other words, going into the 2007 season, we had Santana, Silva, and unknowns for our rotation. We didn't have strong options at DH, LF, 3B or 2B and could also expect some level of regression from our RF, 1B, and C. Although it was nice to dream before the season that the Twins could repeat their impressive 2006 performance, it was something that wasn't realistically going to happen. Sorry Jim, but breaking the bank to try and make a title run in 2007 would NOT have been an intelligent option.