Mmm… well, in that case, the Twins will be standing at 30-38 heading into the Reds series on the June 22nd-24th weekend. I don’t know. A 20-13 stretch would be really nice, probably good enough for Ryan to hold off on any trades for a few weeks, at least, but I doubt I’d be feeling all that excited about the team’s chances at that point. Just to get to 85 wins from a 30-38 mark, the team would have to play .585 ball (95-win pace) over its last 94 games. Now, consider that even the most optimistic Twins fans believed in March that this might be a .530 team if the breaks went our way (and the team is currently on a 46-win pace)….

I don’t want to see Ryan trade Willingham this summer, and of course he won’t or can’t trade Mauer and Morneau; but, barring a crazy-miracle turnaround in the next 6 weeks, I think everyone else should be up on the trade block, especially the pending free agents. Span is a tougher call, but if his contract helps bring back a good prospect in a deal, I’ll support Terry Ryan swapping out Span, too.

The Indians, Tigers and WSox look to have much better starting pitching than the Twins… but is that because they’re guys are really “good” or because they’ve been facing one anothers’ offenses? Those three teams are 8, 9 and 10 in AL OPS (the Twins are 12th) right now. The top half of the AL OPS rankings includes all of the AL East foes the Twins have been facing.

Your final question, frightwig, is a good one to ponder… what WOULD cause us to want Terry Ryan to act as if it’s worthwhile to invest in the present season?

If by “invest,” we mean trade away real prospects for a half-season rental player, I’m not sure there’s anything short of a 30 game winning streak that would make me even consider such a thing. But looking for MLB-ready pitching instead of A-AA level arms in any trade is certainly something I’d consider if this team started winning a few games.

Teams are most desperate for help once you get toward mid July and that’s when the prices for potentially helpful rental players tends to be high. I guess what I’m saying right now is that mid July is still 8 weeks away and there’s no rush to start selling off parts until we see what happens when this team gets to play a few of its Divisional rivals.

I would hope that the organization’s plan is to put a better team on the field in 2013 than they have this year. That would mean retaining players you think can help the team improve and getting rid of those you don’t feel are likely to help in that effort. I just don’t think any of us knows for sure exactly which players fall in to which category yet after only playing 34 games, all but two of which were against teams outside their own Division.

The Central might well be won by a team that bobs around .500 all season, but what evidence is there that the Twins are capable of being even that good?

A lousy offense, even with most of its best players performing pretty well. Equally rotten pitching; and Diamond and Walters are unlikely to turn that around if they’re true to their track records. The team has the worst run differential, by far, in the majors. And for all the talk about the tough schedule to this point, the Twins’ Strength of Schedule rating at ESPN.com actually ranks 23rd in the majors, 11th in the AL.

The Twins are probably the worst team in baseball, right now. They might show some spark in the next month, sure. But would that really convince you that this trainwreck is suddenly a genuinely good team? And if it’s not a genuinely good team, why should we want Terry Ryan to act as if it’s worthwhile to invest in the present season?