Article: The Defensive Dilemma

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And yet the Baltimore Orioles are going to win the East with Steve Pearce playing first base and some guy named Paredes playing third most of the time.  Jose Bautista was bounced around from team to team and is now one of the top power threats in baseball.  A certain number of players will become stars when there value was discounted.  Buying lottery tickets is fine, but the Twins can't focus only on that, of course.

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My two cents

 

Mauer started out shaky but in my opinion... He has been close to exceptional of late. I have no 1B worries at all.

 

Dozier... In my opinion has been as good a 2B as anyone at the position in baseball.

 

Plouffe has been much improved

 

Escobar is serviceable at SS... All in All though... I'd like to see improvement here.

 

Nunez... Has been great defensively... Especially at 3B... Not so much in the OF... Whatever the Yankee fans were screaming about has not arrived in Minnesota.

 

I'm proud of Santana... The Twins front office choked assessing CF and Santana had to bail them out. With more reps Santana could turn into a wonderful OF. His improvement has been noticeable.

 

Arcia has a great arm... I take that as a positive.

 

Schafer has improved the overall OF situation... Hammer was well below par.

 

Collectively... I think the Twins will be alright defensively. They just gotta sync up with the pitchers... They seem to go bad together. When the defense makes a miscue... The pitchers don't pick them up and vice versa. When the pitchers get into a hole and need that amazing play... They don't get it.

 

The Twins focus needs to be pitching... pitching and more pitching. This D could support improve pitching.

 

I almost forgot about Vargas. He has done a fine job defensively at DH.

 

There is some defensive hope here, but long term, heck short term ideally, I don't think any of us actually want Plouffe, Nunez, Escobar or Schafer in the starting lineup, and we don't want Santana in CF.  The guys we hope will replace them seem to all be worse defenders with the exception of CF.