Need to take a hard look at Sano.

[Taildragger8791]

As it is it seems like he's the rare cookie that can be surprisingly productive despite his serious contact issues and being a bit of a guesser at the plate. It's unorthodox and causes a lot of heartburn at times, but as mentioned above he produces over the aggregate which is great for the regular season. It works in this lineup because they aren't dependent on him putting the ball in play a lot, and it is a fun luxury to have hitting #6 or #7.

 

I don't think you can totally ignore the results against individual pitches or in individual at-bats though, because the opposing scouts sure don't. He still mostly feasts on fastballs and mistake pitches, while struggling pretty mightily against almost everything else. Those opportunities will dry up against top notch pitching and coaching in the playoffs. If he swings through a fat one in the zone he might not get another one all day. I still think in this lineup that might be ok as long as the K-rate doesn't balloon to 50%, but I'm very interested to see how it all plays out. This might be the year we finally get to see how it all works over an extended run and with real playoff implications on the line.

[Mike Sixel]

 

If his swing-and-miss tendencies continue, then come post-season Marwin Gonzalez is your starting third basemen and Sano becomes a strong righty off the bench when the opposing team's manager puts in a lefty to throw to Kepler or Castro. 

 

you realize Sano has already been more valuable than Gonzalez.....in less than 1/3 the games......

[Doomtints]

 

 It works in this lineup because they aren't dependent on him putting the ball in play a lot

 

Sure his balls in play could be better, I guess, but remember home runs are not included in balls in play percentage.

 

People keep throwing around Adam Dunn's name. Note that Sano's balls-in-play percentage is higher than Dunn's and Sano's BABIP is significantly higher than Dunn's. I believe cutting edge people would call this "Barrels."

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

If we look at what Sano IS and not what he COULD be.  He IS a 35+ HR 30+ 2B 100 RBI ~.335-340 OBP.810-820 OPS player per 162 games.  Which means that even if he does not play 162 games, at a per game production level he produces at that level when healthy.

 

All of those numbers would essentially rank 1st or 2nd on the Twins.  That is what Sano IS.  The strikeout numbers and issues do not PREVENT him from being that level of player above.  The strikeout numbers prevent Sano from performing above that level, which is essentially the difference from a good player and an elite player.

 

Again just to be clear, based on his career thus far...that is what Sano IS now.  There is no debate, no argument, and no other opinion.  If we're going to start a debate, we have to start from that as a foundation based on his first 2500-3000 plate appearances of production.  

 

Do we want to keep a player around who profiles as a .340 OBP - 30 2B - 35 HR - 100 RBI player with some potential upside for another gear? 

 

Basically the question is, do we want to keep around a player who gets on base more, hits for more power, and drives in more runs than just about any player on the Twins except a healthy Cruz and in some categories maybe Polanco (OBP) and Rosario (power numbers) albeit with injury concerns that do cause worry about his ability to ever string together a fully healthy season?

 

In my opinion, despite the health concerns...the current career production per game numbers plus the potential for more is worth the injury concerns especially when you realize that he's probably (for the long-term) the Twins second most productive hitter on the roster behind Polanco.  Although I do recognize that there is an argument for Rosario.  

 

Average matters much less than on base percentage.   If a guy gets on base and hits for power that is literally the model and formula for value.

 

The strikeouts only matter if they prevent Sano from getting on base and hitting for the power numbers.  It hasn't, at least it hasn't prevented him from putting up better power numbers and getting on base more than any other Twins player other than Cruz for his career.   (Some Twins are having career years that surpass that production this year)

 

For example, Rosario does not have a single year in his career where he has gotten on base as much as Sano's career average.  Neither does Kepler.   I think Polanco has one year at Sano's career average before this season.

 

Why do you all care about strikeouts when he hits for more power and gets on base more than guys with less strikeouts?  Some of you would rather we put a guy in the lineup that will get on base less, drive in less runs, hit less extra base hits, and score less runs just to get more groundouts and popups instead of strikeouts...

Strikeouts always matter, particularly when talking about Sano. The strikeout is the one way a plate appearance has zero chance of becoming productive in any way, shape, or form (outside the weird passed ball strikeout that happens a few times a season).

 

We've seen this with Sano before; a hot start where pitchers underestimate him, then an adjustment period where Miguel's numbers start to decline as pitchers realize he'll swing and miss at a ton of borderline pitches. We'll see if that happens again this season soon enough. I hope it doesn't but given his miss rate, I don't have a lot of confidence.

 

As for the rest of your post, you're rebutting points I'm not trying to make (but others in this thread are so feel free to keep talking about them). I don't want Sano demoted. He is *definitely* the best third baseman on the team. I don't want Sano traded.

 

What I want is for Sano to be who he *can* be, and that's a player with slightly better contact, a marginally better K rate, and the ability to post MVP-level numbers, not "very good" numbers.

[d-mac]

 

Player A: 2001 games of statistical data
Player B: 394 games of statistical data

 

Sano had one bad year. ONE ... and that year is not even half as bad as Dunn's worst year was. Sano's one bad year is part of a much smaller sample. I get it that the year is fresh in our memories, but come on....

 

I'm confused, are you saying Adam Dunn was a bad player? I think if Sano can hit like Adam Dunn and stick at 3B long term, there's a ton of positive value there. Dunn was a 25.6 fWAR player mostly playing at 1B (he was a God awful defender there) and DH'ing.

[Doomtints]

Sano's barrel% this year, if he qualified, would be the best in the league.

 

If he was hitting merely at his career average barrel% and he qualified, he would be tied for the best in the league this year.

 

The dude can hit.

[Doomtints]

 

 

I'm confused, are you saying Adam Dunn was a bad player? I think if Sano can hit like Adam Dunn and stick at 3B long term, there's a ton of positive value there. Dunn was a 25.6 fWAR player mostly playing at 1B (he was a God awful defender there) and DH'ing.

 

I'm saying the Dunn comparison does not make a lot of sense right now.

[bird]

 

you realize Sano has already been more valuable than Gonzalez.....in less than 1/3 the games......

 

 

I doubt anyone associated with the team would buy that statement for a nanosecond, but going forward and working with something besides a tiny amount of arithmetic, I'm guessing Sano justifies his insertion into the lineup more and more. The more I think about, the more I think just having Cruz and Sano in the same lineup will boost the effectiveness of everyone in the lineup.

[USAFChief]

 

you realize Sano has already been more valuable than Gonzalez.....in less than 1/3 the games......

I'm with birdwatcher.

 

I bet not one person on the Twins staff, or roster, including Sano, would buy that statement. 

 

No matter what Fangraphs says.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I'm with birdwatcher.

 

I bet not one person on the Twins staff, or roster, including Sano, would buy that statement. 

 

No matter what Fangraphs says.

 

Ok, wanna bet who is more valuable going forward?

 

really, all the positive posts here about Sano, and you two pick up on this one to nitpick....whatevs.

[prouster]

Wait, I thought signing Marwin Gonzalez was a mistake? Oh well. Maybe it will be a mistake again if he has a bad June.

[woolywoolhouse]

 

you realize Sano has already been more valuable than Gonzalez.....in less than 1/3 the games......

 

Calm down. I was trying to be a mediator, offering a position Sano would still be valuable in IF he were to tank as badly as some people are saying/predicting/falsely accusing. 

 

Of course I then pulled up Sano's righty vs. lefty splits in 2019 and... whoa. He is not doing great versus lefties.* (.176 BA in 17 AB vs. lefties; .303 BA in 33 AB vs. righties.) So that is reason to negate my original statement, not because I "insinuated" that he was much worse than Marwin. 

 

* You'll notice I didn't say "Sano should sit against all lefties" or anything; I was simply showing his 2019 stats**. 

 

** And yes, that is a small sample size. 

[Taildragger8791]

 

Sano's barrel% this year, if he qualified, would be the best in the league.

 

If he was hitting merely at his career average barrel% and he qualified, he would be tied for the best in the league this year.

 

The dude can hit.

 

Just curious where you looked that up. On the Statcast page he ranks 59th in barrels/PA and 24th in barrels/Batted Ball Event. Sano definitely puts a wicked charge into the ball when he makes contact, nobody can dispute that.

 

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/statcast_leaderboard?year=2019&abs=30&player_type=resp_batter_id

 

It's kind of a weird name for that statistic since it's influenced so heavily by exit velocity. A hitter with elite power should be near the top of that leaderboard since they generate exit velocity more easily, opening up the window of launch angles they can get Barrel credit for. It doesn't mean the contact was better or worse, just that they hit it harder. Theoretically a guy like Ben Revere could square up balls at an optimal launch angle all day and not get as many "Barrels" as guys near the top of that list. I just noticed ByungHo Park was ranked 11-12 in 2016. Weird.

[TheLeviathan]

This thread jumped the shark seven pages ago.  We're so far down the silly path, now we're trying to take it seriously.  

 

Should probably just put this one to rest.

[mazeville]

Gosh, based on this thread you'd expect that Sano was having a horrible start.

 

He has an OPS of 1.036. 

 

So either this thread did not age well (because it's early in his season) or people have just made judgments about the dude and want him gone no matter what. 

 

Regardless, maybe hold off for a couple of months to start declaring it time to take a "hard look" at anything, yeah?

 

[jkcarew]

I think one of the greatest (and kind of unexpected, at least for me) aspects to 2019 is that we have this wonderful opportunity to be patient with Sano and Buxton. The team's immediate success is not as dependent upon either player...not nearly as dependent as any of us had a right to dream 6 months ago. We can leave Buxton at the bottom of the lineup as he gains confidence in the new him...we can take Sano and put him toward the bottom of the lineup as he tries to build consistency...we can give either days off against tough matchups or to keep them healthy as they try to refine their game, without agonizing over whether we have any chance at all without them in the lineup and performing. This is a good thing...regardless of the ultimate outcomes. When you have that kind of ceiling in a player, you'd love to be able to afford patience.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I think one of the greatest (and kind of unexpected, at least for me) aspects to 2019 is that we have this wonderful opportunity to be patient with Sano and Buxton. The team's immediate success is not as dependent upon either player...not nearly as dependent as any of us had a right to dream 6 months ago. We can leave Buxton at the bottom of the lineup as he gains confidence in the new him...we can take Sano and put him toward the bottom of the lineup as he tries to build consistency...we can give either days off against tough matchups or to keep them healthy as they try to refine their game, without agonizing over whether we have any chance at all without them in the lineup and performing. This is a good thing...regardless of the ultimate outcomes. When you have that kind of ceiling in a player, you'd love to be able to afford patience.

 

great post!

[Riverbrian]

I think one of the greatest (and kind of unexpected, at least for me) aspects to 2019 is that we have this wonderful opportunity to be patient with Sano and Buxton. The team's immediate success is not as dependent upon either player...not nearly as dependent as any of us had a right to dream 6 months ago. We can leave Buxton at the bottom of the lineup as he gains confidence in the new him...we can take Sano and put him toward the bottom of the lineup as he tries to build consistency...we can give either days off against tough matchups or to keep them healthy as they try to refine their game, without agonizing over whether we have any chance at all without them in the lineup and performing. This is a good thing...regardless of the ultimate outcomes. When you have that kind of ceiling in a player, you'd love to be able to afford patience.

Perfectly stated!

 

Let Sano be one of the 12 and let him do what he does. We got time and space to see what he becomes.

[Don Walcott]

So far we're 11-2 when Sano plays.

[yarnivek1972]

Calm down. I was trying to be a mediator, offering a position Sano would still be valuable in IF he were to tank as badly as some people are saying/predicting/falsely accusing.

 

Of course I then pulled up Sano's righty vs. lefty splits in 2019 and... whoa. He is not doing great versus lefties.* (.176 BA in 17 AB vs. lefties; .303 BA in 33 AB vs. righties.) So that is reason to negate my original statement, not because I "insinuated" that he was much worse than Marwin.

 

* You'll notice I didn't say "Sano should sit against all lefties" or anything; I was simply showing his 2019 stats**.

 

** And yes, that is a small sample size.

Sano actually had a “reverse split” in 2015 as well. That was by far the best he’s performed at the MLB level. So, it is worth analyzing why that might be. If I were to speculate, I would say it has to do with better recognition of breaking balls from RHP and not swinging at the good ones.

 

Definitely something he needs to work on.

[Nine of twelve]

This whole thread reminds me of a story I once heard about University of Oklahoma football fans. This was sometime during the 1980's. There was a radio station with a call-in format talking about the team after a spring practice. It seems there was a caller who was very upset that the third-string quarterback didn't perform well enough. The point is that there's no "need to take a hard look at Sano" right now. Not at all.

[Thrylos]

Sano is second in the majors among 58 third basemen with 50+ PA in wRC+ with 162, after Anthony Rendon (176), third in wOBA (.415) after Rendon (.443) and Arenado (.420), and leads all third basemen in isoP .420, with the second (Rendon) hitting .319.  He even has positive defensive metrics, improving from the past.

 

To put his numbers into perspective, last season Machado had 141 wRC+, .377 wOBA, and .241 isoP.  I remember quite a few posters here who were advocating the Twins go after him.   Sano's 2019 (so far) is better than Machado's 2018 (and 2019 of course).

 

And his .356 OBP is ahead of Cron's, Kepler's, Buxton's, Schoop's, Gonzalez's, Rosario's, in the Twins and only trails (Arraez), Garver, Polanco, and Castro.

 

If Sano is not good enough, there is a long list of worse players in these Twins...

 

And still is fairly rusty after losing so much time.

 

Not sure what some people want sometimes...

[Thrylos]

And as far as his K%,  I suspect the ones who get hives with that, would have nothing to do with Wil Myers (36.1%), Joey Gallo (35.5%), Austin Riley (35.2%), Javy Baez (31.7%) et al as well... or?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

And as far as his K%,  I suspect the ones who get hives with that, would have nothing to do with Wil Myers (36.1%), Joey Gallo (35.5%), Austin Riley (35.2%), Javy Baez (31.7%) et al as well... or?

All three have an equal or lower career K rate than Sano's lowest single season K rate.

 

Well, except for Wil Myers. But he has a 109 OPS+ for his career. I'm looking for something a bit better than that with Sano.

 

The thing is that I'm not even bashing Sano, I just want him to improve the weakest part of his offensive game because I think it will make him a much better player moving forward. Again, I'm not looking for Joe Mauer here but a 32% K rate would help his stats improve that much more.

[Thrylos]

 

 

 

The thing is that I'm not even bashing Sano, I just want him to improve the weakest part of his offensive game because I think it will make him a much better player moving forward. Again, I'm not looking for Joe Mauer here but a 32% K rate would help his stats improve that much more.

 

Research shows much better outcomes if one focuses on improving his/her strengths rather his/her weaknesses.   Same with baseball.  Better judgement of the zone will come with experience. For sure.  I

 

Sano is more valuable as a .250/.350/.600  that if someone try to make him into a .275 hitter because that .600 SLG can get to .400 if he loses his aggressiveness.

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

Research shows much better outcomes if one focuses on improving his/her strengths rather his/her weaknesses.   Same with baseball.  Better judgement of the zone will come with experience. For sure.  I

 

Sano is more valuable as a .250/.350/.600  that if someone try to make him into a .275 hitter because that .600 SLG can get to .400 if he loses his aggressiveness.

Not what I'm saying.

[twins1095]

 

All three have an equal or lower career K rate than Sano's lowest single season K rate.

 

Well, except for Wil Myers. But he has a 109 OPS+ for his career. I'm looking for something a bit better than that with Sano.

 

The thing is that I'm not even bashing Sano, I just want him to improve the weakest part of his offensive game because I think it will make him a much better player moving forward. Again, I'm not looking for Joe Mauer here but a 32% K rate would help his stats improve that much more.

 

The thing is no one disagrees with you that they would ideally like to see Sano improve in the areas you list.  If he can make himself a harder out through better pitch recognition he'll get on base even more and hit even more balls hard.  The thing that people disagree with and push back on and get frustrated with is the idea that the current and past version of Sano is not a valuable player and should be potentially moved because of the issues that have been listed.

 

Even with Sano's contact issues, he gets on base more, hits for more power, and drives in more runs than pretty much everyone on the roster.   It's extremely disingenuous to say anything other than that.  It is also fair not to like Sano because of his playstyle and the strikeouts that come with it (also the injuries).  However, it's important to recognize that not liking Sano for his playstyle is an emotional reaction or a bias that is completely separate from whether or not that playstyle is valuable to a team--or at least valuable enough to make him one of the top 2/3/4 hitters on the Twins (with Rosario/Polanco/Cruz).  

 

If posters said that they recognize the assertion above, which objectively is true, while still suggesting that they are frustrated that Sano has not been able to overcome pitch recognition and contact issues preventing him from reaching elite territory...that would be different...

 

Coming from that emotional reaction and suggesting that the Twins move on from Sano for objectively much worse options and not recognizing the assertion above is the frustrating part.