VIDEO: What’s Plan B at Shortstop?

[Tom Froemming]

The Minnesota Twins need to add a shortstop this offseason. Here’s a quick look at some of the other teams expected to be shopping in the shortstop market and a discussion on what might happen if the Twins miss out on the top four free agent shortstops.

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[RpR]

Plan B: put Polanco back at short and Arraez at 2nd.

An improved Second Base fielder and as few think defense is important, a good bat and lousy defense at Short Stop.

[Minny505]

Trade for Jorge Mateo, currently on the Baltimore Orioles. 

A 27 yr old with elite speed, elite SS defense, and a potentially trending bat as he had a 94 wRC+, with improved Statcast numbers to corroborate the story, in the second half of 2022, which was his first full season in the majors.

With Gunnar Henderson, a consensus Top 20 MLB prospect who is a plus defensive SS himself, looking every bit the part of STUD in his month+ callup, I've heard speculation that Mateo is on the market.

If so, he would be a perfect pickup for the base-clogging and IF defensively challenged Twins.

[ashbury]

3 hours ago, Minny505 said:

Trade for Jorge Mateo, currently on the Baltimore Orioles. 

A 27 yr old with elite speed, elite SS defense, and a potentially trending bat as he had a 94 wRC+, with improved Statcast numbers to corroborate the story, in the second half of 2022, which was his first full season in the majors.

With Gunnar Henderson, a consensus Top 20 MLB prospect who is a plus defensive SS himself, looking every bit the part of STUD in his month+ callup, I've heard speculation that Mateo is on the market.

If so, he would be a perfect pickup for the base-clogging and IF defensively challenged Twins.

That's a nice idea, depending on how much Baltimore wants for this waiver-wire pickup they polished up and now maybe want to flip (where have we heard THAT before? ? )  The trade analyzer site puts a pretty low value on him, so maybe?  OTOH he was their starting shortstop all year and the analytics on him put a pretty good value on his contribution in 2022.

Is Henderson for sure a shortstop?  He seems to have been given a lot of time at 3B, as though the Orioles are hedging some bets with him.