Grading Every Player Who Appeared for the Twins in 2026: Position Players

[old nurse]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Except he’s a C- level player. They paid for C- production and he gave them what they paid for.

The pay range was slightly above warm body for payrange. The production was league average, but by available free agents he was much better dollar to production 

[Major League Ready]

4 hours ago, mike8791 said:

Can't quarrel with grades too much, but from this list a few things stand out:

1. Keaschall looks like a leadoff hitter for years to come if they can find a suitable position.  Just can't see him as a corner OF with his lack of power.

2.  Bell's 96 ribbies is hard to overlook.  Too many people dismiss him prematurely.  Is there a better DH internally or FA who is as reasonably priced?

3.  You have highlighted the 2 major positions that must be addressed - 1B & C.   This is where Pohlad has to spend money in FA to bolster a lineup sadly lacking #3/4 hitters.

 

Keaschall's wRC+ for the 2nd half was 163.  The lack of power is not a problem.  LF is the best place to hide his defensive deficiency unless they can convert him to a 1B.  I wonder if working on 1B is in the off-season plan.  That flexibility would be a big plus.

[old nurse]

2 hours ago, Twins GFP said:

I imagine this comment will not go over well with some individuals...

I think Keaschall's grade might be too high. You give Larnach a B-, but Keaschall gets a B+ for relative similar production over the course of the year. Everyone rails on Larnach for his defensive liabilities, but Keaschall gets a pass? The comparison isn't perfect, but it is closer than most people will admit (especially those who hate Larnach out of principle).

Keaschall going forward will be an interesting watch. He had a strong 2/3 of the year offensively, but IMO his bat is still not enough to be a full-time DH. His defensive liabilities are compounded by the OF prospects pushing for those spots. Unless he can take over 1B, I am not sure where they will hide him.  If he pulls a Lewis and has a poor start to the 2027, his opportunities may evaporate quickly.

If you wish to ignore progression and regression through the season they are the same. 

[RpR]

Jeffers is a C- at best; run-at-will 10.6 caught stealing rate is even worse than his rookie year.

Bell and Lewis at First base neither was truly bad with the glove especially compared to Keaschall.

Bell 

Lewis 

[DJL44]

41 minutes ago, rv78 said:

If 96 RBI's is C- production, your bar is very high. 5th most in the AL. Team High. 2nd best of his career. All for $7M. I was not thrilled with his signing but without his bat in the lineup this team wouldn't have won 60 games.

The 96 RBI are mostly due to batting 4th every day. He stayed healthy and had a lot of players on base ahead of him (which is where the credit should go). Keaschall and Buxton drove the offense, not Bell.

[DJL44]

43 minutes ago, old nurse said:

The pay range was slightly above warm body for payrange. The production was league average, but by available free agents he was much better dollar to production 

The production was below league average, -1.4 WAA according to baseball reference.

[Czelgert]

Twins FO/Jeremy Zoll - D+

Cycled through an endless amount of bullpen arms, many of which were not MLB caliber, in the first half of the season before settling on trades that netted competent, not great, arms.

Wasted a valuable roster spot with a backup catcher that the manager found no reason to play for almost half a season.  A roster spot that could have been given earlier to more deserving prospects with a future for the club.  

Appeared before the media as the head of an organization about as well and as often as J. Pohlad.  

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, Czelgert said:

Twins FO/Jeremy Zoll - D+

Cycled through an endless amount of bullpen arms, many of which were not MLB caliber, in the first half of the season before settling on trades that netted competent, not great, arms.

Wasted a valuable roster spot with a backup catcher that the manager found no reason to play for almost half a season.  A roster spot that could have been given earlier to more deserving prospects with a future for the club.  

Appeared before the media as the head of an organization about as well and as often as J. Pohlad.  

He was doing what Tommy boy wanted. 

[MapleGroveTwinsFan]

51 minutes ago, LA Vikes Fan said:

m a big believer that players should be judged on performance, not on ratings hype or perceived ceiling. If we look at performance, Roden clearly has outperformed both Jenkins and Rodriguez and he did so while getting inconsistent ABs,

How can this be true? What Jenkins was able to do in 93 plate appearances at age 21 (.293/.393/.686), compared to what Roden did in his first 153 plate appearances at age 25 (.261/.294/.556)?

I am not saying Roden doesn't have a chance for a good career, but nobody compares these two players and says Roden is going to be the better player.

[Twins GFP]

28 minutes ago, old nurse said:

If you wish to ignore progression and regression through the season they are the same. 

Progression and regression could also be stated as early slump or late slump. The terminology probably depends on your feelings towards said players.

[DJL44]

12 minutes ago, MapleGroveTwinsFan said:

How can this be true? What Jenkins was able to do in 93 plate appearances at age 21 (.293/.393/.686), compared to what Roden did in his first 153 plate appearances at age 25 (.261/.294/.556)?

I am not saying Roden doesn't have a chance for a good career, but nobody compares these two players and says Roden is going to be the better player.

I would say Roden is better than Jenkins right now, but I also think he won’t be able to say that by May of next season.

I am less optimistic about Emmanuel Rodriguez. It will be hard for him to adjust his batting approach. I don’t think he is ready for a full time role in the lineup but his glove should get him playing time in late innings.

[Saxophone Joe]

Ah man...I gotta do this, fully expecting plenty of 'down' votes. Bring it on!

Giving Tristan Gray an F was cold, Nick ☠️ Look, I agree he was on the roster for too long. But he gets a D in my book for being fairly solid (and RISP clutch) the first two months of the season. Lost his mojo once he returned from paternity leave after the series in Boston. 

 

[The Great Hambino]

Re: RBI totals vs opportunities and the inherent knack for driving runners in, I found a fun little site that calculates the percentage of runners driven in (just the runners on base - no credit for driving in yourself with a home run) for any player going back to the 70s.  It's not perfect - a runner on first isn't the same opportunity as a runner on third, and not all runners are created equally (read: who's more often on base when you get up - the speedy lead-off hitter or the backup catcher?), but it's a pretty good approximation of how well players turn their RBI opportunities into runs.  For reference, average is roughly 15%

For this season, Bell drove in 18.47% of his baserunners.  This was good for 21st in the league among players with at least 100 runners on base.  He ranked 13th in raw RBI totals and roughly 34th in number of baserunners.  For comparison, Buxton was at 8.94%.  So this year, Bell certainly made more out of his opportunities on top of having more opportunities 

Now, is this a repeatable, predictable skill, or is it driven by random noise?  Going back the last five years, Bell was never that high (14.65 was next best), while Buxton was never that low (10.48 was next worst).  Last year, Buxton outpaced Bell 17.14 to 13.09.  For their careers, they're pretty close - Bell is 14.82, Buxton is 13.09.

So did Buxton forget how to hit with runners on base this year? Did Bell uncover the secret to hitting with runners on at age 34? Or is this a phenomenon similar to BABIP where extreme outliers should be expected to normalize over time?   You be the judge

A few miscellaneous notes: Brooks Lee found his way into the top 5 in 2024 while having a career rate that's roughly average.  This year's top 5 are Tyrone Taylor, Owen Cassie, Graham Pauley, Nick Kurtz, and Jake McCarthy (not exactly a replica of anyone's MVP ballot)

Also, Kirby Puckett was apparently really good at this (18.30 for his career!  Good for 4th since 1974 among those with at least 1000 runners) and Mauer was better than a lot of people probably think (16.47, good for 44th during his career, better than guys like Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, and Edgar Martinez, and literally right next to Torii Hunter in the ranking.  And he was over 17.5 through 2010 before the injuries started getting to him)

And among players in the top 20 in the data set in terms of runners on, Derek Jeter is the only one with a below-average RBI percentage (14.77)

[RpR]

18 minutes ago, Saxophone Joe said:

Ah man...I gotta do this, fully expecting plenty of 'down' votes. Bring it on!

Giving Tristan Gray an F was cold, Nick ☠️ Look, I agree he was on the roster for too long. But he gets a D in my book for being fairly solid (and RISP clutch) the first two months of the season. Lost his mojo once he returned from paternity leave after the series in Boston. 

 

Two Grand Slams kept him playing but his glove was at Keaschall level.

[LastOnePicked]

21 minutes ago, Saxophone Joe said:

Ah man...I gotta do this, fully expecting plenty of 'down' votes. Bring it on!

If I'm ever down and out in this world, I want Sax Joe in my corner.

Whatever you're drinking, pretend this round is on me. I think you're way too optimistic on pretty much everything Twins, but I like your comment board style.

[RpR]

4 minutes ago, The Great Hambino said:

Re: RBI totals vs opportunities and the inherent knack for driving runners in, I found a fun little site that calculates the percentage of runners driven in (just the runners on base - no credit for driving in yourself with a home run) for any player going back to the 70s.  It's not perfect - a runner on first isn't the same opportunity as a runner on third, and not all runners are created equally (read: who's more often on base when you get up - the speedy lead-off hitter or the backup catcher?), but it's a pretty good approximation of how well players turn their RBI opportunities into runs.  For reference, average is roughly 15%

For this season, Bell drove in 18.47% of his baserunners.  This was good for 21st in the league among players with at least 100 runners on base.  He ranked 13th in raw RBI totals and roughly 34th in number of baserunners.  For comparison, Buxton was at 8.94%.  So this year, Bell certainly made more out of his opportunities on top of having more opportunities 

Now, is this a repeatable, predictable skill, or is it driven by random noise?  Going back the last five years, Bell was never that high (14.65 was next best), while Buxton was never that low (10.48 was next worst).  Last year, Buxton outpaced Bell 17.14 to 13.09.  For their careers, they're pretty close - Bell is 14.82, Buxton is 13.09.

So did Buxton forget how to hit with runners on base this year? Did Bell uncover the secret to hitting with runners on at age 34? Or is this a phenomenon similar to BABIP where extreme outliers should be expected to normalize over time?   You be the judge

A few miscellaneous notes: Brooks Lee found his way into the top 5 in 2024 while having a career rate that's roughly average.  This year's top 5 are Tyrone Taylor, Owen Cassie, Graham Pauley, Nick Kurtz, and Jake McCarthy (not exactly a replica of anyone's MVP ballot)

Also, Kirby Puckett was apparently really good at this (18.30 for his career!  Good for 4th since 1974 among those with at least 1000 runners) and Mauer was better than a lot of people probably think (16.47, good for 44th during his career, better than guys like Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, and Edgar Martinez, and literally right next to Torii Hunter in the ranking.  And he was over 17.5 through 2010 before the injuries started getting to him)

And among players in the top 20 in the data set in terms of runners on, Derek Jeter is the only one with a below-average RBI percentage (14.77)

I wonder if pitchers adjust their style when there are runners on base and Buxton did not adjust to that as much as Bell did.

[RpR]

24 minutes ago, Saxophone Joe said:

Ah man...I gotta do this, fully expecting plenty of 'down' votes. Bring it on!

Giving Tristan Gray an F was cold, Nick ☠️ Look, I agree he was on the roster for too long. But he gets a D in my book for being fairly solid (and RISP clutch) the first two months of the season. Lost his mojo once he returned from paternity leave after the series in Boston. 

 

LOL, you got thumbs down from the expected seats in the gallery.🤣

At that , thumbs down simply means disagree.