Can the Twins Do Better Than Ryan Kreidler? Three Options Worth Exploring

[Western SD Fan]

Let's go through each of the names listed:

1. Dubon - Let's play a test here on who you would choose.  First graphic is from 2026 followed by their career overall.  Baseball Reference won't line them up correctly.  As you can guess, in the first graphic, the player on the right is Dubon since the article stated his OPS+ was 98 in 2026.  The player on the left is the player we didn't sign in free agency after trading him to the Cubs, which is none other than Willi Castro.  Willi's career stats are on the right column compared to Dubon's on the left in the second graphic.  If you're looking for offense in a utility guy, then we should have just signed Castro and saved ourselves nearly $3M/yr then what MLBTR is estimating that Dubon would bring.  Is Dubon's defense really worth $3M/yr?  Plus, he is an RH batter so you're not even getting the platoon advantage by sitting Culpepper.  I'd rather run with Culpepper unless you're going to use Dubon to platoon out Clemens at 2B.

    

 

2.  IKF - another RH batter that, as the article states, isn't much of an upgrade over Kreidler with a more expensive price tag.  Seems like IKF is a guy you bring in for defensive purposes like the Twins did with Kreidler this year.

3.  Crawford - Crawford, like Dubon, is a guy you're paying to put in the lineup every day and throughout his career he has only played 59 games at 3B and 4 games at 2B.  Crawford seems to be the guy you bring in if you intend on trading Culpepper and waiting for Houston to arrive sometime in late 2027 or 2028.  Signing Crawford would send me the message that they don't believe in Culpepper.

I'm fine rolling it with Ross or Kreidler.  Since we are not expecting the year to start on time, maybe you start with Kreidler or a similarly cost-effective veteran and let Ross build up some AB's before Houston gets to St Paul, then decide to move Kreidler for Ross.