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At this point, every person who holds even just a passing interest in the Twins has given their two cents on signing Josh Donaldson. Some have talked about how he may influence the next wave of prospects, most have concluded that he was the last shot the Twins had at making an impact move, and one Twins Daily writer directly compared him to Jesus. Despite that massive range of topics, there is one point that has yet to be mentioned so.
The questions regarding the strength of the Twins’ position players were limited coming into the offseason. They had just smashed about a billion homers and seemed set at every position in the field. However, one of the major realistic concerns was whether or not Miguel Sanó should stay at third base long term. He still possessed the raw tools to man the hot corner but had been dreadful there by basically any defensive stat since his debut. The idea that Sanó would move to first base became more inevitable than there being drugs at a Led Zeppelin concert.
Signing Donaldson was the nail in the coffin for Sanó’s future at third base. But beyond the short-term coverage of the position, Donaldson also provides the long-term stability that the Twins secretly needed.
Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote about the Twins’ farm system on Fangraphs a few months ago. A quick scan of the players on the list reveals that they see just three future third baseman in the Twins’ farm system with Jose Miranda being the only one with playing time above A ball. MLB.com sees a similar picture as just two of the prospects on the Twins’ list are marked as third baseman.
Minor league positions are hardly ever a life sentence for a player – Alex Bregman notoriously played mainly at SS in the minors – but they often illuminate what the team’s long-term plan is for a player. A team likely doesn’t believe in a player’s capability to play a position if they won’t allow them to play that position in games they can afford to lose. So the next immediate prospect who would realistically man third base for the Twins was the aforementioned Miranda who spent the vast majority of 2019 with the Fort Myers Miracle at A+.
Digging around through other internal options would have yielded names like Ehire Adrianza, Marwin González, Willians Astudillo, and Luis Arráez. Adrianza and González would have been fine options but both bring more value to the team when their role is not well defined. Both players serve well as break-in-case-of-emergency options for if (when) something goes wrong. Astudillo has little experience at third and his awful 2019 brings into question his viability at the major league level, so he would have been a poor choice as well. Arráez has been locked in as the future second baseman and I am unaware of any players who could play two positions on the field at the same time.
One interesting option for the position would have been (and still can be) Royce Lewis. Lewis had just four innings at third base in 2019 with Pensacola but almost strictly played there during his time with the Arizona Fall League. One of his knocks has been his potential to play shortstop which may lead to a position change to either the outfield or third base in the future. It’s not unusual for players to be poor at shortstop yet great at third base as Manny Machado proved when he confusingly changed positions in 2018. Knowing this, Lewis may possess the ability to play third base but only time will tell.
The Twins can now rest well at night knowing that they have third base locked down for the next few years. They solved a problem that had the potential to be longer term than most likely had realized. Now all that is left to do is to watch Donaldson bring some rain to Target Field.
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