It’s Time to Start Worrying About the Twins’ Infield Defense

In an offseason of head scratching moves bringing Farmer back and not using him as the backup SS is right up there. The only value he really offered was the ability to cover SS and now he can’t?  Tell you what - you can have Farmer and Santana and I will take Polanco. 

It's not time to start worrying about the Twins INF defense. The problem at 1B isn't defense, it's offense, as noted in the article. Julien looks solid enough at 2B, so the right side defense is fine. And it's hard to get too spun up about our SS defense when Correa should be back soon and looked excellent before picking up a ding.

Maybe you can wonder about 3B since Miranda isn't great there and we don't really know when Lewis is going to be back, but it's not like Miranda is a butcher out there.

I'm not worrying about the Twins infield defense. I'm worrying about their offense. With Correa out, Santana awful, and neither Castro nor Farmer hitting anything, the offense is a problem. (Julien's lack of contact is concerning, but he's still producing. Miranda is doing a nice job in a small sample size at the plate)

With Correa out, we're getting basically nothing from SS or 1B on offense. The defense is fine, but we can't afford to have half the infield stink on offense on a given night. And right now Castro, Farmer, and especially Santana are awful a the plate. (technically Farmer is "worse", but he's also hit a lot less and an OPS+ difference of 2 pts is meaningless)

infield offense is also not helped by Vazquez being a zero again at the plate when he starts. (His defense is still quality, but he's been brutal at the plate)

I find it hard to watch because of the poor/brutal offense. Same as last year. Yes it is great to see the flashy defense big leaguers do, but I would almost, but not quite, watch a soccer game (ugh) than a pitchers duel with a bunch of k's. That said, it seems to me that the ump's have a pretty large strike zone, some a lot more that others.

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

There is no best defensive lineup right now.  We just have to plug holes.  But I would put Miranda at 3B and let Farmer sit.  I know Miranda is not the answer, but neither is farmer.  I am not as impressed with Santana at 1B as many are.  

Our defense at the moment is only good in CF and C.  

Farmer has one bad game, at least in the opinion of this site and blah, blah, blah about any one is better even though Miranda showed his fielding is no better than before, Good Grief.😱

Julien is not better than he was, people here said home town scorers were he reason errors were not give to several Twins, well, that is the  same reason Julien did not have lot of errors on his record last year.

19 minutes ago, Karbo said:

I'd give Miranda 3rd for now.

NO, hell NO.

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Just one more very questionable decision in an offseason full of them.

 

The decisions weren't questionable.  They made basically zero effort to improve while cutting payroll.

That is an offensive question about Santana.

/s

One thing I don't understand is that Codie's article "Need for speed" stated that Julien has slowed down considerably at sprint speed this season yet greatly improved at OAA (supposedly to measure range) according to this article. This tells me that OAA can be manipulated & can not be trusted. I imagine OAA can be manipulated by cheating (positioning) & have the SS & 1B cover your butt. 

When we lost Correa we lost the ability of his replacement to help cover the slack at 2B. The Twins pursued Santana they emphasized defense. I asked myself What?! Up the middle you need to focus on defense not 1B, 1B you need someone who can hit. But now I know, they needed someone better at defense to cover for Julien to play further off the line. Santana plays too far off the line allowing too many hits get by him for extra bases. Farmer, Castro & Martin can play a better 2B but are more needed elsewhere.

IMO Castro has more range than Farmer & should play SS, Farmer is better at 3B than Miranda. For LHPs they should have Vazquez catching & Jeffers at DH not the other way around. Until Correa comes back our INF will be really hurting.

7 hours ago, bean5302 said:

OAA doesn't care about positioning. It only cares how far the player needed to travel to make a play. Top speed is most valuable in a position where the player has to run long distances (center field). A relatively slow player (Carlos Correa) can still be a plus defender in the middle infield with reaction time, acceleration, transition time and throwing velocity.

Sprint speed at this time of year doesn't have enough sample size to be super reliable. I doubt Julien is literally one of the slowest players to play MLB this year, and dropping from 27.0 ft/sec to 24.4 ft/sec is unheard of.

OAA has some big flaws to be sure, and I would never rely upon it in a vacuum, but combined with other metrics, it can help an analyst get to the bottom of a players defensive skills a little better.
 

27ft/ sec. is the universal speed they put on players w/ no history. The 24.4 ft./ sec. is the most accurate. Correa's advantage comes from many years of playing his natural position SS. 2B is a position force upon Julien by the Twins.

I forgot to mention that the Twins were tied for last in DPs/ game last season & so far tied for 2nd to the last this season. DPs are a pitcher's best friend but the Twins refuse to address it. My requirements for 2B are able to turn double-plays, range & soft hands.

On 4/16/2024 at 11:25 AM, jmlease1 said:

It's not time to start worrying about the Twins INF defense. The problem at 1B isn't defense, it's offense, 

This team is last in baseball in team batting average.  We are also in the bottom five in OBP, SLG and OPS.  I think more emphasis needs to be put on that.  The main reason isn’t that this lineup is slumping.  It’s that these GMs grossly overestimated what we had offensively.  There isn’t a single player other than Correa (apart from a 38 year old Santana) with a track record for being a solid offensive player.  They should have known that going into the winter and they should have done something about it.

infield defense is only an issue if we are looking to make hay in the playoffs.  It’s nice to have it, but if your offense is as bad as this one has been then that ought to be the main concern

23 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

! Up the middle you need to focus on defense not 1B, 1B you need someone who can hit. But now I know, they needed someone better at defense to cover for Julien to play further off the line. Santana plays too far off the line allowing too many hits get by him for extra bases. Farmer, Castro & Martin can play a better 2B but are more needed elsewhere.

That makes no sense, If Santana plays closer to the line the ball get by inbetween Santana and Julien.

Julien has very, very poor range, which has been shown by  when Santana does play close to the line the gap between practically has a sign saying  -- Hit Ball Here.

On 4/17/2024 at 12:09 PM, Mike Sixel said:

They had one position open, really, and that was first base. I'm not sure why anyone would expect them to replace any other starter. That said, agreed, the problem here is offense. 

This isn’t hindsight.  He was an excellent player for the money.  In many ways the dual GMs have done well with FA (when compared to TR), but they made a mistake with him and Polanco.  
 

We can quibble about infield defense, but when you have a roster so thin on offense like this one it’s like worrying about a broken finger when quadruple bypass surgery is needed.  Building a solid lineup needs to be priority number one next year as far as I am concerned.  I like Ryan, Lopez and Ober.  Maybe add a FA arm