Miguel Sanó Was Everything We Were Promised in 2019

Sanó was tabbed as an uber prospect for years with power that actually went above the light tower that other prospects can hit. He proved his ability during his first taste of the majors in 2015 but then suffered injury setbacks in 2016 due in part to the inexplicable decision to have him play right field. 2017 was a step back toward the right direction as he was named to the All-Star game and set a new career high in fWAR.

But then, 2018 happened.

We have all had days where absolutely nothing went right but rarely do you see someone have an entire year full of bad luck. I don’t have the time to go into detail with everything that happened, but saying “getting demoted to A+ wasn’t even a top 3 bad thing to happen that year” summarizes it well.

Naturally, the questions began to pile up regarding the future of Sanó with the Twins. Many questioned his work ethic, criticized his weight, and pointed toward his strikeouts as reasons why he will not succeed in the future. Some of these criticisms were fair, some weren’t in my eyes, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that Sanó would need to prove himself in 2019 if he wanted to have a future with the Twins.

And did he ever prove himself.

Sanó got off to a bit of a rough start in 2019 as he suffered a foot injury in the Dominican Republic after dedicating the entire offseason to getting into shape. The injury took away about the first month of the season for him but that hardly mattered in the end. Sanó ended 2019 with a 137 wRC+ and a new career high in fWAR with 2.7. That wRC+ total was good for fourth among third baseman with at least 400 plate appearances and is the highest number he has put up since his rookie year.

Believe it or not, Sanó was also actually a hair better in high leverage situations as he put up a 141 wRC+ in situations dubbed by Fangraphs to be “high leverage”. That number is better than players such as Austin Meadows, D.J. Lemahieu, and Ronald Acuña Jr. Although, if you remember the numerous clutch homers he hit in 2019, that number may not actually surprise you.

https://twitter.com/matthew_btwins/status/1197590668220092416

https://twitter.com/matthew_btwins/status/1197591286812798976

https://twitter.com/matthew_btwins/status/1197592294142033920

The one major drawback for Sanó is that his defense at third base remained quite poor, so poor that the eventual move to first base seems to be inevitable either this coming year or next. His value will be somewhat capped as first baseman are a dime a dozen, but his 137 wRC+ would still have him fourth among first baseman with at least 400 plate appearances in 2019.

Either way, Sanó proved himself in 2019 and showed that he still has the ability to be the player we were all promised years ago. Sometimes we have to remember that player development is not linear and this is a very difficult sport where even just being slightly off in a small facet of your game can be the difference between being a star and being AAA fodder. For Sanó, he demonstrated that he is one of the better hitters (if not the best) on the team and he certainly proved that he is better than Chris Carter.