Twins 2024 Position Analysis: Shortstop

April being Correa's "theoretically most healthy month" is of course a misnomer.  Similar to all recent Twins injuries, Correa stated that he had been struggling with the foot issue for awhile - I'm betting he suffered the injury in spring training and decided to see if he could tough it out.  That's not excusing his pedestrian season last year or discounting signs of decline, but saying he should have played better in April is not really fair.

C4 is a stud and likely to have his best year in ‘24. Here comes 7fWar and a gold glove. Bench players won’t matter much at SS.

Prior to C.C. the Twins had a Black Hole at SS for many years.  He had a tough season in 2023 but seems primed for a major bounce-back.  I'm cautiously optimistic that is going to be the case.  And with Farmer, Lewis, Lee and Castro the twins have developed more depth than they've maybe ever had for the SS position.  We're in good hands.

I would be happy with his average yearly production for 162 games, .272BA, 27HR and 98RBI. Unfortunately I doubt he will be that productive considering Rocco will never let him play 162 games even IF he is 100% healthy every day of the season. 

Now with payroll limitations the Twins have their high priced player. They can only afford one and in a couple of years that might be too many. Add in Buxton at $15M, Pablo at $8M this year and $21.7M in 2025, 2026 and 2027 and a bunch of upcoming young players that will get even more expensive as the years roll by and this team won't be signing ANY $200M dollar Free Agents for quite a while. The more concerning question is..... who are the casualties going to be that they cannot afford to keep?

Expect we will see Correa at short in about 155 of the Twins games this summer.  At least hope so.

But if there is an injury that puts CC on the IL, then what?  Agree that Farmer is the likely starter if it is a two week trip to the IL.  But what if it is longer?  Would Lee then get called up and start most of their games?  Expect it depends on how Lee is doing at St. Paul?

4 minutes ago, roger said:

Expect we will see Correa at short in about 155 of the Twins games this summer.  At least hope so.

But if there is an injury that puts CC on the IL, then what?  Agree that Farmer is the likely starter if it is a two week trip to the IL.  But what if it is longer?  Would Lee then get called up and start most of their games?  Expect it depends on how Lee is doing at St. Paul?

If C4 has a long term Il then Lee would get the call. Minor issue, he stays in aaa. It’s great to have the depth that we have!

SS is in pretty good shape right now (like the entire infield, really). If there's a negative, there's not necessarily an heir apparently to Correa in the system right now (Lewis is locking in at 3B, maybe he could slide back over; Lee consistently has questions asked; Castro is better as a utility guy; Farmer is here now, but might not be here past this season; Noah Miller was traded...leaving Danny DeAndrade, who hasn't played a game above Low A yet). But with the expectation that Correa can stay at SS for at least the next 3 seasons, there's time to work on that pipeline again.

I know the metrics didn't have Correa as having a particularly good year at SS, and I think that's probably right: the foot injury almost certainly hampered his ability to make a strong first move, slowed him down a little more when foot speed was never a strong point, and even hindered his throwing with stress planting on the foot. But even with that...he still made the plays out there. I expect his numbers to tick up this season if he really is healthy and feeling good like he appears to be. The positioning is still excellent, the arm is elite, and he really does QB the defense for the infield out there. Watch for 2022 Correa to be out there again.

We are set with Correa, Farmer, Lewis at SS, but if there's an injury to any of those our INF would be hurting especially if it's long term.

The less than stellar defensive statistics cited so often for Correa last year do not correlate well with the eye test. In the dozen or so games I attended at Target Field last season, I noticed Carlos’s frequent if sometimes subtle moves as the pitch was thrown. Some of the defensive statistics rely on distance travelled to reach a batted ball, but don’t reflect a savvy player’s subtle moves well if at all.