The Big Question for the Minnesota Twins at DH: Alex Kirilloff's New Home

So the Twins must have a plan for the future at 1st base. I don't have a lot of confidence in Santana even this year but for sure next year. Giving up on AK playing the field seems premature to me. So do they intend to move Julian over to make room for Lee? 

First base will take care of itself, be it Julien or something similar. AK as a primary DH does not bode well for his future in the organization. If he's not trusted with the glove the bat will have to be excellent for him to have a home. This FO and Rocco have made it pretty clear that gloves play ahead of sticks unless the stick is to good to ignore. AK is in a tough middle ground and this is a very important year for his career.

23 minutes ago, Fire Dan Gladden said:

I wouldn't call this make or break for Kiriloff, but his window is closing.  1B is relatively easy to fill, either from inside or outside the organization.  He isn't "locked" into 1B as a healthy AK could see time in the OF as well.  The days of the full-time DH in baseball are effectively gone.  If AK can't play defense for whatever reason, his days in Minnesota are numbered.

I agree, and I think his window could close fast. There is a lot of internal competition and external solutions are not hard to find for a 1B/DH with a poor glove. Miranda looked like a solid MLB hitter in 2022, and has looked healthy and is hitting in ST. He isn't a great 1B but frankly probably as good or better than Kirilloff. Larnach is in a make or break situation and could transition to IB.  Brooks Lee could force the issue this year by tearing up AAA and if Kirilloff isn't hitting or is hurt again, you could easily see Lee coming up to play 2B and Julien moving over to 1B. Stevenson and Severino look like guys who should get a MLB shot soon. 

I think Kirilloff' s biggest worry should be Miranda and Lee. I think Miranda is the hitter we saw in 2022 and Lee is less than a full season away from being ready.  Kirilloff doesn't have the glove to hold either Miranda or Julien off at 1B on the defensive side so he has to hold them off at the plate. Another injury and he could be Wally Pipped by either Miranda or Lee (with Julien moving to 1B). Unfortunately, I don't think Kirilloff is worth much more in trade than a B/B+ prospect with his injury history so that route doesn't make a lot of sense right now.  I hope he comes out firing. 

13 minutes ago, roger said:

From what I recall both hearing on tv and from reading both TD and the Strib, isn't AK considered a better than average defender at first?  Isn't he also an average defender at the corner outfield spots?

I believe in his bat.  Whether he will be healthy in 2024 is an unknown, just as it is unknown about every player in the league come opening day.  Yes, historically some have more of an injury plagued past.  And if healthy at the start of spring training it doesn't mean they can't be healthy this year and in the future.

Also don't see a lot of mention by anyone about Miranda.  I believe he can return to the hitter we were so excited about before his injury plagued 2023.  So I am confident that AK and Miranda can man first base for the Twins for the foreseeable future.  Both can get some time at DH with AK playing outfield when spots open up.  Don't know if I will be of that opinion in March, 2025, but that's a year away.  

No, Kirilloff has been a very poor defender at 1B. The hope was he'd play up there, but he hasn't so far. Not sure why Kirilloff is no longer considered a potential outfielder, but Falvey made a specific quote on that subject.

In regard to Miranda, he had a long enough stretch in MiLB for the Twins to expose him to the Rule 5 draft before the 2021 MiLB season so there wasn't a lot of expectations around him at that point. It also means there's much more skepticism attached to great performances. Then, Miranda absolutely torched MiLB pitching at AA/AAA in 2021 without the Twins calling him up. He had a nice, but not great 2022 campaign at the plate, but his defense was just as rough as advertised leading to pretty low WAR totals. Miranda certainly had a lot of surplus value at the end of the year, but apparently, he hurt his shoulder that offseason and he was pretty terrible all of 2023. Cue the skepticism on 2021-2022. Also, there's reason to doubt Miranda's upside at the plate as his max & average exit velocities in 2022 were average, he doesn't take walks, and his swing doesn't tend to produce a lot of fly balls with launch angles that lead to home runs. He probably looked like a 18-23 HR a year full season guy. Average power, low walk rate, lots of pop ups. It's not a great projectable profile, and he was no longer considered a top prospect prior to 2021. That said, there's no real reason to suspect Miranda is a platoon candidate since he put up a wRC+ 110 vs. RHP in 2022, and hit them well in 2021, too.

If they're sent down at all, both Kirilloff and Miranda are out of options after this year so it's definitely a make or break season for both of them.

22 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

...Miranda has a ways to go. I'm not ready to giver up on him by any means, but it's also sounded like he's not fully recovered from off-season surgery...

Miranda's been throwing since mid January and he's been 100% for a while.

The plan to go with Santana as the main 1B is lunacy that isn't sustainable. He's been a sub-par 1B bat for years now, and isn't going to find a fountain of youth playing in the field everyday (at an age Nelson Cruz just had to worry about hitting). Maybe, just maybe you can coax a good year out of Santana by saving wear-and-tear as an auxiliary bat and late-game defender (though I don't believe it; he's looked done for a while now).

Best bet is to push Kirilloff to up his defense (1B isn't rocket science) and hit for his job. Same for Miranda and Severino at AAA, and if either hits in a way to indicate they are ready, the Twins should eat Santana's salary, cut him, and use the DH to rotate people through days off in the field. (Or if Alex can't hit, and Santana looks workable, then send Kirilloff down.)

1 hour ago, LA VIkes Fan said:

I agree, and I think his window could close fast. There is a lot of internal competition and external solutions are not hard to find for a 1B/DH with a poor glove. Miranda looked like a solid MLB hitter in 2022, and has looked healthy and is hitting in ST. He isn't a great 1B but frankly probably as good or better than Kirilloff. Larnach is in a make or break situation and could transition to IB.  Brooks Lee could force the issue this year by tearing up AAA and if Kirilloff isn't hitting or is hurt again, you could easily see Lee coming up to play 2B and Julien moving over to 1B. Stevenson and Severino look like guys who should get a MLB shot soon. 

I think Kirilloff' s biggest worry should be Miranda and Lee. I think Miranda is the hitter we saw in 2022 and Lee is less than a full season away from being ready.  Kirilloff doesn't have the glove to hold either Miranda or Julien off at 1B on the defensive side so he has to hold them off at the plate. Another injury and he could be Wally Pipped by either Miranda or Lee (with Julien moving to 1B). Unfortunately, I don't think Kirilloff is worth much more in trade than a B/B+ prospect with his injury history so that route doesn't make a lot of sense right now.  I hope he comes out firing. 

Kirilloff's biggest hurdle is health.  He stays healthy he is a game changing bat.  With that bat the Twins will find a way to put him in the lineup as an everyday player.

24 minutes ago, gman said:

Yes. Check his fielding. The short numbers for his major league career, 122 games at first base 3 errors 996 fielding percentage. Outfield 90 games 2 errors 985 fielding. I could live with to go with his hitting.

Big error in big game last year playoffs=big influence on perceptions of his D ability.

It certainly will not be Alex Kirilloff as purely a DH. He is acceptable in the outfield and at first base IMHO. As far as his hitting goes, he wasn't as much a standout as the three rookies last year (Julien, Wallner, Lewis), but he was an above average hitter for sure. I don't think Kirilloff is a finished product as a hitter--I think he needs to punish more balls middle in and hit as many homers to the pull side as he does to the opposite field, but having the ability to drive the ball the other way is something not everyone is capable of. 

Doing a bit deeper dive into Kirilloff's fielding, that Baldelli made mention of getting better defense at first base is more significant to me than the defensive metrics. Kirilloff posted roughly neutral numbers (slightly positive) for his first two partial years (345 innings) and last year his numbers were worse and negative across the board. in 555 innnigs.  Why would a 26-year-old get worse at defense? I suspect it could be one of three things. 1) Less focus on defense, perhaps because of a daily maintenance schedule to deal with his wrist. 2) Injury early to his wrist and later to his shoulder impacted his fielding directly. 3) It is an outlier and he's really not that bad. That he was slightly above average in a fair amount of innings prior to 2023 makes his '23 number suspicious. I think the answer is some of all three of these reasons and I continue to believe Kirilloff can be decent or better than that at first base. Regardless, defense at the low end of the spectrum is overshadowed by how well those players hit.