Twins To Sign DH Logan Morrison

Let's hope this is some added motivation for Sano in that aspect.  My guess is he will also spell Mauer some on days where a lefty is going and Mauer gets a day off here and there on those days.  You roll with Sano/Morrison back to back assuming Sano hits 3rd that pop written all over it.  Very nice pickup for the club.  If he performs in a similar fashion to last year that is a HUGE bat in the lineup.  To echo many fans thoughts it is probably the Vargas/Grossman show now.  My gut feeling is Molitor prefers Grossman.  His career OBP is .351 vs. .311 to Vargas.  In the past I don't feel as if Molitor trusted Vargas.  Personally I love Vargas's pop.  The 64K question is can he figure it out long term.  I think you know what you are getting in Grossman.  He isn't going to wow you in any sense but he is a solid bench player who would know his role on this ball club.  My worry is we release Vargas someone else claims him and he turns into Ortiz 2.0.  On the flip side this would be his 5th year in the big leagues so maybe time has passed in the sense for him truly figuring it out.  Questions FO will have to think about for certain.  WIN TWINS!

If anything, this locks Sano into 3B. I'm guessing the Twins think enough of Sano's conditioning thus far to sign a full time DH...  He's locked into 3B now. 

I think the Twins finished fifth in scoring last season. If the lineup shakes out as expected and Morrison is good again (.800+ OPS), they can easily be a top three offense.

 

This lineup doesn't only have the chance to be good, they can be dominant. Remember that despite the good play of guys like Buxton and Polanco in the second half, they only ended up being somewhere around league average with the bat at the end of the season. We could see some regression from guys like Dozier and Mauer but that regression can be absorbed and the lineup still improves overall behind more steady play from Polanco, Buxton, Kepler, and Sano.

Keep in mind they were the number 1 offense for the entire second half of the season (or something like that)... I think they had a legit shot at top 3 without Morrison. 

You're right... if Polanco's problems were due to his bereavement and 2nd half Buxton is the real deal....  this is a very dangerous lineup. 

While I don't like LoMo as a person, I like this as a baseball move. And that's why I'm here.

Solid signing, great price, and in theory it could mean moving on from both Grossman and Vargas, which would give much better flexibility to the bench. That is, if they can trade off the pair for something with a little value. I doubt they do that though. They'll probably keep Grossman as the 4th OF even if I prefer better defense out of that role.

Yeah, we'll all be anxiously waiting to see if Morrison can replicate his performance from last year, which keep in mind was FAR above anything he had previously produced. Was his 2017 production a freaky outlier, or the sign that he has finally matured and figured it all out?

I think the approach change is real, I just think expecting thirty home runs as a baseline is optimistic. Good signing, at a good price....

Let’s not forget Adrianza is the one who platooned nicely with Kepler down the stretch last year. LoMo pushes Vargas out no doubt. Twins will have 13 position players to start the season, but sooner or later Grossman or Adrianza will have to be let go to make way for a 13 man pitching staff.

Let's hope that a 13 man pitching staff isn't inevitable though. One issue the Twins will face is that they don't have a lot of players with options in the bullpen so they won't be able to do the sending down shuffle to get fresh pitchers like they did a few times last year (and other teams did more often).