What Do You Do With a Problem Like Miranda?

It’s not that the Minnesota Twins would prefer to have less depth as opposed to more, and Jose Miranda has shown an exciting ability to be a difference maker. Unfortunately, that ability never showed up in 2023 at the Major League level, and it landed him a ticket across town.

The biggest bugaboo for Miranda this season was that he could make contact with anything. That’s a great skill, but it’s only valuable if you know what you should want to make contact with. His swing rates were roughly in line with where he was a season ago, but the quality of his contact fell off a cliff. Posting a hard hit rate at just 29.4% and a paltry 4.6% barrel rate, the results were underwhelming to say the least. For a guy that doesn’t walk much, he needs to produce when the bat hits the ball.

Sent down to St. Paul with a goal of refocusing his approach, things did not start well. Through his first 19 games he posted just a .518 OPS with a 15/6 K/BB. He had only a single extra-base hit, a homer, and that is not going to cut it for a guy playing a corner spot.

On a bit of a hot streak over his last seven games, results have been much better. Miranda owns a 1.022 OPS with four doubles in his last 27 at bats. He’s honed in the discipline as well posting an impressive 3/3 K/BB. Obviously batting .407 isn’t sustainable for him, he’s not Luis Arraez. Finding a middle ground is what the Twins need to see from him. If and when he does that though, where does he play?

At this point Carlos Correa is the current and future answer for the Twins at shortstop. Miranda doesn’t factor in there, but it does directly impact his opportunities. With Royce Lewis excelling in the big leagues, he has as long of a leash as anyone to stick. Not playing shortstop means he’s owning the hot corner, and given it’s the position he predominantly played in high school, there is no reason to think he can’t hold it down.

With Lewis as a cornerstone player for the Twins franchise into the future, Rocco Baldelli dreaming on a left side featuring Correa and Lewis is something to be excited about. That does take away the position Miranda is better at defensively.

Looking across the diamond at first base, there is an argument to be made that Donovan Solano is someone to be replaced by Miranda, but he’s not the fixture there. Joey Gallo is on just a one-year deal for Minnesota, but has manned the position plenty. The future at first though, is Alex Kirilloff, and all early indications suggest his wrist is feeling better than ever. He's been productive with the bat, and is a solid fielder at first base. The role could be even murkier if that’s where Edouard Julien ultimately is pushed to due to a lacking defensively ability.

That is where parallels come in for Miranda. He’s not a good first baseman and that’s putting it lightly. Last year, in just shy of 600 innings, Miranda owned a -6 DRS (defensive runs saved) and -4 OAA (outs above average) at the position. He played there because Gio Urshela was at third, but it was ugly on a nightly basis. Minnesota addressed that by opening third base for him this offseason, but his bat took away the opportunity.

In 12 games since Lewis made his Major League debut this season, the St. Paul Saints have played Miranda at third eight times. It’s still his best position, and Chris Williams has had a nice year at Triple-A being somewhat positionless while stuck at first. Sprinkling Miranda in across the diamond, it’s clear that Minnesota knows he may need a new home if he’s going to come back up.

The Twins allowed Miranda to play just two innings at first while he was in the majors this year, indicating it’s not something they want to do. If Lewis is going to hold down the hot corner though, then Miranda could be the short side of a platoon with Kirilloff. Making either playing a rotational talent this early in their careers is suboptimal, but that could be the lone way to make his roster inclusion work. He’d be a massive downgrade defensively, but that is where opportunity lies.

Minnesota’s front office is going to have some decisions to make at the trade deadline, and some of their young redundancies could be dangled to entice an engaging organization to swing something of substantial value back towards the Twins. At any rate, Miranda must show his approach at the plate is overhauled for much more than a week, and then he’ll need to keep finding a way to hide his glove.

Although the door was open for him to make things stick, Miranda is now looking at an uphill battle for him to regain the same type of favor.