Matthew Lenz

LOL. I’m not saying he’s a good shortstop. I’m not saying he’s the solution. As you point, and as I concluded my article, I think he is someone who can fill-in there once in a while. Despite him not being in the lineup tonight, him practicing at shortstop isn’t for ****s and gigs.

284 but only 19 this year. This whole article is based on the premise that we are looking for a one year-ish filler until Royce Lewis is healthy and ready. He’s not a “solution”.

Pass on Simmons, but if the long term plan is to pay a SS then this offseason would be the one to do it.

Thanks! And I agree Polanconis probably the best fit, but I really wonder how much stress the position puts on his ankles. I just don’t see how this team is truly competitive in 2022. They have to fill 4 rotation spots and multiple holes in the bullpen. They’ve had pitching prospects with good 2021 minor league seasons but it’s not like they’re all going to jump to the majors and be successful.

This was addressed and is the premise of the entire article. Because of his injury, he will enter the 2022 season having not played minor league baseball for two years. I can’t imagine he’ll be ready to be the opening day SS.

Long-term I agree, but until Royce Lewis is ready (he hasn’t played minor league baseball for two years) they’ll need to fill the position somehow. With the season Miranda is having, I don’t think we want him to stay in St. Paul until 2024 when Donaldson is no longer under contract. He’s played plenty of innings at SS to fill-in for one season.

For the second consecutive offseason, the Minnesota Twins will be looking for a short-term fix at shortstop as they await Royce Lewis to recover from a torn ACL. Let’s go ahead and look at the free agent, 40-man roster, and non-40-man roster options the Twins will have for the 2022 season. When the Twins signed veteran Andrelton Simmons to a one-year, $10.5MM deal last offseason, it seemed like a perfect fit for a club that needed their top prospect to get an extra year of seasoning under his belt. A torn ACL and an anti-vaxxer later and what seemed like a perfect fit has turned into a complete disaster, and that’s before pointing out that Simmons has been one of the worst hitters in the league this year. Based on the latest Twitter mentions of Simmons, it’s pretty clear that the fans are ready to turn the page, although after not being dealt at the deadline, we’re likely stuck with him as there isn’t a suitable option to take his place at the moment. With Royce Lewis missing two full minor league seasons, he will need to start the year in Wichita or St. Paul and would probably spend the entire season between one of those two spots. Here are the short-term options for the position until he proves he’s ready. 40-man Roster Jorge Polanco - we’re well aware of his recent history with the position, and it’s not pretty. Moreover, I wonder if his 2021 rebound has anything to do with moving to second base. He’s had back-to-back offseasons that required minor ankle surgery but seems to be healthy playing a position that is a little less taxing than shortstop. Based on the season he’s having, I’d hope that Twins don’t push him back to shortstop in 2022, but he also might be the best option currently in the organization. Nick Gordon - after six-plus seasons in the minors, Gordon finally made his Major League debut but didn’t do a great job of taking advantage of the opportunity. In recent years he’s started mixing time in a second, but he does have over 4,500 minor league innings at short. From what we’ve seen so far, he’s not the long-term solution at the position, but he could be an upgrade over Simmons in a season where the Twins likely won’t be competing for a playoff spot. Non-40-man Roster Jose Miranda - nobody saw this coming from Miranda, but he’s burst onto the scene and is having arguably the best season of any minor leaguer. He’s crushing so much so that you have fans clamoring for him to be with the big league club right now. In the long run, he’s the current heir apparent to Josh Donaldson, but he’s almost forcing the Twins hand to add him to the 40-man and see what he can do in 2022. A lot of greats have moved from short to third...Ripken, Rodriguez, Machado...and in 2024 or 2025, maybe Miranda can add his name to that list. Austin Martin - the Twins shiny new prospect has done well since coming over in the José Berríos trade, but Ken Rosenthal reported that the front office views him as more of an outfield prospect. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get an opportunity in Spring Training next year, but I would be surprised if he were named the everyday shortstop for the big league club. Jermaine Palacios - he’s having a nice little season for AA-Wichita, but I don’t see him being a candidate for this job in 2022. Drew Maggi or JT Riddle - the two minor league veterans are in St. Paul, but like Palacios, I can’t imagine they’ll get much of a look with other, better options to fill in for a year. Free Agents Marcus Semien - he’s having a great season with Toronto after signing a one-year deal last offseason, and entering his age 32-season, I have to imagine he’ll be looking for a multi-year deal. Trevor Story, Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, and Javier Baez - I group these guys because they are the best young shortstops in the game, and all will be looking to cash in. Like Semien, I foresee them wanting a lot of money over multiple years. José Iglesias - if the Twins are going to hit free agency, this might be a good, cheap target. Iglesias has bounced around the league quite a bit with great defense and a passable bat. Andrelton Simmons - LOL. It comes down to the vision for the 2022 season, which I believe to be a rebuild or “retool” year. If that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense to spend in free agency when you have the opportunity to give some of your prospects time at the Major League level. No matter who they go with, they will be downgrading the defense, but that comes with an increase in offense. I think a mixture of Polanco, Gordon, Miranda, and Martin would be an okay choice while they spend money to rebuild their rotation and bullpen. View full article

The Twins beat the Astros and took the four game set to improve to 48-64 on the season. Twins starter, Kenta Maeda, battled through five innings and second basemen Jorge Polanco had himself a day at the plate. That and more in today's recap! Box Score Kenta Maeda: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 5 K (63-percent strikes) Homeruns: Sano (18), Polanco 2 (19, 20) Top 3 WPA: Polanco (.259), Colome (.086), Kepler (.055) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Kenta Maeda Provides Five Solid Innings At one point, it looked like Maeda was locked in and cruising to provide the Twins with some much needed innings after the bullpen was taxed on Friday night. Unfortunately, back-to-back innings of 25 plus pitches ended his day after the fifth inning in what ended up being a good not great start for the right-handed starter. Right away in the bottom of the first the Astros put a threat together with some bloop base hits and shoddy Twins defense, but Maeda struckout Yordan Alvarez and Carlos Correa to end the inning and limit the damage to one run. Shutting down that threat lead to the aforementioned run of Maeda retiring the next nine (tweet was wrong) Astros hitters with the help of a nice defensive play by Luis Arraez on a ball that had an xBA of .380 off the bat of Kyle Tucker. The Astros would put together threats in the fourth and fifth innings, and although he needed a total of 56 pitches to battle through, he was able to limit the damage to just one run in each inning on some unfortunate heads up..misplays…? We would have loved to see Maeda get past the fifth inning, especially considering the state of the bullpen, but his box score doesn’t give him the credit he deserves against the best offense in baseball. Out of the 23 batters faced he started 16 of them with first-pitch strikes. Moreover, he was dotting the edges of the zone with his slider which generated 12 whiffs of the 16 whiffs he forced on the day. Polanco Leads Offensive Charge with Two Home Runs The Twins Daily Hitter of the Month for July is continuing his torrid hitting streak into August as he entered today with an OPS of 901, three homeruns, and six RBI’s in 26 at-bats over six games. After Sunday’s contest, he has now hit five homeruns while getting at least one hit in all but one of seven August games. The Twins went down quietly in the first inning, but otherwise had baserunners in nearly every inning, including the 2nd when Trevor Larnach punched a two-out single to the opposite field, scoring Jake Cave. The two-runs in the fourth inning came on this absolute moonshot from Miguel Sanó, his 18th of the season, that landed on the railroad tracks. The Twins only mustered up one-run in the fifth inning thanks to a lead off homerun from Polanco, his first of the day and 19th of the year, but chased starter Lance McCuller Jr out of the game by loading the bases after a 5-pitch walk by Larnach. To nobody's surprise, Andrelton Simmons swung at two terrible pitches before lining out to left field. Polanco came back up in the sixth, this time against righty Phil Maton, but ended the at-bat with the same result from the fifth inning. In all, the Twins had five hitters with multi-hit games: Max Kepler (3), Polanco (2), Arraez (2), Sanó (2), and Larnach (2) while all of those hitters but Kepler also added a walk to their day at the plate. Of course Polanco was the player of the game, but what was more encouraging was the two singles from Larnach on inside pitches that he punched to the opposite field. The rookie is trying to recover from the month of July where he had an OPS of .518 by posting an August OPS of .900 coming into today and having really productive at-bats. Bullpen Usage Juan Minaya, who started warming in the fifth inning, came on in the sixth where he went 1-2-3 thanks to a 6-4-3 double play. Tyler Duffey came on in the seventh but was pulled mid-inning after a walk, which was erased by another 6-4-3 double play, and back-to-back doubles that lead to an Astros run. Duffey was followed by Danny Coulombe who ended the inning with a Yordan Alvarez groundout. Jorge Alcala needed 29 pitches in the eighth but ultimately was able to hold the Astros while striking out Tucker and former Twins catcher Jason Castro. Alex Colome earned the save in the 9th shutting down the Astros 1-2-3. TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Minaya 0 44 0 17 0 12 73 Gant 22 0 0 17 13 0 52 Thielbar 0 22 8 0 20 0 50 Colomé 20 0 7 17 0 18 62 Coulombe 13 0 17 14 0 7 51 Duffey 0 0 21 20 0 15 56 Alcala 0 0 14 14 0 29 57 Burrows 0 13 0 0 0 0 13 View full article

First it was "he was never good" and now it's "once performed as a #3" which is still undervaluing his 2013-2016. First it was "you are looking at the wrong numbers" and now it's "well that's because of the first half of his career". What's funny is, by arguing how "bad" (read: injured) Shoemaker has been in the last half decade, you're effectively pointing out how unimpressive Berrios has been considering Shoemaker's career numbers are better. He's had five "bad" seasons and STILL had better numbers coming into 2021. Yikes. Anyway, kudos to you on foreseeing the 8+ ERA when, even in his "bad" years he never had an ERA above 5. You are wiser than me!

As a team, the Twins pitching staff had a decent month of July occurring 2.6 fWAR which was good enough for 10th best. They lost José Berríos to a trade but was he able to knock off Taylor Rogers and win the prestigious Twins Daily Minnesota Twins Pitcher of the Month Award? Let’s find out. The month of July featured some turnover that was long overdue with the demotion of Matt Shoemaker at the beginning of month and trading J.A. Happ at the end of the month. We saw seven different starting pitchers and seventeen pitchers get innings altogether. Here are the four I thought did the best. Do you agree? Honorable Mention #3: Bailey Ober This spot was really a toss up between a couple guys, but I went Bailey Ober because I think he faired well given the circumstances. If you had told me, or anyone, that by the end of July Bailey Ober would have 47 1/3 big league innings I would have told you something went terribly wrong. Welp...here we are. Regardless, Ober has responded well and July was no exception. Over 22 2/3 innings and five starts, Ober had a 3.97 ERA while striking out more than one batter per inning, and earning his first major league victory against the Chicago White Sox. His downfall was walks (3.18 per nine) and the long ball (1.59 per nine) which hadn’t been problems in nearly 200 minor league innings. Ober will use the rest of the 2021 season to showcase his talents for the 2022 starting rotation which currently has four open spots. Honorable Mention #2: Danny Coulombe Coulombe has quietly been one of the most reliable arms out of the bullpen in his short time with the Twins. He dominated the month of July in particular by striking out 10.64 batters per nine innings, boasting an ERA of 1.64, and ISSUING ZERO WALKS throughout the entire month. I would expect the walk rate to increase as that’s always been an issue for him, but it will be interesting to see how the rest of the season pans out for Coulombe. Despite being 31-years-old, he still has three years of team control remaining which could be significant if he turns into a passable or better reliever for the Minnesota Twins. Honorable Mention #1: José Berríos For the third consecutive month, ‘La Makina’ is the runner up to the Pitcher of the Month and it actually was his worst month of the season. Now, when you’re having the season that Berríos is having, saying it was his worst month is hardly a knock. In the month of July he threw 32 innings over five starts with an ERA of 3.66 and a K/9 of 8.44. If it weren’t for one really bad inning against the Chicago White Sox in the nightcap of a doubleheader, Berríos's July would have been nearly on par with the rest of his season. Of course, the month of July ended the Berríos era with the Minnesota Twins when he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. In his time with the Minnesota Twins, he was one of the most durable pitchers in all of baseball throwing 781 and ⅓ innings, striking out 779 batters, and a 4.08 ERA. Pitcher of the Month: Kenta Maeda It took three months, but we finally got a glimpse of the 2020 Kenta Maeda who finished 2nd in Cy Young voting. It’s been a rough go in 2021, but in July Maeda had an era of just 2.15 while striking out 11.05 batters per nine innings and walking 1.84 batters per nine innings. Despite his efforts, he only earned a decision in two of his five outings, winning one of them. On top of his effectiveness on the mound, he also scored the game winning run when he pinch ran in extra innings against the Detroit Tigers. Currently, Maeda is the only starter that is locked into the rotation for 2022 so regaining his 2020 form will be important to follow over the next two months of the season. How do you feel about these rankings? How would you rank them? View full article

What numbers am I looking at? Summary below is from 2013 (Shoemaker's first year) through 2020. The only thing that Berrios clearly has over Shoemaker is durability, otherwise they are similar or Shoemaker is better in nearly every statistical category. I understand durability is important, and that's probably why you weren't impressed with his signing, but I don't see how you can argue that Berrios had better numbers.

As a team the Minnesota Twins hitters ranked 22nd in all of baseball accruing 2.8 fWAR in the month of July. Individually, the Twins had some solid month long performances including one familiar name who is vying for Twins Daily Minnesota Twins Hitter of the Year. After Mitch Garver and Nelson Cruz took home the prestigious title in May and June, respectively, we will have a new award winner for the month of July. Before we announce the winner, let’s look at a group of honorable mentions for the month. Honorable Mention #3: Luis Arraez Arraez missed some time in July, otherwise he’d be higher on this list, but he was still one of the most productive Twins of the month. In the month of July, he had the highest batting average (.373) and on-base percentage (.415) of his career in months where he had at least 40 at-bats. Due to the time he’s missed this year, he’s currently about 50 plate appearances short of being a qualified hitter but he would rank 13th in the league in batting average if he had the minimum number of plate appearances. He gets bonus points for the crafty slide he showed on July 19th against the Chicago White Sox Honorable Mention #2: Josh Donaldson At 35-years-old, it’s safe to assume that Donaldson’s MVP days are behind him but that was probably an unfair bar to hold him to in the first place. Over the last two months, Donaldson has been one of the Twins best hitters smashing 11 homeruns with a .929 OPS. Although Donaldson slowed a bit in July and missed some time, he still accrued 0.5 fWAR with three homeruns and a .854 OPS. Included in his three home runs from the month was this 446 foot moon shot against off of José Cisnero where he broke through some career milestones. Honorable Mention #1: Max Kepler Kepler has struggled since his impressive 2019 season, but he hit well in July hitting one double, one triple, and a team-leading eight homeruns. He ended the month slashing .228/.290/.522 with a wRC+ of 118. Most notably, he became the all-time leader in walk off hits with this bloop against the Tigers that scored utility pinch runner Kenta Maeda in extras. Many thought that Kepler might get traded at the deadline and it even sounds like they had some preliminary talks with the Yankees. Alas, he’ll keep manning Centerfield and Right Field for the foreseeable future as the Twins begin a (hopefully) mini rebuild. Hitter of the Month: Jorge Polanco This was quite easy. In the month of July, Polanco slashed .327/.366/.548 with a wRC+ of 149 and this is now two plus months of solid play from the Twins second baseman. It seems that part of Polanco’s rebound can be thanks to a healthy ankle, and I wonder if shifting to second is a little easier on the joint. Regardless, this is an important development for a player who is under contract until 2024-2025 and could theoretically be a contributor to the next competitive window for the Twins. View full article

Absolutely agree. I was pretty surprised to see how much he was leaning on his slider being that it seemed to be his least effective pitch. Like you said, we don’t know, but I’d imagine they thought they could re-work it and make it work. But like you said, what works for one pitcher isn’t necessarily going to work for the next. Moreover, why did they never adjust?? It was clear it wasn’t working.

I don’t agree that he was never good. His career numbers were better than Berríos coming into this season. Health was an issue for him from 2017-2020 but when he was healthy he was good. I want to see him back here too. Very curious to see his pitch usage and effectiveness, or lack thereof.

Recently, Matt Shoemaker said, "The Twins wanted to get more out of me in spring training...but unfortunately, it failed miserably." Is there legitimacy in his claim, or is this just a struggling player looking to place blame elsewhere? I've investigated his career tendencies to answer this question. In the article written by Dean Spiros of the Pioneer Press, Shoemaker says he is now pitching "the opposite of how the Twins wanted [him] to pitch." Perhaps this is why in 20 innings with the St. Paul Saints, he has a 1.80/3.82 ERA/FIP with improved strikeout and walk rates compared to the 60 1/3 innings he pitched with the Twins. Although 20 innings is a small sample, he's also keeping opposing hitters in the ballpark, which was a massive problem in his time with the Twins, where he has the third-highest home run per nine innings rate among all pitchers who have thrown 60 or more innings. In fairness to Shoemaker, he didn't completely trash the Twins and shouldered some of the blame by saying that "[he] could have said no." He also hopes to be back with the big league club at some point by saying, "I really like the Twins organization," he said. "The guys up top, the staff, that's where it's tough…." Truthfully, I don't think there is anything wrong with what Shoemaker said and how he said it. I believe that some of the headlines generated from these quotes made Shoemaker out to be the bad guy when in reality, he was taking some responsibility for his struggles. I'm not here to debate the semantics of what was said and how the media and fans interpreted it. But we can look into his claims that the Twins asked him to make adjustments that ultimately lead to him getting DFA'd, unclaimed, and assigned to the St. Paul Saints on July 1st. Pre-Twins Tendencies Before coming to the Twins, Matt Shoemaker had thrown more than 600 innings with a 3.86/4.03 ERA/FIP, 3.7 K/BB, and a 1.3 HR/9 over eight injury-riddled seasons. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2014 and had an excellent 2016 season, but since then, he hasn't thrown 80 innings in a season due to various injuries to his arm, knee, and shoulder. The Twins were undoubtedly taking a risk on him, but most assumed that he would be a suitable piece for the back end of a rotation that had World Series hopes as long as he's healthy. Even the biggest naysayer couldn't have predicted the season that Shoemaker ended up having. Even Jeremy Maschino, who has no affiliation to the Twins or Shoemaker, was optimistic about the signing. In the aforementioned Pioneer Press article, Shoemaker claims that he's had success when he works up and down in the strike zone with changing speeds. Being that he's been oft-injured from 2017 to 2020, I decided to go back to his last full season in 2016, which also happens to be the most successful season of his career. Reviewing his Statcast Pitch Arsenal on Baseball Savant in that season, you can see that he'd throw his four-seam fastball and sinker up in the zone while Shoemaker threw his change-up and slider down in the zone. Quick note: depending on the year and the source, his change-up can also be classified as a split-finger. That change-up/split-finger, in particular, was about eight miles per hour slower than his four-seam with significantly more vertical movement and, according to Brooks Baseball, hitters slugged just .286 off of the pitch in 2016. These tendencies remained consistent when I looked at his career from 2013 to 2020 and seemingly aligned with what he said in the article. So what does "the opposite" of those tendencies look like for Shoemaker? 2021 Tendencies with the Twins Right away, I'll again point out that what was classified as a "change-up" in 2016 was re-classified as a split-finger in 2017 and every year since. You can also see pretty quickly that Shoemaker did seem to adjust to the "Twins way" by relying more heavily on his slider in 2021 (thrown 24.5-percent of the time) than throughout his entire career (16.5-percent). That change may be what Shoemaker is referring to, which hitters have slugged .484 before the 2021 season. This year hitters are slugging .507 off his slider while his split-finger is still his most effective pitch with an opponent slugging percentage of .392. That said, I think Shoemaker needs to take a little more responsibility than saying, "I could have said no." Despite the increase in slider usage, his fastball, sinker, and split-finger tendencies are primarily in line with what he had done throughout his career. He throws his fastball higher in the zone coupled with his split-finger down in the zone, although his sinker heat map appears to be a little more erratic. In general, all of his heat maps are more erratic than those from his 2016, which is where I think he needs to take some responsibility for his struggles. Moreover, he may disagree with the pitch calling, but I can't imagine that the Twins were asking you to throw 92 mile per hour fastballs down the heart of the plate. Conclusion There is plenty of blame to share here. It's not all on the Twins, and it's not all on Matt Shoemaker. I think the Twins are at fault for asking Shoemaker to increase usage on the least effective pitch in his arsenal. As Shoemaker suggested in the article, what might work for one guy isn't necessarily going to work for the next guy. What's concerning to me is that his career numbers suggested that, yet the Twins went ahead with their heavy slider approach anyway. At the same time, it's clear that Shoemaker isn't as effective with his pitches as he was pre-injuries. Is that something that will improve as he gets more innings under his belt or something that can be fixed with a stint in the Minors? Time will tell, and now that the trade deadline has come and gone, I think it's only a matter of time before we see Shoemaker back in a Twins uniform. What were your thoughts on Shoemaker's claims? Were they legit or just a disgruntled player failing to own up to his struggles? MORE FROM TWINS DAILY — Latest Twins coverage from our writers — Recent Twins discussion in our forums — Follow Twins Daily via Twitter, Facebook or email View full article

Oh duh. Totally forgot about that scenario. Darn National League rules.

I don’t think it’s negative necessarily. I’d agree he’s unlikely to be a back end of that rotation piece especially when their window of contention re-opens.

I agree. He also needs to be afforded the opportunity. At this point, what’s the harm in letting him go out in the 6th? Maybe he’s on an innings limit. Not sure.