Hans Birkeland

Its a good point, speaking to their over-reliance on Judge being amazing. But I'd rather have Correa, Polanco, Miranda and Kirilloff over Rizzo, Torres, LeMahieu or Stanton. Match their Volpe and Peraza with Brooks Lee and Royce Lewis. Throw in some Ed Julien. Plus we don't have to play Donaldson, Hicks and Trevino in our lineup.

The Yankees definitely live rent free in my head. It's an illness. Stanton is toast, and the eye test confirms it. His stance has gotten increasingly awkward, he's easy to pitch to, and offers nothing outside of his bat. I think its unfortunate because I really liked Stanton and he was a top five player prior to joining the Yankees, but his descent reminds of how Miguel Cabrera turned into a slap hitter the past few years. And like Cabrera, he torches any flexibility the lineup would have without him. I'm not sure Miranda is a future All-Star, but he has power and contact ability, and Stanton is only power at this point.

The New York Yankees tend to set the benchmark for offensive greatness in the American League, and they've got the reigning MVP. However, a comparison to Minnesota's projected lineup brings the truth to light: This Yankees’ lineup is patched together with scotch tape and dreams of 2017. Image courtesy of Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports One of the quirks of the new MLB schedule is that the Twins end up playing all of their seven games against the New York Yankees in April. The Twins have had a bit of a hard time beating the Yankees in recent decades, and last year was no exception, with New York winning five of seven games. One thing that stood out to me though, particularly in the September matchup between the teams, was how surprisingly thin New York’s lineup was. They had some key injuries by then, sure, but even when healthy only two qualified hitters posted an OPS above .800 for the year. In the offseason, they re-signed Aaron Judge and acquired Carlos Rodón to slot in behind Gerrit Cole in their rotation. Their pitching certainly looks great, but the lineup looks exactly the same, with the team putting a lot of faith in its two young shortstop prospects settling in quickly. It almost feels like we take for granted that New York will have a powerhouse lineup. Reality paints a different picture, so I thought it would be fun to look at why the Twins lineup will outperform the supposed “top ten” lineup of the Yankees. Looking at this position player group, the first thing you notice is they can’t start their best hitters if Giancarlo Stanton plays DH, his natural position. One of D.J. LeMahieu, Gleyber Torres and Anthony Rizzo need to sit unless you throw Stanton out to left field, and that doesn’t seem wise. Let’s run through their options in the lineup: The Yankees’ best hitter is Judge, and he makes up for a lot of deficiencies. Last year, he played like two MVP candidates in one, finishing the year with a 10.6 bWAR season. He’s amazing. Their second best hitter last year was Rizzo, who posted a 131 OPS+ with 32 home runs and mistake-free defense. He will turn 34 this summer, spent time on the IL last year, and hit .228. Torres was next best. He got some of his power back after a few down years, but maybe at the expense of being selective at the plate, with a career-low .310 OBP to go along with his 24 home runs. Here you start to see the issue. Jose Trevino fooled us for a little while, upselling a hot start into being the starting catcher in the All-Star game, but in the second half he settled back into who he is: an overly-aggressive hitter with little power but some decent contact ability who is good for an 85 OPS+. LeMahieu wasn’t very good last year with a slugging of .377, an improvement on his .362 from a year before. He still gets on base, but the drop in power is a little alarming for a guy set to turn 36 next summer. Center-fielder Harrison Bader played well for the Yankees in the playoffs, but got into only 14 games during the regular season due to a foot injury. He’s a New York guy, and he’s had a couple of 114 OPS+ seasons, but he’s not a good bet to stay healthy, having never come to the plate 450 times in a season. As for Stanton, he’s the kind of player that the team may have cut bait with if money were no object (he is still owed 175M, 20M of that paid by the Marlins). He can no longer field and he can’t run, ranking in the bottom five percent in the league by sprint speed. He also can’t stay healthy, with leg injuries decimating his career. New for 2022? He can no longer get on base, with a .297 OBP. Aaron Hicks and Josh Donaldson are albatrosses on this team, and they couldn’t find any takers for either contract this offseason. New York will presumably roll with the pair, who combined to hit to a .663 OPS and 23 home runs in 2022. The Yankees think both can bounce back, especially Donaldson. But he’s 37. Hicks hasn’t been good since the Rockies were making the playoffs. Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza are big-time shortstop prospects who both figure to play roles for the team in 2023, hopefully in place of Isiah Kiner-Falefa who managed only an 84 OPS+ last year. But IKF figures to still start a lot of games, at least in April. Add it all up and you have a solid-enough offense, but if Judge misses time, this lineup is listless and will rely heavily on its pitching staff to keep them in games. Even with Judge, the Twins have roughly as much top end talent with a lot more depth. Let’s confirm that going player by player. Note that this assumes Stanton starts in left field, because I’m feeling charitable. Leading off, Jorge Polanco beats out LeMahieu. Both have injury concerns but Polanco is much younger and had a much better year last year. Judge beats out Carlos Correa. Can’t do much about that. Byron Buxton beats out Rizzo, although that can change quickly based on availability. I think José Miranda is a more valuable hitter than Stanton at this point, based on performance, diversity of approach and quality of at-bats. And while Stanton’s place in the lineup costs the Yankees a bat, Miranda allows the Twins to see more of what they have in Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach at first base and DH. Torres beats out Joey Gallo pretty easily, unless you are a big believer in a Gallo bounce-back. Donaldson is ahead of Kirilloff, but only slightly. This could swing really quickly if Donaldson continues to slide, and Kirilloff emerges from Spring Training healthy. Bader beats Max Kepler, but Kepler also beats Hicks, who figures to play here whenever Stanton is DH. I’ll call this a tie. Christian Vázquez is a better hitter than Trevino. Yankees fans can take solace that their catcher is probably a better defender. Larnach and Nick Gordon both are better hitters than IKF by quite a bit. If Volpe or Peraza have strong rookie seasons and IKF heads to the bench, this is a different story. You can quibble about a few of these in both directions, but the Twins take at least five of nine, if not seven. The fact is, the Yankees are forced to play a lot of guys with a sub .700 OPS. Worse yet, none of them have any remaining upside, outside of maybe a mild bounce-back from Donaldson. The Twins have injury issues, but their depth has improved to the point that all four of their bench players could capably start on other teams, including the Yankees- outside of Ryan Jeffers. That helps. The Yankees can’t say the same, with only the shortstop prospects and Oswaldo Cabrera available as reinforcements. The Yankees, with their resources, have the luxury of deciding when they need to stop investing in their offense. The Twins don’t, and still have a better projected lineup with better fallback options. The top end pitching is a different story, however. Maybe the Twins should call Corbin Burnes to tell him they’re there for him. View full article

I just want to bring it back a smidge. Initially your claim was that using Gibson as a comp does not inspire confidence. If not Kirk Gibson, who would inspire confidence for you?

Yeah cuz Ray Lankford was awesome! Power-speed threat, OPS topped out at .996. 123 career OPS+. Good defender. Always had him on my team in video games.

A team whose biggest strength is outfield defense, yet their 8th and 9th inning guys are the lone ground ball oriented pitchers. I'm sure it'll be fine.

That 38.4 WAR not doing anything for ya?

My guess is that is why the front office is playing hardball with Max Kepler. If Kirilloff isn't an option, Gallo moves to first, with Kepler and Larnach the starting corner outfield. That would also mean the DH spot would likely go to Gordon against righties and one of the catchers or Farmer against lefties. Luke Voit and Yuli Gurriel also become viable options.

I scoured the internet for this, but Gibson and some college tennis players were all I could find. The surgery has a high success rate among the general population, but then again we don't have to torque our wrists against 100 MPH fastballs.

That's a pretty cool article as far as understanding what causes most wrist issues for hitters. Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista are two of my favorite hitters all time, so hopefully Kirilloff follows a similar path!

Alex Kirilloff is following the path blazed by an MVP and World Series legend. Image courtesy of Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports The Twins certainly have a history when it comes to their most hyped prospects getting to the majors and immediately or shortly thereafter suffering career-altering injuries. To make matters worse, these prospects usually show they can handle the hardest part of breaking through to the majors: holding their own, or even thriving against big league pitching/hitting. A few examples: Jason Kubel (Knee) Joe Mauer (Knee) Francisco Liriano (Elbow) Byron Buxton (Three Stooges Syndrome) Royce Lewis (Knee X2) Trevor Larnach (Core) And to a lesser extent: Bailey Ober (Groin) Christian Guzmán (Shoulder) Another player to add may be Alex Kirilloff. Drafted by the Twins 15th overall in 2016, he hit right away in the short-season leagues until he tore a ligament in his elbow and missed all of 2017 while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He reestablished himself in 2018, hitting .348 in two levels of Single-A. Prior to 2019, he was ranked by Baseball Prospectus as the 39th best overall prospect while being praised for “preternatural raw hitting talent.” He dealt with more minor injuries the following few years, but still ranked as high the ninth overall prospect at MLB.com and fifteenth at Baseball America. Opinions of scouts obviously differed, but no one doubted his hitting ability. The question was how much power he would show and at what position. However, since debuting in the 2020 postseason, just about nothing has gone according to plan. Kirilloff tore a ligament in his wrist in 2021 after starting out hot at the plate, tried to play through it and lost his ability to drive the ball. He underwent season-ending surgery, came back in 2022, and experienced the same soreness. He took some time off, went to Triple-A and raked for a month, his power seemingly back. He arrived back with the big club in June and continued to hit with a slash line of .306/.346/.469 in the 29 games following his promotion. He looked good at first and playable in the outfield. Had the Twins found their number five hitter for the next several years? Not quite. A recurrence of the same wrist issue again ended his season, this time resulting in a much more invasive ulna shaving surgery. Now, his .694 career OPS is below average and often quoted by national outlets as reasons why he is a disappointment, but that’s pretty lazy analysis. After starting his career 0-for-14 in 2021, Kirilloff went on a seven-game tear, hitting for a 1.190 OPS before he sustained the original wrist injury. A lot of players have hot seven game stretches, and never become anything, but the 29-game stretch in 2022 cemented for me what he is with two wrists. Watch a single game of a healthy Kirilloff while factoring in his prospect pedigree, and its hard to come away thinking he is anything but a pure, line-to-line hitter with tremendous plate coverage. That said, he is aggressive, and I doubt we’ll ever see him walk in ten percent of his plate appearances, healthy or not. He’s also not quick in the outfield, so his bat will need to carry him. But take a look at this swing, his second opposite field homer of that day, and tell me it won’t. In my player comps series, I compared his upside to a less patient Will Clark, but a more realistic comp may be Rondell White, a notoriously aggressive hitter who hit for high averages and decent power during his heyday with the Expos. The caveat, of course, is we don’t know how Kirilloff’s wrist will respond to the bone -breaking surgery and plate implant completed only six months ago. One source of optimism is the one major leaguer who underwent the same procedure over forty years ago: Kirk Gibson. After starring in baseball and football at Michigan State, Gibson was touted as one of the game’s premier power-speed prospects in the late 1970s but almost had his career ended before it began after he took a swing during his rookie season on June 16, 1980. He felt a pop in his wrist and immediately left the game. What happened next is documented in the book Detroit Tigers 1984: What a Start! What a Finish! “Gibson woke up the next day in severe pain. The team doctors could not find a problem, so the wrist was put in a cast to rest it. The injury resulted in a truncated season in which Gibson hit .263 with nine home runs. In August, he visited the Mayo Clinic, where doctors found the problem: an abnormal development in his arm bones. They shortened his ulna bone and inserted a steel plate. Gibson was told that he would need eight months of rehabilitation. There were no guarantees that the wrist would hold up or that Gibson would ever play baseball again. The irony was that the wrist injury would not have affected his playing football.” Gibson did reinjure the wrist in 1981 and sat out a month, but returned and hit .328 the rest of the year. The surgery was clearly a success, as Gibson hit .275/.358/.477 the rest of the decade, winning an MVP in 1984 and hitting perhaps the most famous home run in baseball history. By all accounts, Kirilloff is doing well in his rehab, experiencing minor soreness but not the pain he felt in 2021 or 2022. Expecting him to turn into Kirk Gibson is probably foolish (or at least unfair), but at least there is precedent for a top prospect to rebound from such an extreme procedure and have a long, productive career, View full article

I think Lewis has expressed a desire to stay on the infield and we should have room down the line with Polanco on team options through '25 and Miranda a question mark at third.

I don't mind this lineups at all! But I don't think the brass would stick Kirilloff 3rd right away. Maybe if he blows us away in spring and his wrist is right. Big ifs though.

I sincerely hope Kirilloff and Miranda are ahead of old Max and Joey in the lineup. I just don't see it happening at the start of the year.

This team is an optimist's dream considering the extremely high variance across the 40 man. I'm hoping we just beat the 50th percentile outcome.

I could see Lee needing a full year in the minors but Julien figures to be one of the first reinforcements, similar to Lewis or Miranda last year. He turns 24 in April and has a pretty advanced approach. Do you want the team to trade from its already thin system?

With Luis Arraez off to less green pastures, what kind of lineup combinations can we expect, assuming full (or terrible) health? Image courtesy of © Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports The Twins would seem to have quite a hole to fill in their lineup, and some utility lost given Luis Arraez’s ability to play multiple positions. The reality is that, as much as we love Luis, his production is replaceable (but not his at-bats), and his fielding is very replaceable. He also would have made it difficult for Nick Gordon, Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach to get at-bats as they each approach the second half of their twenties. So what kind of lineup combinations can we expect this year sans Arraez? With Joey Gallo and Michael A. Taylor aboard, here’s my projection for opening day against a righty: You can quibble with whether Buxton or Polanco leads off (or Gallo for that matter), but I wouldn’t expect much deviation from this configuration, even though I would certainly prefer Gallo further down in the lineup. Lefties dominated Twins hitters last year, especially down the stretch. How will the 2023 team counter? Probably something like this: This is also where I could see the team looking at Luke Voit or possibly Anthony Santander, because it seems like this iteration of the lineup is a bat short. It does have the potential to defend really well, however. If the infield is even average, the outfield alone makes this a top-five defense. Let’s run through a few more just for fun: The Sunday Getaway Day Lineup The Outfield gets Besmirched AGAIN (This one assumes that we suffer the same number of season-ending outfield injuries as last year) The Trade for Anthony Santander (Santander had a .913 OPS against lefties last year and the Orioles are listening) The Miranda Can’t Handle Third (If the team wants to avoid putting Gordon on the infield, this outcome means Larnach is sent down. Hope the sexy new body helps, Jose!) The Lewis and Lee have Arrived and Aren’t Taking Prisoners (AKA what the front office prays for every night) And lastly, my personal favorite: Nick Gordon Leading Off on Opening Day He’ll be the skinniest DH in history, but I’ll bet he makes the score 1-0 more times than you would think. How would you configure the 2023 lineup? Should the team make more additions? Who would you put in the leadoff spot? View full article

It’s been an interesting week. With the heart and soul of the team gone, the team’s overall depth has nonetheless improved. One area they already had a pretty solid plan A (as well as plan B) is the closer role. Who fills the role initially is still up for debate, as some folks prefer to keep Jhoan Duran in a relief ace role, and others are terrified of Jorge López. I’m a little spooked, but speaking of the Twins’ best pitcher, let’s start with him. Image courtesy of © Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports In "Fun with Player Comps" I look at player comps for 30 current Twins who figure to play a role in 2023, starting with their closest age player from Baseball-Reference.com before 2022. Based on each player's general vibe, I then move into the best and worst-case scenarios. Previous installments: middle-infield, centerfield, corner guys. Jhoan Duran (No comparables available, but so far I’d go with a more consistent Jeurys Familia) Worst case: John Rocker Also see Powers, Kenny. Sometimes flamethrowing relief aces burn out quickly. Sometimes they turn into Craig Kimbrel, Kenley Jansen, or Joe Nathan. Given Duran’s injury history in the minors, it wouldn’t be surprising for his 2022 season to end up being his best. Any significant injury to Duran would likely torpedo the Twins’ chances in 2023. Rocker embodied all the risk and reward a high-octane closer can give you, starting out unhittable for the Braves in the late 90s, losing a couple of ticks off his fastball, and turning into an ineffective distraction. By all accounts, Duran seems like a more level-headed guy than Rocker. Best case: Jonathan Papelbon Papelbon came on the scene similarly to Duran, posting a 5.3 WPA in his rookie season as the Red Sox closer. That wouldn’t be the only year that Papelbon eclipsed Duran’s stellar 4.6 WPA in 2022, underscoring just how amazing Papelbon was in the late aughts and early 2010s. When his career ended, Papelbon had twelve largely healthy years and a career 177 ERA+. Papelbon was a fastball splitter guy and Duran usually goes with a fastball curve mix, but any sort of relative health with 90% of the stuff for Duran over his career will put him in Papelbon’s company. Jorge López Baseball-Reference best comparable through age 29: Julio Santana I’m not sure Santana was considered much of a prospect coming up with Texas in the mid-90s, as his minor-league numbers are pretty mediocre. But he made quite a few starts in the majors and wasn’t terrible, despite averaging only 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings for his career. He battled injuries, had a nice relief season with the Tigers, and then faded into obscurity. The Twins certainly hope López meets a better fate. Worst case: Bad Jim Johnson Bad Jim Johnson was a holy terror to Orioles fans during their last contention window in the early 2010s. His groundball-heavy approach allowed for a lot of BABIP-related variances. He floundered in the playoffs in 2012 and posted an ERA over seven in his first year away from Baltimore. He ended up with an 87 ERA+ for the rest of his career. López also emphasizes ground balls, which has long been a cardinal sin among closers since ground balls have a higher BABIP than fly balls, and ground ball pitchers tend to amass fewer strikeouts (López struck out under twenty percent of batters as a Twin, which is well below league average). Best case: Good Jim Johnson Good Jim Johnson posted a 139 ERA+ from 2006-2013 with the O’s with a 56.7% groundball rate. He also led the league in saves in 2012 and 2013. López also pitched for the Orioles, you may recall. The Orioles actually had a nice run of successful ground ball closers, as Johnson was eventually replaced with Zack Britton, who for a brief time was historically effective. If López can relax and focus on his location he has a chance for a similar career. Jorge Alcalá (No comparables yet) Worst case: Matt Wisler Wisler was a highly regarded starting pitching prospect with the Padres prior to them flipping him to Atlanta for Craig Kimbrel. He ended up starting 49 games for the Braves, then had injury issues, bounced around, and the Twins signed him in 2020 with the intention of him only throwing his one effective pitch, a regular old slider. That worked fairly well and he hasn’t deviated from that approach since, only increasing his slider usage in the years since. He’s still a fringy guy for most forty-man rosters as a one-pitch guy, and if Alcalá doesn’t regain his velocity following his elbow issues, he could follow a similar path, as he threw his own slider nearly as often as his fastball in 2021. Best case: Juan Rincon Rincon’s run as a highly effective eighth-inning setup man was brief but spectacular. Like Alcalá, he featured a firm fastball and a hard slider and posted a 156 ERA+ from 2003 to 2006. Then his stuff regressed and he started walking guys and was never a useful reliever again. But if Alcalá can give the Twins a couple of years of even 140 ERA+ type of production, they would feel pretty good about a guy who was somewhat of a throw-in to the Ryan Pressly trade. To do that, he would need to continue developing his change-up to neutralize lefties, which showed promise in 2021. If that happens, and López doesn’t turn his Twins career around, we could see Alcalá get some save chances, since I would imagine the Twins brass would love to keep Duran in more of a utility role. Stay tuned for comparables for the Twins’ catching tandem, in which one gets compared to Brad Ausmus and the other to Salvador Perez. View full article

Variance is the key word for evaluating the Twins’ 2023 chances. I heard one outside analyst refer to the thought process of Falvey and Levine as “eventually, one year, not everyone will be hurt.” The roster certainly has a different and more optimistic feel to it with the addition of Carlos Correa, but the variance is still high, particularly at the corner outfield spots. Image courtesy of © Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports In "Fun with Player Comps" I look at player comps for 30 current Twins who figure to play a role in 2023, starting with their closest age player from Baseball-Reference.com prior to 2022. Based on each player's general vibe, I then move into the best and worst-case scenarios. Previous installments: middle-infield, centerfield. With my inclusion of Luis Arraez in the middle infield (what was I thinking?!) that leaves Jose Miranda as the only strictly corner infielder on the roster, so he gets lumped in with the Twins' glut of corner outfielders. Based on Fangraphs depth chart projections, the Twins have average to above-average projections at every position player spot, except the corner outfield spots. Adam Duvall won’t change the calculus much, but there is both talent and upside here. Let’s start with the one corner outfielder that may feature neither: Max Kepler Best comp through age 29: Cory Snyder Never heard of him, but Snyder posted some decent power numbers in his early 20s with Cleveland before falling off a cliff in his late 20s. Instead of a cliff, Kepler’s production has been more of an unattended rickshaw rolling down a mild incline and gaining speed, buoyed only by his excellent defensive work. Worst case: Andrew Jacob Cave This feels harsh, but both players hit for low averages, provide nothing against lefties, have average power, and play good corner outfield defense, though Kepler's defense is a solid grade ahead of Cave's. If this scenario holds, let's hope it's with another team, ideally one that greatly overestimates the benefits Kepler will receive from the shift ban, because it isn't likely he will benefit. Sadly, the dumb teams in baseball are starting to invest in more intelligent front offices, leaving only the Rockies as a team that might overpay for Max. Best case: Jason Heyward My methodology here is that I assume Kepler gets worse as he ages. If he stays where he is or even if he unlocks something elsewhere, Heyward is a good comp. Heyward was a decent player prior to signing with the Cubs in 2016, providing power, patience, and either elite fielding ability in right field or decent fielding in center. The Cubs, and many others, felt there was more offense to unlock, and even if that didn't happen, they could at least bank on him being a plus defender. He never did figure it out with the bat and was never worth his contract, but he did provide some value; for instance, in his 2019-2020 seasons, he hit for a combined 106 OPS+. Were Kepler to post a similar number, his plus defense and baserunning could provide real value. If he was traded to a contender, like the Yankees or Dodgers, he might be more agreeable to a platoon and maximize his impact even further. Jose Miranda (No comp available) Worst case: Willians Astudillo If Miranda takes a step back, it will be because he gets too antsy at the plate and turns his elite contact ability into a liability, rolling weak grounders off pitches outside the zone. If pitchers don't think they have to throw him a strike, he won't be able to get to his above-average power, and if he doesn't hit for power, he may end up with La Tortuga in Japan. Miranda's path to being a long-term asset rests solely with his bat, as his defense can only hope to grade out as "doesn't kill ya," and his baserunning is uncomfortable to watch. Best case: Wal-Mart Rafael Devers Devers is an offensive-minded third baseman with elite bat-to-ball skills and prodigious power. Miranda doesn't have the power or the elite natural gifts that Devers has with a bat, but he isn't that far off if he takes a step forward in 2023. in 2018, Devers' first full(ish) season in the majors, he hit .240/.298/.433 with poor defense and 66 RBI. Miranda just posted .268/.325/.426 with poor defense and 66 RBI. If he improves his selectivity, as Devers did in his 2019 breakout, he'll be a big part of the Twins' future. Trevor Larnach (Telling that there are no comps for the next two) Worst case: Kyle Blanks Blanks got a lot of chances as a big-bodied right fielder who looked like he could hit coming up with the Padres. But he couldn't stay on the field and was out of the game at 28. Larnach tantalizes with his tools, but it may be fair to wonder if his large frame can handle the rigors of being a major league outfielder. On the other hand, his injuries in 2021 were of the hand and foot variety. Blanks was victimized by back and Achilles issues, among other ailments. Best case: Paul O'Neill Larnach has a chance to be a better defender than O'Neill but has less contact ability. O'Neill's career line of .288/.363/.470 looks like something Larnach could achieve in his prime if he stays healthy and reaches his potential. To do that, he simply needs his body to cooperate and to lay off breaking pitches like he did the first two months of 2022 when he posted an .890 OPS and strong defensive metrics. Alex Kirilloff Worst case: Nolan Reimold Reimold teased Orioles fans with a solid rookie season in Baltimore. He was a top 100 prospect who had just posted a .831 OPS in 2009 but couldn't stay healthy. Believing in his potential, the Orioles kept giving him chances. Eventually, they gave up and released him in 2014, only to bring him back a year later, which.. didn't go any better. Best case: Less patient Will Clark Clark should probably be a Hall-of-Famer, but he never quite hit for the kind of power that came in vogue among first basemen in the 1990s. Nevertheless, he posted 56.5 bWAR for his career and hit .303. Kirilloff, too, doesn't strike me as the type to post numerous thirty home run seasons even if things break right for him, but his plate coverage and power the other way could allow him to approach Clark's career AVG and SLG numbers. Kyle Garlick (Still no comps for Garlick, who is still with the Twins as of this writing.) Worst case: Josh Hamilton (with the Angels) When Hamilton hit free agency after the 2012 season, no one really knew how to evaluate him, similar to how Byron Buxton may have looked to the market if the Twins had not extended him: He's great, but how often? Luckily for Hamilton, the Los Angeles Angels exist and gave him 113M. Unluckily for the Angels, Hamilton didn't offer the hedge that Buxton does, where he can give you four WAR in half a season based on his defense and baserunning. Hamilton provided 2.7 bWAR in total to the Angels. If Garlick posted those numbers over a two-year span, it wouldn't be so bad, but like Hamilton and Buxton, Garlick has an impossible time staying on the field. Best case: A Good Ryan Raburn year Raburn was a frustrating player to watch and would frequently alternate .500 and .900 OPS seasons. For his career, however, he hit for a .818 OPS versus lefties and, in his good years, was a force from the right side who was generally healthy. Matt Wallner (No comps, he's just a boy) Worst case: Logan Morrison LoMo had some hype as a prospect but almost always disappointed, never posting an OPS above .800 until his outlier year with the Rays when he popped 38 home runs. Besides that, Morrison struggled to stay healthy, swung and missed a lot, and provided negative defensive value. His career bWAR was 3.9. Best case: Joey Gallo Gallo and Wallner may each have a top-five arm for an outfielder in the game, and Gallo made himself into a strong outfielder despite coming up as a third baseman. He swung and missed a ton, but made enough hard contact to be an All-Star. He may have reached another level in 2019 when he raised his average to .253 and had a .986 OPS in July as a 25-year-old. But he broke his wrist and has never shown that kind of output since. Gallo is a frustrating player type, but Wallner getting to 85% of his peak would be a great outcome for such a low-contact hitter. Whatever the Twins achieve in 2023 will hinge a lot on what they get from Kirilloff, Larnach, Miranda, and to a lesser extent, Gallo. If the KLM boys stay reasonably healthy, there’s a good chance one of them truly breaks out, which lengthens the lineup considerably and solves the corner outfield problem. If they stall in their development, that puts a lot of pressure on Gallo to rebound, and in the last installment in this series, I compared him to the White Sox era Adam Dunn. Stay tuned for the next installment, catchers and closers. See previous entries here. View full article